A Three Area Interconnected Power System Network Load Frequency Controller Simulator

This paper presents a MATLAB simulator of a three area interconnected power system of Thermal-Gas-Hydro. Nonlinearities intrinsic in the interconnected power system of communication delay, Generation Rate Constraint and Generation Dead Band were measured. Bat Inspired Algorithm was exploited to select the favourable parameters of the Model Predictive Controller and the Super Conducting Magnetic Energy Storage. Model Predictive Controller was the subordinate controller employed to minimalize the Area Control Error, Super Conducting Magnetic Energy Storage was the energy buffer to balance the load demand and the power generated. Integral Time Absolute Error was the performance metrics employed to minimize the Area Control Error. Parametric dissimilarity was tested on the inter-connected power system to observe the efficacy of the controller. Step load perturbation of  was concurrently applied to the three-area inter-connected network,  was introduced to the thermal generating unit,  was introduced to the gas and hydro generating unit.  Value of the tie-line was introduced to examine its effect on the frequency deviation. The results performed better when compared with Model Predictive Controller joined with Super Conducting Magnetic Energy Storage against the Model Predictive Controller without Super Conducting Magnetic Energy Storage in relations to settling time, overshoot and undershoot

An Assessment of Road Traffic Accident in Zaria Urban Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria

The study assessed road traffic accident along Pz/Samaru route Zaria Kaduna state. The study was conducted using the accident statistics from the Federal Road Safety Commission 2010 to 2013 and field observations. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented in table and percentages. The study revealed that 2013 recorded the highest number of road accidents of which 15% of the accidents across the sampled year occurred at aviation junction and 15.8% occurred in the month of October. Among the causes of the road traffic accidents in the study area are over speeding representing 23.3% been the highest, followed by loss of control 16.7%. the study indicated that the month of march recorded the highest accident fatality with 52.2% and that in most of the accidents there are no traffic management measures except few with traffic warders which despite their presence, accident has being on the increase in the study area. The study concluded by calling the attention of the stakeholders on the need to ensure safe urban travel with some recommendations which among them are channelization of roads junctions, construction of speed bumps, strict enforcement of road traffic laws and public awareness on road safety measures. KEYWORDS: Road Traffic Accident, Fatality, Road Control Measures and Urban Zari

Modification and Performance Evaluation of Active Solar Dryer for High Moisture Tomato Crop

In this study, two active solar cabinet dryers with capacity each to dry 10 kg of fresh vegetable were fabricated. The drying cabinet of the first dryer was fabricated using plywood and is refer to as unmodified dryer (UM) while the second dryer with white transparent glass and is refer to as modified dryer (MD). The performances of the two dryers in terms of total drying time, final moisture content obtained and preservation of nutritive values of the dried vegetable were investigated using tomato as sample. Ten kilogram of the sample were sliced to about 1cm and neatly arranged in the drying chamber for the drying process in a period of two days (8am-6pm). The results revealed that there was a reduction in total drying time of 2.5 hours, from 18 hours in UM to 15.5hours in MD which corresponds to reduction in moisture content (wet basis) from initial value of 92% to final moisture content of 12- 13.3%. The results further revealed that maximum drying rate of 6.9 kg/h was observed for UM dryer and 9.4 kg/h for MD both obtained within 8 hours of drying time.  The average temperature recorded in the MD was found more than the UM by about 13°C at 3.00pm. The efficiency of the MD in terms of reduction in total drying time was 13.89% higher than the UM. Proximate analysis result shows the composition of the dried tomato in the UM to be protein, 0.76%; lipids, 1.00%; vitamin E, 0.0083%; moisture content, 13.3%; ash, 0.60% and crude fiber, 1.80%. However, the composition of dried tomato in MD were protein, 0.69%; lipids, 0.90%; vitamin E, 0.0080%; moisture content, 12%; ash, 0.58% and crude fiber, 1.78%

Interface protocol design: a communication guide for indoor FANET

The present and the future routing protocols in relation to the high throughput requirement, adaptivity to fast-changing link topology and speed makes the choice of routing protocol for unmanned aerial vehicle communication important. Due to this fact, an efficient routing protocol is highly dependent on the nature of the communication link. A flexible solution that presents these features is the use of light fidelity as a communication medium. Therefore, this paper presents the design of an interface protocol for indoor Flying Ad-hoc Network specific routing protocol using light fidelity as a communication link. The interface protocol governs communication when UAV move in a swarm. The architecture, the state machine model is discussed in this paper. Results of the design are validated via simulation using the NS3 in terms of packet delivery ratio and throughput

Process intensification of lemon grass oil in a pilot plant

The extraction of essential oil from lemon-grass was carried out using steam distillation in a locally designed and fabricated pilot plant of 100 kg/day capacity. The extraction pattern and economic analysis of the oil extracted were monitored over time. The extraction revealed that 0.414 litres of oil was produced in a day of five batches with a total production cycle per batch of 1.61 hours. The study further revealed that 94.3% of the oil was extracted in 60 minutes. The GCMS result shows the major components in the extracted Lemon grass oil were Oleic acid, Neral and Citral with percentage composition of 25.69%, 19.32% and 15.38% respectively. These percent compositions compare favourably with literature values. The properties of the Lemon grass oil were found to be: specific gravity, 0.8952; iodine value, 120.7g/g; saponification value, 201.3 mgKOH/g and cetane number, 43.7. The economic analysis on a monthly basis revealed a production cost (direct and indirect) of N160,050.00K and the expected net profit of N378,150.00K.Keywords: Essential Oil, Lemon Grass, Extraction, Pilot Plant and Process Intensificatio

Tuning of a PID Controller Using Cultural Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm

This research is aimed at developing a cultural-algorithm based artificial bee colony algorithm (CABCA) for improved Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller parameters tuning. The normative and situational knowledge inherent in cultural algorithm were utilized to guide the step size as well as the direction of evolution of Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) at different configurations, in order to combat the disparity between exploration and exploitation associated with the standard ABC, which results to poor convergence and optimization efficiency. Consequently, four variants of CABCA (CABCA(Ns), CABCA(Sd), CABCA(Ns+Sd) and CABCA(Ns+Nd)) were accomplished in MATLAB R2015a using different configurations of cultural knowledge. A total of 20 standard applied mathematical optimization test functions (Ackley, Michalewicz, Quartic, Sphere etc) were employed to evaluate the performance of each CABCA variant. The results indicate that CABCA(Ns) performed best in 4 test functions (20%), CABCA(Ns+Nd) also in 4 functions (20%), while CABCA(Sd) and CABCA(Ns+Sd) performed best in 3 test cases (15%) and 2 test cases (10%) respectively. On the remaining 7 test functions (35%) of their results were similar. The CABCA(Ns) was chosen as the best performed variant based on the success ratio, which is the number of successful runs that found the solution. Hence, CABCA(Ns) was used to obtain the optimal parameters and of a PID controller which was employed in the speed control of a DC motor. The DC motor attained steady-state in 0.4178s with the CABCA-based PID controller as against 0.6778s and 2.2057s obtained using standard ABC and Ziegler-Nichols (Z-N) tuned PID controllers, respectively

Design of pilot plant for the production of essential oil from <i style="">Eucalyptus</i> leaves

912-915Study presents design, construction and test run of a pilot plant for the production of essential oils (0.864 l/h) from Eucalyptus leaves. Analysis shows that the rate at which steam passes through the leaf bed may deviate from linear relationship to curve depending on the loading capacity. An oil/leave production rate of 3.0x10-2ml/g was obtained. In designing pilot plant, tank still has a dimension of 0.45 m diam and length of 1.65 m. Packed bed height was 0.565 m with an expected pressure head loss of 0.013 m. Overall heat transfer coefficient was calculated as 176.12W/m2 °C. The condenser has a heat load of 4970 kJ/s requiring a cooling water flow rate of 0.047 kg/sec