Studies on Parametric Appraisal of Friction Stir Welding

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid state welding process that uses a third body (tool) to join two faces of the work pieces. Heat is generated between the tool and work piece material due to friction of the tool shoulder with the work piece surface. This leads to rise in temperature which makes the material soft near the FSW tool. Then, both the work piece materials mechanically intermix at the place of the joint to produce the welding. FSW has been successfully used to join similar as well as dissimilar materials. It has also been effectively used to join materials that are difficult-to-weld materials by conventional fusion welding methods. Fusion welding when used to join dissimilar metals leads to defects like lack of fusion, distortion, crack formation, incomplete penetration and undercut. FSW, being solid state welding process, can successfully eliminate most of the defects which occur due to melting of material during welding. Some of the important parameters in FSW are tool rotation speed, transverse speed, tool pin dimension, tool tilt angle, offset of the tool from weld line and tool pin profile. From literature survey it was observed that these parameters affect the quality of weld. So, the influence of the parameters is needed to be established on the weld quality. In this context, the present work highlights the significance and effect of tool rotation speed, welding speed, tool pin profile and offset of the tool on weld quality. Different destructive and non-destructive tests have been carried out on the weld to get insight into the weld and its properties. Friction stir spot welding (FSSW) is a type of FSW, which is used to create a spot weld. The effect of tool rotation speed, dwell time and tool pin dimension has been investigated on spot welding of different materials. Three types of welding have been done in FSSW: similar metals, dissimilar metals and metal-polymer. Face centred central composite design of response surface methodology has been implemented to design the experimental layout for different experiments. Tensile strength test, bending strength test, visual inspection, radiography test and Vickers hardness test are the major tests that have been implemented on the weld to analyse the weld quality. Analysis of variance has been used to analyse the data, find the significant and non-significant parameters and estimate their effect

Benford's distribution in extrasolar world: Do the exoplanets follow Benford's distribution?

In many real life situations, it is observed that the first digits (i.e., $1,2,\ldots,9$) of a numerical data-set, which is expressed using decimal system, do not follow a random distribution. Instead, smaller numbers are favoured by nature in accordance with a logarithmic distribution law, which is referred to as Benford's law. The existence and applicability of this empirical law have been extensively studied by physicists, accountants, computer scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, etc., and it has been observed that a large number of data-sets related to diverse problems follow this distribution. However, applicability of Benford's law has been hardly tested for extrasolar objects. Motivated by this fact, this paper investigates the existence of Benford's distribution in the extrasolar world using Kepler data for exoplanets. The investigation has revealed the presence of Benford's distribution in various physical properties of these exoplanets. Further, Benford goodness parameters are computed to provide a quantitative measure of coincidence of real data with the ideal values obtained from Benford's distribution. The quantitative analysis and the plots have revealed that several physical parameters associated with the exoplanets (e.g., mass, volume, density, orbital semi-major axis, orbital period, and radial velocity) nicely follow Benford's distribution, whereas some physical parameters (e.g., total proper motion, stellar age and stellar distance) moderately follow the distribution, and some others (e.g., longitude, radius, and effective temperature) do not follow Benford's distribution. Further, some specific comments have been made on the possible generalizations of the obtained result, its potential applications in analyzing data-set of candidate exoplanets, and how interested readers can perform similar investigations on other interesting data-sets.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures and one potrai

IR Based Home Appliances Control System

IR-Based Home Appliances Control System is a control system using which the user can control different home appliances with a remote controller. The remote controller can be used to switch on/off different home appliances like a light bulb, fan, television, etc. which are connected to the circuit. It can also be used to regulate the speed of the fan. It can be activated from up to 10 meters. It is easy to build and can be assembled on a general-purpose PCB.This paper proposes the use of Infrared Remote controller to control different home appliances. It consists of Infrared Remote controller and receiver, microcontroller and triac. In this, the Infrared Remote sends signals to change the state of a home appliance when the microcontroller receives the signal it performs its task i.e. to change the state of the appliance according to the corresponding signal received

Analysis and characterization of weld quality during butt welding through friction stir welding

298-310In the present study, butt weld produced by friction stir welding of aluminium 1060 alloy has been analyzed. Destructive test, non-destructive test, and SEM image analysis methods have been implemented to investigate the microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of welded joints. The effects of tool rotation speed, welding speed, tool pin profile and tool offset have been investigated to optimize welding conditions for required weld properties. Face-centered central composite design of response surface methodology has been adapted to analyze the effect of parameters with an optimal number of experiments. It has been observed that weld produced with threaded pin tool has higher ultimate tensile stress and ultimate flexural stress. Radiography test has shown that cracks are not present in the produced weldment. From the study of the fracture surface of the tensile test specimen, it has been found that ductility of weld is highest at the top area and decreases towards the bottom area of weld. Dimple formation has been found at the top area of the fracture surface but has been absent in the bottom area of weld. Vickers hardness of weld zone and the heat affected zone has found to be less than the base material

Dry grinding behaviour of Fe and SiO2 in specially designed Dual Drive Planetary Ball Mill

Mechanical alloying (MA) is a solid- state powder processing technique involving repeated welding, fracturing, and rewelding of powder particles in high energy ball mill. In the present investigation we have made an attempt to observe the grinding behavior of ductile iron (Fe) and brittle sand materials in dual drive planetary ball mill for 0h, 15 min, 1/2h, 1h, 1.5h & 2 h. The phase transformation occurring in the materials during milling were studied using X-Ray diffraction. Particle size analysis was carried out to study the size reduction as a function of milling time. It has been found that size reduction rate is very low in case of iron at the initial milling period due to ductile nature. In case of sand, the size reduction rate is very fast due to brittle nature

DISCRIMINATORY POTENTIAL OF BIPHASIC MEDIUM OVER COMPENDIAL AND BIORELEVANT MEDIUM FOR ASSESSMENT OF DISSOLUTION BEHAVIOR OF TABLETS CONTAINING MELOXICAM NANOPARTICLES

ABSTRACTObjective: Dissolution test serves as a quality control tool for assessment of drug release from dosage form as well as a research tool to optimize newformulations. The existing guidelines by FDA, EMA, ICH, USP, etc., describe specifications for the dissolution of immediate release as well as modifiedrelease oral dosage form. However, none of them have discussed about the discriminatory potential of the medium to differentiate release profile of twoor more products that are pharmaceutically equivalent. It is pertinent to add here that the pharmaceutical equivalents are not always bioequivalent.Hence, a discriminatory dissolution procedure is a must requirement to differentiate the release behavior of drug from a pharmaceutically equivalentproduct that contains different types and amount of excipient in the formulation. This also becomes more cumbersome when it is desirable forprediction of in vivo behavior of a drug when it is converted into a novel delivery system like nanoparticles. The reason could be the presence ofexcipients used to formulate drug nanoparticles into solid oral dosage form, may change the drug disintegration as well as dissolution behavior, whichultimately may lead to altered bioavailability.Methods: In this study, the nanoparticles of meloxicam were prepared using wet media milling and the milled samples were dried using spray drier.The dried nanoparticles were converted into tablet dosage form by varying the type of diluent. To one batch lactose was used and another one wascontaining dicalcium phosphate (DCP). The assessment of release of meloxicam from these two batches was evaluated in various dissolution media.Results: The study revealed that in all the cases the nanoparticulate tablets of Batch 1 have given increased dissolution profile as compared tomarketed formulation (Muvera), Batch 2 and controlled tablets of meloxicam. This proved that the excipients also play a major role in the releasebehavior of drug otherwise if it was not so, the nanoparticulate tablets of Batch 1 and Batch 2 would have given the same dissolution profile in all thetried media. Batch 1 containing lactose with a higher surface area provided more and rapid wetting of the drug by the dissolution media compared toBatch 2 that contained DCP as a major diluent.®Conclusion: Among all the dissolution media tried to evaluate the discriminatory power and simulation with a biorelevant medium, the biphasicmedium of pH 1.8, 4.8 and 6.8 has promised to simulate with biorelevant media. However, the medium of pH 6.8 has shown the best dissolution profile.Keywords: Solubility, Compendial media, Biphasic media, Dissolution, Meloxicam

Evaluation of best management practices for sediment and nutrient loss control using SWAT model

The intensive study of an individual watershed is required to develop effective and efficient watershed management plans. Identification of critical erosion-prone areas of the watershed and implementation of best management practices (BMPs) is necessary to control the watershed degradation by reducing the sediment and nutrient losses. The present study evaluates and recommends the BMPs in an agriculture-based Marol watershed (5092 km2) of India, using a hydrologic model, Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). After successful calibration and validation, the model simulated daily/monthly discharge and sediment were found satisfactory throughout the simulation period. The model was then applied with a calibrated set of parameters for evaluating the effectiveness of various management practices for sediment and nutrient loss control. Keeping in mind the existing agricultural practices, socio-economic aspects and geography of the study area, the management practices were focused on four crops (Maize, Rice, Soybeans and Ground nut), three fertilization levels (high, medium and low), four tillage treatments (Field cultivator, Conservation tillage, Zero tillage and Mould board plough), and two conservation operations (Contour farming and Filter strips). The simulated annual average sediment yield from the watershed was found to be 12.2 t.ha−1yr−1. The water balance analysis revealed that, the evapo-transpiration is predominant over the watershed (approximately 46.3% of the annual average rainfall). Reduction in sediment yield and nutrient loss was observed with alternate cropping treatments of Groundnut and Soybean, as compared to Paddy and Maize cultivation. Overall, based on simulated results, the field cultivator tillage practice and conservation practices viz., contour farming and filter strips, could be adopted to reduce sediment yield and nutrient losses in the critical sub-watersheds of the study area and in other watersheds with similar hydro-climatic conditions

A Novel Hybrid Feature Selection Method for Day-Ahead Electricity Price Forecasting

The paper proposes a novel hybrid feature selection (FS) method for day-ahead electricity price forecasting. The work presents a novel hybrid FS algorithm for obtaining optimal feature set to gain optimal forecast accuracy. The performance of the proposed forecaster is compared with forecasters based on classification tree and regression tree. A hybrid FS method based on the elitist genetic algorithm (GA) and a tree-based method is applied for FS. Making use of selected features, aperformance test of the forecaster was carried out to establish the usefulness of the proposed approach. By way of analyzing and forecasts for day-ahead electricity prices in the Australian electricity markets, the proposed approach is evaluated and it has been established that, with the selected feature, the proposed forecaster consistently outperforms the forecaster with a larger feature set. The proposed method is simulated in MATLAB and WEKA software.publishedVersio

INFLUENCE OF FORMULATION PARAMETERS ON DISSOLUTION RATE ENHANCEMENT OF PIROXICAM USING LIQUISOLID TECHNIQUE

ABSTRACTObjective: This study revealed formulation of a liquisolid system of poorly soluble piroxicam to enhance its dissolution rate. To formulate a liquisolidsystem loaded with piroxicam, solubility study was carried out in various non-volatile liquids.Methods: In 1 ml of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 600, 100 mg piroxicam was added and stirred with gentle heating. To the above liquid medication, 1 gmicrocrystalline cellulose (MCC) 102 (as MCC has given better results), 1 g Syloid 244 FP, 2 g PEG 4000, 500 mg aerosil 200, and 0.255 g sodium starchglycolate (SSG) (5%) were added and mixed properly. The blend was compressed and subjected for quality control parameters.Results: Among all the non-volatile liquids evaluated, piroxicam was most soluble in PEG 600. Using this as liquid medication, several liquisolid compactswere prepared by varying the ratios of MCC PH 102 as carrier and Syloid 244FP as coating material and evaluated for precompression studies. To furtheraccelerate the release of drug, various additives were added in the formulation. Among them, PEG 4000 has shown better flow as well as compressionproperties. Hence, the final formulation (LS-16B) was prepared using a combination of MCC PH 102, Syloid 244 FP, PEG 4000 and SSG as superdisintegrant.The dissolution studies revealed that about 92.18% drug got released from liquisolid compacts in 120 minutes, whereas only 68.16% release wasobserved for pure piroxicam. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy images revealed the successful formation of liquisolid system.Conclusion: It was concluded that dissolution rate of poorly soluble piroxicam could be enhanced using liquisolid technique.Keywords: Piroxicam, Polyethylene glycol 600, Microcrystalline cellulose PH 102, Syloid 244 FP, Polyethylene glycol 4000

Instantaneous Fabrication of Thin MEMS Features by Copper Electrodeposition Using Modified Inkjet Printer

Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) has been used so far in today’s scenario in mechatronic assemblies to enhance its functionality and mitigate the complexity of design. Micro electrodeposition technique enables to produce such features. This research is an attempt to fabricate the micro feature instantaneously using a modified ink jet printer on an aluminium substrate. The acidic electrolyte was prepared by using Cupric Sulphate Penta hydrate (CuSO4.5H2O) of 1M concentration with H2SO4. Multiple passes deposit the copper ion on Aluminium sheet with thickness of 0.2 mm. the feature design, Voltage and concentration of electrolyte has been taken as Input parameter. Surface characteristics have been discussed in this article. Result revealed thin metallic sheet can only be used for 6-7 passes due to wrinkles and edge deformation. If more passes will be carried out on an aluminium foil sheet then uniform deposition of copper metal ions will be possible. The concentration of CuSO4.5H2O has played important role in this experimental process on deposition rate