Quality Aspects of Special Forgings of Low Alloy Steels

Within the span of last twenty years, the quality requi-rements of steel forgings has changed drastically. In early Seventies, 80-85% steel forgings belonged to mainly plain carbon steel grades and only about 10-15% forgings are of low alloy steel grades containing Ni, Cr, Mb and V. In the past, the customer asked for chemical composition, hardness, tensile and impact properties only. The ultra-sonic test was not stipulated for the general engineering purpose forgings such as sugar mill shafts, roller etc. At present, 70% of steel forgings belong to low alloy steel grades like 40Ni2Cr1Mo28, 40NiCr1Mo15, En 24, 40 x HM, 38 x 2H2MA, En 30B etc. The quality requirements of these forgings specify rigid ultrasonic quality acceptance norm, Dye penetrant test, less gaseous content, low inclusion count and high impact property. The ultrasonic acceptance norm of critical forgings is 2-4 mm E.F.S (Max. allowable defect size) in D.G.S Scale. Growing demand for quality forgings has warranted Foundry Forge Plant, HEC to update technology of steel melting, forging, heat- treatment etc and constantly strive for quality improvement through QC, QAP and R&D efforts. At present HEC is able to manufacture critical forgings for mining, shipping, cleience, railway, power, steel plants etc

Modeling highly pathogenic avian influenza transmission in wild birds and poultry in West Bengal, India.

Wild birds are suspected to have played a role in highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 outbreaks in West Bengal. Cluster analysis showed that H5N1 was introduced in West Bengal at least 3 times between 2008 and 2010. We simulated the introduction of H5N1 by wild birds and their contact with poultry through a stochastic continuous-time mathematical model. Results showed that reducing contact between wild birds and domestic poultry, and increasing the culling rate of infected domestic poultry communities will reduce the probability of outbreaks. Poultry communities that shared habitat with wild birds or those indistricts with previous outbreaks were more likely to suffer an outbreak. These results indicate that wild birds can introduce HPAI to domestic poultry and that limiting their contact at shared habitats together with swift culling of infected domestic poultry can greatly reduce the likelihood of HPAI outbreaks

EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN INDIAN BANKING

This paper attempts to examine technical efficiency and productivity performance of Indian scheduled commercial banks, for the period 1979-2008. We model a multiple output/multiple input technology production frontier using semiparametric estimation methods. The endogenity of multiple outputs is addressed by semi parametric estimates in part by introducing multivariate kernel estimators for the joint distribution of the multiple outputs and correlated random effects. Output is measured as the rupee value of total loans and total investments at the end of the year. The estimates provide robust inferences of the productivity and efficiency gains due to economic reforms.Banking, Frontier efficiency, Productivity

2D Lattice Liquid Models

A family of novel models of liquid on a 2D lattice (2D lattice liquid models) have been proposed as primitive models of soft-material membrane. As a first step, we have formulated them as single-component, single-layered, classical particle systems on a two-dimensional surface with no explicit viscosity. Among the family of the models, we have shown and constructed two stochastic models, a vicious walk model and a flow model, on an isotropic regular lattice and on the rectangular honeycomb lattice of various sizes. In both cases, the dynamics is governed by the nature of the frustration of the particle movements. By simulations, we have found the approximate functional form of the frustration probability, and peculiar anomalous diffusions in their time-averaged mean square displacements in the flow model. The relations to other existing statistical models and possible extensions of the models are also discussed.Comment: REVTeX4, 14 pages in double colomn, 12 figures; added references with some comments, typos fixe