Integrity Assessment of LCA Drop Tank under Internal Cyclic Pressure

A facility and expertise has been developed at NAL to conduct automated internal pressure cycling tests. The hardware and instrumentation includes capturing of pressure on the data logger along with strain gage data. Digital data can be recorded continuously during entire pressure cycle, thus enabling to provide comparative view of reduction in stiffness, if any,in terms of graphs. The Maximum Pressure up To Which the Central Shells Could Be Tested Was 188 .5psi. A Maximum Strain Of 5166 Micro Strains, At A Pressure Of 188 .5psi, Was Found Near The GFRP Bulkhead In The Circumferential Direction. The Integrity Of The Bulkhead Joint Appears Satisfactory. The Nose-Cone, Tested For Internal Pressure Cycling Between 3 And L Lpsi Did Not Show Any Leaks Anywhere On The Surface Or From The Filler Cap . However, After 1104 Pressure Cycles,The End Flange Failed With A Loud Pop.On Inspection, It Was Found That The Failure Is Due To Improper Adhesion Between The GFRP Base Material And The Aluminum Ring Holding The End-Flange. Subsequently, This Ring Was Joined To The GFRP Shell By Bolts And The Pressure Cycling Was Continued For A Further 5000 Cycles,As Required, Without Any Failure/Leaks Anywhere On The Nose Cone. The Nose Cone Was Then Subjected To A Steadily Increasing Pressure To Verify The Residual Strength.At About 60psi, Leaks Were Observed Around The Filler Cap And The Pressure Was Continued Up To 85psi . At This Pressure, The Filler Cap Seal Gave-Up And A Profuse Leak Sprouted Around The Cap This Was Verified Again By Replacing The Filler Cap With A New One That Also Failed Completely At About 85psi Pressure. Presently,It May Be Concluded That The Lca s Gfrp Drop Tank Internal Bulkheads Of Central Shell Can Withstand A Pressure Of 185psi And The Weak Link,In The DT Assembly, Is The Filler Cap Seal That Can Stand A Pressure Of Only 60psi

Free convection heat and mass transfer of a nanofluid past a horizontal cylinder embedded in a non-Darcy porous medium

In the present paper, we analyzed the laminar boundary layer flow and heat transfer from a horizontal cylinder in a nanofluid-saturated non-Darcy porous medium in the presence of thermal radiation. This is the first paper presenting non-similar solutions for such a regime.The boundary layer conservation equations,which are parabolic in nature,are normalized into non-similar form and then solved computationally with an efficient, implicit, stable Keller-box finite difference scheme. Non-Darcy effects are simulated via a second-order Forchheimer drag force term in the momentum boundary layer equation. The model used for the nanofluid incorporates the effects of Brownian motion, buoyancy ratio, and thermophoresis. A non-similarity solution is presented that depends on the Brownian motion number (Nb), buoyancy ratio (Nr), thermophoresis number (Nt), Forchheimer parameter (Λ), and radiation parameter (F). Velocity is reduced with increasing Forchheimer parameter, whereas temperature and nanoparticle concentration are both enhanced.The model finds applications in energy systems and thermal enhancement of industrial flow processe

Heat transfer in viscoplastic boundary layer flow from a vertical permeable cone with momentum and thermal wall slip : numerical study

A mathematical model is presented for the laminar free convection boundary layer flow of Casson viscoplastic non-Newtonian fluid external to a vertical penetrable circular cone in the presence of thermal and hydrodynamic slip conditions. The cone surface is maintained at non-uniform surface temperature. The boundary layer conservation equations, which are parabolic in nature, are transformed into non-dimensional form via appropriate similarity variables, and the emerging boundary value problem is solved computationally with the second order accurate implicit Keller-box finite-difference scheme. The influence of velocity (momentum) slip, thermal slip and Casson non-Newtonian parameter on velocity, temperature, skin friction and Nusselt number are illustrated graphically. Validation of solutions with earlier published work is included. The computations show that the flow near the cone surface is strongly decelerated with increasing momentum slip whereas the temperature and thermal boundary layer thickness are increased. Increasing Casson parameter generally decelerates the flow and also decreases temperatures. Both velocity and thermal boundary layer thickness are reduced with greater Prandtl number. The study is relevant to petro-chemical engineering (polymer) processing systems

Monitoring sessile droplet evaporation on a micromechanical device.

A bulk acoustic mode micro-electro-mechanical dual resonator platform is utilised to study the evaporation of sub-microliter water droplets from the surface of the resonator. An analytical formulation for the observed frequency shift and the measure dependence of resonant frequency on the modes of evaporation which is consistent with the optically derived data. The resonators access only a thin layer of the liquid through shear contact and, hence, the response is not affected by the bulk mass of the droplet to first order. A relationship between the droplet contact area and the elapsed time was established for the evaporation process and is used to derive a value of the diffusion coefficient of water in air that is found to be in reasonable agreement with literature values. This work introduces a new tool for the electro-mechanical monitoring of droplet evaporation with relevance to applications such as biosensing in liquid samples of sub-microliter volumes.Funding from the Royal Society and the Cambridge Trusts is acknowledged.This is the accepted manuscript version. The final version is available from the RSC at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/an/c4an01389a#!divAbstract

Numerical study of viscoelastic micropolar heat transfer from a vertical cone for thermal polymer coating

A mathematical model is developed to study laminar, nonlinear, non-isothermal, steady-state free convection boundary layer flow and heat transfer of a micropolar viscoelastic fluid from a vertical isothermal cone. The Eringen model and Jeffery’s viscoelastic model are combined to simulate the non-Newtonian characteristics of polymers, which constitutes a novelty of the present work. The transformed conservation equations for linear momentum, angular momentum and energy are solved numerically under physically viable boundary conditions using a finite difference scheme (Keller Box method). The effects of Deborah number (De), Eringen vortex viscosity parameter (R), ratio of relaxation to retardation times (λ), micro-inertia density parameter (B), Prandtl number (Pr) and dimensionless stream wise coordinate (ξ) on velocity, surface temperature and angular velocity in the boundary layer regime are evaluated. The computations show that with greater ratio of retardation to relaxation times, the linear and angular velocity are enhanced whereas temperature (and also thermal boundary layer thickness) is reduced. Greater values of the Eringen parameter decelerate both the linear velocity and micro-rotation values and enhance temperatures. Increasing Deborah number decelerates the linear flow and Nusselt number whereas it increases temperatures and boosts micro-rotation magnitudes. The study is relevant to non-Newtonian polymeric thermal coating processes

Numerical study of non-Newtonian polymeric boundary layer flow and heat transfer from a permeable horizontal isothermal cylinder

In this article, we investigate the nonlinear steady state boundary layer flow and heat transfer of an incompressible Jeffery non-Newtonian fluid from a permeable horizontal isothermal cylinder. The transformed conservation equations are solved numerically subject to physically appropriate boundary conditions using a versatile, implicit, finite-difference technique. The numerical code is validated with previous studies. The influence of a number of emerging non-dimensional parameters, namely with Deborah number (De), surface suction parameter (S), Prandtl number (Pr), ratio of relaxation to retardation times (λ) and dimensionless tangential coordinate (ξ) on velocity and temperature evolution in the boundary layer regime are examined in detail. Furthermore, the effects of these parameters on surface heat transfer rate and local skin friction are also investigated. It is found that the velocity is reduced with increasing Deborah number whereas temperature is enhanced. Increasing λ enhances the velocity but reduces the temperature. The heat transfer rates is found to be depressed with increasing Deborah number, De, and enhanced with increasing λ. Local skin friction is found to be decreased with a rise in Deborah number whereas it is elevated with increasing values of relaxation to retardation time ratio (λ). Increasing suction decelerates the flow and cools the boundary layer i.e. reduces temperatures. With increasing tangential coordinate, the flow is also decelerated whereas the temperatures are enhanced. The simulation is relevant to polymer coating thermal processing. Polymeric enrobing flows are important in industrial manufacturing technology and process systems. Such flows are non-Newtonian. Motivated by such applications, we did the present problem

High prevalence of subclinical hypothyroidism in pregnant women in South India

Background: Thyroid dysfunction is one of the commonest endocrinopathies seen in pregnancy and affects both maternal and fetal outcomes. There is little data available on its prevalence in Indian pregnant women. This study was conducted at Bhaskar medical college and hospital situated in a rural/suburban area near Hyderabad, Telengana, India. The aim of the study was to find out the prevalence of thyroid disease among pregnant women.  Methods: All consecutive pregnant women registered from January 2014 to December 2014 were included in the study. Morning samples of serum were tested for T3, T4 and TSH.  Results: A total of 1340 women were included in the study. 260 pregnant women (19.41%) had TSH values more than 3.0 mIU/L, the cut-off value used for upper limit of normal in this study. Out of these, 216 had normal T4 value, hence labeled as subclinical hypothyroidism and 44 had low T4, hence termed overt hypothyroidism. Three pregnant women had overt hyperthyroidism and 11 had subclinical hyperthyroidism. Nine women had low T4 values-Isolated hypothyroidism.Conclusions: Prevalence of thyroid disease in pregnancy was found to be higher in our patients, more so the sub clinical hypothyroidism

Reconstructing Indian-Australian phylogenetic link

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An early dispersal of biologically and behaviorally modern humans from their African origins to Australia, by at least 45 thousand years via southern Asia has been suggested by studies based on morphology, archaeology and genetics. However, mtDNA lineages sampled so far from south Asia, eastern Asia and Australasia show non-overlapping distributions of haplogroups within pan Eurasian M and N macrohaplogroups. Likewise, support from the archaeology is still ambiguous.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In our completely sequenced 966-mitochondrial genomes from 26 relic tribes of India, we have identified seven genomes, which share two synonymous polymorphisms with the M42 haplogroup, which is specific to Australian Aborigines.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results showing a shared mtDNA lineage between Indians and Australian Aborigines provides direct genetic evidence of an early colonization of Australia through south Asia, following the "southern route".</p