Improvements in Design of Local Fluorescent Electronic Ballasts in Compliance With the Related Local and International Standards

The fluorescent electronic ballast has been in the market for a long time but has not created any great impact in the illumination industry due to its high initial cost of investment compared to the conventional magnetic ballast. With the advancement in power electronics and utilization of power semiconductor which is available commercially today, it is now possible to implement almost every type of desired conversion of current, voltage or frequency and availability of electronic components with higher power ratings. Thus, it is now possible to manufacture an economically priced, light weight, lower watt-loss and high quality with maximum performance electronic ballast which is compatible with all types of fluorescent luminaries. This study is undertaken to improve the design of existing locally manufactured electronic ballasts. The study indicated that many of these commercial electronic ballasts only have partial or minimum compliance requirements or none at all to the related local and international standards, namely MS IEC 928, MS IEC 929 and EMC requirements as stipulated by SIRIM Berhad. From a survey on nine different ballast manufacturers, only seven manufacturers conducted two tests on MS IEC 928 and MS IEC 929 and only two manufacturers conducted a complete list of tests to ascertain whether their product comply with the related local and international standards. Since electronic ballast is listed as one of the electrical controlled items by the Department of Electricity and Gas Supply of Malaysia (DEGSM), it is crucial that the EMC test be imposed prior to ballast approval. A directive was issued by the Malaysian government on the 3rd of July 1998 to implement energy conservation and to promote the use of energy efficient equipment specifically on lighting luminaries and lighting control systems. DEGSM noted the limitations of fluorescent ballast watt-loss hence, this study is undertaken to meet the implementation of energy conservation regulations/act in the near future

A Comparison Study On Engine Oil Properties For Bi-Fuel Motorcycle

All mechanical equipment must be lubricated in order to reduce friction and wear between the touching surfaces. For four-stroke motorcycle engine, the function of the engine oil play critical roles since the oil does not burn along with fuel in combustion chamber as two-stroke motorcycle engines. The oil will circulate around inside the engine and the quality of the oil will decreased time by time. In conjunction with that, the engine oil must be removed after certain running period or distance recommended by the engine manufactures. The use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel claimed to provide several benefits to engine components and effectively reduce maintenance requirements. It does not mix with or dilute the lubricating oil faster and will not cause deposits in combustion chambers as well as on spark plugs to the extend that the use of petrol does, thereby generally extending the engine oil, piston ring and spark plug. It is the intention of this paper to compare the effect of both physical and chemical properties of motorcycle engine oil used by MODENASS KRISS 110cc motorcycle engine after running 5000 km using natural gas and gasoline respectively

The use of natural gas as fuel for motorcycles

Utilization of motorcycle in Malaysia is really synonym especially for lower income group. Statistic for motor vehicles in Malaysia shown that nearly five million units or over the half are motorcycles. These are mostly small capacity, two or four stroke engine motorcycles. The use of low quality fuel to operate motorcycles causes a serious pollutant especially in densely populated areas. Besides, crude oil reserve in Malaysia is expected to finish within 19 years. Natural gas is now acknowledged by the world as being a mainstream alternative fuel. It has a high octane rating that is general indication of the ability of the fuel to burn more efficient and improving engine performance. Malaysia has massive, under exploited natural gas reserve. As such a study has been conducted by a group of researchers from Gas Technology Centre (GASTEG) to diversify the usage of natural gas especially as a fuel for internal combustion engine. The product of this research is a set of natural gas conversion kits and the first prototype of natural gas motorcycle. The exhaust emissions from natural gas motorcycle give complete combustion, which decrease 99.6% of carbon monoxide and 72.5% of unburned hydrocarbon at a speed of 70km/hr. However, the lower heat content of natural gas and the lower burning velocity as compared to gasoline reduces the engine maximum power for about 15% at high engine speed without any modification to the original engine. These parameters can be used as a guidance to the motorcycle industry how to utilise natural gas as a fuel, a new and a leading technology for the world that propelling Malaysia for the next millennium with clean city

Bi-fuel NGVM engine emission results based on non-loaded system operation

Alternative fuels for the internal combustion engines are introduced as an improved fuel over mainstream conventional fuels such as petrol and diesel. Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is the most successful and widely used alternative fuels that helps mitigate emission problem caused by vehicles. Mainstream fuelled vehicles are fitted with a conversion kit to enable the operation with CNG, these converted vehicles are called Natural Gas Vehicles. A bi-fuel engine test rig was fabricated using a 1500cc 12 Valve engine fitted with a Landi Renzo conversion kit enabling operations on petrol and natural gas. This test rig was used to conduct experiments to obtain the fuel consumption and the corresponding exhaust emission quality. The results obtained were compared with the actual data of NGV taxi fitted with Tartarini conversion kit for validation purpose. The findings from this experimental rig are used as a comparison between the use of petrol and natural gas as fuel for vehicles. The results clearly prove that the use of natural gas provides improved exhaust emission at lower cos

Response Surface Methodology On Wax Deposit Optimization

In this study, the application of response surface method design based on rotatable central composite design (CCD) was used to optimize wax deposit using Design Expert 7.1.6 software. The process consisted of 13 experiments involving eight factorial points and five replications at the center point. The influence of operating parameters on the weight of wax deposit was investigated using cold finger apparatus. The experimental result indicated that the amount of wax deposit was significant due to factors of cold finger temperature and experimental duration. The wax deposit amount decreased significantly with the decrease of experimental duration when the cold finger temperature increased to 25 °C. The minimum value of 0.0042 g of wax deposit was obtained at the optimized conditions of 1.5 hours and 25 °C, respectively

Evaluation on the Inhibitor Selection on Wax Deposition for Malaysian Crude Oil

Wax precipitates from crude oil when a fluid is cooled down below its wax appearance temperature (WAT). This particularly happens during the transportation of crude oil in the pipeline system. In this study, chemical inhibitors were chosen to prevent and reduce wax formation using seven different types of inhibitors, which are poly (ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) (EVA), poly (maleic anhydride-alt-1-octadecene) (MA), diethanolamine (DEA), cocamide diethanolamine (C–DEA), toluene, acetone, and cyclohexane. The total waxes deposited from the cold finger test are subjected to the type of inhibitor, rotation speed of impeller, and inhibitor concentration. EVA is suggested as the most effective inhibitor based on the amount of wax deposit weight and the value of viscosity. Therefore, this result might be useful for further research work related to wax deposition in the area of crude oil productio

Elucidation of Longitudinally Grooved-Riblets Drag Reduction Performance using Pressure Drop Measurements

The need to determine affordable and environmentally friendly methods of reducing skin friction can be identified as one of the reasons contributing towards the study of the effectiveness of riblet shapes. Water tank experiments were carried out to optimize the shape and dimensions of microstructure grooves over a flat plate. The use of organized microstructures on channel walls is proposed to obtain lower values of pressure losses on smooth walls. Three shapes of microstructure grooves were investigated, with same groove height (600 μm) and five spacing dimensions (600, 750, 1000, 1500 μm), in water flows with velocities of up to 0.4 m/s. This was done for all selected types of riblet, which are fixed with the direction aligned with the flow. The experimental results showed that the size and shape of the riblets can massively incubate some of the turbulent structures formed on the surface and that will lead to a more controllable flow environment, which can result in drag reduction

Exploring critical questioning among in-service ESL teachers using Socratic questioning technique

The development of pupils' critical thinking depends on their ability to ask thoughtful questions. Although the advantages of critical questioning to develop students' critical thinking abilities have been widely recognized, teachers' poor questioning abilities become the main area of concern among educators. This paper aims to highlight this issue by exploring the use of Socratic Questioning Technique (SQT) in enhancing in-service teachers’ critical questioning skills when writing reflections. An Action Research Design was adopted using multiple methods such as interview, document analysis and reflections. 13 in-service ESL teachers who enrolled in a one-semester Master of Education course with a focus on English Language Teaching participated in this study. This action research involved three phases which are: problem identification, intervention and evaluation. Two moments of intervention were conducted using Gibbs’ Reflective Model and Socratic Critical Questioning techniques. The data were analyzed thematically. The findings revealed that SQT managed to enhance their critical questioning technique as they started asking variety of questions such as clarification, evidence, reasoning and implication questions during the intervention. The interview also showed that they learned to be more critical, they knew how to ask critical questions and they also became more confident in giving feedback to others. In other words, SQT trained these teachers about dialogic skills which are pertinent for fostering the capacity for critical thought. Thus, SQT should be incorporated in Malaysia's teacher education system

Alternative Piping Material For Malaysian Fuel Gas Distribution

Fuel gas distribution system in Malaysia can be divided into the Natural Gas (NG) and the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) distribution system. The distribution pipeline system for NG and LPG in Malaysia are using either steel pipes or plastic pipes (polyethylene pipe). However it has become common in other parts of the world such as the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe and Japan that copper pipes are being used for their distribution system. They have found that copper is an alternative for safe and superior piping material suitable for interior distribution systems. Therefore copper pipes should also be considered as an alternative piping material for Malaysian gas distribution. This paper will discuss what the International Code and Malaysian Code of Practice has to say about copper, what are the limitations of using copper and also the testing of Malaysian Gas in order to determines its suitability in using copper as pipe material. The comparisons were made between the utilisation of copper pipe in gas pipeline installation in other countries and the limitations of gas pipeline systems in Malaysia, the assessment of their performance and the duty limit of copper pipes

Computational fluid dynamics analysis of an injection mixer for CNG engines simulation

The poor mixing in gaseous injection mixers is one of the culprits for unsatisfactory engine performance and lethal exhaust emissions. Thus, effect of injection frequency on the mixing in Throttle Body Injection Mixer (TBIM) for a CNG motorcycle was studied in this work through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation. Injection frequencies of 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 injections per engine cycle had been investigated using the RNG κ−ε turbulent model. CFD results revealed a significant effect of various injection frequencies on the hydrodynamics of air and fuel in TBIM. It was found that the injection frequency of 4 injections per engine cycle was the most optimum one throughout the case studies