Geometrical modelling and numerical analysis of thermal behaviour of textile structures

The thermal properties of fabric are an important factor in the understanding of the thermo-physiological comfort of clothing. The principal aim of this research was to develop novel numerical methods, Graphical User Interface (GUI) plug-ins and experimental setup to evaluate the effective thermal conductivity and thermal resistance of different textile structures which has significant impact on the thermal comfort of clothing. The numerical methods also include the analysis of the effect of fibre orientation, thermal anisotropy of fibre, temperature dependent thermal conductivity and fibre volume fraction on the effective thermal conductivity and thermal resistance of textile fabrics. The research covers the development of geometrical models of woven, knitted, nonwoven and the composites fabric structures, evaluation of their thermal properties by using finite element method, creation of user friendly plug-ins and the extended application tools. Micro and mesoscopic scale modelling approaches were used to investigate the effective thermal conductivity and thermal resistance of textile structures. Various techniques, including scanning electron microscopy, x-ray microtomography and experimental method have been adopted to obtain the actual 3D dimensional parameters of the fabrics for finite element analysis. Research revealed that, the thermal anisotropy of fibres, fibres material orientation and temperature dependent thermal conductivity of fibre have significant impact on the effective thermal conductivity of fabrics because experimental and simulated results were highly correlated with the consideration of above mentioned factors. In addition a unique technique has been developed in modelling fabric coated by microencapsulated phase change material for temperature stable textile and clothing system. User friendly GUI plug-ins have been developed to generate both microscopic and mesoscopic scale models for finite element analysis. The plug-ins were developed by using Abaqus/CAE as a platform. The GUI Plug-ins enable automatic model generation and property analysis of knitted fabrics and composites. Apart from finite element analysis of various fabric structures, an experimental device has been developed for testing thermal conductivity of fabrics which is capable of testing small sample size within very short period of time. The device was validated by commercial available apparatus for testing of fabric thermal conductivity

Study of Motion of Agglomerates Through a Fluidized Bed

Formation of agglomerates in Fluid CokersTM can cause operating problems, such as excessive shed fouling, which can lead to premature unit shut down. Better understanding of how agglomerates move through a fluidized bed can help improve the design and operation of Fluid CokersTM and minimize the risk of agglomerates reaching regions where they cause problems. To identify key factors in agglomerates motion in a fluidized bed, a new two-dimensional (2D) Radioactive Particle Tracking (RPT) method was developed which tracks model agglomerates motion. In conjunction, a tribo-electric method was used to determine bubble flow distribution in the fluidized bed. This thesis outlines the effects of bed hydrodynamics and agglomerate properties on agglomerate motion. It was found that agglomerates produced by liquid injection in the fluidized bed were of similar density. Agglomerates larger than 9500 µm segregated near the bottom of the fluidized bed and all agglomerates spent more time in regions of low bubble flow

Knowledge, attitude and practices regarding HIV/AIDS among the community of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan

Background: The study was conducted to assess the awareness regarding Knowledge, Attitude and Practices about HIV/AIDS in the community of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.Methods: The study was conducted in Rawalpindi and Islamabad with age of 18 years and more. The data was randomly selected from 120 people having qualification of undermatric/matric/graduation/masters and above through questionnaire. The duration of the study was one year from April 2012 to March 2013.Results: Study showed that media is major source of awareness through Television (81.7%) and News Paper (67.5%).It was seen that 48.3% knew the difference between HIV and AIDS. 53.3% knew the signs and symptoms of HIV/AIDS but more than 46% did not know clinical features. Most of the community (79.2%) knew about the mode of transmission but small percentage (20.8%) did not have knowledge about transmission of disease. 85.8% knew about mode of prevention of HIV/AIDS. More than 80% of the participants suggested for compulsory screening of HIV/AIDS whereas a small percentage (up to 20%) did not suggest. Attitude of community was mix reply with positive attitude (58.3%) and negative attitude (41.7%).About 40% were in favor of health insurance whereas around 60% feel no need of health insurance to the HIV/AIDS patients.70% of the participants recommended to maintain the confidentiality of patient while 30% gave negative reply. Community was opinion that health awareness would reduce (96.7%) the risk of disease while only a small percentage (3.3%) thought for having no impact on prevention.Conclusions: The study showed sufficient knowledge and awareness but negative attitude of community towards patients of HIV/AIDS.

The impact of reward on employee performance: a case study of Malakand private school

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate how to employee performance impact on reward in private school. The study also aims to show how to employee improve the performance has in reward system.Design/methodology/approach: Questionnaire is used as instrument and 100 questionnaires were used to check the respondent's opinion Findings: descriptive analysis, correlation and multiple regression tests were applied for data analysis.Conclution: study concludes that there is positive relationship between rewards (extrinsic and intrinsic) and employee's job performance. Most of the organizations implement rewards system to increase the job performance and job satisfaction. Originality/value: By reviewing the different finding that the reward and employee performance. the contribution of this paper is to look at how to finding the effective solution of employee performance will be in reward system inter-organisational and school.Study of paper: The study of this paper is exploratry is qualitative study of research

Appraisal of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in District Swat, Pakistan

14 September, 2019 Accepted: 07 October, 2019Abstract: Deforestation and forest degradation are not only a problem of north western mountainous region of Pakistanbut it is one of the main global environmental issues. To find out deforestation rate and its extent in Swat, KhyberPakhtunkhwa, Landsat 5 (October 2, 2011) and Landsat 8 OLI (October 15, 2016) data were processed in CarnegieLandsat Analysis System (CLASlite v3.3). Primary data related to deforestation in Swat were also obtained from localpeople through a structured questionnaire. Primary data were analyzed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences(SPSS). Changes in land cover can be clearly identified during image analysis. The temporal analysis of forest coverbetween 2011 and 2016 showed a significant change in forest cover. About 11 km² area is converted from forest tobarren land, while approximately 9,985 km² area of forest cover was degraded. The perceived causes of deforestation inthe study area are unsustainable use and mismanagement of forest resources, population growth, plantation ofeucalyptus and lack of basic facilities and awareness. However, community ignorance is the main factor responsible fordeforestation and forest degradation. One of the major consequences of deforestation can be related to the totaldisappearance of Charchur waterfall in Talang Kota lower Swat in September 2016. Therefore, it is the right time tomove toward sustainable management, detection and monitoring of national forest reserves by using geospatial tools,and by the involvement of local communities to participate in decision making about the conservation of forestresources

Enhanced Calcium Extraction From Steel Converter Slag Using Wet Extractive Grinding And Comparison

Defence is held on 8.10.2021 12:00 – 15:30 Remotely via Zoom https://aalto.zoom.us/j/69652895150This thesis belongs to the field of process engineering. The goal of this research is to develop an effective recovery method for calcium from industrial waste streams to produce precipitated calcium carbonate, PCC. This would reduce our dependency on virgin raw material resources, reduce CO2 emissions and offer a pathway to circular economy by closing material loops in industrial processes. We focused on the utilization of steel converter slag as a source of calcium for the pH-swing process named as X2PCC (X refers to Ca-bearing materials). As the first process step, we extract calcium from steelmaking slag using aqueous ammonium chloride solvent and separate solids by filtering. In the second step, the Ca-rich solution is treated with CO2 gas to produce precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC). The main scientific objective of this thesis is to experimentally analyze phenomena in Ca extraction step and develop process solutions for increasing the Ca dissolution rate and yield. As a part of the work, we developed the new wet extractive grinding (EG) method. Traditional mechanical mixing (MM) process is first briefly explained and then compared with the new wet extractive grinding process. The carbonation step was left out of the scope of this thesis. In this thesis, the effects of various process parameters on the performance of these two techniques are systematically and quantitatively investigated. The first part (paper I) focuses on the experimental study on the traditional mechanical mixing with respect to particle size distribution and strength of the solvent. Aqueous ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) was used as an extracting solvent with concentrations of 0-2 mol/L. The slag to solvent ratio was constant 100 g/L for all experiments. The main objective of this part was to determine the optimal concentrations of solvent and particle size for leaching out the maximum amount of calcium from the slag. All the tests were conducted at ambient pressure and temperature. The extraction rate of different size fractions of the slag, 0–50 μm, 50–74 μm and 74–125 μm were studied. If was found that the smaller the particle size, and the higher the solvent molarity, the higher the yield of Ca. We found that Ca extraction is limited by the mass transfer and the availability of Ca within the large particles. We proposed a mechanism that the surface layer of the slag particles could be get blocked by reaction products, mainlySiO2, and this stops the reaction. This would explain the lower yield in the larger particles. The second part (papers II and III) of the work focuses on the new wet extractive grinding method and optimizing it for the maximum extraction efficiency of calcium from steel slag. Extractive grinding was compared with our traditional mechanical mixing to give better understanding of the performance of our new extractive grinding method, and to study the effects of the different process parameters on the calcium extraction and dissolution of other trace elements such as V, Si and Mg. Physical and chemical characterization is performed for the analysis of particle morphology before and after the extraction. Here, we found that with our new method we can achieve up to 73 % Ca-extraction efficiency as compared to below 40 % in MM. EG process, that combines grinding and extraction stages, reduces the overall energy requirement of the process. There are two mechanism that makes this possible: the processing time reduces due to reaction surface grinding effects and the Ca yield also significantly increases. The main scientific contribution of this thesis is in identifying the limiting factors in the Ca extraction stage and presenting and analyzing the new wet extractive grinding method. We were able to show that with the EG method, Ca yield increased from 35 to 73%, processing time decreased from earlier used 30 to 5 min. To obtain Ca yield higher than 70% via mechanical mixing, energy intensive fine grinding is required. With EG method, based on preliminary calculations, energy saving can be up to 56 % compared to fine grinding and mechanical mixing path. We also found that EG method does not significantly affect the particle size distribution, which means that there are fewer filtering issues expected, compared with the fine-grinded slag. We are presenting unique data on the effects of solvent molarity, slag to solvent ratio, particle size distribution, process time. These will be later used in the actual process design and feasibility analysis. Finally, we studied also initially a concept for the integration of CO2-capture Ca-looping integrated with our X2PCC process. Initial results show that CO2 capture potential of the process could be significantly increased by this. This will be further studied in our future work and we will evaluate what would be the optimal use for the PCC produced in terms of circular economy and environment. Tämä väitöskirja kuuluu prosessitekniikan tutkimusalaan. Tutkimuksen laajempi tavoite on kehittää tehokas menetelmä kalsiumin talteen ottamiseksi teollisuuden sivu- ja jätevirroista ja valmistaa tästä saostettua kalsium karbonaattia (PCC). Tämä askel vähentäisi riippuvuuttamme neitseellisistä raaka-aineista, vähentäisi fossiilisia CO2 päästöjä ja veisi alan kehitystä kohti kiertotaloutta sulkemalla materiaalikiertoja. Työssä keskityttiin teräskuonaan X2PCC prosessimme raaka-aineena. X viittaa tässä materiaaleihin, jotka sisältävät runsaasti kalsiumia. X2PCC-prosessimme ensimmäisessä vaiheessa kalsium liuotetaan selektiivisesti ja kiintoaines suodatetaan pois. Puhtaaseen kalsiumliuokseen puhalletaan sen jälkeen CO2 kaasua, jolloin tuotteena syntyy saostettua kalsiumkarbonaattia, CaCO3. Työn tieteellinen tavoite oli tutkia kokeellisesti kalsiumin liuotusta ja siihen liittyviä ilmiöitä sekä kehittää menetelmää, joilla prosessia saataisiin tehostettua. Osana työtä kehitimme uuden märkäjauhatukseen perustuvan liuotusmenetelmän (EG). Perinteistä mekaanista sekoitusmenetelmää tutkittiin ensin ja sen jälkeen vertailtiin uuteen EG menetelmään. Karbonointivaihe rajattiin työn ulkopuolelle.Työn ensimmäinen osa (Julkaisu I) keskittyy mekaaniseen sekoitukseen ja kuonan kokojakauman ja liuottimen vahvuuden vaikutusten tutkimiseen. Vesiliukoista ammoniumkloridia (NH4Cl) käytettiin liuottimena vaihtelemalla sen molaarisuutta välillä 0-2 mol/L. Kuona-liuotinsuhde oli vakio 100 g/L kaikissa kokeissa. Tavoite oli löytää parametrit, joilla Ca-saanto kuonasta saadaan maksimoitua. Kokeet tehtiin ilmakehän paineessa ja huoneen lämpötilassa. Kuonajauhe seulottiin mekaanisesti kokoluokkiin 0–50 μm, 50–74 μm ja 74–125 μm. Havaittiin että mitä pienempi partikkelikoko ja mitä suurempi molaarisuus, sitä korkeampi Ca-saanto. Hypoteesimme on, että suurilla partikkeleilla Ca-saantoa rajoittaa aineensiirto ja kalsiumin saatavuus reaktioiden käyttöön. Ehdottamassamme reaktiota rajoittavassa mekanismissa reaktiotuotteet, pääasiassa SiO2, tukkii huokoset ja hidastaa reaktiota olennaisesti. Tämä ilmiö selittäisi suurempien partikkelien matalamman Ca-saannon. Työn toinen osa (julkaisut II ja III) keskittyvät uuteen märkäjauhatusliuotukseen ja sen parametrien optimointiin teräskuonalla. Uutta menetelmään verrattiin mekaaniseen sekoitukseen, jotta saataisiin parempi käsitys uuden menetelmän eduista eri prosessiparametreillä. EG menetelmää karakterisoitiin kemiallisesti ja fysikaalisesti ja tutkittiin kuonan morfologian muutoksia prosessin aikana. Havaittiin, että uudella EG menetelmällä on mahdollista kasvattaa saantoa mekaanisen sekoituksen alle 40 % arvosta yli 70% tasolle. EG menetelmässä yhdistetään jauhatuksen teho sekä liuotusvaihe. Tällöin prosessin läpimenoaika pienenee huomattavasti ja saanto kasvaa. Tämän ansiosta energian kulutus myös pienenee huomattavasti. Väitöskirjan tieteellinen kontrobuutio on, että pystytiin identifioimaan Ca-liuotuksen kontrolloivia mekanismeja sekä kehitettiin uusi märkäjauhatusliuotus menetelmä. Pystyimme näyttämään, että EG menetelmällä Ca-saanto nousi 35 % arvosta 73% tasolle, prosessiaika lyheni 30 minuutista 5 min tasolle. Jotta vastaava saanto saataisiin aikaiseksi mekaanisella sekoituksella, täytyisi kuona jauhaa erittäin pieneksi (<50 μm), vaatien paljon aikaa ja energiaa. Alustavien laskelmien mukaan energian kulutus voisi olla 50-60% alhaisempi uudella menetelmällä. Havaitsimme myös, että EG menetelmä ei juuri vaikuta partikkelikokojakaumaan, joka tarkoittaa sitä, että hienoksi jauhetun kuonan tapauksessa esiintyviä suodatukseen liittyviä ongelmia on huomattavasti vähemmän. Työssä on myös esitetty suuri määrä täysin uusia mittaustuloksia molaarisuuden, partikkelikoon, kuona-liuotinsuhteen ja prosessiajan vaikutuksista prosessin käyttäytymiseen, joita voidaan käyttää tulevaisuudessa teollisen kokoluokan prosessin suunnittelussa, optimoinnissa ja taloudellisen kannattavuuden arvioinnissa. Työn lopuksi teimme vielä alustavia laskelmia CO2 talteenottopotentiaalin kasvatusmahdollisuuksista. Alustavien tulosten mukaan, jos X2PCC prosessi yhdistettäisiin Ca-looping CO2 talteenottomenetelmään ja käyttämällä valmistamaamme CaCO3:a talteenottoprosessin sorbenttina, hiilidioksidin talteenottopotentiaalia voitaisiin kasvattaa merkittävästi. Tätä tutkitaan tulevaisuudessa laajemmin ja arvioidaan PCC tuotteemme parasta käyttökohdetta kiertotalouden ja ympäristön kannalta

Social determinants of Health and Alcohol consumption in the UK

  Addressing the social determinants of health (SDH) and health inequities are essential for successfully combating alcohol-related harm. In U.K, excessive consumption of alcohol is a huge public health concern. An estimated 9 million adults drink at level that increase the risk of harm to their health; 1.6 million adults in England have some degree of alcohol dependence; and of these some 250,000 are believed to be moderately or severely dependent and may benefit from intensive specialist treatment. To be able to devise effective action, it is essential to comprehend these inequities in the healthcare system. Health inequities are not solely related to access to health care services; there are many other determinants related to living and working conditions, as well as the overall macro-policies prevailing in a country. The key intention of this review was to critically analyse the degree to which social determinants have impacted on excess alcohol consumption. A comprehensive approach to reduce inequities in alcohol-related harm requires action that includes mix of long- and short-term impacts, addressing the consequences and the root causes of inequities, and acting on both individuals and environments. Whereas, consequences of harmful alcohol use are more severe for those already experiencing social exclusion. We suggest that (1) the effective legislation, (2) modifying marketing strategies, (3) enhancing cooperation with regional organizations, (4) more effectively implementing existing regulation and (5) consulting expert will enhance SDH for this vulnerable population

In vitro Anti-ulcer potential of Raphanus sativus L. seeds

Background: Raphanus sativus L. is an indigenous plant that is traditionally used to treat peptic ulcer. Objective: This study assessed anti- Helicobacter pylori, antioxidant, and anti-urease activities of R. sativus seeds. Methods: this study targeted in-vitro model. The antioxidant activity of the methanol extract and n-butanol, aqueous, n- hexane and chloroform fractions of R. sativus seeds was determined using DPPH. Moreover, the inhibitory effects of the extract and fractions on the activity of urease and antibacterial activity against Helicobacter pylori were also evaluated. Results: The crude extract as well as its derived n-butanol fraction exhibited higher (IC50: 45 and 31 µg/mL respectively) DPPH inhibition activity and inhibition of urease (IC50: 75.0 and 55.9 µg/mL respectively) while aqueous extract inhibited H. pylori strongly (MIC50: 15 µg/mL). Conclusion: Collectively, our data show that R. sativus extract and fractions possess antioxidant, anti- H. pylori and anti-urease potential. The traditional uses of R. sativus as anti-ulcer, might be due to its anti-urease activity