An increasing world population exerts a continually growing demand on usable freshwater resource and matching the demand with supply of safe drinking water has resulted to serious social-economic constraints. Time and drudgery involved to access safe drinking resulted to loss of human capital, thus affects nearly every household activity. This paper focuses on the evaluation of Water Poverty Index (WPI) as an integrated tool veritable for all the local government areas in Ondo State of Nigeria to address their water sector. Simple time analysis and composite index approaches were employed to compute WPI values in all the sampled areas. Variables such as water resource, access to safe water, use of water and environmental impacts were considered. The ranking of WPI values from the two approaches shows that Ese-Odo is the most water-stressed with least WPI values of 10.1 points (composite index) and highest value of 1.4minsl-1 (simple time analysis), while Owo, Ondo-West and Ose local government areas are less water stressed with  WPI values of 0.55 minsl^-1,17.8; 0.53 minsl^-1,16.2; and 0.5 minsl^-1,17.1 respectively. The results obtained indicate that constructive investment in water and sanitation improves Human Development Index (HDI). However, this paper concludes that to prevent the occurrence of virtual water situation and improve water supply, researches of this nature should be  conducted from time to time and government at all levels should holistically address the problem.

In this article, a robust, stable and fast calculable controller that reduces the variance to the minimum for minimal and non-minimal phase Linear Time Invariant (LTI) system is proposed. The calculation is based on an algorithm that overcomes the complexity of conventional methods. The algorithm utilizes Diophantine Equation to obtain over- parameterized transfer function polynomial forms that contribute to the variance reduction. It analytically proves that increasing the order of the parameterized controller’s coefficients makes the variance converge to the minimum, while maintaining the same simplicity of calculation. Simulated examples for different LTI models support our findings.

Experiments to measure the condensation heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop in brazed plate heat exchangers (BPHEs) were performed with the refrigerants R410A and R22. Brazed plate heat exchangers with different chevron angles of 45_, 35_, and 20_ were used. Varying the mass flux, the condensation temperature, and the vapor quality of the refrigerant, we measured the condensation heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drops. Both the heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop increased proportionally with the mass flux and the vapor quality and inversely with the condensation temperature and the chevron angle. Correlations of the Nusselt number and the friction factor with the geometric parameters are suggested for the tested BPHEs.

Peristaltic motion of a Herschel-Bulkley fluid in a two-dimensional channel with wall effects is studied. Assuming that the wave length of the peristaltic wave is large in comparison to the mean half width of the channel, a perturbation method of solution is obtained in terms of wall slope parameter, under dynamic boundary conditions. Closed form expressions are derived for the stream function and average velocity and the effects of pertinent parameters on these flow variables have been studied. It has been observed that the time average velocity decreases with yield stress and power law index. Further, the time average velocity increases with rigidity in the wall. It has been observed that trapping occurs and the size of the trapped bolus increases with power-law index.

Abstract:

Typical face milling operation involves transient and steady state cutting phases. Identification and distinction of the cutting state will primarily help in understanding the fundamentals of forced vibration, deflection and dynamic stability in milling system at the beginning and end of a cutting pass. Such type of investigation has advantages in process planning, tool geometry optimization and on-line fault diagnosis. An effort to provide estimation of transient and steady state cutting has been made using Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) of vibration signals. RQA is a novel nonlinear analytical tool. It starts with construction of recurrence plot using embedded dimension and time delay. The recurrence plot is than quantified resulting in RQA. Face milling of H11 chromium steel has been carried out at two different cutting conditions and analysed. The resulting RQA parameters could identify and distinguish transient and steady state cutting.

Abstract:

The soil-structure interaction analysis of structures is a complex and broad area of research in structural and geo-technical engineering. It deals with study of mechanics of interaction between foundation, soil and superstructure or its parts buried in soil to investigate the interaction behaviour. In common structural design practice the foundation loads from structure analysis are obtained without considering allowance for soil settlements. The foundation settlements are estimated assuming a perfectly flexible structure. A powerful numerical tool like finite element method can be used to analyze the composite system. The finite element modeling of the domain of the building frame-soil interaction system needs variety of isoparametric elements with different degrees of freedom. The superstructure is discretized with conventional isoparametric elements while the soil mass with coupled finite-infinite elements having different decay patterns to model the far field behaviour. This paper presents the modeling of plane frame-foundation beam-soil system for elasto-plastic interaction analysis considering the entire system to act as a single integral compatible structural unit using finite-infinite element. The forces in the frame members (beams and columns) and the foundation beam have been evaluated and compared with conventional frame analysis.

The practicing professionals mostly prefer to employ approximate models for the purpose of design of a structural domain. Model based on such method ignores a designer to evaluate the deformation pattern of the structure as a whole, as the actual 3D problems are over-simplified into 2D problems using line elements based on certain assumptions. Thus a designer handles a problem keeping him in darkness in these areas, rather adopts a conservative approach in view of quick and easy solution for the purpose at hand. Moreover reinforcement requirement remains on much higher side, thereby increasing hazards in detailing as well as construction site along with overall cost of the structure. Also in earlier days, sophisticated tools like various FEM packages were not also available commercially and easily in the market. Hence frames /structures were analyzed as grid structure /wire mesh. Although a wire mess gives some idea about the deformation pattern, but it’s unable to handle the complicated situations. It has been shown with the aid of present study of RC substitute frame that the values of bending stresses obtained thus are exceptionally on conservative side compared to the analysis output using FEM package, e.g. Abaqus. Here the behaviour of a substitute frame has been presented, following 3 different methods. Various results obtained have been compared to assess their potentiality and suitability in understanding true behaviour of such a system.

Abstract:

The effects of modification and vibration during solidification of Aluminum-Silicon eutectic alloy (AlSi12) are studied and compared with unmodified alloy.  Sodium and Strontium are used as modifiers. Horizontal sinusoidal vibration at different frequencies was imposed using a vibration Table. It was found that modification treatment improves properties such as ultimate tensile strength (UTS), percentage elongation, hardness, toughness, cutting force, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, fluidity, porosity and fatigue strength and optimum values were found for sodium and strontium weight addition of modifier. Self organized feature map (SOFM) network model is developed using Neuro Solutions package. Genetic algorithm is used to optimize the model developed. Further, neuro fuzzy model (CANFIS) is developed and compared the results with neural network model developed. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to measure the relative importance of the inputs of the model and how the model output varies in response to variation of an input. The developed models were validated experimentally.

Abstract:

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of thermal and physical properties of a phase change material PCM consists of paraffin wax with 5% aluminum powder, this composite used as a thermal storage compound in a solar air heater, the compound supposed be encapsulated in cylinders as a solar absorber in cross flow of pumped air. An indoor simulation supposed that the PCM initially heated by solar simulator until liquid phase temperature (50˚C) while the pumped air over the cylinders at room temperature (28˚C), results show that the air temperature gained due to thermal energy discharge process decreases with increasing of air mass flow rate, and the freezing time for this compound takes long time interval for the lower mass flow rates.

Abstract:

Whenever fault occurs in power system, the operating quantities contain serious harmonics and decaying DC in addition to fundamental frequency component. In order to ensure better protection to the power system, protective relays must filter their inputs to reject unwanted quantities and to retain desired signal quantities. In addition, the decaying dc and higher order harmonics seriously decreases the precision and convergence speed of extraction of fundamental frequency signal. Accuracy and convergent speed of filter algorithms of protective relays had received great attention. A novel approach is proposed which combines the appropriate analog low pass filter and modified Full Cycle Discrete Fourier Transform (FCDFT) algorithm to remove the decaying DC from input signals for protection. The proposed algorithm was tested for Line to Ground faults on 345KV, 200km overhead transmission lines. Electromagnetic Transient Program (EMTP) and Power System Computer Aided Design (PSCAD) were used to generate fault current signals under different fault locations and fault inception angles. The results shows that the proposed technique accurately measures the fundamental frequency component regardless of the characteristic frequency component as well as the decaying dc offset components.

Abstract:

Process automation has been the default standard for industries since processors are prominently figured in the scheme of production. The significant characteristic of Process automation is clarity in the definition of tasks, sequence of operation and concurrency. Programmable Logic Controllers are a set of this morphing of processors prominently favored in the Process Automation due to its ease of use, ruggedness and low cost. PLC, as it is abbreviated is preferred also because of most important reason - ease of programming. Programming of PLC was started with Ladder Logic Diagrams and in spite of other developed high level languages plays a prominent role even today. This problem however is recognized and programming for DES is suggested via a modified approach called Grafcet. In this paper, a fuzzy formalism is introduced into the modeling system as Fuzzy Automation Petri Nets (FAPN) and formal method for conversion of this FAPN into LLD is suggested.

Abstract:

In this research work, estimation of tool wear for the CBN / PCD tool has been done by using Echostate neural network during machining of Al6061 metal matrix composite. AN estimation percentage of 90.62% has been achieved.