Air transportation continues to grow positively over the years, and the growth is accompanied by the increase in aviation's environmental impact, particularly the pollutant emissions. Alternative jet fuels have been introduced as a substitute with the aim to reduce the emissions as well as the industry’s high dependency on conventional jet fuel. In this study, the application of alternative jet fuel, specifically Bio-SPK from jatropha and camelina, as well as their blends have been evaluated in terms of their impact towards engine performance and the environment. Further evaluations have been emphasized on environmental performance at landing and take-off cycle. The potential benefit of using alternative jet fuels in terms of aircraft emission charges is also discussed.

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Bicycle helmet is currently available to cater to general head sizes, ranging from S/M and L/XL, but there is also a universal model that can fit all sizes through adjustable helmet strap. However, numerous surveys addressed that wearing helmet is not comfortable and the current sizing did not accommodate the range of the user. This is due to the collective report of human anthropometric data that the human head shape and dimension are different according to ethnic groups, age and gender. This paper describes impact attenuation of user-centred design approach of bicycle helmet in accordance to AS/NZS 2063:2008, Australian/ New Zealand Standard for bicycle helmet using validated simulation model of drop impact test. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of changing the shape of the liner to improve fit of bicycle helmet, hence the user-centred design approach, on the impact attenuation properties of the helmet. Head scans of 5 participants were taken using Artec3D portable scanner, while bicycle helmets and J head form were scanned using Flexscan 3D scanning equipment. A customized helmet design based on the shape of each participant was developed and tested using validated drop impact simulation model at front, top and side impact locations. The thickness and peak linear acceleration of original helmet and customized user-centered helmets were also measured. The results revealed that the user-centered helmet recorded different PLA value compared to the original helmet because liner dimension and thickness was changed to accommodate the head shape of the participants. The finding of this study suggests that the PLA of the helmet depends on the helmet liner thickness. It was also found that generally changing the liner thickness to employ user-centered helmet design would alter the impact performance of the helmet.

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In this paper, a combined FE simulation and scratch experiments approach was used to simulate the contact established between a high-speed steel (HSS) work roll and a hot strip material in hot rolling, in which the top layer and the substrate represented the HSS roll and the tip of the indenter represented a particle from oxide scale formed on the strip steel. This work focused on the contact behavior of the oxide scale in the roll bite during hot rolling. The coefficient of friction during the simulation tests was recorded. It was found that the evolution of the coefficient of friction could be divided into two stages which are incubation period and stationary period. Associated with the evolution of the coefficient of friction, the deformation behavior and the displacement at the cross section were characterized to study the tribological behavior of oxide scale in contacts. The results indicated that the deformation and wear mechanism of oxide layer surface vary in different depths of penetration. At the penetration depth 2 µm, the oxide scale on the pin surface is significantly deformed. At the stage 3.2 µm and 4 µm, which the coefficient of friction is stable, the maximum von Mises are significantly higher than the yield stress of the oxide layer (sy = 7 GPa) so that high plastic deformation occurs.

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Mobile phones and batteries have relatively short life cycle and quickly seen as outdated by consumers, especially teenagers. It is not easy to dispose or discard in everywhere because mobile phones and battery have a range of hazardous and precious metals which are lead, copper and precious metals such as gold, silver, aluminum, copper and others. This study was to investigate the rate of solution hazardous metals and from PCB mobile phone and batteries using hydrometallurgical methods. Hydrometallurgical method is the method used by the process of dissolution of metal with a sample to be tested must be separated between metal and nonmetal materials. Leaching processes is a major step in the hydrometallurgical method. The solution has been taken should be analyzed using laboratory equipment which is ICP to determine the total concentration of hazardous metals. Findings of this study is the total concentration of hazardous metals contained in the most high sample is Lead. The hazardous metals lead and copper have many negative impact to the human body. So, everyone should have an awareness to ensure the proper disposal method for each component of electrical and electronic equipment such as mobile phones.

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This review looks at carbon nanotubes (CNT) capabilities as toughening agent in ceramic composite. CNT have exceptional mechanical strength of up to 60 GPa and stiffness of 1 TPa. Ceramic however is hard, brittle and lack of toughness. CNT were found to be capable to provide up to 173% improvement in fracture toughness of ceramic with 19 vol. % CNT. The degree of toughness improvement on CNT ceramic composite is dependent on the following parameters; CNT homogenous dispersion in the composite, inter-wall and interfacial strength between CNT and ceramic, method of producing the CNT ceramic composite, and the resultant toughening mechanisms.

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Nanofluids are the new generation way to enhance thermal properties of common fluids. The potential of nanofluids have made them very useful in different heat transfer applications. In this paper, the injection velocity effects on copper nanofluids over permeable stretching/shrining surfaces are analyzed in stagnation–point flow. Nanofluids are under the influence of magnetic field. The PDE governing the problem under consideration are transformed by similarity transformation into a system of ODE that is executed numerically using MAPLE 18 software. It is observed that the injection on magnetic field had greatly influenced the heat transfer characteristics in the copper nanofluid.

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Alternative fuels for diesel engines have become increasingly important due to several socioeconomic aspects and increased environmental concerns. Global warming concerns due to the production of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have seen as one of major factor the promotion of the use of biofuels. Carbon dioxide (CO2) from fuel combustion is a major contributor to GHGs and caused a shift in the climate system. Yet the use of biodiesel as an alternative fuel for petroleum-diesel fuel operates in compression ignition (CI) diesel engines is very effective for the reduction of CO2 emission since it is classified as green and renewable energy. It is now acknowledged that the use of the biodiesel blends fuel is restricted due to loss of efficiency and long term problems in the engine associated with worsen the atmosphere pollution. Hence, this study targets on investigating the effects of various biodiesel and fossil diesel blends fuel on engine performance and exhaust gas emissions of small diesel engine and yet recommends bio-fuel that optimise the engine performance and lower exhaust emissions. As results of experimental investigations, there has been a decrease in performance of torque, brake power, brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) while increase in brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) has been observed for all biodiesel blend fuels over the entire speed range and load test compared to diesel fuel (DSL). In conjunction, exhaust gas emissions, signified the higher formations of NOx emissions while reductions of CO, CO2 and HC gases corresponding to the increasing of biodiesel blending ratio. Increased blends of biodiesel ratio are found to enhance the combustion process consequently decreased the emission elements. It can be concluded that biodiesel blend fuels can be used in diesel engines without any engine modifications and have beneficial effects both in terms of emission reductions and alternative petroleum diesel fuel.

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A preliminary study of extracted hydrocarbon from microalgae biomass including nutrients removal is presented. The aim of this work is to determine the removal of nutrients from domestic wastewater by Botryococcus sp. and to identify the qualitative hydrocarbon from extracted biomass. The results showed that Botryococcus sp. is capable to remove total nitrogen 60.83% and total phosphorus 36.17% from domestic wastewater. Since the best result was found in wastewater treatment, lipid content was performed with solvent extraction using soxhlet extractor. From GC-MS analysis, Phthalic acid, 2-ethylhexyl tridecyl ester was obtained with the largest peak area of 71.56%. This study proved that Botryococcus sp. from domestic wastewater treatment phycoremediation could produce biomass with suitable amount of lipids and chemical compound.

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Rice Husk Ash (RHA) as sand replacement and filler of Foamed Concrete (FC) has contributed to increase the strength. FC with RHA has increased the slab resistant of impact loading. When RHA granulate filled the FC porous, it would delay the collapsing of cell porous due to the increasing strain of porous walls. The RHA granulate increased the elasticity of the porous walls of FC. Other than that, the walls porous would be more plastic when it was subjected to compressive stress that generated by impact loading. The impact test conducted an instrument drop-weight impact tower to generate various impact velocities of non-deformable impactor on slab of FC and FC with RHA. Results show that FC with RHA created the crater without fragments. Means while, FC clearly create radial crack and fragments within the crater field. However, both slab materials did not generate spalling nor scabbing upon impact and the influence of porosity produces only local damage due to the mechanism of brittle crushing effect of porous walls. This investigation observed that the energy absorption between FC and FC with RHA produced minor differences. However, the results verify that FC with RHA did not loss its ability to absorb energy upon impact.

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This project is about the development and analysis of arrow for archery. Three types of arrow head been designed: bullet shaped head, 3D shaped head and cone shaped head. The arrow performance measurement parameters were studied such as the FOC values, static stiffness values and the drag forces. Solid Works 2012 was used to designs the three types of arrow head and the drag force is simulated by using Solid Work Flow Simulation. The material used for the arrow head fabrication is stainless steel 304. The arrow shafts used are carbon shaft of 5.46mm outer diameter and 7mm fiberglass and carbon fiber shaft. 3 different shaft properties are used to determine the effect of static stiffness, arrow heads weight and shaft diameter on the drag force generated at the arrow. The experimented result for Beman 570-14 arrows are slightly higher compared to simulation results obtained from Solid Works. The possible cause is the characteristic of the arrow during flight where arrows starts to bend in C manner then straight again then bend again in reverse C manner and so on when it been shot. These deformation causes energy losses to the surrounding due to air friction, natural damping effect and shear friction. From the result obtained, it is shown that fiberglass shaft arrow has the highest drag force regardless of the arrow head types used compared to the other two types of shaft. Although Beman 570-14 shaft has smaller frontal area compared to a 7mm outer diameter carbon fiber shaft, the drag force obtained from the experiment shows that both bullet shaped head and 3D shaped head for carbon fiber shaft has lower drag force compared with the same arrow head shape.

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The spray characteristics of an emulsified biofuel are assessed by its droplet size and velocity distribution within the spray, spray pattern, spray propagation, entrained air characteristic and spray volume distribution pattern. The spray characteristics of emulsified biofuel can be optimized by characterizing fuel type, formulation of fuel with water and surfactant, nozzle geometry, kinematic viscosity, density of fuels, pressure of liquid injected fluid and so forth. Formulation of fuel refers to an emulsification process where a mixture of two or more liquids which are normally immiscible is performed. The surfactant agent is introduced to stabilize the emulsion of water and oil. The surfactant is a chemical additive that works as a surface active agent to attract and to form the immiscible liquid into stable solution. The selection of a surfactant agent with particular HLB rating is a vital stage to ensure a correct form of emulsion has been developed as to whether the mixture is oil in water (O/W) or water in oil (W/O) basis. In this study, it is proven that the variation of surfactant agent formulation in emulsified biofuel has significantly influenced its spray characteristics to be comparable to the baseline diesel.

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This study was carried out to evaluate the performance of coconut shell as fine aggregate in asphaltic concrete. The mix design incorporating penetration grade 80/100 bitumen was used to produce the specimens testing. Four coconut shell replacement levels were considered in the study: 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%, respectively. The aggregate properties were evaluated through aggregate impact value, specific gravity and water absorption test. In addition, the performance of coconut shell in asphalt mixes was identified by volumetric properties, indirect tensile strength, resilient modulus and dynamic creep test. The results revealed that controlled specimen’s shows better volumetric properties compared to coconut shell mixes. However, 10% replacement of coconut shell indicated better performance than controlled specimen. It can be concluded that coconut shell inhibits great potential as road construction material but be only suitable for low traffic volume and at rural area.

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Heat exchanger is a device that facilitates the exchange of heat with different temperature between two or more fluids with or without phase changes. Energy recovery by using ORC system is an effective method to recover low grade heat source because organic fluid employs low saturated temperatures in comparison to water. This paper presents the design of a cross flow Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) condenser using numerical modeling. In this paper, the condenser is numerically design to obtain a designated model for a 3kW heat load with 1kW turbine power. This is achieved by obtaining a suitable mass flow rate using the ORC calculation with 70 % turbine efficiency. Apart from that, the design of the condenser also considers; (1) the size of an extruded finned tube, (2) types of working fluid and (3) fluid temperatures. The condenser design point was established for 75:25 of ammonia-water concentration mixture. Theoretical results show that the requirement number of tube, n is 36 tubes. At n=36, the characteristic of the condenser shows the heat transfer coefficient, UA, of the condenser is 88% higher compared to the base fluid. The internal heat convection occur at the condenser is 28% difference with the external heat convection. This is because of the enhancement by factor of thermal conductivity; k of the mixture is higher compare to the base fluid.

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Many athletes use mouth guard to protect their teeth, gums and soft tissues of cheek and mouth during the game as a protection but at the same time they feel problem to breathe improperly which leads to reduction in their stamina, this is because of the design error and improper ventilation space in it for the athletes. This study was conducted to highlight these problems and analyze the effect of air flow in the design of mouthguard. Three different designs of cavity model of air flow channel were analyzed by using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approach. In this case, an ANSYS software was used to observe the air flow characteristic for ventilation purpose and determined the parameter related to it such as velocity, pressure and type of air inside and outside of the athlete’s mouth. The minimum and the maximum value of velocity profile and pressure has been obtained for further design consideration. The design, shape and number of channel on the mouthguard slightly influence the outcome result of analysis.

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Paper demand increases day by day according to current needs and requirements. This condition can affect to uncontrolled felling of trees and the occurrence of unbalanced ecosystem problems. Therefore, a study was made alternatively to use other resources to produce papers. Sodium hydroxide in different content for rice straw paper was studied to know its mechanical and physical properties. Preparation for paper sample process involves several important steps such as the provision of raw materials, preparation of pulp (absorption process, digesting process, rinsing process and mixing process) and sample preparation process (filtration process and drying process). The percentage of NaOH used for each sample are 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25% to varies the NaOH contents of the paper samples and see the effect of the chemical addition different in producing rice straw paper. Testing procedure including tensile, folding endurance, surface roughness, water absorption and FESEM test were implemented according to prescribed standards to see the different in its mechanical and physical properties of rice straw paper. The results showed that increasing the percentage of NaOH will decreases the surface roughness and water absorption rate. Also, the specimen surface when increasing NaOH indicates that the paper has improved fiber structure with fine arrangement to each other. With this, the addition of NaOH are seen to be able to improve fiber properties as well as strengthen ties between the fibers. The results also showed that the J25 using 25% of NaOH has highest tensile strength and folding value.

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The objectives of this study are to evaluate the decrement rate in the ice bath water temperature in different environment conditions and study the decrement rate in the ice bath water temperature using a different pump capability. First, in the study of different environment conditions, the decrement rates of water temperature were tested with and without top cover. In addition, both conditions were tested with there environments i-exposed directly to sunlight, ii-exposed indirectly to sunlight and iii-tested in the air-conditioned rooms. The study was done experimentally using a chiller provided by Institute Jantung Negara (ISN). Second, in the study of the decrement rate in the ice bath water temperature, two pumps with Hilea chiller are considered. Two pumps with different flow rate were used using Hailea chiller model HS-90A where 1400 litre per hour and 4000 litre per hour of pump were tested. All temperature data for each experiment were taken and plotted in the graph using linear equation y = mx + c for each experiment. Using the equation, the duration of time required for the ice bath water temperature reaches 12?C can be evaluated. Therefore, the best experimental conditions can be determined through the shortest period of time. Where the test done in air-conditioned rooms and bath tub with top cover were the best conditions for ice bath cooling process. Whereas, for the test with different pump flow rate, pump A with 1400 liter per hour has a better rate of temperature decrease compared to pumps B with 4000 liters per hour.

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Vibration control have widely used to suppress the vibration of thin walled structure. There are two different types of thin walled properties such as a thin plate with flexural rigidity and without flexural rigidity. To improve modification of thin walled structure, dynamic vibration absorber (DVA) was introduced to reduce vibration on thin structure. This paper demonstrated experimental force vibration by using exciter motor shaker to investigate the dynamical behavior of a thin walled structure attached with DVA. Experimental results, in terms of modal parameters and vibration reduction performance, are compared with numerical approaches which obtained through a finite element model. The measurement result found that when DVA attached to plate structure the vibration amplitude of the controlled mode are significantly reduced by almost 85% and 94% for single and dual DVA attachment, respectively. It concludes that adding more DVA attached on the structure produce better result in vibration reduction.

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Low energy use to produce high power technique is demanding by many industries in order to achieve the economical expenses. Cost and energy still a problematic area for the burner combustion by many industries in the world. Besides, combustion process is a main key point for the performance of burner. Well mixture formation for a spray could achieve the wonderful combustion during the burning process. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the performance of turbulence generators (swirler and fractal grids) to the spray characteristics while related to the prediction of combustion process. The studied parameters include equivalent ratio from lean, stoichiometric and rich, in diesel-air mixture formation and spray characteristics such as spray penetration length, spray angle and spray area. The spray images of different equivalence ratio are taken by the direct photography method with a digital camera. The real spray images with the time changes was analyzed by the image processing technique and the swirler and two types of fractal grids (fractal regular grid and fractal grid) are taken into account of comparison with the based diesel fuel. The result showed that the swirler can easily control the penetration length of the spray from preventing contact to the wall of combustor chamber and it is predicted that the combustion will be more complete due to its short primary spray breakup and reduce the emission produce. Nevertheless, fractal grids have been proven that generated high turbulence intensity with increased the spray penetration length and spray area in this experiment and it is predicted to produce high burning velocity than swirler during the combustion process. Application of fractal grid in burner system could produce high power of combustion with lower energy used. However, the emission produced predicted will be slightly higher.

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Emerging faults are typically associated with excessive heat or heat loss. Capturing these heat images and analyzing them allows a quick solution to be taken. Due to that, thermography infrared is widely used nowadays as a non-destructive testing for a fast detecting variety of defects. In this paper, application of active thermography method for detection of internal pipe defects has been investigated. The main focus of the project is on the identification of two most common defects of pipeline; (i) welding defects, and (ii) erosion defects. Three types of welding defects; crack, undercut and lack of fusion weld and also internal erosion defects with different depth were implemented on an ASTM A53 Gr. B carbon steel pipeline as a prediction model for the experiment. During testing these defects were heated through thermal energy generated by heated water. The result found that with the presence of abnormal feature in these defects, propagation of thermal energy through these defects has directly influenced on the surface temperature of the specimen by inducing a significant thermal contrast between defective and non-defective area. Significant temperature gradient occurred within 35 seconds for 100°C, 90°C and 80°C heated water. The others of 70°C and 60°C were found unstable in producing significant infrared image. The 4mm erosion with 66.67% of penetration depth has always shows the higher temperature. The study concludes that active thermography technique is suitable as a non-destructive method for the detection of internal pipeline defects.

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The rapid compression machine was used for the wide observation region. A number of researchers were conducted the experiments to study on the mixture formation and combustion process was performed in Rapid Compression Machine (RCM). This research shows the injector nozzle geometries play a significant role in flow characteristics, atomization and formation of fuel-air mixture in order to improve combustion performance, and reduce some pollutant products from internal combustion engine system. The aim of this research is to determine the effects of high pressure on flow characteristics of the injector by using Computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Multiphase of volume of fluid (VOF) cavitating flow inside nozzles are determined by means of transient simulations and two-fluid approach is used for performing mixing of Coconut palm oil and air. Nozzle flow simulations resulted that cavitation area is strongly dependent on the nozzle conical injector. Conical hole with k-factor of 2 provides higher flow velocity and turbulent kinetic energy. The results show that the premix injector nozzle conical shape gives impact to the flow characteristics and indirectly affects the emission of the internal combustion engine system.

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The use of acoustic emission (AE) signal in machinery condition has considerable interest due to AE signal characteristics that can refer to machine condition. However, selecting correct AE parameters playing a pivotal role in machinery condition monitoring. This study proposed a methodology of selecting the best parameters of AE based on multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) method. The study aiming at monitoring or modeling enhancement by quantitatively measuring the divergence of AE parameters acquired from 72 operational conditions of industrial reciprocating compressor. In this case, nine out of thirteen AE parameters are selected as the most sensitive parameter to the compressor operational conditions according to MANOVA eta squared (?2). Eventually, the authors believe that using this method can enhance the monitoring or modeling using AE parameter in the field of machinery condition monitoring.

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This paper focuses on the fuzzy logic controller design for improving the single phase induction motor speed control performance. The controller strategy is done through phase angle control method. The phase angle is controlled by controlling the time base firing pulse angle delay of the triac. Based on experimental results, the fuzzy logic controller is a suitable controller to improve the single phase induction motor speed because it able to reduce the rise time, settling time, peak time and overshoot response to 0.10s, 0.17s, 0.29s and 0.09 % OS respectively. Then compares with the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller responses, the fuzzy logic controller responses are better with the rise time (Tr), the settling time (Ts), the peak time (Tp) and the overshoot (% OS) are 0.08s, 0.08s, 0.05s and 0.004% smaller than PID controller.

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The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of low injection pressure and variant ambient temperature towards the ignition delay period and emission. Three types of biodiesel blend which are B5, B10 and B15 were tested in the rapid compression machine (RCM) at low injection pressures of 80 MPa and 90 MPa. The ambient temperature of constant volume chamber (CVC) Ti, cvc, was varied at 70°C and 80°C while the ambient temperature of combustion chamber (CC), Ti,cc, was varied at 70°C and 90°C. The result shows that at specific ambient temperature combination of the CVC and CC, the higher value of ambient temperature combination produces shorter ignition. The initial combustion rate becomes low and the combustion duration became longer. This produces complete combustion process and good fuel conversion efficiency. Too short ignition delay results in decreased premixed combustion, which cannot provide enough energy for subsequent air-fuel mixing. While, with too long ignition delay, ignition occurs late in the expansion stroke that caused incomplete combustion process, reduced power output and poor fuel conversion efficiency. The emission shows that under the condition of higher ambient temperature, the product of CO, O2, and HC becomes lower but results in increasing of NOx level. Increased blends of biodiesel ratio are found to enhance the combustion process, resulting in decreased HC emissions.

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The thin films ceramic oxide can be fabricated by ALD because this technique promises to control the deposition on an atomic scale by sequentially dosing the surface with appropriate chemical precursors, and by promoting surface chemical reactions that are inherently self-limiting. TiO2 has been widely used in photo catalysts, due to its photosensitivity and thermal stability. TiO2 also has strong absorption in the UV range, at around 3.3 eV. ALD deposition cycle and temperature would determine the surface morphology of TiO2 thin films from a very smooth surface to a rough surface, which is important for their functional applications. The combined results of XRD and AFM show that the deposition temperature played an important role in the growth of TiO2 thin films and the phase transition from amorphous to anatase. These results demonstrated a self-limiting of 0.017 - 0.024 nm/cycle growth of the TiO2 thin films using TTIP and H2O, at deposition temperatures ranging from 100°C to 300°C. The optical properties of TiO2 thin films were also influenced by the deposition temperature. In addition, UV luminescence (at 353 nm) was present in the TiO2 thin films deposited at 200°C whereas there was no UV luminescence for pure bulk TiO2.

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In this paper, a framework was developed which will support the development of score metric for supply chain sustainability in design phase. The framework will be used to consolidate the information of sustainability issues involving environmental, social and economic by integrating the design stage and supply chain activities. A list of the current sustainability issues in supply chain, from 2014, will be extracted from five companies namely Apple, Panasonic, Sime Darby, IKEA and Sony. Hence, the current sustainable issue was identified and the proposed framework developed will guide the development of a score metric for sustainable supply chain in the design phase.

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The energy and natural resources being increase due to the growth economic and attention together with the alternative fuel. As one of different solution to these problems, emulsion fuel technology in biodiesel has received close attention because it may provide better combustion efficiency and would contribute to a reduction in emissions, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) or particulate matter (PM). This solution of this issue is by using biodiesel fuel as an alternative fuel from Crude Palm Oil (CPO). CPO is one of the most economical options for producing biodiesel due to the biodegradable properties and preserves energy. This study focuses on the observation of ignition and combustion characteristics of biodiesel-water-air rapid mixing of biodegradable fuel using internally rapid mixing injector in burner combustion. In these experiments, biodiesel fuel derived from the crude palm oil were used in the same nozzle ? = 50° characteristics of burner system. This study focuses on the observation of the real images of the spray characteristics together with equivalence ratio, water content, spray penetration length, spray angle and spray area. Water emulsion of percentage up to 15vol% and blending of biodiesel ratio was varied from 5vol%- 15vol%. The diesel fuel has been compared with based analyzed of real spray images with the times change. The results show the percentage of biodiesel and shows the higher of water content due to the higher viscosity affects.

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Lately, the dumping of electrical and electronic at the market caused by the old electric and electronic goods has become outdated and often thrown away without any awareness of the dangers or about the precious material at goods. Generally the life of electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) just ended in landfills only. These items can be categorized as a valuable commodity and also a dangerous thing if we do not take steps that we should do about this stuff. Valuable materials contained in these products can be recycled, such as copper, aluminum, gold, steel, plastic and many more. However, the dangerous elements contained in the e-waste are chromium, beryllium, lead, mercury and so on. This study is focusing on the investigation of recycling potential of e-waste through manual dismantling process and leaching test. The methods that can be used for leaching are internal chamber and hydrometallurgical methods. These methods are used to obtain a solution containing precious and hazardous metals from the PCB. The leaching test was conducted with constant stirring speed, constant water-sample ratio and variable method. The liquid residue was analyzed by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS). It was found that total time required to dismantle all parts in the waste motor is about 10 minutes and the part that required longest dismantling time was front cover. The metal elements that were observed are Zn, Cu, Mn, Pb and Cr. It was found that the pH of the solution increased with the increasing leaching time.

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In this study, the effect of different amount and particle size of SiC susceptor on the heating rate and properties of sintered magnesium prepared by microwave sintering has been investigated. Magnesium powder was compacted to produce green sample and then sintered at temperature 553°C in the microwave oven by using different amount of SiC susceptor i.e. 25 g, 50 g and 100 g and different particle size of 6 µm and 125 µm, respectively. In this study, the hardness test, density test and microstructure observation had been tested. The magnesium sample which has been sintered with 100 g and 6 µm SiC susceptor produced highest heating rate, and highest hardness and density value. From micro structural observation, the grain boundary can be clearly seen with low porosity in all samples. It can be concluded that, sintered sample with 100 g and 6 µm was the optimum amount and particle size of SiC susceptor which could improve heating rate during the sintering process and mechanical and physical properties of sintered magnesium.

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Experiment has been conducted to study the flame spread behavior over combined fabric of cotton/polyester. Samples are ignited from the top edge and spread to the downward direction. Experiment is conducted for several weft trade angles from 0° to 90°. It is found that a significant difference is seen in the shape of burning front between ? = 0° and ? = 90°. This phenomenon is influenced by the shrinking behavior of polyester thread at most preceding point of flame front for these angles. The flame spread rate is measured, which is obtained from the position of the most preceding point of the burning front at each time, at different weft thread angle. The result shows that the flame spread rate decreases as the angle increases.

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In order to remain competitive in today’s technologically driven world, companies try to determine the optimal settings of design attribute of new products from which the best customer satisfaction can be obtained. Identification of customer requirements is the starting point of design process. Most of design approaches focus on technical domains to define customer requirements. However, the success of product design nowadays goes beyond technical features; it often depends heavily on multi-facets of customers’ needs including various business parameters. In this paper, a method of incorporating customer requirements for criteria assessment in design evaluation process has been developed. The first stage of the methodology selects the criteria and identifying parameters. The second stage calculates the weight of TRIZ (an acronym for the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). Case examples from industry are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methodology. The result of the example shows that the application of TRIZ in assessing criteria by incorporating customer requirements provides an alternative to existing methods.

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Air flow behaviour plays an important role in order to provide better air fuel mixture inside the intake manifold for port fuel injection (PFI) system before it is drawn to the combustion chamber. This paper presents a computational fluid dynamics study that investigates the air flow behaviour inside different intake manifold angles. This study is a continuation from the author’s previous studies that have been conducted by experiment and simulation study using a different simulation tool (GT-POWER). Six angles of intake manifold have been investigated using CFX simulation tool which are 30°, 60°, 90°, 120°, 150°, and 180°. From the study, results indicated 180° as the best option for intake manifold angle due to better air flow behaviour inside the intake manifold. This show an agreement to the previous submitted results that was done by using GT-POWER.

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Metal injection molding (MIM) is a net shaping process in order to achieve the desired molded part via mass production using metal or ceramic powder. MIM is drawing much attention as a promising technique which is leads to a large scale production of metalworking with precision and complex in geometry. It is an elegant blend of metal injection molding, based on the use of fine metal powder particles mixed with binder to form a feedstock that can be molded. The granulated feedstock is then given a shape using an injection molding machine. Stainless Steel 316L (SS316L ) and Natural hydroxyapatite (NHAP) powder derived from tilapia fish bones has been chosen as a model materials mixed with an established binders. Polyethylene glycol (PEG), Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and Stearic Acid (SA) were acted as binder systems. Moreover, the optimum powder loading that have been used are 63 vol. % and 64 vol. %. The feedstock was mixed by using Platograph brabinder at 70°C within 95 minutes duration. The feedstock completely filled the injection mold cavity at 155°C of molding temperature in order to produce a green part. The density and strength of the green part was determined. Green Part with 64 vol. % powder loading has higher density which is equal to 4.7159 g/cm3 while 63 vol. % powders loading are 4.6462 g/cm3. In terms of green strength, feedstock with 64 vol. % powder loading has higher maximum stress with the value 14.8415 Mpa compared to 63 vol. % powders loading has 12.1714 Mpa maximum stress.

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The development simulation model of quantum dot (QD) laser is performed based upon rate equations for the carriers and photons in energy states. The rate equation is solved by using Matlab, Runge-Kutta method. In this paper shown that by increasing carrier injection to the active medium of laser, switching-on and stability time of the system would decrease while output power at peak and stationary will be increased. Indirect (non-instantaneous) carrier injection into QD is an essential component of our model and it describes the actual situation for QD laser.

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Metal foams can be classified as lightweight materials which are low densities, having a unique combination of physical and mechanical properties, energy absorption and good thermal conductivity. 316L Stainless Steel has widely used by researchers as material to fabricate metal foams due to its high-strength-to weight ratio, biocompatibility and corrosion resistance and successfully used in implant applications. The major challenges that need to focused while producing metal foam is the mismatch of the properties between bones and the metallic material. Due to this mechanical mismatch, bone is insufficiently loaded and become stress shielded, which eventually leads to bone resorption. Thus, there are factors need to be considered includes the interconnecting pores that suitable with bone, the pores, shape and density of the implants same with the pores, shape and density of the bone. This research is to fabricate the 316L Stainless Steel (SS316L) foam prepared by Compaction technique and to study and characterize the properties of SS316L foam after sintering process. The SS316L have used as a raw material and Polyethylene glycol (PEG) and Carbamide are used as a binder and space holder respectively. The material was mixed by using ball milling machine to get the homogenous mixture. After that the compaction process was held by using conventional axial pressing. This process is known as powder metallurgy technique. The Properties Characterization was measured by doing density and porosity test, Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).

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Alternative fuels on internal combustion engine (ICE) recently becomes an attention due to the concern on environment protection, needs on reducing dependency on fossil fuels and meets current stringent regulation. Methanol is one of the attractive alternative fuel due to its ability to produce from a renewable resources and it is oxygenated, therefore it has the potential to achieve better engine performance and emission in spark ignition engine. Currently, only few of research paper discuss the methanol fuel in the collective form of information including adverse effect of methanol usages and responses in spark ignition engine performance and emissions. Due to this reason, this paper will focus on the applications and challenges with recent literature data of methanol fuel specifically for spark ignition engines. The first part of this review will be discuss on the advantages and disadvantages of the application of methanol fuels. Also discuss is the published research result on the engine performance and emission using methanol-gasoline fuel blends. The second part will focus on the recent trends and challenges in the research of methanol fuels for the past ten years. The findings show further improvements need to be done on current methanol fuel in areas such as; specifying acceptable range for current gasoline engine operation, ensuring safety in storing and handling methanol-gasoline blends, and validating the long term effects of the fuel compatibility.

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Rice husk ash (RHA) possesses high content of amorphous silica that is essential in pozzolanic reaction of supplementary cementing material (SCM) in concrete strength enhancement. However, usage of conventional RHA is unfavorable in current concrete industry. One of the reason that hindered the utilization of conventional RHA nowadays is due to its properties inconsistency namely chemical and mineralogical properties. In this regard, improvement on the RHA properties by introduction of chemical pretreatment prior to burning procedure is seen as an excellent way to reach the goal. In this research, raw rice husk was soaked in 0.1M hydrochloric acid (HCl) solution from one to three hours. After that, the pretreated rice husk was ground using planetary ball mill for 15 minutes. The effect of pretreatment soaking time to alkali metal removal and its chemical composition, mineralogical properties, particle size analysis as well as specific surface area of ultrafine treated rice husk ash (UFTRHA) were determined accordingly. As for alkali metal removal analysis, potassium element had the highest removal concentration with value of 55.35 mg/l. Meanwhile, amorphous silica content of the optimum sample was recorded as 96.00% at three hours of pretreatment soaking period. In terms of particle size and specific surface, it was also observed that, three hours of pretreatment soaking duration was sufficient to produce finest size of UFTRHA where d(0.1), d(0.5) and d(0.9) were obtained as 1.417µm, 4.493µm and 14.884µm respectively and the largest specific surface area of 196.61m2/g.

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This paper presents an overview on the possibilities of interior noise reduction for monorail system. It was found that the current existing noise level could further be mitigated by using passive means. Thus, nine samples out of three materials were subjected for noise test and the performance of each sample was observed. It was found that all of these samples have proved to reduce a significant amount of noise at low and high frequencies, even though the amount reduced, varies from one sample to another. It is also been noticed that this reductions were dominated by means of absorption for some samples such as those from rubber material, and it was dominated by means of reflection for some others such as those from aluminum composite and paper composite. Moreover, from the acoustic properties of each material, the whereabouts to install every material is proposed. Hence, it was suggested that, the rubber material should be installed on the upper floor of the monorail, while the paper composite should be installed under the floor, and the aluminum composite should be installed at the outer parts from the monorail such as the apron door, ceiling, etc. However, despite the promising potentials of these materials to reduce noise, there were few uncertainties with some samples at certain frequency. For example, samples from aluminum composite could not reduce noise at 1250 Hz, which denotes that it is not a good practice to use this material at that frequency. In terms of ranking, samples from rubber material reduced the largest amount followed by paper composite samples, and aluminum composite samples held the least position with an average of 26.46%, 24.69% and 16.05% respectively as for the third sample in every material.

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Corporate sustainability starts with a company’s value system and a principled approach to doing business. This means operating in ways that, at a minimum, meet fundamental responsibilities in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Over the years, national and international efforts to identify an appropriate sustainability indicator have been consistent. However, such efforts to assess sustainability with regards to the principles derived in UN Global Compact initiative are not known in the context of automotive-related industries in Malaysia. Due to that, the level of corporate sustainability awareness and development of tools to manage, monitor and improve the sustainability performance at all stages of the decision making process is yet to be explored. In this study, the Green Project Management (GPM) P5 Integration Matrix is used to understand the perception of Malaysian consumers towards companies which practice sustainability as part of their business culture. This study will provide guidelines to the R&D engineers and project managers to incorporate sustainability assessment as part of their product development phases.

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Nanostructures Zinc Oxide (ZnO) are promising candidates for novel application in solar cells, sensors, emerging transistors and optoelectronic devices. ZnO nanostructures have been successfully synthesized by using the hydrothermal technique on Zn substrates at 120 °C. The effect of synthesis condition from different deposition times and pH of alkaline precursor which played a role in the crystallization process were studied by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction spectra and atomic force microscopy. The I-V characteristic of the ZnO nanostructues were characterized with solar simulator. The results demonstrate that the morphology of ZnO nanostructures are determined by the growth temperature, the overall concentration of the precursors and deposition time. The formation mechanisms of different ZnO morphologies were also investigated based on the experimental results.

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Wall structure plays important roles in supporting the superstructures, separates spaces in buildings into sections and delineates a space in open air. Most of the construction of house in Malaysia use bricks and mortar which consists of cement, aggregates and water as the materials to build the structure of wall. However, cement and bricks manufacturing process will contribute to a high emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) which may lead to global warming. Therefore, objective of this paper is to find an alternative solution to reduce this environmental problem. The alternative way that can solve the problem is by replacing the use of bricks in building construction by plastic bottles filled with sand as we called it plastic bottle green house. Reuse of these non-biodegradable plastic bottles not only can solve the environmental problem, but it can also reduce the pollution. The main concern of this project is the strength of bottle bricks. Therefore, there were two types of experiments were used to evaluate the properties of bricks and plastic bottle filled with sand which are compression test and temperature test in indoor and outdoor of wall structure. The compression test is prepared for 1.5L bottle brick, 250ml bottle brick and common clay brick. As a results, the strength of 1.5L and 250ml bottle bricks is 3 and 4 times respectively stronger compare to common clay brick. The comparison of indoor and outdoor wall temperature, air humidity and wind velocity between the plastic bottle green house and normal brick house has indicate that plastic bottle has recorded highest reading for outdoor wall temperature with 36°C and lowest reading on outdoor humidity and outdoor wind velocity with 78% and 0.8 m/s respectively. From these result it can be concluded that plastic bottle green house have a potential as a wall construction material and further study on its other properties such as its lifespan and ratio between water, cement and sand usage as a mortar should be carried out.

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Proper Power generation piezoelectric vibrations have been proven to be an attractive technology for harvesting small magnitudes of energy from ambient vibrations. In recent years, energy harvesting to obtain electrical energy from the energy that exists around the body (energy harvesting) technology is attracting attention. This work investigates the optimization of a micro piezoelectric cantilever system using a genetic algorithm based approach with numerical simulations. The genetic algorithm globally considers the effects of each parameter to produce an optimal frequency response to scavenge more energy from the real vibrations while the conventional sinusoidal based method can only optimize the resistive load for a given resonant frequency. Focus on the method of using the electrostatic induction which gives high conversion efficiency. Step by step manufacturing process slider chip discussed. Research toward an independence operation of the fabrication mechanical sensor network terminal and introduces the micro vibration power generation technology has been developed. Experimental acceleration data from the vibrations cover demonstrates that the optimized harvester automatically selects the right frequency and also synchronously optimizes the damper and the resistive load beneficial in contributing a performance wise for output energy. This method shows great potential for optimizing the energy harvesting systems with real vibration data.

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The paper highlight the study on replacement analysis of amine circulation pumps installed at a gas processing complex. The pumps were commissioned in 1998. Analysis on operation and maintenance costs as well as price of noncompliance (PONC) during the last three years indicated increasing trends for both costs. Since the pumps are more than sixteen years old the increasing trends of both costs are expected. It is then appropriate to consider a replacement for the pumps. The study on replacement was undertaken. Marginal cost (MC) and equivalent uniform annual cost (EUAC) were used to analyse the old pumps (defenders) and the new pumps (challengers) respectively. The MC of the defenders was then compared with the EUAC of the challengers. Results from the analysis indicate the MC of defenders are very much higher than EUAC of the challengers even for the year 2015. Thus it is recommended the defenders to be replaced with the challengers. Sensitivity analysis on the challengers indicates that the energy cost has the greatest influence on the present worth of the challengers.

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Nanostructured thin film has been extensively study because they exhibit better structural, optical, and electrical properties. Generally, the the photocatalytic activity was relying on adapting condition of the material to be composited. These composite materials will be manipulated the particles size, crystallographic phase and morphology of the nanocrystallite according to condition of method preparation. Thin films of TiO2, ZnO, and TiO2/ZnO were deposited on microscope glass slides by sol gel dip coating technique. The titanium dioxide (TiO2) solution was obtained from titanium (IV) butoxide and butanol as the precursor, while zinc oxide (ZnO) solution was obtained from zinc acetate dehydrate and isopropanol as the precursor. Both of solution was ageing for 24 hours and different calcination temperatures used to calcined the thin films (400 oC, 500 oC, 600 oC). The thin films were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). In this study, the effect of temperature show difference results of single layer and bilayer thin films. The result of XRD shows when the temperature increase, the thin films provide a good crystallization phase in which the structure of the diffraction peaks higher. From the AFM analysis, the surface roughness and the grain size increases as the temperature increase. Based on the characterization was carried out, the increase in temperature has influenced the distribution on the phase structure. The intensity of nanostructure thin films and also the smooth and compacted surface roughness were controlled by the temperature.

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Cemented carbides are often referred to as “hard metals” due to the excellent combination of hardness and toughness characteristics. In order to increase the corrosion resistance and mechanical properties of the surfaces, cermet materials have been largely used for application on steels, generally using the high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) technique as well as the applications of electrodeposited composite coatings. This study compares the corrosion resistance of cermet based coatings which consist of WC 17%Co, WC-9%Ni, Ni electrodeposited coatings and Ni-SiC electrodeposited coatings. They were produced by two different methods of HVOF spraying process and electrodeposited methods onto AISI 1018 steel plates. The microstructure of the coatings was examined by scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The coatings were characterized before and after corrosion test to evaluate the surface morphology. The hardness of the coatings also been investigated by using Vickers micro hardness tester. Electrochemical polarization tests were performed in 0.5 M H2SO4 aqueous solution and 30% bentonite solution. Thus, the smallest grain size of 1.2522 µm were found in WC-9%Ni which is in agreement with its highest value of hardness which is 1625.37 HV. The WC-Co shows the highest corrosion rate in acidic environment with noticeably corroded appearance of the tested surface compare to other coatings. Ni-SiC electrodeposited coating shows the lowest corrosion rate of 4.287 mm/y in acidic medium while for bentonite solution; WC-9%Ni coating shows the lowest corrosion rate of 0.0626 mm/y. It can be observed that this type of coatings have high corrosion resistance in respective environment. In conclusion, the corrosion resistance and hardness of the specimens are depends on the grain size of the coatings as well as composition of the coatings.

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This paper presents the fabrication process of custom-made mouthguard with added features of air flow channel by using rapid tooling approach. Impression process was conducted in order to produce dental stone that will be used in thermoforming process to fabricate the custom-made mouthguard. Computer-aided design (CAD) were utilized to prepare the air flow channel’s design before attaching it at the custom-made mouthguard and then forming the master pattern for the vacuum casting process. The design was printed using 3D printer machine. Two samples of mouthguard with different number of layers and thicknesses of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) sheets were produced by using thermoforming. The resulting mouthguards was analysed and it was concluded that the thicker ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) sheets will require higher melting and and also cooling temperature. Same goes to the hardness of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) will affect the melting and cooling temperature. Silicone mould was produced by using vacuum casting process. The mixture of silicone was de-gassed in vacuum to remove the presence of air bubbles that will affect the mould and product. Cold cure acrylic resin of Meliodent rapid repair was used as the material of the features part. The resulting custom-made mouthguard with added features was analysed. The acrylic resin attached with the ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) sheets with the aid of monomer that applied onto the surface of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) before pouring the resin. Although the process is successfully adhered both of the materials, the strength of the bonding is still merely weak and might detached if some force applied on it. Therefore this mouthguard with added feature is not ready to be used in sports due to its weak bonding strength. Further improvements should be done to enhance the fabrication process of the custom-made mouthguard with added feature.

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High silica content makes rice husk an important non-metallicprecursor for silica nano particle production that worth researchers attraction. Moreover, rice husk is considered to be cost-effective and widely available agro waste bioresource. In this investigation, bio-silica nanoparticles were produced using rice husk as precursor. Under reflux heating, the husks were acid pretreated to remove inorganic impurities and induce the hydrolysis of organic substances. Residual solid husks from the acidpre treatment were thencalcinedat973K.Morphology and non crystal structure of the bio-silica nanoparticles was analyzed by TEM and XRD. An aggregate of primary particles having amorphous structure was seen with detection of negligible impurities. This was confirmed by the EDX elemental profile of Si and O as the observed peaks which indicate high purity of the generated silica nanoparticles. This also corroborated the XRF result of 99.761% SiO2.BET surface area of 234.6380m2/gwith a pore diameter of 5.3304nm were obtained from the analysis. This characterized the silica nanoparticles to be of high surface area.

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Plain fatigue and fretting fatigue behavior of AISI 304 austenitic stainless steel has been investigated by carrying out fatigue tests and fretting fatigue tests using 304 austenitic stainless steel specimens with two different heat treatment conditions (solution treated and solution treated + sensitized condition). The results showed that the plain fatigue behavior (with out fretting) was highly influenced by heat treatment conditions. However the fretting fatigue behavior was not significantly influenced by heat treatment conditions. The results were explained based on the crack initiation mechanisms and frictional stress measurement during fretting fatigue.

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Failure of solder joints has been a serious reliability problem in microelectronic packages. This phenomenon is more prevail in die-attach industry, particularly in power semiconductor whereby the electronic components is often exposed to high operating temperature. The formation and growth of the intermetallic compound (IMC) layer between the solder and the substrate tends to change accordingly to the operating temperature of the solder joint. A thick IMC layer containing coarse intermetallic compounds may adversely affect the mechanical properties and performance of the solder joint. It is often reasoned that the mechanical integrity of the solder joint is degraded by the inherent brittleness of the IMC layer since cracking can readily occur when the joint is mechanically or thermally stressed. In present work, the shear strength of Pb-2.5Ag-2Sn and Sn-25Ag-10Sb solder joints on copper (Cu) substrate, a widely used material as bond pad in electronic packaging industry is studied. The two types of solder used are of lead-based and lead-free solder that are commonly used in automotive application. The use of shear testing is included in the study to evaluate accelerated thermo-cycling as a method that has commonly been used for reliability assessment and lifetime prediction. Thermal aging accelerates the development of cracks and structural changes that will eventually weaken a solder joint.

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The compressive residual stresses are particularly beneficial on the surface. It tends to increase fatigue strength and fatigue life, slow crack propagation, and increase resistance to environmentally assist cracking. Compressive residual stress can be achieved by coating process and surface treatment like blasting. Therefore, the research is concern on the behavior of compressive residual when applied coating followed by micro blasting on the surface. Titanium Aluminum Nitride (TiAlN) was deposited onto high speed steel substrate by reactive direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering with targets of titanium and aluminum. Thereafter the coated TiAlN was micro blasted with alumina (Al2O3) powder of the size of 48 µm applied to the coated surface to induce compressive residual stress. Taguchi method was utilized with four control factors of impact angle, time and distance between sample and blasting nozzle. Apart from that, the factors were also inclusive of four noise factors to get the most optimum condition. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that TiAlN coating phase without blasting had lower compressive residual stress rather than the TiAlN coating phase combined with micro blasting. The results showed that micro blasting with alumina oxide powder increased 52.5% surface micro hardness and 57.6% adhesion strength of the TiAlN coated high speed steel.

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Oil palm Mesocarp from oil palm tree is an abundant natural fiber which found in Malaysia. This work was carried out to investigate the sound absorption coefficient of the oil palm Mesocarp fiber also categorized as porous material. These natural fiber were intermixed with Polyurethane (PU) as binder. Various binder percentages are; 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% used. The measurement of sound absorption coefficient was done by using analytical and experimental method where Johnson-Champoux-Allard model as analytical and Impedance Tube Method experiment respectively. This study also investigated the physical properties of the prepared samples. PU compresses the fiber gaps tightly causing the pores closed and consequently resulting in lower flow resistivity and porosity. The viscous characteristic length and density were inversely towards the value of flow resistivity and porosity. It shows that increase of binder percentage produced more compacted (denser) material and thereby, stiffness of the material was affected. The result of Johnson-Champoux-Allard model predicted the absorption coefficient very well and similar to the experimental. The sample with 10% PU binder shows the greater performance in most of low to mid frequency range. However, sample with 20% PU binder reach the high value of sound absorption of 0.99 at 1000 Hz. Finally, it can be concluded that oil palm Mesocarp can be classified as sound absorption material which accomplished in this research and shows that, it’s capable to be used as sound absorption panel in various applications.

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Metal matrix composites (MMCs) represent a relatively new class of materials characterized by lighter weight and greater wear resistance than those of conventional materials. The particle-reinforced aluminium nitric composites, which are among the most widely used composites materials, are rapidly replacing the conventional materials in various industries like aerospace, marine, and automotive. These materials are known to be difficult to machine because of the hardness and abrasive nature of reinforcement element with Aluminium Nitride. In this study, based on tool wear in drilling of metal matrix composite using uncoated carbide, TiCN and TiN coated drill bit. Experiments are conducted on a CNC Vertical Milling Centre KONDIA B-640 using twist drills bit of 6mm diameter. The parameters of the drilling machining used are the speed of 1000 rpm, 1500 rpm, and 2000 rpm and the feed rate is 50 mm/min, 100 mm/min and 150 mm/min. The depth of the cutting are made constant. The experimental results are collected and analyzed using Taguchi method commercial software package MINITAB 17. It was found that optimum parameters are: uncoated, 1000 rpm, 150 mm/min. The optimum parameter obtained will help the automotive industry to have a competitive machining operation in the drilling process from an economic perspective and manufacturing.

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Nowadays, a laptop computer is one of the electronic devices that important for students to use as a learning aid during their studies. However, an existing laptop computer always has a problem in terms of hardware quality which may cause perishable and unfriendly hardware repairs. In this paper, an existing laptop computer towards sustainable development is investigated and propose a new design concept of laptop computer based on consideration of environmental, economic and societal aspects. Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) methodology and Design for Disassembly (DfD) approach are used along the process of investigation and improvement. The DFSS methodology uses six phases which each phase is integrated with a design tool; Define phase uses questionnaire for gathering information of customers’ needs, Measure phase uses Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method to measure customer satisfaction, Analyze phase uses Morphological Chart and Weighted Rating Method to generate new concepts and select the final concept, Design phase uses Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) software that involves in designing and assembly of laptop computer components, and Verify phase uses Solid Works sustainability analysis to compare the proposed design concept of laptop computer with two existing products. DfD approach has been implemented during Analyze phase of DFSS in order to improve the design of laptop computer to be disassembled for easier maintenance, enhance serviceability and configurations that allow for cost-effective separation and other related processes including reuse, remanufacture and recycling concept of laptop computer components. As a summary, a new design of laptop computer has been illustrated to overcome the stated problem. This study is intentionally proposed for the future laptop computer design configurations in order to achieve sustainable development goals.

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In this research, optical observations, X- ray diffraction and hardness measurements were used to investigate the effects of yttrium (Y) additions on as cast ZRE1 magnesium alloy. 0.75 wt.% Y was added and compared with the base alloy. The microstructure results show the refinement of the grain by the addition of Y and the grains became smaller about 32 %, which led to the increment of hardness from 50 HV (as-cast ZRE1) to 56.6 HV (as-cast ZRE1+0.75 Y). Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) results showed that the base alloy mainly contained a-Mg matrix and Mg-Zn-Ce as a second phase crystallized along the grain boundaries and with the addition of Y, Mg-Zn-Y-Ce phase was found as a new second phase, where Y combined with the original second phase, which confirmed by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) results and also there is no other phases was formed by the Y addition.

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The use of Riblet was inspired by the surface of shark skin. The skin of fast swimming sharks are covered by tiny scales named dermal denticles (skin teeth) and are shaped similar to small riblets which are allinged in the direction of fluid flow. They are micro in size and viewed closely, they for the shape of a saw tooth. Riblets are most widely made into films and are micro scaled. Placing riblets on the surface of an airfoil have shown a decent percentage of drag reduction to the airfoil. In this research study, simulation testing were done on riblets with different dimension in the height and spacing of riblets. Ultimately the application of riblets on airfoils has proven a decent result. The optimized riblet dimension further reduced drag up to approximately 46%.

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Pull system is one of lean manufacturing tools. This system is a method of regulating the flow of goods inside the factory and from outside suppliers or customer. The system is based on automatic replenishment through signal cards that indicate when the goods or parts are needed. Currently in Autokeen Sdn. Bhd., the manufacturing process is based on the daily requirement output schedule. The production line only produced goods according to the schedule. As a result, overproduction of the goods usually occurred. Many goods were stored for a long period in the inventory due to low demand from customer. Thus, some of the parts have started to corrode. The tarnished goods need to be reworked before shipping to the customer. This study is to improve the worksite controls for pull system by investigating the current condition and efficiency of pull system. Then improvement plans have been proposed which suitable for the pull system to be implemented. As a result, this system will avoid overproduction, minimize the inventory and reduce rework process. Thus, all of these improvements will definitely reduce waste. Furthermore, the manufacturing cost will be decreased and the manufacturing processes become more efficient.

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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system is a technology that use large number of tags communicates with small number of readers. This situation leads to the problem of determining the readability of Passive RFID Transponders based on the limited range of the reader-to-tag communication. For this reason several algorithms have been developed in order to optimize RFID tag coverage for improving functional procedures. Nature Inspired Algorithms applied to find RFID Optimal tag coverage. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is used as an optimization technique because its fast in operation speeds, easy to implement and fewer parameters need to be adjusted. To improve accuracy, maximize the tracking precision and minimize the reader consumption it's hybridized with many techniques. The artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) is another optimization algorithm which is distinguished as a simple algorithm with high flexibility, strong robustness, few control parameters, ease of combination with other methods, ability to handle the objective with stochastic nature, fast convergence, and both exploration and exploitation. Finally the bacterial foraging optimization (BFO) as a global optimization algorithm optimizes the local minima, direction of movement, randomness, swarming and attraction/ repelling. All these algorithms presented in this paper.

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The findings regarding the wind velocity and its contribution to the power of wind energy are discussed in this paper. It involves a statistical analysis of its wind regime, the probability distribution of wind speed and power analysis. A rigorous selection of the probability distribution leads to an unambiguous power analysis. The main distribution selected is Weibull and Gama probability distribution. The wind power equation is derived through transformation method and the outcome of wind power analysis demonstrates the feasibility for the efficient extraction of wind energy in Malaysia. This paper suggests the potential of Mersing area for generating wind power.

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Boronized stainless steel often contained insufficient thickness layer because the existences of high alloying element hinder the diffusion process that resulted into low hardness and wear properties. Thus, in this study, improvement of dispersion layer was performed by inducing surface deformation onto the surface of the material. The main objectives of this study is to investigate the effect single and double sand blasting on the abrasion and erosion wear properties of 304 stainless steel. Pin on disk tester was used in order to obtain the value of coefficient of friction that indicated the wear resistances and slurry erosion test rig was used to obtain the erosion wear properties. Surface deformation was conducted through single and double shot blasting process before boronizing was performed. The results indicated that by performing double shot blasting process, enhancement of dispersion layer was achieved, thus lead to enhancement of both abrasion and erosion wear behavior.

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There has been numerous published literature related to lean production. However, very limited studies have been found focusing on the selection of lean production tools and techniques especially for Malaysian context. The review is based on the contemporary literature that published between year 2004 to 2014. The main databases used were Science Direct, Scopus and Emerald. The review gives general pictures of the selection and implementation of lean tools and techniques in various industries and the factors that affect the selection process. The analysis showed that there was no study yet on the selection of lean production tools and techniques specifically in Malaysia by using rational decision making process. Therefore, this gap requires further research on the selection of appropriate lean production tools and techniques by considering several critical decision criteria.

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Recently printed electronic field is significantly growth. Printed electronic is to develop electrical devices by printing method. Conventional printing method that has been studied for this kind of printed electronic such as flexographic, micro contact printing, screen printing, gravure and ink jet. In flexographic and micro contact printing, a printing plate is used to transfer the designed and desired pattern to substrate through conformed contact. Therefore printing plate is play a big role in this area. Printing plate making by photopolymer which used in flexographic have limitation in achieving a micro-scale of pattern size. However, printing plate of micro contact printing have an advantages in producing micro, even nano-scale size by PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane). Hence, rapid prototyping 3D printer was used for developing a PDMS micro-scale printing plate which will be used in reel to reel (R2R) flexographic due to high speed, low cost, mass production of this type of printing process. The flexibility of 3D printer in producing any shape of pattern easily, contributed the success of this study.A nikel plating and glass etching master pattern was used in this study too as master pattern mould since 3D printer has been reached the micro size limitation. The finest multiple solid line array with 1mm width and 2mm gap pattern of printing plate was successfully fabricated by 3D printer master mould due to size limitation of the FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printer nozzle itself. However, the micro-scale multiple solid line array of 100micron and 25micron successfully made by nikel platting and glass etching master mould respectively. Those types of printing plate producing method is valuable since it is easy, fast and low cost, used for micro-flexographic in printed electronic field or biomedical application.

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Continuous improvement is one of the core strategies for excellence in production. In semiconductor industries, they manage to be more competitive by increasing their productivity and producing a variety of products in a large quantity at a low processing time. The goal of this study is to develop the universal parts on pick and place (PnP) machine and reduce on the setup time that impacted to the overall output of the products. The Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method as a supported tool was used for the development of this universal part. Then, production rate of three different products before and after improvement of the parts were recorded. The results revealed that the overall rate of production was improved up to 13.3 %. In addition, total errors from the PnP machine between the current and the new parts design significantly can be reduced up to 6 %.

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This paper presents the behavior of empty and foam-filled conical aluminum tubes under dynamic axial and oblique loading. The effect of foam filling on the energy absorption for variation in geometrical parameter and filler density was evaluated and discussed. This study employs a nonlinear finite element model which was validated against experiment data. The validated model was subsequently used to assess the beneficial of foam filling with respect to the variation of geometry and filler density. The identification of Critical Effective Point (CEP) with the approach taken in varying the semi apical angle and by keeping the bottom diameter constant are advantageous to enhance the Specific Energy Absorption (SEA) of foam-filled tube over that of empty tube. These approaches are however, apply to only particular combination of geometrical parameters and filler density thus highlights the importance of appropriate selection of these parameters in achieving efficient performance of energy absorber particularly under dynamic axial loading. The information established in this study will facilitate the future development of thin-walled tubes for impact applications.

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In order for organizations to improve their performance, they shall identify their operations opportunities for improvement. The process to identify the opportunities for improvement is referred herein as “diagnosis” process. The most common systematic operations diagnosis and improvement approaches are Quality Audit, Organizational Assessment based on Business Excellence Framework and Project Selection for Lean and Six Sigma. All these three approaches should be integrated in order to grasp the fruitful benefits for the organizations. The benefits include; minimize redundancies, improve the operations performance and eventually assist in achieving certification and award. This paper proposes the enablers for operations diagnosis and improvement based on integration of ISO19011 Quality Audit framework, Business Excellence Framework and Lean Six Sigma approaches.

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This project presents optimum efficiency improvement of the automotive jack assembly production line by using line balancing in AutokeenSdn. Bhd. (AKSB). Implementation of Lean to regulate works on floor has increase the manufacturing performance. Several improvement steps have been applied throughout the project to measure impact of improving the current system such as rearranging the arrangement of the parts, eliminating unnecessary activities of the assembly processes, reducing the cycle time, and balancing manpower workload using line balancing through Yamazumi chart and Takt time. The results of the improvement have been compared to the current system in term of the value of efficiency of the production line.

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In this study, functionally graded natural fiber/epoxy (FGNF/epoxy) hybrid composite cylinders were fabricated using casting method. Coir husk and empty fruit bunch (EFB) were two type of natural fiber (NF) used in this work. The mechanical properties and microstructure of the composite were determined. Three different pouring height and compositions of NF were investigated i.e. 150, 250 and 300 mm and sample 1 (80% of epoxy, 10% of coir husk, 10% of EFB), sample 2 (80% of epoxy, 15% of coir husk, 5% of EFB) and sample 3 (80% of epoxy, 5 % of coir husk 15 % of EFB), respectively. As for comparison, the epoxy cylinder contains 100 % of epoxy was fabricated (Sample 4). In order to characterize the FGNF/epoxy cylinders fabricated, the hardness, density and compression test were carried out. From the observation, it is found that the NF particles can be graded from upper to lower surface of the FGNF/epoxy cylinders by casting. Many NF particles concentrated at the middle and bottom part rather than at the top part of composite. The hardness and density test results show that the hardness and density value along the cylinder vary from the highest value at the lower surface to the lowest value at the upper surface due to the differences of NF composition along the cylinder. Due to difference in density of NF causes the natural fiber particles move to downward by gravity during casting. The compression test result show that sample 1 and sample 2 has recorded the highest and the lowest Young’s modulus, respectively. The Young’s modulus and yield strength of FGNF/epoxy is higher than pure epoxy cylinder composite. It appears that FGNF/epoxy with a gradient in NF composition is superior to the homogeneous composite.

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The creep-strength enhanced ferritic (CSEF) materials are enormously used for noncorrosive high-temperature application with very high strength at elevated temperatures. The use of these materials for steam piping, super-heater headers, boiler tubes, boiler drum and pressure vessels in supercritical power plants, do require special attention and consideration as the cost of repair is normally higher than the original work cost. The aim of this paper is to provide the guidelines for necessary checks and inspections to be carried out to prevent any defect or premature failure of welds. The focus of these guides, supplement to the well-known ASME and EN standards, is the welding of CSEF materials for combined cycle, supercritical and ultra-supercritical power plants. Assessment of base metal and filler materials, prior to start of any activity is vital for a quality weld. The qualifications of welding procedures and welders obligatorily be done according to the welding procedure specification. The welding techniques and associated equipment come in precautionary phase. The welding input parameters require strict control during welding and appropriate preheat and post weld heat treatments mandatorily be carried out, It is noted that if applicable and appropriate checks are carried out, the weld with required properties can be made and premature failure of these sensitive welds can easily be prevented.

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Electro spinning can be used to produce nanoscale polymeric fibers. The fibrous structure inherent in the electro spun scaffolds provides large surface area and high porosity that allow the scaffolds to be potentially used for various applications including tissue engineering, wound dressing and filtration. However, it is difficult to control microstructure morphology of electro spun scaffolds, which is sensitive to various parameters. This paper reviews ways to control three important microstructure morphologies including fiber diameter, the formation of beads and pores. The review shows that electro spinning parameters including polymer solution concentration, voltage, tip-collector distance, solution feed rate, solvent selection, addition of salt, polymer molecular weight and humidity affect the scaffold morphology. Knowledge of complex interactions of these interrelated variables is still lacking. The review gives insight for the robust production of fibrous scaffolds with controlled microstructure morphology by using an electro spinning technique.

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A two step heterogeneous catalyzed process of high free fatty acids (FFA) rubber seed oil was conducted to produce biodiesel in lab scale. Acid esterification process was first used to reduced the high FFA rubber seed oil from 78.9% to below 1%. The low cost cockle shell was utilized as a source of CaO heterogeneous catalyst by calcinations process and its effect on transesterification process was studied. The optimum yield of 88.06% was obtained for the final product of biodiesel under optimal conditions of 16:1 molar ratio of methanol to oil, 9% catalyst weight percentage with 3 hours reaction time. All fuel properties were analyzed according to the ASTM D 6751 standard and found within the requirements.

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Modelling and simulation of injection moulding process is an important technique that could shorten production cycle time with improved productivity for defect-free parts. This technique is more suitable for micro-injection moulding (µIM) process as likely defects during production can be predicted. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of runner dimensions on quality of moulded parts. Solid works plastic simulation software was used for mould cavity filling analysis of ASTM D638-10 Type V. The dimensions of the runner and the injection point investigated are 0.5 mm, 0.8 mm, 1 mm and 2 mm. The moulded part quality characteristics predicted are filling time, sink mark and air trap. In addition, analytical model for prediction of melt pressure as a function of both melt filled distance (xo) and the temperature is developed. The theoretical model and simulation software are useful for investigations of defect-free parts in µIM process.

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In this study, to reveal reason of improvements by ultrasonic excited fluid, the amount of grinding fluid is measured. The amount is increased by the ultrasonic vibrations in case of fluid supply is small and the grinding wheel speed is higher. Moreover, the temperature at the grinding point is measured by constructing a thermocouple, it was confirmed that the grinding heat is reduced by using the ultrasonic excited fluid. And the effect of removing a grinding heat is due to the effect of the grinding fluid volume increased to grinding point. And, longer chip obtained with ultrasonic excited fluid compared with ordinary fluid. It shows suppression of wear of the abrasive grains with ultrasonic excited fluid.

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Gas turbines are known to contribute to economic gains. But then, they are also covertly responsible for environmental loads. In the conventional approach, manufacturer supplied tool is used for condition monitoring. Drawbacks of such a tool include (i) the tool being designed for limited number and known types of faults, (ii) a tool specifically designed for experienced users, (iii) a tool featured by separate modules for monitoring and reliability, and (iv) a tool designed focusing on a particular system only. Meanwhile, the purpose of diagnostics and reliability are to enhance preventive maintenance. Hence, we suggest that they should be integrated to benefit from synergized use of the two aspects. Based on this argument, the purpose of this paper is to explore on the methods that integrate performance diagnostics with reliability monitoring. As it turned out, there is no specific method that addresses all the issues in fault diagnostics system design. The thermo-economic approach proved to be powerful in estimating performance changes and energy loss due to the presence of malfunctions. Nevertheless, this method cannot be used to address problems encountered by sensors outside the thermodynamic zone (e.g. vibration signal, lubrication condition etc.). Regarding reliability, there seems to be a gap in (i) defining states of the system, and (ii) in integrating reliability with diagnostics. There is also no performance indicator to evaluate efficacy of a diagnostic system as it relates to environmental load and economic gains. The paper includes additional remarks potentially useful for further research.

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Monitoring and diagnosis of mean shifts in manufacturing processes become more challenging when involving two or more correlated variables. Unfortunately, most of the existing multivariate statistical process control schemes are only effective in rapid detection but suffer high false alarm. This is referred to as imbalanced performance monitoring. The problem becomes more complicated when dealing with small mean shift particularly in identifying the causable variables. In this research, a scheme that integrated the control charting and pattern recognition technique has been investigated toward improving the quality control (QC) performance. Design considerations involved extensive simulation experiments to select input representation based on raw data and statistical features, recognizer design structure based on individual and Statistical Features-ANN models, and monitoring-diagnosis approach based on single stage and two stages techniques. The study focuses on correlated process mean shifts for cross correlation function, ? = 0.1, 0.5, 0.9, and mean shift, µ = ± 0.75 ~ 3.00 standard deviations. Among the investigated design, an Integrated Multivariate Exponentially Weighted Moving Average with Artificial Neural Network scheme provides superior performance, namely the Average Run Length for grand average ARL1 = 7.55 ? 7.78 ( for out-of-control) and ARL0 = 491.03 (small shifts) and 524.80 (large shifts) in control process and the grand average for recognition accuracy (RA) = 96.36 ? 98.74. This research has provided a new perspective in realizing balanced monitoring and accurate diagnosis of correlated process mean shifts.

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In grinding operations, surface grinding is the most common machining process which provides finishing process that uses the method of a rotating abrasive wheel to give them more refine look or attain a desired surface roughness for a functional purpose by smoothing the flat surface of metallic or non metallic materials. In grinding operation, there are many parameters that are important and need to be controlled in order to have the desired surface roughness such as the movement table speed, depth of cut and the position of work piece being machined. All the parameters will give a great impact on the surface roughness. The objective of this study is to analyze the surface roughness that reflects to grinding cutter condition parameters and to identify the optimized grinding parameters to attain the good surface finish. The study is conducted by performing grinding operation to the work pieces according to the parameters and the surface roughness was checked for each of it. There are three parameters that were controlled in this study and they are the work piece position which is vertical, horizontal and cross; the cutting depth which is 2µm, 7µm and 15µm; and three type of table speed which is low, medium and high table speed. The results from this study shows that the optimum work piece position for roughing and finishing process is in cross position which the work piece lay is crossing to the grinding wheel as the surface roughness for this condition is better than the other two position which is vertical and horizontal. Besides that, the study also confirm that in order to get the optimum surface roughness for roughing process is by using 15µm of cutting depth and for finishing process is by using 2µm of cutting depth and both process are using medium table speed.

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Injection molding is a method to produce part and intricate the serial production of net-shape, functionalized parts and structured surfaces in a large batches. Nowadays, there are millions of tons of plastic bags in around the world that's damage to environment and the researchers believe that waste can be used to develop new beneficial product. Thus, this research extensively investigate the potential used Hydroxyapatite (HA), waste plastic bag Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) as primary binder and suitable secondary binder, Palm Stearin in injection molding. A simplified hydrothermal method of synthesizing Hydroxyapatite powder is described. Basically, there are four stages that involved which is mixing, molding, debinding and lastly is sintering. Nowadays, due to an exploration of application “Green Technology”, this research will be become most of strongly finding for future research in biomedical application. The volume ratio of HA, waste plastic bag LDPE, Palm Stearin combination in feedstock was investigated. Feedstock with two composition 30% and 40% powder loading was injected by injection molding machine with several injection parameter. These finding supports the development of “Green Technology” by using waste plastic bag (LDPE) and Palm Stearin as binder system in injection molding.

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Concern on environmental impact of emission from the automobile and the uncertainties in fuel price has led to the development of lighter materials. Hybrid metal-composite is a sandwich structure which is lighter than its constituent monolithic metal. In this study, hybrid aluminium-composite (HAC) was fabricated using plain weave woven kenaf fiber reinforced polypropylene matrix composite sandwiched in between aluminium 6061-O using hot compression method. Tensile test was conducted on the HAC with two different fiber loading and fiber orientation. The fiber loading were with 1 mm pitch (X-type) and 5 mm pitch (Y-type) and the orientation were 0° and 45°. The result shows that tensile strength had been increased with the increment of fiber loading, where X-type tensile strength is higher than Y-type. Meanwhile, 45° fiber orientation gives higher tensile strength compared to 0°. The images of the fracture type experienced by the HAC after the tensile test was also observed.

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The growth of renewable energy has been identified globally to ensure minimal environmental harm. Due to this situation, the development of green technology has enhanced the growth of renewable energy in the country. One of lignocelluloses biomass feedstock, oil palm frond was the raw material for a potential second-generation bioethanol production. Meanwhile, the sample characterizations were conducted by using the melt flow index. In addition, the 10% of oil palm fronds (OPF) was used and mixed with the HDPE which produce the composite grains. The main goals of the present work are the evaluation of the influence of several variables and test parameters on the melt flow index (MFI) of thermoplastics, and the determination of the uncertainty associated with the measurements. Hence, the capillary flow of a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) melts was studied. The shearing flow of polymeric fluids is encountered in a number of polymer processing operations. In other words, viscosity under simple shear is an important material parameter used for determining the pumping efficiency of an extruder, the pressure drop through a die, designing balanced flow runner systems in multiple cavity injection molding, computing the temperature rise due to viscous heat generation during processing. In this works, Thermagravimetric Analysis (TGA) is one of the branches under the thermal analysis, which is to determine the decomposition of the raw material that has been heat in certain temperature according the standard temperature of specific materials. Most of the thermal analysis, testing uses the weight of the sample within milligram or gram. Next, the process in the sample under DTA study is manifested by deviation of temperature difference from its background. This difference ?T is not directly proportional to the rate of the process (da/dt) but includes also the effect of heat inertia proportional to the slope d?T/dt as it was derived. The filaments are inferior to the fibers for cement–matrix composites, but are superior to the fibers for polymer–matrix composites.

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Recently, bio-based oil was used as industrial lubricant due to the increasing consideration on environment effect and health issues and in order to replace the usage of petroleum-based oil. The modified vegetable oil exhibit excellent lubrication and tribological performances when compared to the petroleum-based oil. In this study, the crude jatropha oil was modified via chemical modification process and enhanced by hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) particles. hBN were varied at 0.05wt.% (MJO5a), 0.1wt.% (MJO5b) and 0.5wt.% (MJO5c). The modified jatropha oil (MJO5) and blended MJO5 with hBN particles were evaluated on the machining performances in terms of cutting force, cutting temperature and chip thickness. All samples were compared with commercially synthetic ester, SE. The results show that the addition of 0.05wt.% of hBN in MJO5 exhibit better anti-wear and anti-friction ability that significantly influenced the machining performances. This study presented that MJO5a is a sustainable candidate to replace SE as bio-based metalworking fluid.

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Gas pipeline networks are widely used for gas transportation from gas sources to consumers. The main problem into the gas transfer is to accurately estimate the cost of transportation from production sites to the consumers. From the review of literatures is noted that the computation for optimization of the gas piping did not take into account the gas capacity allocated to each source, processing unit and distribution unit. Also the productive capacities of the different units are considered having the same and constant supply. The main objective of the study is to propose a linear integer programming model for gas distribution network from production sites to consumers for attainment the minimum cost of gas transportation. Incorporating variable capacity and supply of the units. Integer programming adopt the Zero-One approach for solving the model. This model simplify the analysis. The model was applied for analysis of north of Iran's gas. The result reveals that cost of transportation could be reduced approximately by 23 per cent of the transportation cost in comparison to current cost.

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Thermal assisted machining has been reported to be effective in machining performance enhancement on wide range of processing materials. It includes polymers, ceramics and metals. The machining performance could differ due to the variation on material behavior against temperature increment. Among heat induction methods, laser is reported to have high flexibility to be focused and to heat up an extremely restricted area. However, the heat generated by the laser irradiation could give different impact to the machining performance, depends on the laser beam characteristics. Heated work piece surface behaves differently during the machining process due to softening effect. Furthermore, the work piece made from metals has a tendency to acts as plastic at micro level than macro level. In this situation, tool design and size exhibit significant effect to the machining characteristics. In this study, micro ball end milling tools were used to produce linear deep groove. The machining performance between laser assisted micro milling (LAµM) and conventional micro milling (Conv. µMill) were compared and discussed. It is found out that these two machining methods produced different chips pattern which has significant relation to the tool wear and cutting force changes.

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This paper discuss and investigate the overall effects of oven drying time in determining the moisture content and drying rate of traditional dried instant noodle or locally known as ‘Mi Siput’. In this study, the effect of drying parameter, temperature and humidity be investigated and determined. Initially, 30 kilogram of the raw noodle sample will be drawn from the boiling process. From the preliminary study conducted in which the moisture content of the samples varying decreasing in humidity from 80% to 20%. Four levels of temperature (70ºC, 80ºC, 90ºC and 100°C) were used in the present study. Analysis was performed to calculate the output produced by the machine. The data has been collected and measured using a thermometer and hygrometer. The drying study exhibited by the graph of temperature (°C) versus time (minutes) and the graph relative humidity, RH (%) versus time (minutes). The result shows that medium and high drying temperature effect drying time and humidity decreasing faster compare to low temperature 70ºC. Moreover, at increased temperature utilizing the dryer machine had improved the drying process’s and shortened it to 4 hours compared to the traditional method that take at least 8 hours during hot sunny days and 16 hours during cloudy days, resulting in significant extension in drying capacity.

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This contribution presents an implementation of adaptive modulation and coding (ACM) for the real operating satellite- based internet protocol (IP) communication system from the Nigeria communication satellite (NigComSat-1R) very small aperture terminal (VSAT) network. Specifically, different modulation schemes are chosen according to the weather conditions in order to achieve the highest available data rate and preserve the link availability. The experimental results indicate that at least a 24% bandwidth reduction can be achieved with the same data rate by implementing the ACM technique. Further work should focus on the ACM selection strategy based on the peculiarities of the meteorological characteristics in a specific area so that ACM implementation will lead to maximum efficiency in terms of radio resource management and exploitation.

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The human eye tracking algorithm is very important, especially in the facial analysis application. Eyes represent rich of information that able to indicate the reaction, perception, or physiological status of individual. Most of the developed eyes tracking algorithm are not considered the condition of the eyes that would provide the appropriate information to be used in the processes of the facial analysis algorithm. This paper proposes a new technique in how the eyes are tracked and provide the appropriate information for further process. This technique uses Mean Shift tracking algorithm and interdependence scheme to track the eye and stop the tracking when eyes are out of best position and condition to deliver the appropriate information. This proposed algorithm is tested and evaluated using Strathclyde Facial Fatigue (SFF) video footage database, a collection of video footage from the internet and our own facial recording. Based on the experiment carried out, the proposed technique shows the promising result.

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This paper focuses on the design and development of the transfer and heating mechanisms of a curry puff vending machine. The vending machine contains frozen pre-cooked curry puffs that are packed in containers and require heating process before being dispensed to the consumers. The transfer mechanism transfers the containers containing frozen curry puffs into the microwave by using a slider and brings it out after being heated. In the heating mechanism, the microwave s door is opened and closed by a servo motor through a four bar linkage mechanism and the timer knob is automatically adjusted by a servo motor. The experimental results have shown that the proposed mechanisms have successfully transferred and heated the curry puff for the vending machine application. The main advantage of this system is it allows the curry puffs to be served while it is still hot and fresh to the customers at any time and thus making it tastier.

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High quality digital image can be produced and stored with cost effective embedded system, thanks to advancement of low power digital camera and hardware accelerated high definition video image compression System-on-Chip. Image recorded with these multi-megapixel digital cameras allowed the world to be digitized more accurately (compared with conventional VGA camera with low resolution) and hence enable the use of single image as the metrology tool. Using the single view geometry techniques (planar homography, vanishing points and vanishing lines) widely accepted by the community, the suitability of applying these techniques with error reduced for road surveying is studied and reported in this work.

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This study proposes textile diamond dipoles for body centric communication that operate at 2.45GHz and 5.8GHz. The proposed antennas have been rigorously tested under wearable and body centric measurements. Both substrates and conducting parts of the diamond dipoles are entirely made of textiles; which is deemed fit for wearable communications. Experiments such as bending, wetness and SAR were performed to investigate the antennas performance for body communication realization. Bending was found not to cause any significant performance disruption. On the other hand, since the proposed antenna is not made of water-proof material, the performance was distorted under wet condition. However, once the antenna was dried out, the original performance was achieved. SAR measurement was also conducted and significant SAR values were observed when placing the proposed diamond dipoles close to human body.

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Traffic congestion issues have always been a concern for the fast growing metropolitans in which more than 90 percent of trips are made entirely by private means of transportation i.e. by car and motorcycle. As the country is actively engaged in infrastructure development especially in the transportation network to facilitate the movements of people and goods, a high demand for better public transportation is needed to reduce the issue of road congestion (percentage of GDI lost due to man hour lost in the traffic). Therefore, a cost effective Wi-Fi sniffing based bus commuters statistic collection system is designed and developed to study the feasibility of predicting the necessity of scheduling additional bus services when the detected number of Wi-Fi enabled devices exceeded the bus capacity. The developed system is subsequently deployed to the busiest university bus stop and the obtained result shows that variation of sniffed MAC address exhibit parallelism to the actual number of commuters waiting at the bus station as observed in the captured bus station video images. Result also shows that the MAC address based counting system can help to alert the bus management for better scheduling when the commuter at the particular bus stop is traveling to the same destination.

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Textile Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC) with wire dipole is presented. The AMCs are made of fleece and Shield it fabrics and were designed to have in-phase reflections at 2.45GHz and 5.8GHz. Thorough parametric studies based on AMC unit cell have been performed to obtain the optimized design. Performance comparison between different types of environments, fabrics and arrays size were also conducted. The proposed AMC and wire dipole are designed, simulated, fabricated and tested. Results of return loss, radiation pattern and gain are presented. Results show that forward directive radiation pattern with improved gain are achieved with the introduction of the AMC at both 2.45GHz and 5.8GHz. The proposed textile AMC is suitable for body centric communication systems.

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Eye detection device or eye tracker is an instrument used to objectively observe the eye movement. The integration of this technology with the growing use of computers needs an automated data analysis. Most of the commercial eye tracker systems produce eye movement data in the form of graphic illustrations. The recorded raw data cannot be further analyzed due to constraints in an existing eye tracking system, in which the data needs to be extracted manually and separately analyzed. Thus, the development of a GUI as a platform and automated data processing techniques can help to expedite the post data processing and analysis, later may reduce the gaps in research using the eye tracker. This work aims to overcome the problem in processing and analyzing the raw data that being collected from the eye tracking system known as the Tobii TX300.

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Biomechanics helps us to study the mechanical behavior of the musculoskeletal system and it provides direction for the clinician to develop the treatment protocol. The objective of this study is to develop a finite element model of the LSTV (lumbosacral transitional vertebra) lumbar spine (L4 vertebrae and sacralisation model). In this study, cadaveric bones are used to measure geometrical data of the human spine vertebrae and sacralisation. Based on the measured data of the vertebra figuration, a detailed three-dimensional linear finite element model of the lumbosacral joint L4-S1 of the spine was created and investigated the biomechanical properties of the lumbosacral junction. The finite element model was finely developed for L4/S1 (LSTV) model and validated according to available experimental results and finite element results of L5/S1. The load (stress) distributions in that region is studied for defected model, along with the range of motion for all physiological motions namely flexion, extension, lateral bending and axial rotation for lumbosacral transitional vertebrae . The results of L4-Sacralisation conclude that the physiological motions will be reduced when compared with the intact model.

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Sacralization is a type of transitional abnormally observed at the lumbosacral junction. It involves fully bilateral fusion in between the fifth lumbar vertebra to first sacral vertebra (L5 S1 Transverse vertebra). Sacralization of the L5 vertebra is more commonly observed in people comparison to lumbarization of the first sacral vertebra segment, this can be present in human being from birth. The aim of the present work is to study the pressure distributions in sacralisation. For that cadaveric bones of sacralisation are used to measure geometrical data for modeling and to construct a better mesh representation for sacralization, the meshed model was analyzed under compressive load to understand the load concentration on the sacralization.It is observed that the pressure distributions of the ventral - lateral and dorsal-medial sides of sacrum are slight higher when compare to ventral and dorsal sides. This stresses were mostly concentrating at the sacral ala and the s1 pedicle region. This concentration may lead to fracture in ventral lateral region of sacralization.

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This paper proposes new methodology to build a system for control and actuation of a prosthetic leg. The method described in this paper involves online control of a prosthetic leg by analyzing EMG (Electromyography) signal inputs from a normal leg and thereby actuating the prosthetic leg. The EMG (Electromyography) pulse inputs are taken from specific set of muscles in the leg to form a signal pattern library of active and inactive states of the muscles for every specific movement. During real-time operation the inputs from the normal leg is taken and actuation of motors in done by processing those input signals.

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With the aero-engine manufacturers aiming for Operating Power Ratios (OPRs) higher than 50:1 and improved engine efficiency, the capabilities of the present sealing systems are bound to be severely tested. Air riding seals have emerged as potential candidates to deal effectively with the high pressure discharge air from the compressor. The simplest types of air-riding seals are those with an axial gap. Radial gap seals can provide another level of advantage in terms of their applicability and the total axial travel that needs to be accommodated. This paper provides an overview on a preliminary design effort in modeling and designing a radial gap air riding seal having a continuous ring structure. It investigates a key issue regarding these seals: developing a positive radial stiffness in the air-film to drive the sealing ring to accommodate for any radial shaft movement while maintaining a minimum clearance from the shaft to avoid any contact (in effect, having sort of a bearing-like action). The paper discusses the results from 1D and 2D analyses of the flow through a small sector of the seal, and demonstrates a methodology to calculate the stiffness and damping coefficients of the fluid-film. This is followed by steady state and transient CFD simulations to further analyze the characteristics of this fluid film and understand the time-constants associated with perturbations of the film.

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The concept of low weight of material for application of impact resistance has turned the research towards composite because it has high strength to thickness and weight ratio when comparing other materials. However the damage is the drastic problem that a composite material faces. Possibility of reducing the impact damage of a composite material will overcome by embedding Smart material along with the composite. In this paper, improvement of impact resistance character of composite laminate by embedding Shape memory Nitinol (NiTi) wire was investigated. Where bi-directionally pre-stressed shape memory alloy (SMA) was used to smart component integrated into the composite structure made of SiC and Kevlar and experimentation was carried out under low velocity impact. Result of the experiment shows that apparent advancement in impact resisting capability and healing effect are appeared on the composite structure after impregnating SMA then the conventional stand alone composite. This is because of the martensitic transformation SMA to it s the initial position and the super-elastic property SMA prevents the striking force from of the composite. The super elastic behavior of Nitinol wire dissipates the shock load uniformly throughout its structure hence, SMA can be an appropriate damper for the structural modification of the composite.

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The developments in the field of composite materials are growing tremendously day by day. One such development is the use of natural fibres as reinforcement in the composite material. This is attributed to the fact that natural fibres are environmental friendly, economical, easily available and non-abrasive. The main objective of this experimental study is to fabricate the flax-kenaf fibres reinforced hybrid composites and to evaluate the mechanical properties such as tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength. The Composites are fabricated by hand lay-up method by using flax and kenaf fibres as reinforcing material with Cashew Nut shell liquid and Polyester resin. The specimen is prepared according to ASTM standards and the experiment has been carried out by using universal testing machine (UTM). From the experimental results, it has been observed that the flax and kenaf fibres reinforced hybrid Polyester composites exhibited superior properties, when compared to the CNSL composites.

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This work presents the extraction of fibers from various parts of the palm tree, its chemical and physical property characterization through standard tests and also development of composite samples with these fibers for testing tensile strength on a computerized universal testing machine. The results obtained through experimentation were compared with few other natural fiber based composites and the values were presented. The composite developed possess appreciable tensile strength and shall be used in automotive industry, aerospace applications, etc.

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Identical Parallel Machine Scheduling (IPMS) problem for minimizing make span and number of tardy jobs simultaneously is considered as very important production scheduling problem but there have been many difficulties in solving large scale IPMS problem with too many jobs and machines. In order to minimize make span and number of tardy jobs simultaneously improved versions Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is proposed to enhance scheduling efficiency with less computational burden. The premature convergence at the initial stages of iteration is considered as the major drawback for standard PSO. However, this can be avoided by incorporating mutation a common genetic algorithm operator into the standard PSO and is termed as MPSO. Several numerical examples demonstrate the MPSO proposed is efficient and fit for large scale IPMS problem for minimizing the objectives considered. The solution obtained by MPSO outperforms standard PSO.

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Journal bearings are widely applied in different rotating machineries. These bearings allow for transmission of large loads at mean speed of rotation. In machinery the parameters characterizing operation such as, power losses, vibration amplitude and frequency are dependent on the type of bearings used, specific loads, bearing clearance, and load orientation. Hydrodynamic Journal bearing based on hydrodynamic lubrication, hydrodynamic lubrication means that the load-carrying surfaces of the bearing are separated by a relatively thick film of lubricant, so as to prevent metal-to-metal contact, and that the stability thus obtained can be explained by the laws of fluid mechanics. In journal bearing that operate with stationary load under steady state condition, cavitation takes place at the sub-atmospheric pressure commonly encountered in divergent section of the oil film. Lubricating oil contains roughly 10% by volume of dissolved gas when saturated with air. If oil pressure falls below the usual atmospheric saturation pressure, this dissolved air tends to come out of solution as cavity bubbles. Reynolds equation derived from Navier Stock s equation, it is highly nonlinear partial differential equation and very complex to solve analytically. Hence the Reynolds equation solves using numerical technique with help of computer program. Finite difference method is suitable for handle the differential equation and reduced differential equation is solved using a successive over relaxation (SOR) technique. The main aim is to find out hydrodynamic journal-bearing performance characteristics, such as pressure distribution, attitude angle and maximum pressure, using the Swift-Stieber Boundary Condition. Also this boundary condition helps to encounter the cavitation effect and its location.

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The performance of an alternative evaporator design for household applications along with condenser waste heat recovery is investigated in this paper. In this novel concept condenser waste heat from refrigerator is trapped and utilized while the geometric parameter of the evaporator is changed where outlet air area is reduced progressively from inlet. Thus reducing material cost of evaporator. Experiments have been conducted in an optically accessible test rig using R 134-a refrigerant to determine the performance of varying area accelerated flow evaporator and condenser waste heat recovery and finding the dependency of performance of the test rig on the mass flow rate of air, refrigerant and varying contact area. The procedure relies on the plane tube exchanger surfaces and mass and heat balances to determine the flow rate of air and coefficient of performance enhancement.

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The emissions regulations for diesel engines in applications such as ships, trains and heavy duty off-road vehicles and gensets worldwide are becoming more stringent and make extensive modifications to the power units necessary. At the same time, customers are constantly calling for more economical engines. Exhaust after treatment systems such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalytic or diesel particulate filters are one way of lowering emissions, but also have a greater space requirement and potentially increase the engine s maintenance needs. Therefore exhaust emissions can be reduced by primarily reducing emissions by internal enhancements. Fuel combustion inside the engine is improved so that, if at all possible, emissions are not produced in the first place. The OEMs are moving ahead for high efficiency Fuel Injection Systems in order to stay alive in the competitive environment. High fuel efficiency and High Power Engines are not confined only to the passenger car segments of the market. The commercial vehicles are also demanding high power along with high torque. Owing to Government s regulations on emission it has become mandatory for OEMs to emphasis more on low emission vehicles. This paper shows the method to design a suitable drive mechanism for the diesel engine fuel injection pump capable of delivering high pressure up to 1600 bar. This enables better atomization of the fuel in combustion chamber and thereby reducing the emission of pollutants.

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Biochar has the potential to improve soil nutrient status, increase crop yield and sequester carbon in the soil. However, storage, transportation and soil application of biochar are challenging because biochar is brittle, and has wide particle size distribution and low density. Its loss could be as high as 30% by wind-blown during handling, transport to the field and soil application. Composting biochar with animal manure and other feed stocks helps in specific soil fertility management However compost itself has high moisture content and to facilitate handling and transport pelletization is required. The objective of this study is design and develop biochar based indigenous fertilizer palletizing machine and bone pyrolysis kiln to help the small holder farmers in developing countries through organic fertilizer supply, improving the poor soil fertility, and subsequently reduce agricultural carbon emission and sequastrate atmospheric carbon. Biochar produced from bone pyrolysis combines the advantages of biochar along with phosphorous addition. An experimental investigation has been carried out in this regard for biochar production from bone pyrolysis and subsequent pelletization of the biochar based indigenous fertilizer. A sensitivity testing has been done on the machine to ascertain the effects of the moisture content, particle size, binder, operating speed and the drying process on the quality and durability of the pellets produced for standardization. The pellets are produced using different moisture content of the compost and 5% water solution activated starch and 15-29% of molasses diluted with 15% of water are used as binder. The results show that the moisture content and lubricant oil addition are critical parameters for pelleting process. The optimum moisture content of the compost for quality pellet production with the builted machine is 20 to 25%. The bone pyrolysis kiln also produces uniformly heated bone char with low fuel consumption, as well as 15-20Kg of bio char.

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Now a days, people have a penchant for luxury, comfort and safety in each and every aspect of their lives provided money and technology available with the mankind. This project aims towards reducing the physical effort by humans to lift an automobile by automating the Hydraulic Jack through coupling it with a wiper motor and a radio frequency (RF) module. It works on the mechanism of conversion of rotatory motion of the wiper motor into the reciprocating motion of the hydraulic jack s plunger. The functioning of the motor being controlled by the RF module and a remote, through simple push of a button one could lift a heavy vehicle thereby reducing the physical effort considerably. A prototype illustrating the aforementioned mechanism was designed and fabricated. Also, it was tested and its functioning can be successfully illustrated.

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Inconel alloy 617 is used during the research, because it has high strength and oxidation resistance in a wide range of temperatures. It is used in combustion cans, transition liners in both aircraft and land-based gas turbines and medical engineering. Because of its resistance to high-temperature corrosion, the alloy is used for catalyst-grid. Inconel alloy 617 also offers attractive properties of components of power-generating plants, both fossils fuelled plants and nuclear power plants. In the present research, full penetration welding of 1.5 mm thick Inconel 617 plates in a butt configuration was performed by adopting a fiber laser welding machine. The influence of different welding conditions like welding speed, welding power on the heat affected zone (HAZ) morphology, metallurgy and mechanical properties was discussed in detail. Microstructures were assessed by optical microscope and by field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), while the mechanical behaviour was analysed in terms of Vickers micro-hardness is compared with different welding conditions specimen and base material. Microstructure at different welding parameters was inspected by FE-SEM. Hardness of the base metal is lower in comparison to the fusion zone due to rapid cooling.

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Adhesive bonding has gained importance in structural bonding in aircraft industry as an alternative method of joining materials together over the more conventional joining methods. It is gaining interest due to the increasing demand for joining similar or dissimilar structural components, mostly within the framework of designing light weight structures. In this present study, a finite element model of a structure, consisting of two Acrylic/Perspex plates joined by an adhesive has been modeled using ANSYS software. Comparisons have been made for the computed coupling factors and velocity responses for the adhesive bonded plates using finite element method and analytical wave approach of the same plates for a line junction at the joint. The results obtained from the studies signify the importance of modeling of adhesive joints in computation of the coupling factors and its further use in computation of energies and velocity responses using statistical energy approach as compared to the values obtained using analytical wave approach for a continuous line junction. Coupling factors have been computed from the velocity responses for the adhesive bonded plates using finite element method and compared with the values obtained from the analytical wave approach for the same plates with a line junction at the joint.

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Aluminum MMCs plays vital role in the modern industrial sectors due to their excellent tribological properties. The present study involves the development of Aluminum metal matrix composite reinforced with particulate Sic and Al2O3 by stir casting method. Weight fraction of 7.5% of Sic, 7.5% of Al2O3 is reinforced with base Aluminum Alloy matrix. The fabricated aluminum alloy was solution treated and then precipitation treated for T-6 condition. Casted composite and heat treated composite machined carefully to prepare specimens for micro hardness, tensile strength and micro structure as per the ASTM standards. Mechanical properties include micro hardness; microstructure and tensile properties were evaluated for the composite before and after heat treatment. Micro hardness and tensile strength was improved by 34% and 7% by heat treatment. The micro graphs of hybrid composite studied and revealed the uniform distribution of reinforcements in the matrix. Further significant improvement in micro structure observed in heat treated hybrid composite.

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One of the benefits of fiber laser welding technology is that the amount of heat generated at the weld position is very less. This method is said to offer a great advantage for today s modern manufacturing needs. The input parameters involved in the laser welding process play an important role in deciding the quality of the weld joint. The various properties that can define the quality of the weld are mechanical aspects, the geometry of the weld bead and distortion. In this research work, the geometry of the weld bead such as ultimate tensile strength, weld bead width, depth of penetration of the laser welded butt joints of mild steel 2062 sheets are examined. With the help of design expert software, the Response Surface Methodology [RSM] was used in developing the empirical relationships relating the process parameters such as laser power, traveling speed and focal position with the output responses such as ultimate tensile strength, depth of penetration and weld bead width. The acceptability of the developed mathematical models is validated with the help of analysis of variance using design expert software. The investigation was further carried out using the desirability approach in achieving an optimal welding combination, such that, it would maximize the ultimate tensile strength, depth of penetration, and minimize the weld bead width.

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This paper includes the study of friction welding being performed between a hollow head and a solid stem of an engine valve. Martens tic stainless steel (X45CrSi93) of 6.5 mm diameter was used as the experimental material. The inner diameter of the hollow head was 3 mm in size. Different welding parameters were chosen which includes friction pressure, upset pressure, burn-off and rotational speed. Mechanical and metallurgical investigations were performed. The optimum welding parameters were determined for these working conditions. The micro hardness variation across the weld zone was conducted using Vickers micro hardness test. The response surface methodology was adopted for determining the optimum combination of welding parameters. The regression equation was developed to predict the maximum tensile strength for the optimal parameters.

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In current years there has been enhancement in exercising on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in big concerns and government firms mostly in urbanized nations, whereas extensive acceptance of ERP systems in developing nations lags far away. It has been observed that there are many instances where ERP systems prove to be a failure either in the design or its implementation. A number of reasons contribute in the success or failure of an ERP systems. Success or failure of the system depends upon the initial stage of adoption and implementation of the system. Consideration of all issues and challenges at the initial stage may furnish a sound base for a successful ERP system implementation in an organization. There is a significant need for considering ERP system implementation issues and challenges in developing nations, as ERP systems are still in their premature stages in these nations. Literature review on successful ERP system implementation disclose that there are many studies whispered by researchers, but very few have listed the success issues and challenges of ERP system implementation focusing on developing countries. Issues and challenges of ERP system implementation in developing nations differ from those of developed nations. The main objective of this study is to unearth the issues and challenges of successful ERP system implementation in developing nations like India. Data are collected by having an extensive literature review of about past fifteen years. Analysis and synthesis of collected data reveals that clear scope of implementation, top management commitment, proper implementation strategy, proper vendor selection, project management, user training & education, end user involvement and lack of experienced implementers are the important issues and challenges. Understanding of issues and challenges will help organizations to adopt appropriate implementation strategies leading to success of ERP system in an organization.

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