This work has been dedicated to investigating the stiffness and strength of FML components under static axial and bending loads. There are two types of fiber metal laminates (FML) called Al3G4 and Al3G2K2 labeled according to the plate design. Al3G4 is Glare 3/2 -0.4 contains 4 layers of laminated glass/epoxy laminate. Al3G2K2, is a hybrid fiber laminate, has two aramid fiber laminates adjacent to the inner metal layer. Experimental stiffness and strength are discussed and compared with the theoretical data. The relationship between tensile and bending forces is discussed. Referred to the end bending condition, results of free end support have been compared with the corresponding results of fixed end support. The experimental work was carried out on both unnotched and notched samples to study remaining stresses due to circular aperture openings. The outcome of the present study indicates that the mechanical properties of the FML structures which named Al3G2K2 were slightly higher than glare (Al3G4) in both notched and unnotched cases. Failure patterns were also observed and identified.

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Alumina supported heterogeneous catalyst have been synthesized and used to transesterification of vegetable oil. Calcium oxide solid base catalyst includes single promoted catalyst CaO/?-Al2O3 and double promoted catalyst CaO/KI/?-Al2O3 were synthesized by precipitation process and the combination of precipitation and impregnation process, respectively. Whereas, alumina supported zinc oxide ZnO/ ?-Al2O3 was synthesized by combining of precipitation and gel methods. Single promoted catalyst CaO/?-Al2O3 was use to transesterification of refined palm oil (RPO) and double promoted catalyst was used to transesterification of RPO and used cooking oil (UCO). Meanwhile, the acid catalyst of ZnO/?-Al2O3 was used to transesterification non-edible kesambi (Scleichera Oleosa L) oil. Transesterification process was conducted in glass batch type reactor with refluxed methanol. The reaction was carried out in varies of reaction temperature (from 35-65° C) with 10° C of interval and time of reaction (from 1-7 h) with 1 h of interval. The results show that all type of catalysts used in the experiment indicated that they potentiated used for converting vegetables oil into biodiesel.

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In this paper, Gene Expression Programming (GEP) models are developed to select the appropriate ground improvement technique. Ground improvement is usually used to increase the soil bearing capacity, reduce potential settlement, and mitigate liquefaction. The data used to build the GEP models was collected from 83 ground improvement projects in the UAE. Data collected from each project includes the following parameter: fine content (%), groundwater level (m), depth of improvement (m), distance to close by structures (m), and the used ground improvement method. This paper investigates five ground improvement techniques that are dynamic compaction (DC), dynamic replacement (DR), vibro compaction (VC), rapid impact compaction (RIC), and stone columns (SC). One GEP model is developed for each technique, the user will be able to input the above-mentioned parameter in each model and select the technique with higher accuracy. The developed GEP models have R2 values, for the training dataset, ranging from 0.72 to 0.95. The results showed that GEP could select the appropriate ground improvement technique with acceptable accuracy.

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Heavy vehicles (HVs) are often considered as a hindrance in traffic flow especially at toll roads. Besides their large dimensions and slow movement, HVs also disrupt the traffic flow due to their indiscipline in using the lane that is designated to them. The aims of this study are to conduct a 24-hour traffic flow video recording data which divided into compliance and non-compliance state and to analyze the impact of HV drivers’ indiscipline in using the HV lane on the traffic performance at Jakarta Outer Ring Road (JORR). By using the regression mathematical model, the traffic flow models of both states were generated to determine the impact of HV discipline on the traffic performance. The analysis shows that the frequency of HV indiscipline’s during observation time is more than 70% of respondents. However, it turns out that the traffic in the non - compliance state is better due to the efficient space utilization. However, at very low density, the indiscipline does not affect the speed, but as the density increased, the speed of the non-compliance state is also increased by 28%. The actual road capacity of non-compliance state is also 17.5% greater than the one with compliance state. The efficiency of space utilization is also indicated by the higher jam density of non-compliance state for about 20.24%. In the current condition at JORR’s, the density of vehicles is high for almost day time where the regulation concerning the HV lane restrictions becomes ineffective in improving the overall traffic performance. It is suggested to implement the access restriction for HVs during the day time only.

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This study is aimed to assess the expediency of applying the binder material mechanical activation in a cemented rockfill (CRF), consisting of ground smelter slag, waste of limestone and rock refuse at one of the largest mines, as well as at any other mines which use these components for CRF. The polynomial dependences have been obtained of strength variation of the CRF, which is used in the conditions of studied mine, on the time of consolidation and the ratio of backfill materials. In the CRF mixtures, the mechanical activation was carried out of the granulated blast-furnace slag, and the compliance has been assessed of CRF with the design strength of the backfill massif. In the studied conditions of the ore mine, with ratio of a binder material to filler of 0.5 and the existing cost of backfill materials, the use of mechanical activation of the binder material according to the two-stage grinding scheme turned out to be insufficiently expedient, since the production cost (materials + grinding) of the most economical backfill mixture is only 2.8% less compared with a basic composition. It is noted that the expediency of using the mechanical activation depends on the remoteness of the mineral raw material base, especially the main inert filler that significantly increases the cost of backfilling works. It is shown that in the operating conditions of other mines with a similar component proportion and a close rich mineral raw base, the mechanical activation of the binder material can be enough effective. It has been determined that with an increase in ratio of Cbin/Cin from 1.0 to 4.6, the difference in costs for the backfill mixture production in the considered compositions, where mechanical activation was performed, increases in a positive direction, but for the most economical backfill mixture, if compared to the basic one, it will be changed from 16.8 to 46.0%. An attention is focused on possible ways to increase the expediency of applying the mechanical activation of the binder material by means of forming the backfill massif with different strength along the height of the stope chamber.

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In the proposed paper, a cost effective system using wireless sensor networks (WSN) was developed for monitoring air pollution at a large scale. The proposed system has the potential to collect information air related to pollutants on a real time basis comprising Audrino based core with off the shelf pre-calibrated sensors to detect gases like Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), and Ammonia (NH3) in the air. This design is made up of Audrino board with gas sensors, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) wireless link and a low-cost ZigBee module as well. These wireless sensor motes are utilized for to monitor urban Sulphur dioxide and ammonia emissions on a real time basis. Wireless sensor network formed with ZigBee links can be scaled up using the GSM connectivity to interface with the external world. Air Pollution is monitored using a system of sensor nodes with wireless communication via ZigBee protocol. A static Wireless Sensor Network to monitor air pollution through the use of WSN implemented over the zigbee protocol is proposed in this study. A prototype version of the model is realized and tested. Experimentation with the developed wireless air pollution monitoring system under different physical conditions produced reliable fine-grain pollution data.

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A massive measure of waste gets produced following the harvest of sugarcane which is one of the foremost crops cultivated in the subtropical regions all over the world. Degradation of these lignocelluloses wastes takes a long time naturally and hence disposed of through open burning that in turn consequences atmospheric pollution. These tribulations could be detached on practicing the rapid degradation method called anaerobic digestion method. The present study assesses the effect of mixing speed on biogas production through anaerobic digestion of sugarcane trash. The study was intended to get the effect of mixing speed on the degradation of lignocelluloses and in biogas production from sugarcane trash substrate inoculated with dairy manure. In this study, the anaerobic digestion process was kept under mesophilic conditions of 320C for 30 days in a batch feed anaerobic digester at differential mixing speeds of 0 rpm, 50 rpm, 100 rpm and 150 rpm. Results showed that better degradation of lignocelluloses and high production of biogas (109.55 mL gVS-1) was observed in the reactor R3 (100 rpm) and the value was at the least in the reactor R1 where mixing was not provided. Hence, it was observed that the mixing speed greatly affect biogas properties of sugarcane trash that undergo batch fed anaerobic digestion process.

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Stainless steel AISI 310 is one of the most widely used grades of heat-resistant stainless steel supplied into numerous industry sectors. The key properties of this material are its high chromium and medium nickel content making its resistance to oxidation, sulfidation and other forms of hot corrosion its main characteristics. This study investigates the influence of rotation speed and forging time during machining on responses of tensile strength and hardness. The turning was performed at various cutting speeds (550, 1020, and 1800 rpm) and forging time (25, 35, and 45 seconds). Response surface methodology was adopted in designing the experiments to quantify the effect of rotation speed and forging time on the friction welding responses. It was found that rotation speed was proportional to the tensile strength and was inversely proportional to hardness. Forging time was proportional to the tensile strength and was inversely proportional to hardness. Empirical equations developed from the results for all friction welding responses were shown to be useful in determining the optimum welding parameters range.

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Since the long history of Indonesia country, the majority number of Indonesian residence are working as farmers as the main job. Plantation in Indonesia supplies the world market in remarkable amount. There are several main commodity holding important role in Indonesian agriculture: rice, sugarcane, coffee, cocoa, cassava, and tobacco. Those products are cultivated in a large amount almost in each district and consequently generating large amount of agricultural waste from the post-harvesting process. The residue of those commodity were studied in this paper, including rice husks, sugarcane bagasse, spent coffee ground, cocoa pod husks, cassava peels, and tobacco stalks. They contain mostly cellulose of 29.1 - 57.4 % and hemicellulose of 7.49 - 35.5 % which are convertible to fermentable sugar. The lignin content in the range of 10.9 - 27.3 % which produces inhibitors in sugar and alcohol production. The utilization of this feedstock to produce biobutanol and bioethanol requires delignification process to prevent the inhibitor formation. Sequentially, hydrolysis is necessary to convert the cellulose and hemicellulose to fermentable sugars completely by using enzymatic or chemical process. Finally fermentation can be performed to produce bioethanol by yeast or biobutanol by Clostridium sp. The uniformity of the main constituent and the physical characteristic have made them potential to be efficiently utilized in heterogeneous mixture to produce large capacity of biobutanol and bioethanol.

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Synthesis gas is an important intermediate of organic petrochemical synthesis. At this article the features of the catalytic conversion of methane to synthesis gas are described. A review of information on the chemical composition of catalysts is given and assumptions about the mechanism of their action are made. The facts and generalizations contained in the article can be useful in determining ways to improve catalytic systems. The most active and most selective catalytic systems allow optimizing existing processes by reducing energy consumption, cost, emissions and increasing the yield of a valuable product. The effective and rational use of natural and secondary resources is determined by the leading role of catalysis in the implementation of chemical transformations. Increasing the depth of conversion and the integrated use of raw materials, as well as ensuring the environmental cleanliness of the technological processes of its processing is achieved by using highly efficient catalysts.

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Control of a super-capacitors as energy storage with thirteen-level inverter were presented in this paper. A NR and PSO techniques were presented for selective harmonics elimination (SHE) solution in a modified Cascaded H Bridge Multilevel inverter (CHB-MLI). The Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse-Width Modulation (SHE-PWM) is a powerful technique for harmonic minimization in multilevel inverter. The proposed design was used to charge the energy storage such as battery, super capacitor. NR and PSO techniques were used to determine the switching angles by solving the non-linear equation's analysis of the output voltage waveform of the modified CHB-MLI in order to control the fundamental component. The proposed techniques based on NR and PSO techniques are capable to minimize the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of output voltage of the modified CHB-MLI within allowable limits. A comparison has been made between NR and PSO techniques related to optimization in order minimize harmonic distortion based on super capacitor as super capacitor. The main aims of this paper cover design, modeling, construction and testing of a laboratory the modified topology of the CHB-MLI for a single-phase prototype for 13-levels. The experimental results of the prototype were also illustrated. The controllers based on NR and PSO were applied to the modified multilevel inverter based on super capacitor as super capacitor. The Digital Signal Processing (DSP) TMS320F2812 is used to implement these modified inverters control schemes using NR and PSO method. The proposed controller was then coded into a DSP TMS320F2812 board. The inverter offers much less THD using PSO scheme compared with the NR scheme.

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Abstract:

This paper investigated Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) finder power by Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting. Misplaced and losing item is a normal situation that happen almost anytime and anywhere. When this problem occurs in situation during the emergency time or in hurry, panic will come and start searching around for that lost item. Start to search the possible place where it was last seen it or place it. All of this action will be wasting our time and spoiling our mood for the day just for searching for the misplaced or loss item. A RFID was a technology that used for item identification. A RFID Item Finder was developed with the Radio Frequency (RF) Energy Harvesting technology. The Output of RF Energy Harvesting used as the input source for the RFID Item Finder by converting RF signal source to DC source that needed by the Item Finder. A RFID tags attached on the item so that it can find by using RFID reader which if the tag in a read zone of the reader, user can know whether the misplaced item is in that certain area by the communication between RFID tag and reader.

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We consider a gas motion behind the front of a strong flat shock wave propagating along a flat surface, which, starting from a certain point, becomes perforated. The solution of Euler system of equations is constructed by a small parameter method. The characteristic ratio of gas densities at the shock front is chosen as a small parameter. An approximate analytical solution of the problem is constructed taking into account the terms of the first approximation. It is assumed that the gas flow through the permeable boundary is proportional to the pressure drop across it, which allows replacing the solution of the problem with the solution of a shock wave diffraction problem at an angle greater than p. The structure of the flow in the perturbed region behind the diffracted shock wave is analyzed. The shape of the wave front is constructed for different values of determining flow parameters.

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In the result of the present research has been found a general formula for function of charged particles’ distribution in the holes in cops-screens of radio electronic means (REM) that appear under the influence of the radioisotope source’s energies localized in space and distributed flow. The analytical connection between concentration of the charged particles and non-equilibrium parameter has been established. This connection is defined by the intensity of the radioisotope source that allows evaluating the conditions of emerging circuits EMR in the holes in corps-screens of REM depending on the power of EMR.

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This work is aimed at conducting a comparative study between two base fluids water as well as ethylene glycol along with nanoparticle (oxide aluminium). Analysis is done for determining unsteadiness between two parallel walls, wherein squeezing of upper wall towards lower is done, while porous stretching surface is lower. The mathematical formulation uses constitutive expression pertaining to viscous nanoliquids. By keeping a variable magnetic field, conduction of nanoliquid is done electrically. The partial differential equations concerning the issue were resolved after transforming to ordinary differential equations by employing forth-fifth Runge-Kutta Fehlberg method. The effect of disparity in various parameters pertaining to temperature, velocity and concentration profile of nanoparticle is first plotted and then tabulated. Based on the obtained results, the velocity field was seen to enhance with rise in squeezing parameter values. Squeezing parameters that possess larger values result in decrease in temperature and concentration profiles of nanoparticles. The heat transfer of nanoliquids was seen to improve with squeezing flow, magnetic field parameter and nanoparticle volume fraction. For the rate of skin friction pertaining to ethylene glycol and water, dominance was seen for magnetic parameter M, suction parameter S and nanoparticle volume fraction parameter.

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One of the strategies to increase the selling price of agricultural products is to diversify the products. This effort had been made on carrots product by diversifying it into carrot syrup. Several previous studies had been done to determine the attributes of consumer needs and product design of carrot syrup using the Quality Function Development method. Based on these studies, this research used experimental design to determine the optimal quality design in the process and ingredients composition of carrot syrup. Utilizing the Taguchi experimental design, this study qualitatively measured the quality response of the product by using organoleptic test. The organoleptic test resulted in ordinal data that needed to be analyzed using an appropriate method to find the robust levels of product and process parameters. Data processing was conducted by planning the experimental design; fitting an ordinal categorical regression model and calculating event probabilities for each category; estimating expected category for each factor combination; calculating Taguchi’s signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios; and determining the optimal factor level. At the end of this research, it is concluded that the optimal process and composition of carrot syrup is the duration of heat for 20 minutes and the amount of sugar of 210%.

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In present world, communication has pervaded into the life of every individual and therefore lot of research is being done towards achieving a seamless, high speed and reliable communication between various users. Through satellite communication, transmission of data is easily possible for different users positioned at various locations. In satellite communication, forward error correction scheme will have great impact when channel is noisy. The error correcting scheme of convolution codes will confide on constraint length and code generator. The convolution encoder and viterbi decoder with an appropriate design will provide better performance. In this paper the performance analysis of a satellite communication model has been undertaken with Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation scheme along with convolution coding technique having 1/2 and 1/3 rates. The performance has been analyzed with different constraint lengths, in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER), with respect to the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) for Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel. The simulation has been undertaken in MATLAB / Simulink.

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Gelama Merah field is located in offshore Sabah approximately 43km from Labuan and 130km from Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia. This study compares water saturation results of Gelama Merah field computed by four different models namely; Archie model, Total Shale model, Simandoux model and Indonesian model. Porosity, volume of shale and true resistivity of formation were determined from logs acquired from GM-1 well. Other data such as the Archie saturation exponent, n, cementation factor, m, and resistivity of water, Rw were determined from special core analysis of samples acquired from the well. Accordingly, the resistivity of brine and shale were determined as 0.265 O.m, and 2.7 O.m respectively while Archie’s cementation and saturation exponents were considered 2.0. The results shows that, at porosity less than 9%, Archie model gives unreasonable water saturation estimates in which values of water saturation greater than 1.0 were observed. In contrast, the corresponding results for Total Shale model, Simandoux model and Indonesian model were less than 1.0 for the same interval. The results indicate, Archie’s model is more affected by large clay volume compared to the other models. Because of their relative stability and simplicity, Simandoux and Indonesian model have been commonly used to derive water saturation of clay-rich formations.

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Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is widely used in the industry to measure the current performance of the machine and indicate the potential area of improvement. However, OEE has the limitation in the visualization of the wastes. Although six big losses were proposed, OEE still failed to show the area of the improvement effectively. Therefore, a modification to the OEE calculation is required. In this study, Maynard Operation Sequence Technique (MOST) is integrated to the OEE calculation to develop a new modified OEE. This modified OEE calculation is introduced with two new factors, usability and human factor that distinguish setup losses into the frequency of the setup process and excessive work performed by workers. By using the modified OEE, the wastes are categorized in a better picture and visualization is shown. This modified OEE able to improve the visualization is shown. This modified OEE able to improve the visualization and assist company to identify and monitor the area of improvement.

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A design model was developed for the prediction of CBR values of lateritic soil treated with metakaolin. The laboratory test carried out on the lateritic soil showed that the soil was classified as A-7-5(4) or CL according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials classification system (AASHTO) and Unified Soil Classification System (USCS), respectively. Tests carried out included index test, compaction, California bearing ratio and unconfined compressive strength. Generally, the results showed that the use of metakaolin at varying percentages improved the strength properties of the treated soil. From the laboratory results, six out of the eleven data sets were used for the calibration of model while the remaining five were used for the validation. Comparing the measured and predicted California bearing ratio, the model gave a good coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.9257. This signifies that the model can be used in soil stabilization and prediction of CBR values.

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