Showing papers by "Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology published in 2017"

Waste glass powder as partial replacement of cement for sustainable concrete practice

Abstract: Million tons of waste glass is being generated annually all over the world. Once the glass becomes a waste it is disposed as landfills, which is unsustainable as this does not decompose in the environment. Glass is principally composed of silica. Use of milled (ground) waste glass in concrete as partial replacement of cement could be an important step toward development of sustainable (environmentally friendly, energy-efficient and economical) infrastructure systems. When waste glass is milled down to micro size particles, it is expected to undergo pozzolanic reactions with cement hydrates, forming secondary Calcium Silicate Hydrate (C–S–H). In this research chemical properties of both clear and colored glass were evaluated. Chemical analysis of glass and cement samples was determined using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) technique and found minor differences in composition between clear and colored glasses. Flow and compressive strength tests on mortar and concrete were carried out by adding 0–25% ground glass in which water to binder (cement + glass) ratio is kept the same for all replacement levels. With increase in glass addition mortar flow was slightly increased while a minor effect on concrete workability was noted. To evaluate the packing and pozzolanic effects, further tests were also conducted with same mix details and 1% super plasticizing admixture dose (by weight of cement) and generally found an increase in compressive strength of mortars with admixture. As with mortar, concrete cube samples were prepared and tested for strength (until 1 year curing). The compressive strength test results indicated that recycled glass mortar and concrete gave better strength compared to control samples. A 20% replacement of cement with waste glass was found convincing considering cost and the environment.

An IoT based fire alarming and authentication system for workhouse using Raspberry Pi 3

Abstract: Ensuring minimum rights and safety of the garment workers has become a burning issue nowadays. The workers of garment factories are facing some labyrinths and broken out of fire is surely one of them. The investors are losing their interest and the prominence of this sector is getting toneless. In this paper, we have propounded a system which is capable to detect fire and can provide the location of the affected region. Raspberry Pi 3 has been used to control multiple Arduino which are integrated with a couple of sensors and camera. A 360° relay motor is assembled with the camera so that it can snap the image in whatever angle the fire is detected. We have provided a confirmation of the fire suspecting system to avoid any false alarm. The system will immediately send a message along with the image of the affected spot and Arduino's location. An admin can confirm or deny the impeachment and if the admin confirms the situation as a breaking out of fire, then the system will immediately raise an alarm and an automatic message will be sent to the nearby fire brigade.

Non-sulphide zeolite catalyst for bio-jet-fuel conversion

Abstract: In recent years, the production of bio-aviation fuels has received increased attention because of its renewability and environmental benefits. Catalytic hydrocracking is a convenient way to produce bio-jet fuel from vegetable oil. Among the different types of catalysts, sulphided zeolites showed more catalytic activity for bio-fuel conversion. However, the uses of different sulphiding agents in this process causes the emission of H2S gas and exposes the environment to sulphur residues, which are responsible for pollution and the greenhouse effect. Conversely, various non-sulphide zeolite catalysts, such as noble metal supported on ZSM-5, HZSM-5, SAPO-11, beta- zeolite, SBA-15 and mesoporous-Y zeolite, also showed considerable activity for bio-fuel conversion. Therefore, it is time to improve the non-sulphide zeolite catalysts for the production of bio-jet fuel to combat fuel recession and mitigate environmental problems. Several good reviews are available on the catalytic conversion of bio-jet fuel. This review is distinct from the previous ones, as it combines most of the previous reviews, illustrates the different supported non-sulphide zeolite-type catalysts and their preparation methods, characteristics and performance in bio-jet fuel production.

First‐Principles Study of Superconducting ScRhP and ScIrP pnictides

Abstract: For the first time, we have reported in this study an ab initio investigation on elastic properties, Debye temperature, Mulliken population, Vickers hardness, and charge density of the two recently synthesized superconducting ScRhP and ScIrP pnictides The optimized cell parameters show fair agreement with the experimental results The mechanical stability of both ternary phosphides is confirmed via the calculated elastic constants Both compounds are ductile in nature and damage tolerant ScIrP is expected to be elastically more anisotropic than ScRhP The estimated value of Debye temperature predicts that ScRhP is thermally more conductive than ScIrP and the phonon frequency in ScRhP is higher than that in ScIrP Both pnictides are soft and easily machinable due to their low Vickers hardness Moreover, the hardness of ScRhP is lower due to the presence of antibonding Rh-Rh in ScRhP The metallic conductivity of ScRhP reduces significantly when Rh is replaced with Ir The main contribution to the total density of states (TDOS) at Fermi-level (EF) comes from d-electrons of Sc and Rh/Ir in both pnictides These two ternary compounds are characterized mainly by metallic and covalent bonding with little ionic contribution The calculated superconducting transition temperatures fairly coincide with the reported measured values

Comparative study of Mo 2 Ga 2 C with superconducting MAX phase Mo 2 GaC: First-principles calculations

Abstract: The structural, electronic, optical and thermodynamic properties of Mo2Ga2C are investigated using density functional theory (DFT) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). The optimized crystal structure is obtained and the lattice parameters are compared with available experimental data. The electronic density of states (DOS) is calculated and analyzed. The metallic behavior for the compound is confirmed and the value of DOS at Fermi level is 4.2 states per unit cell per eV. Technologically important optical parameters (e.g., dielectric function, refractive index, absorption coefficient, photo conductivity, reflectivity, and loss function) are calculated for the first time. The study of dielectric constant (ɛ 1) indicates the Drude-like behavior. The absorption and conductivity spectra suggest that the compound is metallic. The reflectance spectrum shows that this compound has the potential to be used as a solar reflector. The thermodynamic properties such as the temperature and pressure dependent bulk modulus, Debye temperature, specific heats, and thermal expansion coefficient of Mo2Ga2C MAX phase are derived from the quasi-harmonic Debye model with phononic effect also for the first time. Analysis of T c expression using available parameter values (DOS, Debye temperature, atomic mass, etc.) suggests that the compound is less likely to be superconductor.

License plate recognition system based on contour properties and deep learning model

Abstract: The intent of this research is to design a license plate recognition (LPR) system in the domain of Bangla language for smart vehicle management The proposed system is designed on the basis of computer vision tools and deep supervised machine learning model The system has three modules: license plate detection, character segmentation and recognition of the characters of the License Plate (LP) The goal of detection is to localize the plate area from the vehicle image and to crop region of interest (LP) It is executed by applying following process: preprocessing the image, conversion to binary image, contour detection and filtering the contours to get the LP's character contours, tilt correction and cropping the plate area from the image Then, the cropped LP is segmented to extract the characters from the plate Finally, the recognition step classifies the characters by means of deep convolution neural network where the features of the character are crafted and learned by the convolution layers of the networks The system is implemented in Python OpenCV environment for offline car license plates images which are taken in different illuminations, road scenarios and colored cars The system performance is evaluated in terms of detection rate, segmentation rate, recognition rate and execution time The results illustrate that the performance of the system is remarkable

Elastic, thermodynamic and optical behavior of V2AC (A = Al, Ga) MAX phases

Abstract: This article reports the first-principles calculations of yet unexplored Mulliken bond population, Vickers hardness, thermodynamic and optical properties of MAX phases V2AC (A = Al, Ga). We have also revisited the structural and elastic properties of these phases in order to assess the reliability of our calculations. The temperature and pressure dependence of bulk modulus, Debye temperature, specific heats, and thermal expansion coefficient have been successfully estimated through the quasi-harmonic Debye model in the temperature range from 0 to 1000 K and the pressure range from 0 to 50 GPa. The optical properties such as the dielectric function, refractive index, photoconductivity, absorption coefficients, reflectivity and loss function are also evaluated for the first time. The reflectivity is found to be high which indicates that V2AC (A = Al, Ga) having the same characteristics could be good candidate materials to reduce solar heating up to ∼15 eV.

Highly birefringent, highly negative dispersion compensating photonic crystal fiber

Abstract: A triangular lattice dispersion compensating photonic crystal fiber is presented in this paper. The fiber produces high birefringence and operates at fundamental mode only. The full vector finite element method with a perfectly matched absorbing layer boundary condition is applied to investigate the guiding properties of the proposed fiber. The designed fiber demonstrates that it is possible to obtain a very large negative dispersion of −9486.1 ps/(nm·km) at 1550 nm wavelength with a negative dispersion more than −7000 ps/(nm·km) over the entire C-band (1530–1565 nm), which is suitable for broadband dispersion compensation. The birefringence is about 4.13×10−2 at 1550 nm wavelength, which is also very high. All these properties make this fiber very suitable in the area of broadband dispersion compensation and polarization-maintaining applications.

Anti-theft vehicle tracking and regaining system with automatic police notifying using Haversine formula

Abstract: In this paper a vehicle tracking system is proposed which track the vehicle and offers to incarcerate the vehicle in a minimum period of time when it is lost. Vehicle tracking and locking system has a Global Positioning System (GPS) and a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). Owner can send an edict anytime to the device which is in the vehicle. The device is password protected. Owner's message must be incorporated with the password to unlock the device. When the device is unlocked, then it will give the co-ordinate of the vehicle through the message. If the car is filched, owner can command the device to lock the door of the vehicle and proposed system will automatically apprise nearest police station about stealing event. Haversine formula is used to find out the nearest police station from GPS data and back end database. Then the nearest police station may commence necessary actions to recover the vehicle. The whole system is powered by a rechargeable battery and adapter. This paper elucidates the anticipated result and gives some gist about future implementation.

Anti-theft protection of vehicle by GSM & GPS with fingerprint verification

Abstract: Recently vehicle tracking system is getting vast popularity because of the rising number of the stolen vehicles. Vehicle theft is happening on parking and sometimes driving in unsecured places. This research work explores how to avoid this kind of stealing and provides more security to the vehicles. The implemented system contains single-board embedded system which is equipped with global system for mobile (GSM) and global positioning system (GPS) along with a microcontroller installed in the vehicle. The use of GSM and GPS technologies allows the system to track the object and provides the most up-to-date information about on-going trips. Moreover, fingerprint verification is done in the implemented system to ensure the driving of correct person. The implemented system is very simple with greater security for vehicle anti-theft protection and low cost technique compared to others.

Predicting urban storm water-logging for Chittagong city in Bangladesh

Abstract: In recent years, rainfall induced ‘urban storm water-logging’ (USWL) events are experiencing in Chittagong city like other urbanized parts of Bangladesh. To mitigate this there is an urgent need to predict the USWL beforehand and a numerical model could help. Thus, this paper aimed to use a hydrological model i.e. HEC-HMS through field survey during 2013–2014 and a questionnaire survey. With the support of secondary data source viz. daily newspaper, intensive questionnaire survey and field visits identified 13 most vulnerable USWL locations and based on these a USWL depth–duration–frequency curve was developed. This showed during water logging (i.e. May–July), the depth of logged water rises 0.3–1.27 m causing adjacent dwellers sufferings upto 13 times per year and the inundation period is up to 48 h. Using these, HEC-HMS model was setup and the correlation obtained with the field measurement as R2 values 0.83 and 0.77 during calibration and verification period respectively. Once a real time hydrological dataset is available, the validated model supposed to provide useful information in the decision support system.

Structural, morphological and magnetic properties of Al 3+ substituted Ni 0.25 Cu 0.20 Zn 0.55 Al x Fe 2-x O 4 ferrites synthesized by solid state reaction route

Abstract: Ni-Cu-Zn ferrite materials have been extensively used in electronic materials because of their outstanding properties at high frequencies. This work investigates the impact of Al substitution on the structure, morphology and magnetic properties of Ni0.25Cu0.20Zn0.55AlxFe2−xO4 (x = 0.00, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 and 0.20) prepared by solid state reaction method. X-ray diffractometer (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), impedance analyzer and Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM) were used to characterize the properties of the samples. The XRD study confirmed the cubic spinel structure with single phase for all the samples. The lattice constant, X-ray density and bulk density decrease while the porosity and grain size increase with the increase of Al content in the samples. The frequency dependence of the complex permeability sintered at 1200 °C has been measured for toroidal samples in the frequency range between 1 kHz and 120 MHz at room temperature. The decrease in initial permeability has been explained on the basis of variation in grain size. The temperature dependence of the initial permeability has been measured in the temperature range between from 30 to 250 °C. Curie temperature (Tc) has been estimated from the temperature dependence of the permeability spectra for all samples. It is found that Curie temperatures and initial permeability ( μ i ′ ) decrease on Al substitution. The saturation magnetization has been measured at room temperature and it was found to decrease with increasing of Al3+ ions.

Ion acoustic shock and periodic waves through Burgers equation in weakly and highly relativistic plasmas with nonextensivity

Abstract: A comparative study is carried out for the nonlinear propagation of ion acoustic shock waves both for the weakly and highly relativistic plasmas consisting of relativistic ions and q-distributed electrons and positions. The Burgers equation is derived to reveal the physical phenomena using the well known reductive perturbation technique. The integration of the Burgers equation is performed by the method. The effects of positron concentration, ion–electron temperature ratio, electron–positron temperature ratio, ion viscosity coefficient, relativistic streaming factor and the strength of the electron and positron nonextensivity on the nonlinear propagation of ion acoustic shock and periodic waves are presented graphically and the relevant physical explanations are provided.

Design of an IoT based autonomous vehicle with the aid of computer vision

Abstract: A web controlled and partially autonomous vehicle system is presented in this paper. It highlights the idea to develop a remote controlled car which can be driven from anywhere using internet over a secured server. This car will also have limited automation features like traffic light detection, obstacle avoidance system and lane detection system so that it can drive itself safely in case of connectivity failure. The main goal here is to minimize the risk of human life and ensure highest safety during driving. At the same time the car will assure comfort and convenience to the controller. A miniature car including the above features has been developed which showed optimum performance in a simulated environment. The system mainly consists of a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino, a Picamera, a sonar module, a web interface and internet modem. The Raspberry Pi was mainly used for the Computer Vision algorithms and for streaming video through internet. The proposed system is very cheap and very efficient in terms of automation.

Securing AOMDV protocol in mobile adhoc network with elliptic curve cryptography

Abstract: Mobile Adhoc Network (MANET) is comprised of mobile nodes where each mobile node acts as both router and terminal. While acting as a router a reliable routing protocol is chosen ensuring the packet to reach its destination and an agent is responsible for the transmission of packet while acting as a terminal. In this paper, we implemented secure packet transmission in mobile adhoc network (MANET) through Adhoc On Demand Multipath Distance Vector (AOMDV) routing protocol. AOMDV, a multipath extension of AODV (Adhoc On Demand Distance Vector) routing protocol, is more reliable than its parent protocol, though not completely restraint from attacks. To keep the packets secure in an adversary environment with multiple attackers is the main objective. Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) has been chosen to secure the packets against blackhole attack. Elliptic Curve Cryptography provides security with smaller key size compared to other public-key encryption. We configured three different types of environment using NS-2.35 which is a discrete event network simulator; a secure environment without malicious activity, a hostile environment with blackhole attackers and with ECC implementation by the agent and analyzed their performance.

An overview of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technologies and its opportunities in Bangladesh

Abstract: Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology is one of the most promising candidate for mitigating the future energy crisis. The extracted power from CSP technology is very clean, reliable and environmental friendly. An overview of CSP technologies like Parabolic Trough, Solar Tower, Parabolic Dish, Linear Fresnel technology have been described in this paper. Comparison among these technologies has been illustrated in this work. For extenuating the present power crisis in Bangladesh CSP technology has great opportunities, since the average Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) in Bangladesh is 4–6.5 KWh/m2 which is suitable for all types of CSP technology. Suitable locations for different CSP plants in Bangladesh are also proposed on the basis of efficiency, required area and amount of DNI received.

Digital electric meter reading recognition based on horizontal and vertical binary pattern

Abstract: Digital meter reading recognition from a digital electric meter image is the key step in the field of digital image processing to evaluate the meter readings from different environmental conditions automatically This work has gain important for the purpose of automatic generation of electric bill from digital electric meter image In this regard, a digital electric meter reading recognition framework is proposed in this paper For that initially, the input image is normalized and converted to YCbCr image As the digital electric meter reading region is resolute with color light, especially green, the reading region is extracted from YCbCr image based on the value of the Cb and Cr After that, Canny edge operator is employed on the extracted region to find the edge image In this edge image, the individual digit's edge gaps are filled up through the morphological operation to find individually connected digit edge image These individual digits are segmented from an edge image through the vertical projection Furthermore, the individually segmented digits are filled and thinned to detect the shapes of the digits From these segmented digit shapes the Horizontal and Vertical Binary (HVB) pattern features are extracted This is the key contribution of this paper Finally, based on the HVB patterns the digital meter reading sequence is recognized The experimental result reveals that the proposed framework is practical and effective

Design and implementation of real time transformer health monitoring system using GSM technology

Abstract: With the progress and development of national economy as well as power system, reliability and safety issues of power system have been more important. Development of distribution Transformer Health Monitoring System (THMS) has been done in that reason. Distribution transformer is the most vital asset in any electrical distribution network and therefore it needs special care and attention. This THMS can monitor the health status of the distribution transformer in real time aspect. As a large number of transformers are distributed over a wide area in present electric systems, it's difficult to monitor the condition manually of every single transformer. So automatic data acquisition and transformer condition monitoring has been an important issue. This project presents design and implementation of a mobile embedded system to monitor load currents, over voltage, transformer oil level and oil temperature. The implementation on-line monitoring system integrates Global Service Mobile (GSM) Modem, with single chip microcontroller and sensors. It is installed at the distribution transformer site. The output values of sensors are processed and recorded in the system memory. System programmed with some predefined instructions to check abnormal conditions. If there is any abnormality on the system, the GSM module will send SMS (Short Message Service) messages to designated mobile telephones containing information about the abnormality according to the aforesaid predefined instructions. This mobile system will help the utilities to optimally utilize transformers and identify problems before any catastrophic failure occurs. This system will be an advanced step to the automation by diminishing human dependency. As it is a wireless communicating system, there is no need of large cables which are of high cost. Thus THMS offers a more improved transformer monitoring.

Traffic sign detection and recognition using fuzzy segmentation approach and artificial neural network classifier respectively

Abstract: Traffic Sign Recognition (TSR) system is a significant component of Intelligent Transport System (ITS) as traffic signs assist the drivers to drive more safely and efficiently. This paper represents a new approach for TSR system where detection of traffic sign is carried out using fuzzy rules based color segmentation method and recognition is accomplished using Speeded Up Robust Features(SURF) descriptor, trained by artificial neural network (ANN) classifier. In the detection step, the region of interest (sign area) is segmented using a set of fuzzy rules depending on the hue and saturation values of each pixel in the HSV color space, post processed to filter unwanted region. Finally the recognition of the traffic sign is implemented using ANN classifier upon the training of SURF features descriptor. The proposed system simulated on offline road scene images captured under different illumination conditions. The detection algorithm shows a high robustness and the recognition rate is quite satisfactory. The performance of the ANN model is illustrated in terms of cross entropy, confusion matrix and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Also, performances of some classifier such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Trees, Ensembles Learners (Adaboost) and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) classifier are assessed with ANN approach. The simulation results illustrate that recognition using ANN model is higher than classifiers stated above.

Design and implementation of cost effective water quality evaluation system

Abstract: Embodiment of low cost and immensely proficient water quality monitoring system is very crying need for those people living in the outlying territory where immune drinking water is not plethoric. This paper illustrates a microcontroller based water quality monitoring system with high degree of accuracy and susceptible to determine several parameters of water such as temperature, turbidity and potential of hydrogen (pH). Detection of those parameters of water is very important and indispensable in order to lead healthy life as different source of water are being tainted due to excess population. Various analytical schemes are subsist for ascertainment of the quality of water where several are time-consuming and few are used for industrial applications that are not applicable for simple water quality monitoring system. Consequently, it is needless to model a simple device that track out various parameters of water unerringly. In this project based research work, a simple microcontroller is used as central processing unit (CPU) and multiple sensors that detect various parameters and send the data to microcontroller and finally the LCD gives the results.