Showing papers by "National Institute of Technology, Karnataka published in 2015"

Dielectric and piezoelectric properties of PVDF/PZT composites: A review

Abstract: Smart materials, which exhibit piezoelectricity, find an eclectic range of applications in the industry. The direct piezoelectric effect has been widely used in sensor design, and the inverse piezoelectric effect has been applied in actuator design. Ever since 1954, PZT and BaTiO3 were widely used for sensor and actuator applications despite their toxicity, brittleness, inflexibility, etc. With the discovery of PVDF in 1969, followed by development of copolymers, a flexible, easy to process, nontoxic, high density alternate with high piezoelectric voltage coefficient was available. In the past 20 years, heterostructural materials like polymer ceramic composites, have received lot of attention, since these materials combine the excellent pyroelectric and piezoelectric properties of ceramics with the flexibility, processing facility, and strength of the polymers resulting in relatively high dielectric permittivity and breakdown strength, which are not attainable in a single phase piezoelectric material. The current review article is an attempt to provide a compendium of all the work carried out with reference to PVDF-PZT composites. The review article evaluates the effect of grain size, content and other factors under the purview of dielectric and piezoelectric properties while evaluating the sensitivity of the material for sensor application. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 55:1589–1616, 2015. © 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers

Impact of land use change on hydrological systems: A review of current modeling approaches

Abstract: Hydrologic modeling plays a very important role in assessing the seasonal water availability, which is necessary to take decisions in water resources management. Both climate and land use and land cover change have great influence on the hydrological response of a watershed. The main aim of this study is to provide a detailed review of studies which have been carried out to analyze the hydrological impacts of land use change, and also to evaluate different scenario modeling approaches. In addition, a brief description of basic hydrologic models which are used to simulate the stream flow is provided. This review paper tried to explain the importance of model comparison and performance evaluation in modeling studies. The following conclusions may be drawn from this review: (1) it is necessary to model the possible impacts of land use change and climate change in order to proceed with effective water resources management, (2) it is important to analyze the variation in hydrological response in catchm...

A Review on the development of lattice Boltzmann computation of macro fluid flows and heat transfer

Abstract: The Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) is introduced in the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) field as a tool for research and development, but its ultimate importance lies in various industrial and academic applications. Owing to its excellent numerical stability and constitutive versatility it plays an essential role as a simulation tool for understanding micro and macro fluid flows. The LBM received a tremendous impetus with their spectacular use in incompressible and compressible fluid flow and heat transfer problems. The applications of LBM to incompressible flows with simple and complex geometries are much less spectacular. From a computational point of view, the present LBM is hyperbolic and can be solved locally, explicitly, and efficiently on parallel computers. The present paper reviews the philosophy and the formal concepts behind the lattice Boltzmann approach and gives progress in the area of incompressible fluid flows, compressible fluid flows and free surface flows.

Refining of edible oils: a critical appraisal of current and potential technologies

Abstract: Summary The major sources of dietary lipids are edible oils, which include both vegetable and fish oils. Crude oil extracted from vegetable and fish sources contain mono-, di-, triacylglycerols along with impurities, which necessitates refining. The main objective of refining is to remove the contaminants that adversely affect the quality of oil, thereby reducing the shelf life and consumer acceptance. However, this refining process needs to be tailored as the composition of crude oil is highly variable, depending upon the plant/fish species, geographical location of the source and method of oil extraction. Recently, extensive efforts have been made to develop refining technology, using either conventional physical/chemical processes or several unconventional processes including biological and membrane processes. The first section of this review gives a brief description of general composition of some commonly used vegetable and fish oils, followed by the review of various refining methods and their effects on the oil constituents. Finally, an effort is made to understand the technological gaps in the existing methods and possible directions of research to overcome the said gaps.

A review of estimation of effective wind speed based control of wind turbines

Abstract: This paper provides a comprehensive literature review on the estimation of effective wind Speed (EEWS), and EEWS based control techniques applied to wind turbine (WT). Several numbers of good publications have reported the EEWS based control of wind turbine. Wind speed is a driving force for the wind turbine system. In general wind speed measurement is carried out by anemometer which is located at the top of the nacelle. The optimal shaft speed is derived from the exact measurement of wind speed to extract the optimal power output at below rated wind speed. The wind speed provided by the anemometer is measured at a single point of the rotor plane which is not the accurate effective wind speed. At the same time anemometer increases the overall cost, maintenance and reduce the reliability of the overall system. So an accurate EEWS based control technique is required for WT systems to get the optimal power output. In this paper, a detailed description and classification of EEWS and some EEWS based control techniques have been discussed which is based on control strategy and complexity level of WT system. All most all previous work estimates the wind speed using EEWS techniques such as Kalman filter (KF), extended Kalman filter (EKF), neural network (NN) etc., and then different control techniques are applied. In the last section of this paper integral sliding mode control (ISMC) of a WT at below rated speed region is considered. Operating points are determined by proper estimation of effective wind speed, and modified Newton Raphson (MNR) is employed to estimate this. Finally simulation results are presented with a comparison between proposed ISMC, sliding mode control (SMC) and classical controllers such as aerodynamic torque feed forward (ATF) and indirect speed control (ISC).

Performance analysis of Ensemble methods on Twitter sentiment analysis using NLP techniques

Abstract: Mining opinions and analyzing sentiments from social network data help in various fields such as even prediction, analyzing overall mood of public on a particular social issue and so on. This paper involves analyzing the mood of the society on a particular news from Twitter posts. The key idea of the paper is to increase the accuracy of classification by including Natural Language Processing Techniques (NLP) especially semantics and Word Sense Disambiguation. The mined text information is subjected to Ensemble classification to analyze the sentiment. Ensemble classification involves combining the effect of various independent classifiers on a particular classification problem. Experiments conducted demonstrate that ensemble classifier outperforms traditional machine learning classifiers by 3-5%.

Trajectory Data and Flow Characteristics of Mixed Traffic

Abstract: Models of driving behavior (e.g., car following and lane changing) describe the longitudinal and lateral movements of vehicles in the traffic stream. Calibration and validation of these models require detailed vehicle trajectory data. Trajectory data about traffic in cities in the developing world are not publicly available. These cities are characterized by a heterogeneous mix of vehicle types and by a lack of lane discipline. This paper reports on an effort to create a data set of vehicle trajectory data in mixed traffic and on the first results of analysis of these data. The data were collected through video photography in an urban midblock road section in Chennai, India. The trajectory data were extracted from the video sequences with specialized software, and the locally weighted regression method was used to process the data to reduce measurement errors and obtain continuous position, speed, and acceleration functions. The collected data were freely available at http://toledo.net.technion.ac.il/down...

Humic acid based biopolymeric membrane for effective removal of methylene blue and rhodamine B

Abstract: Humic acid was immobilized on a polypropylene supported sodium alginate/hydroxyethyl cellulose blend membrane in the current work. The adsorption property of this membrane for the removal of cationic dyes, namely, methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RhB) was extensively studied. Batch-adsorption experiments were conducted to investigate the adsorption behavior of dyes on the membrane with variation in adsorbent mass, initial dye concentration, pH, time and temperature. The membranes were characterized by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Atomic force microscopy (AFM). Prepared membranes showed more than 98% removal capacity for both dyes under optimal conditions. Kinetic experiments revealed that, the pseudo second order model exhibited best correlation with the adsorption data. Dubinin-Radushkevich model indicated that, the adsorption of dyes onto the membrane surface was by simple physisorption. The membrane was easily regenerated by simple acid treatment and its efficiency remained significant even after four adsorption cycles.

Modeling of photovoltaic system for uniform and non-uniform irradiance: A critical review

Abstract: A critical review on various modeling approaches of photovoltaic array both under uniform and non-uniform irradiance is presented in this paper. The main approaches that have been deliberated are based on the variation of analytical methods, classical optimization techniques and soft computing techniques. The review has been taken from papers published up to 2015. In this paper a detailed description and classifications of modeling techniques for both uniform and non-uniform irradiance conditions are presented. Modeling of PV systems under uniform irradiance is classified into non-iterative methods, iterative methods, artificial intelligence based methods and dynamic models. Under non-uniform irradiance, they are classified into non-iterative methods, iterative methods and artificial intelligence based methods. It is envisaged that this paper can serve as valuable information for researchers to work on photovoltaic array modeling under partial shaded condition.

Biorenewable chemicals: feedstocks, technologies and the conflict with food production.

Abstract: Volatile petroleum product prices along with depleting resources of oil and increasing environmental concerns had prompted several government agencies to promote and subsidize the production of biofuels from edible crops. The alarming rate at which edible crops were being deviated to produce biofuels caused the price of food crops like corn to shoot by a margin of over 100% in the initial three years (2005–2007). The twenty-first century has so far witnessed an enormous growth in production of biorenewable chemicals. The economically more lucrative business of biorenewable chemicals is currently projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 22.4% and account for 45% of the chemicals produced in the US by 2025. This calls for a thoughtful regulation of the parameters, which should be considered for the production of biorenewable chemicals, in order to avoid any direct conflict with food production. This study addresses the possible edible and non-edible feedstock sources, conversion technologies used, conflict with food production accessed in terms of market scenario, environmental concerns and availability of land area for the effective conversion of the individual generation of feedstocks to biorenewable chemicals.

A critical review on properties and applications of microbial l-asparaginases.

Abstract: l-Asparaginase is one of the main drugs used in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a commonly diagnosed pediatric cancer. Although several microorganisms are found to produce l-asparaginase, only the purified enzymes from E. coli and Erwinia chrysanthemi are employed in the clinical and therapeutic applications in humans. However, their therapeutic response seldom occurs without some evidence of hypersensitivity and other toxic side effects. l-Asparaginase is also of prospective use in food industry to reduce the formation of acrylamide in fried, roasted or baked food products. This review is an attempt to compile information on the properties of l-asparaginases obtained from different microorganisms. The complications involved with the therapeutic use of the currently available l-asparaginases, and the enzyme's potential application as a food processing aid to mitigate acrylamide formation have also been reviewed. Further, avenues for searching alternate sources of l-asparaginase have been discussed, highlighting the prospects of endophytic microorganisms as a possible source of l-asparaginases with varied biochemical and pharmacological properties.

Synthesis of silver nanoparticles using medicinal Zizyphus xylopyrus bark extract

Abstract: In the present paper, biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using Zizyphus xylopyrus bark extract is reported. Z. xylopyrus bark extract is efficiently used for the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles. UV-Visible spec- troscopy showed surface plasmon resonance peaks in the range 413-420 nm confirming the formation of silver nanoparticles. Different factors affecting the synthesis of silver nanoparticles like methodology for the preparation of extract, concentration of silver nitrate solution used for biosynthesis and initial pH of the reaction mixture were studied. The extract prepared with 10 mM AgNO3 solution by reflux extraction method at optimum initial pH of 11, resulted in higher conversion of silver ions to silver nanoparticles as compared with those prepared by open heating or ultrasonication. SEM analysis showed that the biosynthesized nanoparticles are spherical in nature and ranged from 60 to 70 nm in size. EDX suggested that the silver nanoparticles must be capped by the organic com- ponents present in the plant extract. This simple process for the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using aqueous extract of Z. xylopyrus is a green technology without the usage of hazardous and toxic solvents and chemicals and hence is environment friendly. The process has several advantages with reference to cost, compatibility for its application in medical and drug delivery, as well as for large-scale commercial production.

Effect of electrode material in wire electro discharge machining characteristics of Ti50Ni50−xCux shape memory alloy

Abstract: TiNiCu alloy belongs to new class of shape memory alloy (SMA), which exhibits superior properties like shape memory effect, super elasticity and reversible martensitic transformation phase and thus find broad applications in actuators, micro tools and stents in biomedical components. Even though, SMA demonstrates outstanding property profile, traditional machining of SMAs is fairly complex and hence non-traditional machining like wire electric discharge machining (WEDM) has been performed. Hence, there is a need to investigate the WEDM performance characteristics of shape memory alloys due to excellent property profile and potential applications. In the present investigation, various machining characteristics like material removal rate (MRR), surface roughness, surface topography and metallographic changes have been studied and the influence of wire material on TiNiCu alloy machining characteristics has also been evaluated through ANOVA. Ti 50 Ni 50− x Cu x =10, 20 was prepared by vacuum arc melting process. The proposed alloy as-cast material exhibits austenite property (B2 phase) and having higher hardness when compared to TiNi alloy. The investigation on WEDM of Ti 50 Ni 50− x Cu x alloy reveals that the machining parameters such as servo voltage, pulse on time and pulse off time are the most significant parameters affecting MRR as well as surface roughness using both brass and zinc coated brass wires. However, machining with zinc coated brass wire yields reduced surface roughness and better MRR and also produces less surface defects on the machined surface of Ti 50 Ni 50− x Cu x alloys.

Rouse mode analysis of chain relaxation in polymer nanocomposites.

Abstract: Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the internal relaxations of chains in nanoparticle (NP)/polymer composites. We examine the Rouse modes of the chains, a quantity that is closest in spirit to the self-intermediate scattering function, typically determined in an (incoherent) inelastic neutron scattering experiment. Our simulations show that for weakly interacting mixtures of NPs and polymers, the effective monomeric relaxation rates are faster than in a neat melt when the NPs are smaller than the entanglement mesh size. In this case, the NPs serve to reduce both the monomeric friction and the entanglements in the polymer melt, as in the case of a polymer–solvent system. However, for NPs larger than half the entanglement mesh size, the effective monomer relaxation is essentially unaffected for low NP concentrations. Even in this case, we observe a strong reduction in chain entanglements for larger NP loadings. Thus, the role of NPs is to always reduce the number of entanglements, with this effect only becoming pronounced for small NPs or for high concentrations of large NPs. Our studies of the relaxation of single chains resonate with recent neutron spin echo (NSE) experiments, which deduce a similar entanglement dilution effect.

Electrodeposition of laminar coatings of Ni–W alloy and their corrosion behaviour

Abstract: The attractiveness of electroplating for the synthesis of advanced materials is linked to large selection of plating conditions coupled with different mass transfer processes towards the cathode, and this allows the tailoring of different properties of many electrodeposited coatings. This theme has been exploited effectively in the development of a new class of coatings; called composition modulated multilayered (CMM), or in short laminar coatings. The work embodied in this paper is to demonstrate how the corrosion resistance of monolayer Ni–W alloys can be increased to many fold of its magnitude by multilayer deposition. Ni–W coatings have been deposited on mild steel (MS) in a laminar multilayer pattern from a citrate bath using single bath technique (SBT). Electrodeposits having alternate layers of alloys, having different compositions were developed by modulating the direct current (DC). CMM coating configurations have been optimized from a newly developed bath, in terms of current pulse height and thickness of each layer to maximize its corrosion protection ability, in relation to its monolayer coating, developed from same bath for same time. The process and product of the Ni–W coatings have been characterized using different instrumental methods, such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) study. The better corrosion resistance behaviour of CMM Ni–W coatings has been analysed in the light of increased surface areas of the coatings due to layering, and results are discussed.