The use of biodiesel is rapidly increasing around the world, making it imperative to understand the impacts of biodiesel on the diesel engine combustion process and pollutant formation. Biodiesel is known as the mono-alkyl-esters of long chain fatty acids derived from renewable feedstock, such as, non-edible vegetable oils or animal fats, for use in compression ignition engines. The high viscosity of vegetable oils leads to problem in pumping and spray characteristics. The best way to use vegetable oils as fuel in compression ignition (CI) engines is to convert it into biodiesel. The important advantages of biodiesel are lower exhaust gas emissions and its biodegradability and renewability compared with petroleum-based diesel fuel. The energy of the biodiesel can be released more efficiently with the concept of Low Heat Rejection (LHR) engine. The aim of this study is to apply Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBC) onto engine parts for improving engine performance when biodiesel is used as an alternative fuel. For this purpose, a Direct Injection (DI) diesel engine was converted to a LHR engine by applying Al2O3-TiO2(TBC) on the Piston Crown and the effects of biodiesel (produced from Pongamia oil) usage in the LHR engine, performance and emission characteristics have been investigated experimentally with injector pressures of 180 bar & 250 bar. The results showed that specific fuel consumption and the brake thermal efficiency were improved, exhaust gas temperature was increased in the LHR engine and the smoke density of the engine is decreased compared to the base engine when it is run with diesel.

Rapid depletion of conventional energy sources along with increasing demand for energy is a matter of serious concern. The fact that petroleum based fuels will neither be available in sufficient quantities nor at reasonable price in future has revived interest in exploring alternate fuels for diesel engines. Only non-edible vegetable oils can be seriously considered as fuels for engines as the edible oils are in great demand and are far too expensive as fuels. Gum formation, filter clogging, carbon deposits at the nozzle tips, higher exhaust emissions due to high exhaust temperatures are some of the problems associated with these oils. Using of vegetable oils in low heat rejection engines is the only solution to overcome problems of these oils. The high in cylinder temperature of these engines reduces the ignition delay and aids combustion. The use of vegetable oils in the LHR engine reduces HC, CO and smoke emissions. It is planned to carry out suitable modification on the existing engine by insulating piston, cylinder liner, and cylinder head with an intention to improve the performance of the engine and to reduce emissions. Initially modifications are carried out by employing PSZ coated cylinder head and liner on the engine. Then different levels of insulation are applied by changing different pistons. The LHR engine configuration which gave the best performance is used for the subsequent investigations. Varieties of locally available vegetable oils are tried with a view to identify the best one in terms of efficiency and emissions. Volumetric efficiency drop due to high temperature environment is the main problem associated with LHR engines. Hence, experiments are conducted with supercharging to compensate the volumetric efficiency drop. Break thermal efficiency of thumba fueled supercharged LHR engine is found to be higher than the base engine run by the same fuel by 7 percent.

Magneto rheological (MR) fluids offer solutions to many engineering challenges. Magneto rheological fluid (MRF) is a smart fluid whose properties can be controlled with the help of metal particles and magnetic field. These fluids have the ability to transmit force in a controlled manner with the help of magnetic field, thus improving their performance especially in areas where controlled fluid motion is required. Some applications of magneto rheological fluid technology are in dampers, brakes, journal bearings, pneumatic artificial muscles, optics finishing, fluid clutches, aerospace etc. where we give electrical inputs and get the mechanical output comparatively faster and in a controlled manner. This is a review paper covering the principles of MR fluid working modes and its field of applications.

Leaf springs are one of the oldest suspension components they are still frequently used, especially in commercial vehicles. The automobile industry has shown increased interest in the replacement of steel spring with fiber glass composite leaf spring due to high strength to weight ratio. Composite materials are one of the material families which are attracting researchers and being solutions of such issue. This work is carried out on multi leaf spring consist three full length leaves in which one is with eyed ends used by a light commercial vehicle. This work deals with replacement of conventional steel leaf spring of a light commercial vehicle with composite leaf spring using E-glass/Epoxy. Dimensions of the composite leaf spring are to be taken as same dimensions of the conventional leaf spring. The objective is to compare the load carrying capacity, stresses and weight savings of composite leaf spring with that of steel leaf spring. The finite element modeling and analysis of a multi leaf spring has been carried out. The CAE analysis of the multi leave leaf spring is performed for the deflection and stresses under defined loading conditions. The Theoretical and CAE results are compared for validation.

We take an opportunity to present this report on “THERMAL BARRIER COATINGS ON IC-ENGINES: REVIEW” and put before readers some useful information regarding this paper. In baseline engine, the liner undergoes a severe wear at high temperatures of combustion which results in seizure of the liner. Due to heat losses through the cylinder walls, the thermal efficiency of the engine decreases. Reduction of emissions from diesel engine is becoming increasingly important, because of promulgation of stringent emissions legislation. To increase wear resistance, thermal efficiency, and minimize pollutants in the exhaust of the engine, a thermal barrier and wear resistant coating is applied to inner walls of the cylinder which replaces conventional liner. Thermal barrier Coating (TBC), a new technique used at present scenario. TBC is a thin layer of ceramic coating applied to combustion chamber components, mainly for piston crown, valves, cylinder cover and cylinder walls. By using this technique, the present problems could be solved to some extent. Thermal barrier coatings becoming increasingly important in providing thermal insulation for heat engine components. Thermal insulation reduces in-cylinder heat transfer from the engine combustion chamber and also components structural temperature. Containment of heat also contributes to increase in cylinder work and offers higher exact temperature for energy recovery. Lower component structural temperature will result in greater durability.

In this paper a sliding mode control enhanced by fuzzy logic algorithm method is proposed for the robust tracking control of industrial robot manipulator. The proposed controller ensures the advantage of fuzzy logic algorithm and sliding mode control. There are two parts of the proposed method: first the design of sliding mode control for robust stability and second the development of fuzzy logic algorithms to reduce chattering effectively. The stability of control is proven by Lyapunov stability method and the performance of tracking error is shown in a table by using RMS value.

Engineering assessment involves many challenging objectives relies on choosing a design solution from a best set of solutions. This best set of solutions, known as the Pareto set, shows the tradeoffs that lie between the challenging objectives for diverse design solutions. Generation of this Pareto set is the major aim of multiple objective optimizations. There are various approaches to solve this kind of problem. Several approaches create solutions that cannot be applicable to combination of discrete and continuous variable parameters problems. The key objective of this paper is to demonstrate two approaches of using genetic algorithms to reduce these problems. The first approach uses a conventional non-sorted genetic algorithm to handle multiple objective optimizations, while the second method operates within the non-sorted genetic algorithm with some significant internal modifications which operates online kriging. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses, and it is the objective of this project to compare and highlight the two approaches quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Three multiobjective optimization problems are used for the purpose of this comparison.

The analysis of commercially available piezoelectric coefficient mono crystalline materials. such as PMN-PT (lead magnesium niobate - lead titanate) helps broaden the gate for silicon-integrated applications (Piezoelectric MEMS) becoming more compatible with micro technology batch processes, further advances are expected in terms of miniaturization, optimization, functionality or integration with electronics, all while reducing manufacturing costs. Subsequently, operating voltage will be lower and devices response time will improve dramatically. Analytical and finite elements modelling (FEM) are performed on three crystals PMNPT and PZT-5A and PZT-5H on Aluminium cantilevers. Comparative results clearly report quantitative improvement of PMNPT on Al design in terms of tip displacement and blocking force, which imply greater potential generation.

Numerical simulations of the flow around an unswept and untwisted rectangular wing (NACA 0012) with rounded tip are carried out at a high geometric angle of attack 10 degrees using the finite-volume based the commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code FLUENT. Wingtip vortices influence the induced drag for a three-dimensional wing. So, it is important to study the characteristics of wing tip vortices in order to reduce the induced drag. The numerical results of pressure coefficient and axial velocity were obtained by using the CFD code show a good agreement with the experimental data. The variation of circulation at different areas to the right of the wingtip vortex core and the strength of the circulation around the vortex core are computed. Also the tangential velocities at one chord downstream of the trailing edge are evaluated.

Erosion is associated with solid fuel fired boilers. Solid fuels such as coal, rice husk can erode the boiler tubes due to their ash constituents. [3]. Erosion is a serious problem in coal based thermal power generation plants in India. The coal used in Indian power station has large amounts of ash which contain abrasive minerals, which increase the possibility of erosion in power plants. (Chawla et al, 2011) Most of the components of boiler are made of stainless steel like AISI 304, so stainless steel AISI 304 is selected for experimentation. Experimentation was done at impact angle 30 o, 60 o, 90 o and speed at 12, 17, 22 m/s. Most of result shows that erosion rate is maximum at 30° and minimum at 90° of impact angle. Main reason of high erosion at 30° is contact area. Pulverized coal was used as erodent. The erosive behavior of material was ductile in nature.

This paper presents a study on which the main objective is to intercooling of air compressor which is necessary for an efficient process. Basically the meaning of compression is the reduction of a specified volume, resulting in an increase in pressure. I will mainly discuss about reciprocating compressor which is widely used for air compression. For improving efficiency compression is done in more than one stage and between each stage intercooler is provided. Intercooler improves the quality of air and reduces inlet air temperature. Intercooler is an air-to-air or air-to-liquid heat exchanger device that transfers intake charge heat to an intermediate fluid which finally rejects heat to the air. A heat exchanger of shell & tube type particularly suitable as an intercooler between compression stages of an air compressor. A characteristic of heat exchanger design is the procedure of specifying a design, heat transfer area & pressure drop. In this paper we will study about design consideration which must be known before going to designing of heat exchanger. There are certain parameters which are defined by the engineers like fluid stream allocation, tube material, tube layout pattern, shell selection etc.

The study aims to investigate the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for Steel Casting Industry in Vidarbha Region-India. The term ‘CSF’ is defined as an explicit representation of the key performance areas of an organization. The research was undertaken to identify & interpret the critical success factors that affect the performance of steel casting industry. The literature review was carried out for the identification of CSFs for steel casting industry. Through a survey method using an instrument the data analysis technique had been used for one of the popular analysis methods for qualitative research works. The results of the CSFs for Steel Casting Industries were grouped into 7 factors:1)Training & Education, 2)Conducive Work Environment,3)Continuous Improvement, 4) Process Management,5)Quality Promotion,6)Support to Employees,7)Organization Culture. Each factor includes several key attributes that may aid to enhance the efficiency of Steel Casting Industries. It is an attempt to lead functions of a Steel Casting Industry in all levels to the same directions for achieving the success and to make Managers and executives know what they have to do for the success of Steel Casting Industry.

Least Square approach is employed in many branches of engineering and science. In case of heat transfer problems, least square approach can be used to estimate heat flux, or can be used to determine important thermal properties such as the thermal conductivity or heat capacity of solids. This, in turn, could be useful for cases where direct measurement of heat flux is not possible due to extremely high temperatures. This type of situation is encountered at surface of a space re-entry vehicle or in a gas turbine engine combustion chamber or high-pressure turbine or furnace. The significance of heat flux and temperature estimation provides vital insight on maximum operating temperature of the solid. The work presented in this paper aims to find out the heat flux and heat transfer coefficient over a flat plate for unsteady phenomenon of heat transfer by analyzing a simple one-dimensional model of a high-pressure gas engine wall, with constant thermal properties and no heat generation within the metal. One side of the wall is exposed to gas path hot air and the other side is exposed to cooling air bled off from the fan in air duct. A sensor at the cool surface of the metal measures temperatures over a range of time. The goal is to use the measured temperatures and the Least Square analysis to estimate the amount of heat flux required on the cool side of the wall to keep the metal on the gas path side below the maximum operating temperature in order to avoid incomplete combustion.

The airflow through the main rotor blade system of a helicopter is still not exceedingly well understood owing to its obscurity in aerodynamics. It is prognosticated that helicopter wakes can be significantly greater than those formed by a fixed wing aircraft of the same weight. Nuisance incidents such as brownout & noises are engendered from rotor wake. Study through flow visualization plays a key role in understanding the airflow distinctiveness and vortex interaction of a helicopter rotor blade. Inspecting and scrutinizing the effects of wake vortices during operation is a great challenge and imperative in designing effective rotor system. This study aimed at finding a suitable method to visualize the main rotor airflow pattern of a remote controlled subscale helicopter and seek for the vortex flow at the blade tip. The experimental qualitative data is correlated with quantitative data to perform meticulous study on the airflow behaviour & characteristics along with its distinctiveness generated by the main rotor in various flight conditions. Simulation is also performed in similar conditions to bequeath with comparability between the flow visualization results. Several dissimilar flow patterns were identified throughout the blade span. At the centre of the main rotor hub, the presence of turbulent flow was perceived. This is because of the low energy of air pooled in this region. Conversely, an apparent straight streamline pattern in the middle portion of the rotor blade was noticed as the air in this section encompassed high kinetic energy.

Current trends such as shorter product lifecycles, reduced time-to-market and mass-customization require new paradigms and approaches for production lines and machines. In the long term, production and manufacturing companies will only be able to survive in the face of increasing globalization if they can react flexibly and quickly to changing customer and market demands. New paradigms and approaches are waiting to fulfill these requirements, but their implementation requires completely new technologies. Reconfiguration, both at machine and control technology level is a promising candidate to achieve the flexibility required by these paradigms by technical means. This makes a shift from centrally controlled, highly interlinked, and often tightly interlocked production systems to distributed, modular, collaborative components essential. In this paper concept of eight-degree of freedom robot arm is discussed. This will allow a wide range of arm positions for any given target position, thus giving a great flexibility of motion. Motion can be governed by additional constraints, for more realistic motion than conventional six-degree of freedom systems, which have only a finite number of solutions for a target position. The paper presents an approach using modeling and a static analysis of eight axis robotic arm that consider its chains and mechanism.

Missile rear fin is mainly used for direction control. The fin includes number of components like panels, pins, tubes, lamina and caps. The performance of actuation system plays a decisive role in determining the performance of the flight control system for a highly maneuverable missile. To control the missiles by aerodynamics, control surfaces, sometimes called fins, are used. The manufacturing process of missile fin components involves different operations like CNC turning, CNC milling, drilling, EDM, grinding, and surface treatments. The paper presents the study of manufacturing processes of missile rear fin assembly.

The project deals with the design and analysis of M-wing. A three-dimensional layout of the airplane is created using CAD software (i.e. CATIVA V5). Static stress analysis is also performed for wing design purposes. Using the finite element software package ANSYS, the calculated aerodynamic loads are applied to the wing to check the wing reliability. It is shown that the designed wing could be a good candidate for similar general aviation airplane implementation. Considering final empty weight is 375.5443508 lb, final take-off weight is 575.5443508 lb and wing loading is =41.18771 lb/ft2

With the development of society and the gradual improvement of economic construction in the world, environmental situation is becoming severe. The theory and practice of green supply chain management in relation to sustainable development are paid more attention to by many enterprises and researchers. In recent years, climate changes such as global warming have been a topic that has attracted a lot of interest world over. Such changes have necessitated the need to identify the causes and solutions to these climatic changes. In an effort to mitigate these changes, legislations and environmental requirements have been put forward by governments and environmental agencies. The demand for environmentally friendly products has increased over the years and so is the shifting of loyalty of consumers .Also, the ever increasing costs of energy and inputs has forced business to find new ways to reduce energy use in order to reduce costs

Creating small angular holes is the requirement of many industries. Holes of different size and large no. must be created with high precision. Therefore it is decided to design and develop a drilling machine to produce holes at required angles. A thorough study on considering different parameters is carried out. A review is presented here.

Friction Stir Welding has many benefits when applied to welding of aluminum alloys and dissimilar materials which were difficult to weld. In order to prevent defective welded joints, utmost care should be taken during the selection of welding parameters. Tool pin diameter and taper of the pin, flute design which includes number, depth and taper angle and pitch of any thread form on the pin are the important parameters in addition to the tool rotational speed (TRS), weld speed (traverse speed/WS) and the axial force (F). The main parameter considered in the present work is variation of properties with the variation of tool geometry and tool rotational speed and weld speed. Experimental results obtained are analyzed. The joints are obtained by using various tool profiles with varied process parameters. An ANN model is developed using MATLAB and optimization of process parameters in carried out by comparing the results obtained by Design of Experiments (DOE) and experimental values. Using each tool, Friction Stir Welding is carried out at various parameters on different materials AA6061, AA6351 and AA6082.

A combined thermal power and cooling cycle using the combination of a Rankine Cycle and the Goswami Cycle has been analyzed in this study to assess its performance. It can provide power output as well as refrigeration with power generation as a primary goal. The Goswami Cycle uses very high concentration ammonia vapor in the turbine which can be expanded to a very low temperature in the turbine without condensation. This cycle uses an absorption condensation process instead of the conventional condensation process. In this study combined thermal power and cooling cycle (Goswami & Rankine Cycle combined) is first optimized for maximum thermal efficiency and then it is compared with conventional system. The combined cycle is also analyzed for different fraction of steam extracted from a pass out turbine of the topping cycle (Rankine Cycle) as heating source to the bottoming cycle (Goswami Cycle). The proposed heating sources are the waste heat at the exit of back pressure turbine and extracted steam from pass-out turbine. The main parameters that can be varied to influence the cycle are the heat source temperature, boiler pressure, basic solution ammonia mass fraction, ratio of working and heating fluid flow rates, and absorber pressure and temperature. However, the study focuses on the impact of change in the ratio of working and heating fluid flow rates. The combined power and cooling cycle is optimized for the maximum thermal efficiency.

The development of virtual prototype of aircraft mechanisms is an essential phase to help industrialists and scientists to validate the experimental results and optimize its behavior. This development requires the simultaneous mastery of different disciplines: mechanical, thermal, hydraulic, electrical, etc. This paper proposes a multidisciplinary approach to develop a physical model of a hydromechanical brake control valve. This equipment is responsible for the regulation and transformation of hydraulic energy into mechanical energy in the form of friction at the wheels. The study of functional and geometric properties has enabled us to develop a 3D geometric model and a 1D physical model of the brake control valve. Then we proceed to connect these models using a co-operative simulation interface to analyze the behavior of this complex mechanism taking into account the main phenomena and parameters involved in the operation.

A major portion of the total electricity generated in our country is through thermal power plants using direct combustion of pulverized coal. The majority of forced outages of these thermal power stations are due to premature failure of vital components such as boiler tubes. Case studies pertaining to the failure analysis of various kinds of boiler tubes such as super heater tubes, reheater tubes, and water wall tubes that have failed involving creep deformation and damage have been studied. In the present study the metallurgical investigations revealed microstructural degradations through the formation of creep voids at the grain boundaries and intercrystalline cracks due to continued exposure to higher temperatures. The microstructure of the lip portion of the burst has been found to change depending upon the temperature of the rupture. Rupture taking place between Ac and Ac3has revealed a mixed structure consisting of bainite due to the quenching effects of the steel. Similarly rupture taking place below temperature Ac1 have been marked by divorced /degenerated pearlite and or spheroidised carbides in the ferrite matrix. Analysis made regarding the overheating (creep) failure of pendant reheater tubes indicates that surrounding temperature of the tube exceed several degrees higher than the components are designed for and also due to factors like erosion of tube surface by Fly ash, short supply of water through the boiler tubes caused by internal deposits.

The airflow through the main rotor blade system of a helicopter is still not exceedingly well understood owing to its obscurity in aerodynamics. It is prognosticated that helicopter wakes can be significantly greater than those formed by a fixed wing aircraft of the same weight. Nuisance incidents such as brownout & noises are engendered from rotor wake. Study through flow visualization plays a key role in understanding the airflow distinctiveness and vortex interaction of a helicopter rotor blade. Inspecting and scrutinizing the effects of wake vortices during operation is a great challenge and imperative in designing effective rotor system. This study aimed at finding a suitable method to visualize the main rotor airflow pattern of a remote controlled subscale helicopter and seek for the vortex flow at the blade tip. The experimental qualitative data is correlated with quantitative data to perform meticulous study on the airflow behaviour & characteristics along with its distinctiveness generated by the main rotor in various flight conditions. Simulation is also performed in similar conditions to bequeath with comparability between the flow visualization results. Several dissimilar flow patterns were identified throughout the blade span. At the centre of the main rotor hub, the presence of turbulent flow was perceived. This is because of the low energy of air pooled in this region. Conversely, an apparent straight streamline pattern in the middle portion of the rotor blade was noticed as the air in this section encompassed high kinetic energy.

The present research work deals with the study of the free vibration of buried/embedded shells. These buried shells are modelled as circular cylindrical shells as embedded in elastic medium. The elastic medium is approximated as Pasternak model. The bonds are assumed to be formed between the shell and the elastic medium. The elastic matrix is described by a Pasternak foundation model, which accounts for both normal pressure and the transverse shear deformation of the surrounding elastic medium. When the shear effects are neglected, the model reduces to Winkler foundation model. The normal pressure or Winkler elastic foundation parameter is approximated as a series of closely spaced, mutually independent, vertical linear elastic springs where the foundation modulus is assumed equivalent to stiffness of the springs. Governing equations for this system are derived from variations principles and the solution to the vibration problem is done by using wave propagation method. The obtained natural frequencies are presented by using the symbolic tool box of the MatLab® software. The effects of the surrounding matrix, axial and circumferential modenumbers, length of the shell, thickness of the shell and the various boundary conditions are presented and discussed in detail.

Autonomous wheeled mobile robot (WMR) path analysis and planning problem is an area of interest for the entire research community. Many authors have used different techniques to solve these problems. This paper presents an intelligent controller for solving the path analysis and planning problem of WMR in cluttered environment using heuristic rule base network (HRBN) technique. The proposed controller is applicable to plan an optimal path avoiding obstacles and reaching to target. This technique provides a general, robust, safe and optimized path of WMR. Simulation tests have been demonstrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller.