Optimization of Design Parameters for Lateral Circular Perforated Fin Arrays under Forced Convection

Heat dissipation is an important issue in compactness and weight of equipment. Heat dissipaters are not only chosen for their thermal performance but also for other design parameters such as weight, cost and reliability depending on applications. The present paper reports an experimental study to investigate the heat transfer enhancement over vertical rectangular fin arrays equipped with lateral circular perforations. The cross‐sectional area of the rectangular duct was 200 mm × 80 mm. The data used in performance analysis were obtained experimentally for aluminum at 200 Watts heat input, by varying the fin thickness, size of perforations and varying Reynolds number range 2.1 × 10⁴ to 8.7 × 10⁴. Using the Taguchi experimental design method, optimum design parameters and their levels were investigated. Average Nusselt number was considered as a performance characteristics. An L₉ (3³) orthogonal array was selected as an experimental plan. Optimum results were found by experimenting with porosity, Reynolds number and thickness of the fin. It is observed that the Reynolds number and maximum porosity have a larger impact on Nusselt number.     

Room temperature ammonia sensor based on jaw like bis-porphyrin molecules

A jaw-like bis-porphyrin (bis-TPP) molecule was synthesized anchoring of two porphyrin molecules to a benzene ring at the meta positions through the ester linkage. The bis-TPP molecule and its zinc-derivative (Zn-bis-TPP) were spin-coated on glass surfaces to construct two chemiresistive room temperature NH₃ gas sensors. Both the films showed high selectivity, reproducibility and reversibility in sensing NH₃ gas (5–40 ppm) in air. The sensing characteristics of the Zn-bis-TPP films (response (2 s) and recovery (2.5 min) times; linear response (952%)) were better than that of the bis-TPP films (response (8 s) and recovery (7.5 min) times; linear response (131%)). This is attributed to the amorphous nature of the former.     

Development of surfactant assisted spectrophotometric method for determination of selenium in waste water samples

A new, simple and highly selective method for spectrophotometric determination of selenium in waste water samples is described. Selenium(IV) oxidizes I(-) ions into I(2) which subsequently reacts with excess of I(-) ion in the acidic media to give tri-iodide ions (I(3)(-)), and it further reacts with cetylpyridinium cation (CP(+)) to give a violet colored species. The value of molar absorptivity of the ion-associate species in terms of selenium is 1.80 x 10(4) L mol(-1)cm(-1) at lambda(max) 510 nm. The detection limit of the method is 10 ng mL(-1) Se. The calibration curve is linear over 50-1000 ng mL(-1) Se with slope, intercept and co-relation coefficient of 0.23, -4.0 x 10(-4) and +0.99, respectively. None of the tested diverse ions interfered in the present method. The method has been tested for the determination of selenium in waste water samples.     

Trace level determination of molybdenum in environmental and biological samples using surfactant-mediated liquid-liquid extraction

A novel and sensitive spectrophotometric method for the determination of molybdenum at trace levels in environmental and biological samples is proposed. The method is based on the reaction of Mo (V) with thiocyanate (SCN(-)) and methyltrioctyl ammonium chloride (MTOAC) in acidic medium. The red colored complex of molybdenum is extracted with N-phenylbenzimidoyl thiourea (PBITU) in 1-pentanol for its determination by spectrophotometry. The sensitivity of the present method is higher than other conventional thiocyanate method, due to the use of MTOAC in liquid-liquid extraction. The value of molar absorptivity of the complex with respect to molybdenum is 7.6x10(4)Lmol(-1)cm(-1) at 470nm. The limit of detection of the metal is 5ngmL(-1). The system obeys Beer's law between 20 and 1000ngmL(-1) with slope, intercept and correlation coefficient values of 0.81, 2.5x10(-3) and +0.999, respectively. Most of the metal ions tested did not interfere in the determination of molybdenum. The proposed method has been successfully applied for the determination of the molybdenum in environmental and biological samples.     

Study of Electromagnetic Properties of Fabricated NiFe2O4/Polyurethane Nanocomposites

Nickel ferrite loaded (NiFe₂O₄) segmented polyurethane (SPU) nanocomposites prepared by melt mixing method using microcompounder at temperature 185 °C in recirculation mode to ensure proper dispersion and distribution of nanoparticles at optimized residency time of 5 min. Three different weight percentages of nanocomposites (3, 5, and 10 wt %) was prepared and studied the electromagnetic property of nanocomposites obtained from complex permittivity and permeability. The effect of nanofiller (NiFe₂O₄) has been studied to assess their thermal properties using thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermomechanical analysis. The nanocomposites (NiFe₂O₄/SPU) have further been studied using FE-SEM, and the micrographs show embedded NiFe₂O₄ filler uniformly dispersed in SPU matrix without agglomeration (size 20–40 nm). It is also evident that further loading of nanofiller resulted in saturation effect yielding no applicable change in thermal behavior and revealed lesser melting enthalpy due to the coalescence of the nanofillers. X-ray diffraction and vibrating sample magnetometer also support the formation of the nanocomposite. The electric and magnetic properties of NiFe₂O₄ incorporated nanocomposite (NiFe₂O₄/SPU) may have potential application in microwave absorption. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 137, 48645.     

Development of Low Density,Heat Resistant and Broadband Microwave Absorbing Materials (MAMs) for Stealth Applications

The development of low density and broadband microwave absorbers are the need of the hour to cater for the needs of all military platforms for stealth technology. The low density and broadband properties can be inculcated in microwave absorbers using dielectric lossy materials (e.g. carbon fibres, carbon nanotubes, carbon black, fullerene, graphite, graphene and silicon carbide fibre). Therefore, we designed low density and heat resistant microwave absorbing materials (MAMs) using a novel approach of ceramic fibre board manufacturing technology. The microwave absorbing composites were prepared with varying percentage of milled carbon fibres, discontinuous aluminosilicate fibres and silicone resin as the matrix. The physico-mechanical properties of microwave absorbing composites were determined. Reflection loss of microwave absorbing composites was measured in the frequency range 2–18 GHz by unique single horn interferometry technique. The electromagnetic properties were measured in X-band using free space measurement system. Based on these properties the effect of thickness on the microwave absorbing properties in X-band was simulated The effect of weight % variation of milled carbon fibres on the microwave absorbing properties of composites have been studied in the frequency range 2–18 GHz.     

A QoS aware optimal node deployment in wireless sensor network using Grey wolf optimization approach for IoT applications

The growth of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) becomes the backbone of all smart IoT applications. Deploying reliable WSNs is particularly significant for critical Internet of Things (IoT) applications, such as health monitoring, industrial and military applications. In such applications, the WSN’s inability to perform its necessary tasks and degrading QoS can have profound consequences and can not be tolerated. Thus, deploying reliable WSNs to achieve better Quality of Service (QoS) support is a relatively new topic gaining more interest. Consequently, deploying a large number of nodes while simultaneously optimizing various measures is regarded as an NP-hard problem. In this paper, a Grey wolf-based optimization technique is used for node deployment that guarantees a given set of QoS metrics, namely maximizing coverage, connectivity and minimizing the overall cost of the network. The aim is to find the optimum number of appropriate positions for sensor nodes deployment under various p-coverage and q-connectivity configurations. The proposed approach offers an efficient wolf representation scheme and formulates a novel multi-objective fitness function. A rigorous simulation and statistical analysis are performed to prove the proposed scheme’s efficiency. Also, a comparative analysis is being carried with existing state-of-the-art algorithms, namely PSO, GA, and Greedy approach, and the efficiency of the proposed method improved by more than 11%, 14%, and 20%, respectively, in selecting appropriate positions with desired coverage and connectivity.

     

Efficient Red Downshifting in Layered Structure: A Broad Spectral Converter for Enhancing Photo-response of Solar Cell

Spectral convertors are promising materials for solar cells as they engineered the band gap necessary for suppressing the losses. Existing spectral convertors have small stokes shift which exerts re-absorption losses due to the overlap of spectrum and limits light catching ability. Here we present large stoke shift chromium doped rhombohedral Al₂O₃: Cr³⁺ as a spectral convertor from UV–VIS to red region as single doped with maximum coverage of solar spectrum in UV region. The large stoke shifts in red region around 694 nm originate from ²E_g to ⁴A_2g and broad absorption originates from \(^{{\text{4}}}{{\text{A}}_{{\text{2g}}}}{ \to ^{\text{4}}}{{\text{T}}_{{\text{1g}}}},{{\text{ }}^{\text{4}}}{{\text{A}}_{{\text{2g}}}}{ \to ^{\text{4}}}{{\text{T}}_{{\text{2g}}}}\). This broad absorption (300–600 nm) and large stokes shift emission at 694 nm suggest that the Cr³⁺ dopant rhombohedral Al₂O₃ is well suited as spectral convertors for enhancing the efficiency of the solar cell through better matching of spectral response with spectral distribution of light striking on the solar cell.     

The effect of orientation of various phenols on the degradation kinetics of blends of resole and epoxy

Resoles were prepared separately with different phenols, with formaldehyde having phenol‐to‐formaldehyde mole ratio of 1:2 in basic medium at 70°C. These resoles were physically blended with different weight percentages of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol‐A (DGEBA)–epoxy resin. The blends were cured with 40, 50, and 60 wt % polyamide (based on total amount of the blended resin). Decomposition kinetics of blend sample was studied by dynamic thermogravimetric (TG) analysis. It was found that the degradation of most of the blend samples followed two‐step second‐order degradation kinetics with 50 wt % polyamide and varied reaction orders with 40 and 60 wt % polyamide and type of phenols used in the resole. The energy of activation (E) was found to be maximum with the blend system containing p‐cresolic resole and epoxy. The value of preexponential factor (Z) decreased when phenolic resole was changed to p‐cresolic resole in the blend. Also, the plotted values of E and Z were found to be in close resemblance with those obtained from calculated values. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102:4171–4176, 2006