Experimental investigation,prediction and optimization of cylindricity and perpendicularity during drilling of WCB material using grey relational analysis

Manufacturing is always the heart of majority of industries. Drilling is an extremely important and an essential machining process which requires a lot of attention as in most of the cases it is required for assembly purposes. Majority of the holes produced during drilling are made with the help of Vertical Machining Centre (VMC) meant for pin- hole assembly. Though the tolerance is within limit, assembly problems arise due to the improper geometry of these holes. Various geometrical tolerances like cylindricity, circularity, perpendicularity and position errors are responsible for such assembly problems. This investigation is focussed on cylindricity and perpendicularity in the drilling of Wrought Cast Steel Grade B (WCB) material using SOMX 050204 DT insert. In this work, effect of machining variables like cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut (canned cycle) are investigated and optimized using grey relational analysis (GRA). Reliable experiments are conducted based on a 3³ full factorial, replicated twice. Second order regression models are developed for predicting cylindricity and perpendicularity. The models’ adequacy has been checked by calculating correlation coefficient. It shows that the developed models are well fitted for the prediction of responses within the specific range of input variables.     

Ripening conditions: A tool for the control of Listeria monocytogenes in uncooked pressed type cheese

The effect of ripening conditions (two temperatures, 9 °C and 13 °C, and two relative humidities 93% and 97%) on the growth of Listeria monocytogenes and other microbial populations was evaluated in the cores and rinds of uncooked pressed type cheeses prepared with pasteurised milk and inoculated either with Streptococcus thermophilus only or with an anti-listerial consortium. Regardless of temperature and relative humidity (RH), inhibition by the anti-listerial consortium was stronger in the cheese cores than in the rinds. Temperature had no significant effect on L. monocytogenes counts in cores or rinds. However, at the beginning of ripening in the consortium cheese, L. monocytogenes growth was more strongly inhibited at 13 °C than at 9 °C. Regardless of inoculation type and ripening temperature, counts of L. monocytogenes were significantly lower in the cores and rinds of cheeses ripened at 93% than at 97% RH. Lactobacilli counts were higher at 13 °C than at 9 °C and at 93% than at 97% RH. Lactobacilli can help to inhibit L. monocytogenes by catabolising galactose and producing lactate. Further investigations will be needed to evaluate the effect of ripening at 13 °C and 93% RH on the sensorial properties of cheese.     

La-doped ZnO nanoparticles: Simple solution-combusting preparation and applications in the wastewater treatment

La-doped ZnO nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized by a simple solution combustion method via employing a mixture of ethanol and ethyleneglycol (v/v = 60/40) as the solvent. Zinc acetate and oxygen gas in the atmosphere were used as zinc and oxygen sources, and La(NO₃)₃ as the doping reagent. The as-obtained product was characterized by means of powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Experiments showed that La-doped ZnO nanoparticles exhibited the higher capacities for the removal of Pb²⁺ and Cu²⁺ ions in water resource than undoped ZnO nanoparticles.     

Optimization of weld characteristics of friction welded AA 6061-AA 6351 joints using grey-principal component analysis (G-PCA)

Friction welding is a solid state joining process in which the quality of welded joint is influenced by the input parameter setting. The objective of the present study is to conduct experimental investigation of the bond strength and hardness of the friction welded joints involving AA 6061 and AA 6351 alloys by conducting experiments designed by Taguchi’s L⁹ orthogonal matrix array. A systematic approach becomes essential to find the optimal setting of friction welding parameters. Hence a new approach named grey-principal component analysis (G-PCA) is presented in which the principal component analysis (PCA) is used to generate weights for the grey relational coefficients obtained in the grey relational analysis (GRA). The results of the confirmation experiment conducted with the optimal setting predicted by the G-PCA have shown improvements in the performance characteristics. Hence G-PCA can be used for experimental welding optimization.     

An Efficient 2.45 GHz Spiral Rectenna Without a Matching Circuit for RF Energy Harvesting

Wireless Personal Communications - This paper presents an efficient spiral rectenna to be used for radio frequency energy harvesting application. This rectenna is simple, low cost and an efficient...     

Dilatometric study of anisotropic sintering of alumina/zirconia laminates with controlled fracture behaviour

Al₂O₃ and ZrO₂ monoliths as well as layered Al₂O₃/ZrO₂ composites with a varying layer thickness ratio were prepared by electrophoretic deposition. The sintering shrinkage of these materials in the transversal (perpendicular to the layers, i.e. in the direction of deposition) as well as in the longitudinal (parallel with layers interfaces) direction were monitored using high-temperature dilatometry. The sintering of layered composites exhibited anisotropic behaviour. The detailed study revealed that sintering shrinkage in the longitudinal direction was governed by alumina (material with a higher sintering temperature), whilst in the transversal direction it was accelerated by the directional sintering of zirconia layers. For interpretation of such anisotropic sintering kinetics, the Master Shrinkage Curve model was developed and applied. Crack propagation through laminates with a different alumina/zirconia thickness ratio was described with the help of scanning electron microscopy and confocal laser microscopy.     

Host-sensitized phosphorescence of Mn4+, Pr3+,4+ and Nd3+ in MgAl2Si2O8

Mn⁴⁺ doped and Pr^3+,4+, Nd³⁺ co-doped MgAl₂Si₂O₈-based phosphors were first of all synthesized about 1300 °C. They were characterized by thermogravimetry (TG), differential thermal analysis (DTA), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), photoluminescence (PL) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The luminescence mechanism of the phosphors, which showed broad red emission bands in the range of 610–715 nm and had a different maximum intensity when activated by UV illumination, was discussed. Such a red emission can be attributed to the intrinsic d–d transitions of Mn⁴⁺.     

Vibration of laminated orthotropic plates using a simplified higher-order deformation theory

Assuming a constant in-plane rotation tensor through the thickness in Reddy's higher-order plate theory it is shown that a simpler higher-order theory can be obtained with the reduction of one variable without significant loss in the accuracy. This simple higher-order shear deformable plate theory is then used for predicting the natural frequencies of simply-supported isotropic, orthotropic and laminated composite plates. The results obtained for isotropic, orthotropic and laminated plates compare favourably with Reddy's results and other 3D results.     

A layer-wise Reissner–Mindlin-type model for the vibration analysis and suppression of piezoactuated plates

A layer-wise model of three-layer piezoelectric sandwich plates is presented. Each layer is modeled according to a first-order shear deformation theory. Both a variational formulation and a locking-free finite-element formulation of the sandwich-plate problem are developed. The latter is based on a new bilinear quadrangular four-node finite element with 13 degrees of freedom per node and is validated by comparing the numerical and the analytical solution of a special problem. The proposed model is applied to the analysis of the vibration suppression problem of a thick cantilever steel plate equipped with a piezoelectric actuator, and turns out to be especially useful when a thick piezoelectric actuator is used.     

HURP/HURBA: Zero-configuration hierarchical Up/Down routing and bridging architecture for Ethernet backbones and campus networks

Ethernet switched networks do not scale appropriately due to limitations inherent to the spanning tree protocol. Ethernet architectures based on routing over a virtual topology in which turns are prohibited offer improved performance over spanning tree, although in some cases suffer from excessive computational complexity. Up/Down routing is a turn prohibition algorithm with low computational complexity. In this paper we propose HURBA, a new layer-two architecture that improves Up/Down routing performance due to an optimization based on the use of hierarchical addressing, while preserving the computational complexity of Up/Down. The resulting architecture requires zero-configuration, uses the same frame format as Ethernet, allows upgrades by software update, and is compatible with 802.1D bridges by means of encapsulation. HURP protocol builds automatically a core with the interconnected HURP routing bridges and the standard bridges get connected to the edges in standard spanning trees. Simulations show that the performance of HURP, evaluated over various combinations of network topology and size, is close to the one of shortest path, is consistently better than that of Up/Down, and is equal or better than Turn Prohibition, with the advantage of having a lower complexity.