Application of Fuzzy Logic to Estimate Flow of Methane for Energy Generation at a Sanitary Landfill

This paper proposes the use of a multicriteria assessment technique to evaluate the methane flow during gas extraction from a sanitary landfill. A number of parameters determine the gas generation and the feasibility for its extraction from a landfill. These parameters form a complex set of information with unknown mathematical interrelationships making potential gas flow evaluations difficult and elusive. In addition, the data available for a particular landfill are very often imprecise, uncertain, or subjective, making it even more difficult to evaluate the potential for gas extraction without conducting pilot tests. The method proposed in this paper uses fuzzy composite programming that allows for the use of imprecise information. A landfill gas potential index has been defined, which can be determined by easily obtainable climatological, geological, and landfill parameters. The landfill gas (LFG) potential index is related to the landfill gas flow using an empirical equation. The LFG potential model was calibrated and verified using data obtained from 61 landfills where gas extraction is being conducted. A sensitivity analysis was done to study the impact of variations in the input data on model output.     

A Novel T-Connected Autotransformer-Based 18-Pulse AC–DC Converter for Harmonic Mitigation in Adjustable-Speed Induction-Motor Drives

This paper presents the design, analysis, and development of a novel autotransformer-based 18-pulse AC-DC converter with reduced kilovoltampere rating, feeding vector-controlled induction-motor drives (VCIMDs) for power-quality improvement at the point of common coupling (PCC). The proposed autotransformer consists of only two single-phase transformers for its realization against three single-phase transformers required in other configurations. The proposed 18-pulse AC-DC converter is suitable for retrofit applications, where, presently, a six-pulse diode bridge rectifier is being used. A set of power-quality parameters, such as total harmonic distortion (THD) and crest factor of AC mains current, power factor, displacement factor, and distortion factor at AC mains, THD of supply voltage at PCC, and DC-bus-voltage ripple factor for a VCIMD fed from an 18-pulse AC-DC converter, are computed to observe its performance. The presented design technique provides flexibility to give an average DC output from the proposed converter, which is the same as that of a conventional three-phase diode bridge rectifier. However, it is also possible to step-up or step-down the output voltage as required. The effect of load variation on VCIMD is also studied to observe the effectiveness of the proposed harmonic mitigator. A laboratory prototype of the proposed autotransformer-based 18-pulse AC-DC converter is developed to validate the design and simulation model.     

Effects of Temperature on Failure Modes for a Nickel-Base Disk Superalloy

Increasing service temperatures of gas turbine engines can improve performance and efficiency. Therefore, advanced alloys are being considered for higher-temperature applications than previously encountered. To support these higher-temperature applications, failure mode assessments on specimens tested in laboratory test machines can help in understanding prospective failure scenarios. The effects of temperature on tensile, creep, low-cycle fatigue, and fatigue crack growth failure modes were evaluated for an advanced powder metallurgy disk superalloy ME3. Conventional tests were performed at temperatures up to 815 °C on specimens extracted from supersolvus heat treated disks. The failure modes were compared with increasing temperature for each test type. Fractographic evaluations indicate the failure modes were shifted by increasing temperature, and eventually became environment-assisted, surface crack initiated failures.     

On Surface Finish and Dimensional Accuracy of FDM Parts after Cold Vapor Treatment

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) process is an additive manufacturing technology where objects are manufactured in layers. In the present days, FDM is commercially used to build prototypes, functional components; however, these parts majorly suffer from poor surface quality and dimensional accuracy even for basic part geometries. In the present paper, first the effect of part deposition orientation on surface finish and dimensional accuracy of FDM parts are studied. The part selected for this study is designed in such a way that different primitive geometric features at different directions are present. The parts are built at different orientations (0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75°, 90°) using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene P430 material, and surface finish and dimensional accuracy are measured at different surfaces. Next, the FDM parts are postprocessed by cold vapor treatment of dimethylketone (acetone) and improvement in surface finish and change in dimensional accuracy are investigated. The results show that surface finish of the components is greatly improved by this vapor treatment process with minimal variations in part geometric accuracy after the treatment.     

An efficient two phase approach for solving reliability–redundancy allocation problem using artificial bee colony technique

The main goal of the present paper is to present a two phase approach for solving the reliability–redundancy allocation problems (RRAP) with nonlinear resource constraints. In the first phase of the proposed approach, an algorithm based on artificial bee colony (ABC) is developed to solve the allocation problem while in the second phase an improvement of the solution as obtained by this algorithm is made. Four benchmark problems in the reliability–redundancy allocation and two reliability optimization problems have been taken to demonstrate the approach and it is shown by comparison that the solutions by the new proposed approach are better than the solutions available in the literature.     

Double auction-inspired meta-scheduling of parallel applications on global grids

Meta-schedulers map jobs to computational resources that are part of a Grid, such as clusters, that in turn have their own local job schedulers. Existing Grid meta-schedulers either target system-centric metrics, such as utilisation and throughput, or prioritise jobs based on utility metrics provided by the users. The system-centric approach gives less importance to users’ individual utility, while the user-centric approach may have adverse effects such as poor system performance and unfair treatment of users. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel meta-scheduler, based on the well-known double auction mechanism that aims to satisfy users’ service requirements as well as ensuring balanced utilisation of resources across a Grid. We have designed valuation metrics that commodify both the complex resource requirements of users and the capabilities of available computational resources. Through simulation using real traces, we compare our scheduling mechanism with other common mechanisms widely used by both existing market-based and traditional meta-schedulers. The results show that our meta-scheduling mechanism not only satisfies up to 15% more user requirements than others, but also improves system utilisation through load balancing.     

A Variational Approach to Video Registration with Subspace Constraints

This paper addresses the problem of non-rigid video registration, or the computation of optical flow from a reference frame to each of the subsequent images in a sequence, when the camera views deformable objects. We exploit the high correlation between 2D trajectories of different points on the same non-rigid surface by assuming that the displacement of any point throughout the sequence can be expressed in a compact way as a linear combination of a low-rank motion basis. This subspace constraint effectively acts as a trajectory regularization term leading to temporally consistent optical flow. We formulate it as a robust soft constraint within a variational framework by penalizing flow fields that lie outside the low-rank manifold. The resulting energy functional can be decoupled into the optimization of the brightness constancy and spatial regularization terms, leading to an efficient optimization scheme. Additionally, we propose a novel optimization scheme for the case of vector valued images, based on the dualization of the data term. This allows us to extend our approach to deal with colour images which results in significant improvements on the registration results. Finally, we provide a new benchmark dataset, based on motion capture data of a flag waving in the wind, with dense ground truth optical flow for evaluation of multi-frame optical flow algorithms for non-rigid surfaces. Our experiments show that our proposed approach outperforms state of the art optical flow and dense non-rigid registration algorithms.     

A two-stage framework for road extraction from high-resolution satellite images by using prominent features of impervious surfaces

The segmentation and classification of high-resolution satellite images (HRSI) are useful approaches to extract information. In recent times, roads and buildings have been classified for analysis of urban areas in a better manner. Apart from these, healthy trees are also an important factor in HRSI, i.e. adjacent to roads, and vegetation. They reflect the area in an image as land cover. Other important information, shadow, is extracted from satellite images, which indicates the presence of trees and built-up areas such as buildings, flyovers, etc. In this article, a weighted membership-function-based fuzzy c-means with spatial constraints (WMFCSC) approach for automated satellite image classification is proposed. Initially, spatially fuzzy clustering is used to classify the satellite images in healthy trees with vegetation, roads, and shadows, which includes the information of spatial constraints. The road results of the classified image are still having non-road segments. Therefore, the proposed four intermediate stages (IS) are used to extract the road information, followed by the results of road areas of the WMFCSC approach. The framework of IS helps to remove the false road segments which are adjacent to roads and renovates the segmented roads due to the shadow effect. A final step of a hybrid WMFCSC-IS approach is used to extract the road network. The results of classified images confirm the effectiveness of the WMFCSC-IS approach for satellite image classification.     

Energy education

An attempt to present briefly some important aspects of energy-education as an emerging discipline is made in this paper. Suggestions concerning the evolvement of an effective approach for energy-education at all levels have also been made.     

Calculation of appropriate size fixed sunshade overhangs over windows of different orientations

Following an earlier developed mathematical model [E. Shaviv, Building Int. 8, 12(1975)], appropriate sizes of sunshade overhangs over windows of different orientations have been calculated so that no direct sun radiation penetrates through them for a period from 22 March to 22 September at New Delhi (latitude 28°35′N). Calculations have also been performed for total energy penetration through various windows of fixed size in different months of the year.