Comparative study of room temperature control in buildings with and without the use of PCM in walls

The concept of thermal energy storage in building gains a specific importance in the present energy scenario related to energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort. The material used to store the thermal energy which undergoes a phase change referred as PCM and it is considered as a possible solution for reducing energy consumption in the building by storing and releasing heat within a certain temperature range; it raises the building inertia and also stabilizes indoor air temperature fluctuations. The room temperature is controlled by imposing PCM inside the walls. An attempt has been made to compare room air temperature with and without the use of PCM inside the walls of constructed modular building unit. The PCM imposed modular building shows the reduced temperature fluctuations in room, the PCM absorbs and liberates excess heat which is gained from the outer side of the room and maintains constant inner room temperature. The PCM imposed walls of modular building unit have an ability to reduce 10–30% of heat load in comparison with the plain wall. The results showed that reduction in room temperature is about 2–4°C and it has been concluded that the PCM imposed modular building unit has more energy saving opportunities than normal modular building unit.     

Dynamic failure behaviour of blended spun yarns during winding

In the present work, the initiative is being taken to study the spun yarn failure behaviour under real dynamic conditions i.e. winding. An attempt is made to study the dynamic failure behaviour of blended ring yarn in relation to yarn structure. Multi-coloured tracer fibre technique is employed to study the broken ends of yarn during the winding process in terms of proportion of fibre break/slip, configuration of yarn broken end and yarn failure length. The ring spun yarn failure during winding is basically dominated by fibre breakage. The length of broken and slipped fibres is found to be different in trailing and leading portion of the broken ends and also depends on viscose content in the blends. The failure zone length and sum of percentage of tapered and slipped broken ends are found to follow the exactly similar trend with fibre failure coefficient with the change in blend ratio. The mathematical model established to explain the spun yarn failure during winding process displays lower error%.     

Phytosynthesized iron oxide nanoparticles and ferrous iron on fermentative hydrogen production using Enterobacter cloacae: Evaluation and comparison of the effects

The effects of FeSO₄ and synthesized iron oxide nanoparticles (0–250 mg/L) on fermentative hydrogen production from glucose and sucrose, using Enterobacter cloacae were investigated, to find out the enhancement of efficiency. The maximum hydrogen yields of 1.7 ± 0.017 mol H₂/mol glucose and 5.19 ± 0.12 mol H₂/mol sucrose were obtained with 25 mg/L of ferrous iron supplementation. In comparison, the maximum hydrogen yields of 2.07 ± 0.07 mol H₂/mol glucose and 5.44 ± 0.27 mol H₂/mol sucrose were achieved with 125 mg/L and 200 mg/L of iron oxide nanoparticles, respectively. These results indicate that the enhancement of hydrogen production on the supplementation of iron oxide nanoparticles was found to be considerably higher than that of ferrous iron supplementation. The activity of E. cloacae in a glucose and sucrose fed systems was increased by the addition of iron oxide nanoparticles, but the metabolic pathway was not changed. The results revealed that the glucose and sucrose fed systems conformed to the acetate/butyrate fermentation type.     

A review of channel estimation and security techniques for CRNS

Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) is an intelligent wireless communication system that adapts itself to variations in the incoming radio frequency stimuli by modifying the operating parameters. Using the spectrum sensing techniques, the idle channels are detected, and allocated to the Secondary Users (SUs). The existing cooperative spectrum sensing techniques such as centralized sensing technique, Distributed sensing technique, and External sensing technique exploit efficient prediction models for allocating the frequency spectrum to SUs. For an optimal assignment of the channel using channel parameters, the channel estimation techniques such as pilot-assisted channel estimation, blind and semi blind estimation technique, and decision directed channel estimation technique are analyzed. The flexible nature of the CRN introduces various security attacks such as Primary User Emulation Attack, Objective Function Attack, Jamming Attack, Spectrum Sensing Data Falsification (SSDF), Control Channel Saturation DoS Attack (CCSD), Selfish Channel Negotiation (SCN), Sinkhole Attacks, HELLO Flood Attacks and Lion Attack. From the surveyed results, it is observed that the existing spectrum sensing, and prediction-based techniques consume more energy, and minimal data transmission rate for detecting the idle channel. Further, the end-to-end delay, energy consumption, end-to-end delay, and bandwidth are not minimized by the existing techniques.     

Molecular Epidemiological Study of Pyrazinamide-Resistance in Clinical Isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from South India

Pyrazinamide (PZA) has been in use for almost 50 years as a first-line drug for short-course chemotherapy against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In this study, PCR mediated automated DNA sequencing is used to check the prevalence of PZA resistance among treatment failure cases of pulmonary tuberculosis. Out of 50 clinical isolates examined, 39 had mutations in the pncA gene that encodes Pyrazinamidase, an enzyme required to activate PZA. Of these, 31 (79.5%) were localized to three regions of pncA. We found two isolates with hitherto unreported mutation at amino acid 26 (Ala→Gly) of pncA.     

Influence of shallow and deep cryogenic treatment on the residual state of stress of 4140 steel

The present research work studies the effect of cryogenic treatment on the residual stress state in 4140 steel. Two kinds of cryogenic treatment, namely shallow (SCT, −80 °C × 5 h) and deep cryogenic treatment (DCT, −196 °C × 24 h) were carried out between quenching and tempering in conventional heat treatment process. The results evidenced an increase in the compressive residual stress in steel are subjected to cryogenic treatment before tempering. X-ray diffractometry revealed that residual stresses are relieved during tempering, according to the redistribution of carbon in martensite and the precipitation of transition carbides. While conventional heat treatment (CHT) and shallow cryogenic treatment (SCT) promote a tensile state of residual stress, DCT shows a compressive residual stress.     

TURNING STUDIES OF DEEP CRYOGENIC TREATED P-40 TUNGSTEN CARBIDE CUTTING TOOL INSERTS – TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

In the present work, coated tungsten carbide tool inserts of ISO P-40 grade were subjected to deep cryogenic treatment at ?176°C. Turning studies were conducted on AISI 1040 workpieces using both untreated and deep cryogenic treated tungsten carbide cutting tool inserts. The turning performance was evaluated in terms of flank wear of the cutting tool inserts, main cutting force and surface finish of the machined workpieces. The flank wear of deep cryogenic treated carbide tools was observed to be lower than that of untreated carbide tools in machining of AISI 1040 steel. The cutting force during machining of AISI 1040 steel was lower with the deep cryogenic treated carbide tools when compared with the untreated carbide tools. The surface finish produced on machined AISI 1040 steel workpieces was superior with the deep cryogenic treated carbide tools as compared to the untreated carbide tools.     

Novel metallomesogenic polyurethanes: Synthesis,characterization and properties

A series of tetradentate Schiff base metallomesogenic diols were synthesized from two simple dihydroxy benzenes. The metallomesogenic diol was constructed from three ring containing mesogen linked through ester and azomethine with terminal hydroxy group. This upon complexation with copper(II) formed metallomesogenic diol with varying terminal chain length. A series of metallomesogenic polyurethanes were synthesized using these metallomesogenic diols as chain extenders for the prepolymers based on polytetramethylene glycol (PTMG) of varying molecular weight (M_n = 650, 2000) and 2,4-toluene diisocyanate (TDI), or 4,4′-methylene bis(phenyl isocyanate) (MDI). The molar ratio of metallomesogenic diol and PTMG were varied in the polyurethane to find their role in liquid crystalline and mechanical properties. Extensive characterization of all metallomesogenic compounds and intermediates were carried out by FT-IR, ¹H and ¹³C NMR, EPR, VSM, Mass (EI and FAB) and UV–visible spectroscopy. Hot stage polarizing microscope and differential scanning calorimetry were used to ensure the phase characteristics such as nature of phase, melting and clearing temperatures and phase range. The appearance of enantiotropic smectic A phases indicated high molecular polarizability of the core due to the metal ion.     

Development of soy-based UV-curable acrylate oligomers and study of their film properties

Bio-based coating materials have emerged as an environmentally friendly alternative to petrochemical based ones due to their sustainability, lower carbon footprint and often lower cost. Acrylated vegetable oils and their derivatives are increasingly preferred for advanced photo-curable “green” coatings due to a number of technical and commercial benefits. We report a novel family of acrylate-functional monomers/oligomers derived from epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) and epoxidized soy-methyl ester (EME), using 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) as an acrylating agent. Using super-acid catalyzed etherification, acrylated soy-monomers and oligomers with lower viscosity and high acrylate content have been synthesized. Soy-acrylate products are characterized for their chemical structures and functionality using chemical, physical and spectroscopic methods.     

Cause of flow distributor on flow uniformity in open waterway stream passage velocity comparisons

In an open waterway flow passage, the inclusion of flow distributor paves a way to understand the idea of flow uniformity of the water along the upstream side and prevents non-uniform flow of water besides the passage length as a function of flow rate. The interesting idea in the flow distributor is its length and porosity. The essential conditions that should be satisfied are: there should not be any turbulence and there should be a possibility of achieving uniform circumferential flow in the flow passage. The other critical issue is the accurate measurement of low velocity of water. In this paper, a propeller-turbine-type anemometer is specially designed, fabricated and calibrated to measure the local velocity of water in the range of 0.001–0.01 m/s. This paper signifies how the flow uniformity is achieved by varying the size and porosity of the flow distributor.