Remote monitoring of different electrical parameters of multi-machine system using PC

This paper describes a PC based centralized monitoring of the running condition of a multi-machine system. This kind of monitoring from remote central location is one of the primary requirements in today’s era of automation. The convergence of embedded system like microcontroller/DSP/FPGA, etc., now-a-days, is adding a new dimension to enhance the capability of the PC based data acquisition. In this present approach, conditions of different parameters of each motor have been measured by dedicated microcontroller based hardware. All these units are connected in a network using bus topology. All parameters are communicated to a remote PC through this bus where user friendly state-of-the-art developed software stores it for display and analysis purposes.     

Impact toughened blends of styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer,polyethylene, and ethylene-propylene copolymer

Impact-toughened, compatibilized binary blends of styrene-maleic anhydride (SMA) copolymer/amine functionalized ethylene-propylene (amine-EP) polymer and ternary blends consisting of SMA/amine-EP/high density polyethylene (HDPE) are described. In both blends 0.02 to 4 μm range rubbery inclusions, which toughen the SMA matrix, are formed. SMA sub-inclusions exist in the amine-EP phase. In the ternary blend substantially all of the polyethylene is embedded in the EP phase. Compatibilization of the SMA and the commingled polyolefin phase is promoted by a graft copolymer formed by the reaction of amine groups on the EP with the maleic anhydride groups on the SMA. We describe the morphology, rheology, aging characteristics and impact properties of these blends. SMA modification by SMA-g-(amine-EP) polymers formed in situ in the melt, with HDPE, has not been previously reported.     

A method of tracking the peak power points for a variable speed wind energy conversion system

In this paper, a method of tracking the peak power in a wind energy conversion system (WECS) is proposed, which is independent of the turbine parameters and air density. The algorithm searches for the peak power by varying the speed in the desired direction. The generator is operated in the speed control mode with the speed reference being dynamically modified in accordance with the magnitude and direction of change of active power. The peak power points in the P-/spl omega/ curve correspond to dP/d/spl omega/=0. This fact is made use of in the optimum point search algorithm. The generator considered is a wound rotor induction machine whose stator is connected directly to the grid and the rotor is fed through back-to-back pulse-width-modulation (PWM) converters. Stator flux-oriented vector control is applied to control the active and reactive current loops independently. The turbine characteristics are generated by a DC motor fed from a commercial DC drive. All of the control loops are executed by a single-chip digital signal processor (DSP) controller TMS320F240. Experimental results show that the performance of the control algorithm compares well with the conventional torque control method.     

Occurrence and characterization of carbon nanoparticles below the soot laden zone of a partially premixed flame

An experimental study has been performed to detect the occurrence of nanosized carbon particulates below the soot laden zone of a co-flowing partially premixed flame. Samples have been extracted from different points across the flame and passed through DI water. Absorption and fluorescence spectroscopies have been performed with the collected water suspensions. The occurrence of carbon nanoparticles is evident across the inner flame front. In addition, evidence of naphthalene has also been found inside the inner rich premixed flame. The concentration of naphthalene decreases while that of the carbon nanoparticles increases as the inner flame front is reached. The stability of the nanoparticles in the sample has been ensured by observing that the change in fluorescence quantum yield from the sample over a long duration is small. The band gap energy has been evaluated using the absorption data to characterize the likely structures of the particles in the collected suspension. Two kinds of particles having different zones of band gap energy are found in the flame. Dynamic light scattering measurements show that the particle size grows with the increase in height in the lower part of the flame. While, at 3 and 6 mm elevations the particles are observed to be below 2.5 nm in diameter, the particles at 10 mm elevation are found in the size range of 2.5-5.5 nm.     

High-temperature corrosion of Ti and Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Pure titanium and Ti-6Al-4V were exposed at 750°C in an H₂/H₂O/H₂S P_{O 2}10^–18 Pa and P_{S 2}10^–1 Pa), H₂/H₂O (P_{O 2}10^–18 Pa) and air environments for up to 240 hr. The corrosion kinetics, obtained by the discontinuous gravimetric method, showed that the sulfidation/oxidation kinetics were linear for Ti and linear-parabolic for Ti-6Al-4V in the H₂/H₂O/H₂S environment. Both materials obeyed parabolic rate laws in the H₂/H₂O atmosphere after a transient period, and linear-parabolic rate laws in air. After exposure to the H₂/H₂O/H₂S atmosphere, the titanium specimen displayed a double scale of TiO₂ with an intervening TiS₂ film between the double-layered scale of TiO₂ and the substrate. Ti-6Al-4V also contained a double layer of TiO₂ together with a stratum consisting of Al₂S₃, TiS₂ and vanadium sulfide at the junction of the inner TiO₂ layer and substrate. Some Al₂O₃ precipitated in the external portion of the outer TiO₂ layer. Following oxidation in the low-P_{O 2} atmosphere a double-layered oxide of TiO₂ scale formed on both Ti and Ti-6Al-4V. The scale on Ti-6Al-4V also contained an -Al₂O₃ film situated between the outer and inner (TiO₂) layers. For both materials, multilayered-scale formation characterized air oxidation. In detail a multilayered oxide scale of TiO₂ formed on the air-oxidized Ti, while a multilayered oxide scale with alternating layers of Al₂O₃/TiO₂ developed on Ti-6Al-4V oxidized in air.     

CNS: a new energy efficient transmission scheme for wireless sensor networks

We present in this paper a new energy-efficient communication scheme called CNS (Compression with Null Symbol) that combines the power of data compression and communication through silent symbol. The concept of communication through silent symbol is borrowed from the energy efficient schemes proposed in Sinha (Proceedings of 6th IEEE consumer communications and networking conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, pp. 1–5, 2009), Ghosh et al. (Proceedings of 27th IEEE international performance computing and communications conference (IPCCC), USA, pp. 85–92, 2008), and Sinha and Sinha (Proceedings of international conference on distributed computing and internet technologies (ICDCIT), LNCS, pp. 139–144, 2008). We show that the average theoretical energy saving at the transmitter by CNS is 62.5%, assuming an ideal channel and for equal likelihood of all possible binary strings of a given length. Next, we propose a transceiver design that uses a hybrid modulation scheme utilizing FSK and ASK so as to keep the cost/complexity of the radio devices low. Considering an additive white gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and a non-coherent detection based receiver, CNS shows a saving in transmitter energy by 30% when compared to binary FSK, for equal likelihood of all possible binary strings of a given length. Simultaneously, there is a saving of 50% at the receiver for all types of data modulation due to halving of the transmitted data duration, compared to binary encoding. In contrast, RBNSiZeComm proposed in Sinha (Proceedings of 6th IEEE consumer communications and networking conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, pp. 1–5, 2009), TSS proposed in Ghosh et al. (Proceedings of 27th IEEE international performance computing and communications conference (IPCCC), USA, pp. 85–92, 2008) and RZE proposed in Sinha and Sinha (Proceedings of international conference on distributed computing and internet technologies (ICDCIT), LNCS, pp. 139–144, 2008) generate average transmitter energy savings of about 41, 20, and 35.2%, respectively. Also, at the receiver side, while RBNSiZeComm does not generate any saving, TSS and RZE produce about 36.9 and 12.5% savings on an average, respectively. Considering certain data types that may occur in the context of some wireless sensor networks (WSN) based applications (e.g., remote healthcare, agricultural WSNs, etc.), our simulation results demonstrate that for AWGN noisy channels, the transmitter side savings vary from about 33–50% on an average, while for RBNSiZeComm, this saving is about 33–61% on the same data set (Sinha in Proceedings of 6th IEEE consumer communications and networking conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, pp. 1–5, 2009). Thus, taking into account the low cost/complexity of the proposed transceiver, these results clearly establish that CNS can be a suitable candidate for communication in low power wireless sensor networks, such as in remote healthcare applications, body area networks, home automation, WSNs for agriculture and many others.     

Progressive cutting tool wear detection from machined surface images using Voronoi tessellation method

Tool condition monitoring by machine vision approach has been gaining popularity day by day since it is a low cost and flexible method. In this paper, a tool condition monitoring technique by analysing turned surface images has been presented. The aim of this work is to apply an image texture analysis technique on turned surface images for quantitative assessment of cutting tool flank wear, progressively. A novel method by the concept of Voronoi tessellation has been applied in this study to analyse the surface texture of machined surface after the creation of Voronoi diagram. Two texture features, namely, number of polygons with zero cross moment and total void area of Voronoi diagram of machined surface images have been extracted. A correlation study between measured flank wear and extracted texture features has been done for depicting the tool flank wear. It has been found that number of polygons with zero cross moment has better linear relationship with tool flank wear than that of total void area.     

Linked Simulation-Optimization based Dedicated Monitoring Network Design for Unknown Pollutant Source Identification using Dynamic Time Warping Distance

Implementation of monitoring strategy for increasing the efficiency of groundwater pollutant source characterization is often necessary, especially when only inadequate and arbitrary concentration measurement data are initially available. Two main parameters that need to be estimated for efficient and accurate characterization of groundwater pollution sources are: location of the source and the time when the source became active. Complexities involved with the explicit estimation of the time of start and source activity have not been addressed so far in previous studies. The main complexity arises due to the fact that the spatial location and time of activity are inter-related. Therefore, specifying one and solving for the other simplifies the source characterization problem. Hence, in this study, both the source location and time of initiation are treated as unknowns. The developed methodology uses dynamic time warping distance in the linked simulation-optimization model to address some complex issues in designing a monitoring network to efficiently estimate source characteristics including the time of first activity of unknown groundwater source. Performance of the developed methodology is evaluated on illustrative contaminated aquifer. These evaluation results demonstrate the potential use of the developed methodology.