Vibrations of a vehicle excited by real road profiles

Based on experimental data obtained from the Lublin III delivery car, we have performed a vibration analysis of the vehicle suspension system. Vertical accelerations on the left and right sides of the suspension system were measured. Experiments were carried out on three types of road surfaces: (a) asphalt, (b) sett, and (c) railway cross. The acceleration signals were examined using Fourier transform, multiscale entropy analysis and continuous wavelet transform. These methods reveal the characteristics of the vibration patterns produced by the various road surface profiles. Our results can be used to assess the efficacy of a vehicle suspension system under different road conditions.     

Performance management of integrated manufacturing system networks

Performance management of communication networks is critical for speed, reliability, and flexibility of information exchange between different components, subsystems, and sectors (e.g., factory, engineering design, and administration) of production process organizations in the environment of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM). The objective is to improve the efficiency in handling various types of messages, e.g., control signals, sensor data and production orders, by on-line adjustment of the parameters of the network protocol. This paper presents conceptual design, development, and implementation of a performance management procedure for CIM applications. The performance management algorithm is formulated using the concepts of: (i) perturbation analysis of discrete event dynamic systems; (ii) stochastic approximation; and (iii) learning automata. The performance management procedure has been tested via emulation on a network testbed that is based on the Manufacturing Automation Protocol (MAP). The conceptual design presented in this paper offers a step forward to bridging the gap between management standards and users' demands for efficient network operations since most standards such as ISO and IEEE address only the architecture, services, and interfaces for network management. The proposed concept for performance management can also be used as a general framework to assist design, operation, and management of flexible manufacturing systems.     

Some results on generalized residual entropy

Shannon’s entropy plays an important role in the context of information theory. Since this entropy is not applicable to a system which has survived for some units of time, the concept of residual entropy has been developed in the literature. Here we generalize the residual entropy by choosing a convex function ? with ?(1) = 0. In this paper, some orderings and aging properties have been defined in terms of the generalized residual entropy function and their properties have been studied. Quite a few results available in the literature have been generalized and some distributions (viz. uniform, exponential, Pareto, power series, finite range) have been characterized through the generalized residual entropy.     

Pressure and flow characteristics of a gas phase spout-fluid bed and the minimum spout-fluid condition

Spoutfluidization is a new technique for solid-fluid contact which aims at incorporating the advantages of spouted bed and fluidized bed technique. The characteristics of physical state of the bed with the variation of the variables which include flow of fluid, particle diameter, orifice diameter, bed height, are studied in this investigation. Experimental study of minimum spoutfluidizing velocity using glass beads with mean particle diameters from 0.254 to 0.600 mm has been carried out in a 90 mm glass column with three spouting inlet orifice sizes at different bed heights. Phase diagrams indicate that the minimum spout-fluid flow rate in a gas-solid system may be a point property for a given bed. A correlation is presented in which the standard deviation of experimental from calculated minimum spoutfluidizing velocity is within 5%.     

Real-time adaptation of decision thresholds in sensor networks for detection of moving targets

This paper addresses real-time decision-making associated with acoustic measurements for online surveillance of undersea targets moving over a deployed sensor network. The underlying algorithm is built upon the principles of symbolic dynamic filtering for feature extraction and formal language theory for decision-making, where the decision threshold for target detection is estimated based on time series data collected from an ensemble of passive sonar sensors that cover the anticipated tracks of moving targets. Adaptation of the decision thresholds to the real-time sensor data is optimal in the sense of weighted linear least squares. The algorithm has been validated on a simulated sensor-network test-bed with time series data from an ensemble of target tracks.     

An inner product space on irreducible and synchronizable probabilistic finite state automata

Probabilistic finite state automata (PFSA) have found their applications in diverse systems. This paper presents the construction of an inner-product space structure on a class of PFSA over the real field via an algebraic approach. The vector space is constructed in a stationary setting, which eliminates the need for an initial state in the specification of PFSA. This algebraic model formulation avoids any reference to the related notion of probability measures induced by a PFSA. A formal language-theoretic and symbolic modeling approach is adopted. Specifically, semantic models are constructed in the symbolic domain in an algebraic setting. Applicability of the theoretical formulation has been demonstrated on experimental data for robot motion recognition in a laboratory environment.     

Neural network and CFD-based optimisation of square cavity and curved cavity static labyrinth seals

The pressure drop characteristics for leakage of water through circular grooved, square cavity and curved cavity static labyrinth seals are investigated. A semi-theoretical model employing two new terms named virtual cavity velocity and vortex loss coefficient, to determine the pressure drop across the seal is presented. Five different square cavity labyrinth seals (SCLS) were subjected to flow visualisation tests to observe the leakage flow patterns. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis was done using Fluent commercial code. The values of the vortex loss coefficient for the SCLS at turbulent flow conditions were obtained experimentally. Using the data pool, an artificial neural network (ANN) simulation model was employed to identify the optimal SCLS configuration. Based on the insights gained, two different curved cavity labyrinth seal (CCLS) geometries were developed and optimised using parametric CFD analysis. They were visualisation tested and experimentally found to have higher pressure drops and vortex loss coefficients as compared to the SCLS configurations. The studies show that the enhanced performance is due to the presence of multiple recirculation zones within their cavities, which dissipate higher amount of leakage flow momentum.     

Thermal Expansion Behavior of Boron-Doped Cordierite Glass-Ceramics

The linear thermal expansion coefficients of cordierite glass-ceramics that have been doped with a fixed amount of P₂O₅ and 1, 2, and 3 wt% of B₂O₃ show negative expansion in the temperature range of 100°-300°C. The expansion of the undoped cordierite sample is positive. A relative decrease in the degree of negative expansion is observed as the B₂O₃ concentration increases. These negative expansion coefficients are similar to those of cordierite glass-ceramics that have been doped with the potassium cation.     

Texturization of ZnO:Al surface by reactive ion etching in SF<Subscript>6</Subscript>/Ar,CHF<Subscript>3</Subscript>/Ar plasma for application in thin film silicon solar cells

As-deposited sputtered ZnO:Al (AZO) thin films having high transparency (T?≥?85% at 550 nm of wavelength) and good electrical properties (ρ?=?2.59?×?10^?04 Ω cm) are etched to get suitable light trapping in thin film solar cells, using reactive ion etching method in sulfur hexafluoride–argon (SF₆/Ar) plasma and trifluoromethane–argon (CHF₃/Ar) plasma to texture their surface. Though the electrical properties of the films are not affected much by the etching process but significant increment in the average haze values in the wave length range of 350–1100 nm in the etched AZO films (19.21% for SF₆/Ar and 22.07% for CHF₃/Ar plasma etched) are found compared to as-deposited AZO films (5.61%). Increment in haze value is due to more scattering of light from the textured surface. These textured substrates are used as front transparent conducting oxide electrode for the fabrication of amorphous silicon solar cells. Solar cells fabricated on etched AZO substrates show 7.76% increase in conversion efficiency compared to as-deposited AZO substrates.     

Optimal control of infinite horizon partially observable decision processes modelled as generators of probabilistic regular languages

Decision processes with incomplete state feedback have been traditionally modelled as partially observable Markov decision processes. In this article, we present an alternative formulation based on probabilistic regular languages. The proposed approach generalises the recently reported work on language measure theoretic optimal control for perfectly observable situations and shows that such a framework is far more computationally tractable to the classical alternative. In particular, we show that the infinite horizon decision problem under partial observation, modelled in the proposed framework, is λ-approximable and, in general, is not harder to solve compared to the fully observable case. The approach is illustrated via two simple examples.