Experimental investigation on chilled cast iron tappet manufacturing processes parameters

Chilled cast iron tappet has a tendency microstructure of white, mottled and gray iron. The exact composition and other casting parameters, like pouring temperature, inoculation and coating, need to be determined for achieving the desired thickness of the chilled layer. Chilled cast iron finds applications in areas where improved hardness and wear resistance are required. Mottled cast iron has very poor machinability and high brittleness due to the presence of secondary cementite. These constitute the limitations for its use. The influence of inoculation, pouring temperature, coating thickness and chill plate on chilled depth was investigated. Taguchi design-of-experiments (DOE) are used for generating an optimal set of casting parameters to obtain a satisfactory chilled depth. Analysis of the effects of all the parameters on chilled depth has been carried out through a microstructure study.     

An Effective Approach on Attaining Enhanced Silicon Solar Cell Performance Through Sputter Deposited Perovskite Thin Films

Silicon - Antireflection coatings (ARCs) have become one of the key techniques for mass production of Si solar cells. They are generally performed by vacuum processes such as thermal evaporation,...     

Concrete made from ceramic industry waste: Durability properties

Concrete which contains waste products as aggregate is called ‘Green’ concrete. Use of hazardous waste in concrete-making will lead to green environment and sustainable concrete technology and so such concrete can also be called as ‘Green’ concrete. Concrete made with ceramic electrical insulator waste as coarse aggregate shows good workability, compressive, tensile and flexural strengths and modulus of elasticity. Further, study of its durability will ensure greater reliability in its usage. Permeation characters are used widely to quantify durability properties of concrete. This paper presents an experimental investigation on the permeation characteristics [volume of voids and water absorption (ASTM C642-06), chloride penetration (ASTM C1202-10), and sorption] of concrete with ceramic electrical insulator waste coarse aggregate (hereafter it is called recycled aggregate concrete) of six different water–cement ratios in comparison with those of corresponding conventional concrete mixes. From the results it has been observed that there is no significant change in the basic trend of permeation characteristics of this recycled aggregate concrete when compared to the conventional concrete. This recycled aggregate concrete possesses higher permeation characteristic values than those of conventional concrete. These values decrease with decrease in water–cement ratio for both the recycled aggregate concrete and the conventional concrete.     

Micro devices assembly using virtual environments

In this paper, the design and development of a physical and virtual environment to support assembly of micron sized devices is discussed. Micro assembly involves handling and assembling of micron sized parts (10⁻⁶ m). As manual assembly of micron-sized parts is difficult and tedious, the design of computer assisted micro-assembly techniques becomes crucial. An Integrated Physical and Virtual Reality (VR) environment has been created to aid in the assembly of such micro devices, which supports the establishment of an interface between a virtual and physical micro assembly work cell. The overall architecture and the various modules implemented in this environment are outlined in this paper.     

Performance Analysis of Microstriplines Interconnect Structure with Novel Guard Trace as Parallel Links for High Speed Dram Interfaces

Wireless communication have progressed so fast in recent years with the increased frequency of operation, faster signal speed, reduced feature size and increased the integration of analog and digital blocks within a constrained space. These made the signal integrity analysis is a challengine task to printed circuit board designers. The signal integrity effects need to be mitigated by the proper design of high speed interconnects. In order to reduce crosstalk and crosstalk induced jitter in high speed parallel links to DRAM interface, a novel parallel microstriplines with U shaped guard trace interconnect structure is proposed. The crosstalk performance of the proposed interconnect structure, it can be implemented in DRAM board and compared with the conventional guard intervening scheme. The proposed structure increased the maximum data rate from 800 Mbps to 3.3 Gbps and reduced CIJ more than 2 ps.

     

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.     

Short chain xylooligosaccharides: a potential prebiotic used to improve batter fermentation and its effect on the quality attributes of idli,a cereal–legume‐based Indian traditional food

Xylooligosaccharides (XOS), a potential prebiotic exhibits important technological characteristics and interesting nutritional properties. The major fraction in XOS produced enzymatically from corncob was characterised as β‐d ‐xylopyranosyl‐(1,4)‐d ‐xylanopyranose (xylobiose) using ¹³C and 2D‐HSQC NMR. The use of this XOS as a prebiotic in idli, a cereal/legume‐based fermented cake, and its effect on texture, fermentation and sensory characteristics was investigated. Idli batter was fermented with different concentrations of XOS (0, 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6% w/v) for 4–18 h conventionally. The addition of XOS markedly increased lactic acid bacteria number (9.88 ± 0.08 log cfu g^?1) which resulted in rapid reduction in pH (4.61 ± 0.03) and specific gravity after 6 h of fermentation when compared to conventional batter fermentation for 18 h without XOS (9.46 ± 0.06 log cfu g^?1). Instrumental (colour and texture) and sensory evaluation indicated that the optimum conditions were 0.4% XOS and 6 h fermentation. Idlis with XOS had higher moisture content and a softer texture. Addition of XOS benefits both fermentation and idli quality.     

Experimental investigation and analysis of the hybrid solar collector

Hybrid solar collector is a new and innovative technique to harness all the spectrum of sunlight and hence generate a system to harness sunlight. This project deals with the fabrication of a parabolic trough which suits the required design of the solar collector. This project deals with the study of heat transfer across the receiver tube and mode of heat transfer across the hybrid solar collector, to optimise the design, to minimise the losses and maximise the heat and photon transfer to the receiver and power generating unit. Our aim is to study the heat exchange process across tube and to prevent the heating of solar panels from the radiations emitted by the receiver tube when light is focused on it and direct the working of solar collector to a maximum efficient way. We consider the radiation spectrum of sun to be of different waves and utilising each component of it – that is, visible and UV (consisting most of photons) and infrared (consisting of heating radiation) – and try to segregate them with the help of a water jacket and bring the temperature of the PV panels to an optimum condition.     

Durability Phenomenon in Manufactured Sand Concrete: Effects of Zinc Oxide and Alcofine on Behaviour

Silicon - Despite several studies focusing on producing sustainable concrete with nonconventional materials, there are short-term and long-term lapses in behavior of some of the concretes. This...     

Banana Fibre-Reinforcement of a Soil Stabilized with Sodium Silicate

Silicon - Many unsuitable soils for construction purposes can be made suitable by using unconventional soil stabilizers. This study investigates the effects of banana fibre-reinforcement of a soil...