Studies on the synthesis of SAPO-5

Silicoaluminophosphate (SAPO-5) molecular sieves have been synthesised from reaction mixtures having a molar composition of: 0.7–1.0 Al₂O₃:0.7–1.0 P₂O₅:0.01–2.0 SiO₂:xR:40 H₂O (where R = (C₂H₃)₃N or (C₂H₃)₄NOH and x = 1.5–2.5 for (C₂H₅)⁵N and 0.5 for (C₂H₅)₄NOH, at 473 K using various sources of alumina and silica. The effects of (i) varying the crystallinity of the alumina source (boehmite) and (ii) the use of different silica sources such as freshly prepared silica either from sodium silicate or paddy husk extract, silica gel from commercial water-glass, and tetraethyl orthosilicate have been studied. The crystallinity of boehmite has been found to have a strong effect on its reactivity towards the formation of SAPO-5. The activity of boehmite for SAPO-5 formation increased with a decrease in its crystallinity (or with increase in its moisture content). Any silica source devoid of sodium ions could be employed for the synthesis of SAPO-5. The process of crystallisation started as early as within 1.5 h of reaction and incorporation of silicon into the AlPO₄ framework has been noted at this stage. Formation of some tridymite phase as impurity has been observed under conditions such as (i) SiO₂ concentration > 1.7 mole and (ii) x > 2.0 when R = (C²H₅)₃N.     

Corrosion failure of Zn–Al detonator housing

Some batches of detonator housings made up of Chromium plated Zn–Al alloy were found in an extensively cracked condition after few months of storage at room temperature. An analysis of the failure showed that the cracks were due to intergranular corrosion facilitated by segregation of lead at the grain boundaries. Improper chromium plating further aggravated the corrosion problem. This failure case emphasises the need for strict control of chemical composition for components made from Zn–Al alloy and the process of Cr plating of the components.     

Photoelastic Studies on Rubber-to-Rubber Joints

Photoelasticity is a method which yields information on the principal stress difference and orientation in a composite structure. Various problems associated with this technique, especially those concerning the fundamental relationship between the fringe order and the stress, have yet to be investigated. A few studies of this relationship in a universal stress state have been presented, particularly in the field of rubber-to-metal and rubber-to-fabric composites, but no evaluations have so far been made in the field of rubber-to-rubber joints. Applying the photoelastic method, we report our observations on the stress distribution in a natural rubber to natural rubber joint subjected to uniaxial tension. A comparison between the results of experimental photoelastic studies and the corresponding computer modelling has been illustrated. The theoretical displacement pattern of the angular joints of bi-rubber part has also been highlighted.     

Phase diagrams for oil/methanol/ether mixtures

One-phase transmethylations of vegetable oils with methanol to form methyl esters occur considerably faster than conventional two-phase reactions. Addition of simple ethers is an efficient method for producing a single phase. Ternary phase diagrams have been determined at 23°C for oil/methanol/ether mixtures; these are useful when applying the one-phase method across a wide range of conditions. Soybean, canola, palm, and coconut oils were used in combination with five ethers, namely, tetrahydrofuran (THF), 1,4-dioxane (DO), diethyl ether (DE), diisopropyl ether (DI), andtert-butyl methyl ether (TBM). All five ethers can produce miscibility for all methanol/oil compositions. The ether/methanol volumetric ratios required for miscibility at a methanol/soybean or canola oil volumetric ratio of 0.20 (5.4 molar ratio) at 23°C are: THF, 1.15; DO, 1.60; DE, 1.38 DI, 1.57; and TBM, 1.57. For THF, this results in one-phase mixtures that contain 65 vol% oil. Soybean and canola oil form identical diagrams. Palm oil requires slightly less ether at the lower methanol concentrations, but coconut oil requires considerably less across the whole concentration range. Acid-catalyzed reactions, when performed at the boiling point of the most volatile component, require less ether than predicted from the diagrams.     

The pseudo-single-phase,base-catalyzed transmethylation of soybean oil

The base-catalyzed transmethylation of soybean oil has been studied under conditions whereby the reaction starts as a single phase, but later becomes two phases as glycerol separates. Methanol/oil molar ratios of 6∶1 were used at 23°C. The catalysts were sodium hydroxide (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 wt%), potassium hydroxide (1.0 and 1.4 wt%), and sodium methoxide (0.5, 1.0, and 1.35 wt%), all concentrations being with respect to the oil. Oxolane (tetrahydrofuran) was used to form a single reaction phase. The reactions deviated from homogeneous kinetics as glycerol separated, taking with it most of the catalyst. When 1.0 wt% sodium hydroxide was used, the methyl ester content reached 97.5 wt% after 4 h, compared with 85–90 wt% in the two-phase reaction. Sodium hydroxide (1.0 wt%), sodium methoxide (1.35 wt%), and potassium hydroxide (1.4 wt%) gave similar results, presumably because the same number of moles was used. The ASTM biodiesel specification for chemically bound glycerol was achieved after only 3 min when 2.0 wt% sodium hydroxide was used. However, the standard was not achieved after 4 h when 1.0 wt% sodium hydroxide was used, the MG content being 1.1–1.6 wt%. The use of 2.0 wt% catalyst is commercially impractical.     

Pair-copula based mixture models and their application in clustering

Finite mixtures are often used to perform model based clustering of multivariate data sets. In real life applications, such data may exhibit complex nonlinear form of dependence among the variables. Also, the individual variables (margins) may follow different families of distributions. Most of the existing mixture models are unable to accommodate these two aspects of the data. This paper presents a finite mixture model that involves a pair-copula based construction of a multivariate distribution. Such a model de-couples the margins and the dependence structures. Hence, the margins can be modeled using different families. Again, many possible dependence structures can also be studied using different copulas. The resulting mixture model (called DVMM) is then capable of capturing a broad family of distributions including non-Gaussian models. Here we study DVMM in the context of clustering of multivariate data. We design an expectation maximization procedure for estimating the mixture parameters. We perform extensive experiments on the basis of a number of well-known data sets. A detailed evaluation of the clustering quality obtained by DVMM in comparison to other mixture models is presented. The experimental results show that the performance of DVMM is quite satisfactory.     

Studies on the reaction of bis(diisopropyl) thiophosphoryl disulfide with silica in the vulcanization of NR

The reaction between bis(diisopropyl) thiophosphoryl disulfide (DIPDIS) and silica has been investigated. The study reveals that DIPDIS can be used as a coupling agent for silica. The chemical bond between the silanol groups of silica and DIPDIS has been established through the isolation and characterization of isopropyl alcohol that is eliminated from the reaction. The chemical nature of the bond is also supported by the IR analysis of the reaction products of silica and DIPDIS obtained both in the presence and absence of rubber. From the exploratory studies it is indicated that DIPDIS can also react with NR even during mixing of ingredients. When used with 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT) or N-oxydiethylene-2-benzothiazole sulfenamide (OBTS) in the presence of silica, DIPDIS exhibits notable activation of cure and enhances the torque, modulus, tensile strength, and the scorch safety.     

SWGMM: a semi-wrapped Gaussian mixture model for clustering of circular–linear data

Finite mixture models are widely used to perform model-based clustering of multivariate data sets. Most of the existing mixture models work with linear data; whereas, real-life applications may involve multivariate data having both circular and linear characteristics. No existing mixture models can accommodate such correlated circular–linear data. In this paper, we consider designing a mixture model for multivariate data having one circular variable. In order to construct a circular–linear joint distribution with proper inclusion of correlation terms, we use the semi-wrapped Gaussian distribution. Further, we construct a mixture model (termed SWGMM) of such joint distributions. This mixture model is capable of approximating the distribution of multi-modal circular–linear data. An unsupervised learning of the mixture parameters is proposed based on expectation maximization method. Clustering is performed using maximum a posteriori criterion. To evaluate the performance of SWGMM, we choose the task of color image segmentation in LCH space. We present comprehensive results and compare SWGMM with existing methods. Our study reveals that the proposed mixture model outperforms the other methods in most cases.     

Emotion Recognition From Facial Expressions and Its Control Using Fuzzy Logic

This paper presents a fuzzy relational approach to human emotion recognition from facial expressions and its control. The proposed scheme uses external stimulus to excite specific emotions in human subjects whose facial expressions are analyzed by segmenting and localizing the individual frames into regions of interest. Selected facial features such as eye opening, mouth opening, and the length of eyebrow constriction are extracted from the localized regions, fuzzified, and mapped onto an emotion space by employing Mamdani-type relational models. A scheme for the validation of the system parameters is also presented. This paper also provides a fuzzy scheme for controlling the transition of emotion dynamics toward a desired state. Experimental results and computer simulations indicate that the proposed scheme for emotion recognition and control is simple and robust, with good accuracy.     

An application of PSO technique for harmonic elimination in a PWM inverter

Harmonic elimination problem in PWM inverter is treated as an optimization problem and solved using particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique. The derived equation for computation of total harmonic distortion (THD) of the output voltage of PWM inverter is used as the objective function in the PSO algorithm. The objective function is minimized to contribute the minimum THD in the voltage waveform and the corresponding switching angles are computed. The method is applied to investigate the switching patterns of both unipolar and bipolar case. While minimizing the objective function, the individual selected harmonics like 5th, 7th, 11th and 13th can be controlled within the allowable limits by incorporating the constraints in the PSO algorithm. The results of the unipolar case using five switching angles are compared with that of a recently reported work and it is observed that the proposed method is effective in reducing the voltage THD in a wide range of modulation index. The simulated results are also validated through suitable experiments.