Mechanical Engineering

The combustion process in Internal Combustion engines is greatly influenced by the fuel injected into the chamber and its interaction with the air. Investigation of which involves analyzing injection process from the structure point of view of the fuel spray. In addition, optimizing the spray conditions is highly important in reducing the exhaust emissions and improving the performance and combustion characteristics. The main objective is to optimize various parameters of spray for different blends of biodiesel and injection pressure mainly with respect to Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD), spray tip penetration and spray cone angle using concept of Taguchi and also identifying its contribution using analysis of variance commonly known as ANOVA with the help of ?Minitab 14.0? software where the optimum levels of parameters were found using higher Signal - Noise ratio. Based on the number of trials of experiments, spray images of biodiesel for the different combination of control factors were captured and analyzed. Furthermore performance, emission and combustion characteristics are compared by advancing as well as retarding the injection timing in existing Compression Ignition engine for the optimum condition obtained from the experiments conducted in spray chamber. The higher brake thermal efficiency is attained when it is retarded may be due to lower fuel consumption. Unburned hydro carbon is lower for KB20 due to unstable nature and simple molecular structure. Further, among all the blends KB20 can be considered to the best blend on the basis of spray characteristics.

Deterioration of mechanical components in locomotives is evident over kilometers covered. A Number of factors are responsible for this deterioration; wear out of components (Life of Components) over kilometers covered, Reaction due to dust accumulation & change of material properties due to open air weathering. Hence we design a equipment to measure the steering force of automotives.

This paper describes an approach for formulation of approximate, generalized field data based mathematical model (FDBM) for the process of PVC pipe manufacturing at some industries. The present work is aimed at establishing mathematical relationship between the responses and inputs at the operation of PVC pipe manufacturing process using single screw extruder. For this purpose various small scale PVC pipes manufacturing industries are visited. The operation of PVC pipe extrusion is studied. The study is focused on an extrusion line starting from its electric motor, extruder hopper, barrel, extruder screw up to the extruder die. First of all the various dependent variables in form of responses and the independent variables in the form of inputs are decided. The categorization of these variables are made in terms of pi terms viz. ?1 ?2 ?3 as independent and ?D1, ?D2, ?D3, ?D4 as dependent variables. Then the field observations are taken and accordingly data collection process is completed. After this step, an approximate, generalized field data based mathematical models are developed. This work presents an approach to check the reliability of models, which is executed by comparing error frequency graphs of various mathematical models formed. After that the influence of the various independent pi terms in the models are studied by analyzing the indices of the various pi terms. Through the technique of sensitivity analysis, the change in the value of a dependent pi term caused due to an introduced change in the value of independent individual pi term is evaluated. The ultimate objective of this work is not merely developing the mathematical models but to find out the best set of independent variables, which will result in maximization or minimization of the objective functions. This is achieved by applying the technique of optimization. Thus the objects of these models are tested to optimize the inputs required for satisfying the various responses. The comparative analysis is made of the outputs of the network with observed data and the data calculated from the mathematical models. This modeling and simulation approach enables entrepreneur of small scale PVC pipes manufacturing industries to get system wide view obtained by deliberately making local changes in their manufacturing system. They can predict its impact on performance of their machines. With the help of the models, one can find a method to improve the productivity of the industry. The results obtained from experiments are also analyzed by the development of different polynomial mathematical models and its related graphs. Recommendations with respect to improvement in the current operation are suggested and future changes are proposed.

SOLECKSHAW, a motor assisted pedal driven three wheeled vehicle, was developed by CSIR-CMERI in 2008-09, under the recent CSIR vision, CSIR-800, aimed at empowering 800 million Indians, who belong to the underprivileged class of society in our country, by way of S&T intervention. Rear wheels of SOLECKSHAW are driven by manual power and front wheel is driven by brushless DC (BLDC) electric hub motor, leading to driving comfort of the driver. Once the product was developed and on road trial was successful, the technology was transferred to a few Indian Industries. It is found that the users of SOLECKSHAW are financially handicapped and not exposed to modern science and technology, which is a major hindrance in deploying this technology. Thus this market seeding project was taken up to make these users (rickshaw pullers) empowered through extra effort and financial facilitation. The main objective of this project was deployment of SOLECKSHAW technology on a large scale in a faster mode, to ensure its acceptability in the society. Based on the user’s feedback and ready availability of interested “Operator” in the form of either NGO or a start-up tourism company, Soleckshaws have been successfully implemented on road in different cities of the country.

The purpose of this review paper is to discuss the lean implementation and its quantified benefits for the textile industry. Both current and future state maps of the organization’s shop floor scenarios are discussed using lean techniques in order to highlight improvement areas and to bridge the gap between the existing state and the future state of shop floor of the textile industry. After an exhaustive review it is being found that lean implementation has many benefits at organizational and operational level. It has been concluded that, still many of the Indian textile industry have not adopted lean and it may be beneficial for them.

Air conditioning system is highly required device for getting comfort to human being also in industry application. But this device is hungry of lager amount of electricity. The ever increasing energy requirement puts a great burden on the further economical development as India is poor in energy resources. How to reduce the energy consumption by using new energy saving technologies and equipment is an important task now days. A study was carried out to investigate the effect of Earth Heat Exchanger ( Heat Pipe) , Peltier Module with and without combination with vapour compression air conditioning system with return air. The results show that the coefficient of performance of the system can be improved and the energy required by the compressor can be reduced when Peltier Module and Earth Heat Exchanger is used before cooling coil and provide supplementary cooling air to evaporator coil. On the basis of this study, it is recommended that HVAC systems should be installed with Earth (heat pipe) heat exchangers and peltier module for dehumidification enhancement.

The effects of alkalinity/acidity, addition of copper and zinc, and seeding material on biogas generation using freshly voided cow dung as feedstock were investigated. Experimental set-up for seven digesters, labeled A to F, were carried out in the laboratory with varying measurements of slurry in the digesters, varying pH values for three digesters, some with seeding materials while others with addition of metals –copper and zinc separately. The study was carried out for an hydraulic retention time of 32 days during which volumes of gas generated from all digesters range from 1022cm3 to 1723cm3 with the highest gas produced from digester with the rice husk and banana peels. The results showed best yields with cow dung seeded with rice husk and banana peels, while addition of metals and an alkaline slurry solution of pH = 7 had an improving effect on biogas production.

Access to energy has been found to affect attainment of sustainable development of a country. Poverty, unemployment, and other developmental problems facing Nigeria have been traced to unavailability of energy for both domestic and industrial purposes. In recent times, government has been active in developing the renewable energy sector to meet the country’s energy need. But this has been hampered by many problems. This paper identify some of these problems, which include absence of policy, legal and regulatory framework, non-existence of framework for Power Purchase Agreements (PPA), weak institutional framework, high initial capital costs, lack of technical or commercial skills and information, public awareness, subsidies for competing fuels , and corruption, and ways of turning the situation around were suggested. The paper however concludes that if the government, private investors, research institutions, various agent of government and the general public can join hands together, these barriers would be overcome and adequate energy provided for the Nigeria citizen.

In present research, acoustic signals from gearbox of Massey Ferguson 285 are used for fault diagnosis of gears. Worn tooth face gear and broken tooth gear are studied as two common faults in gear-sets. Signal processing on acquired acoustic signals are done using wavelet transform. Decomposition is made using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) in four levels and using Db4 mother wavelet. Desired information from DWT decomposition is provided by applying some functions on DWT outputs. The investigated data set is fed into feed forward back-propagation neural network to classify the gears status. Two layer networks are trained and tested with separate data sets and using variable hidden layer neurons count. Results show that 100% performance is gained by a network with two neurons in hidden layer.

Heat exchanger is a necessary laboratory equipment in a thermo-fluid laboratory, and lack of this equipment makes learning ineffective. Hence, this study aims to design and construct a shell and tube heat exchanger for laboratory use. To achieve this aim, mechanical and thermal factors were considered. The thermal design was done using the Bell Delaware method. The heat exchanger was designed based on the assumption that there is no phase change, while water at a cold inlet temperature of 15 °C enters the heat exchanger through the tube and hot water at 100 °C enters the heat exchanger through the shell. Results show that the geometry of the heat exchanger favours turbulent flow which enhances heat transfer. This causes a heat load of 107.973 kW to be transferred from the hot fluid to the cold fluid through the tube wall when hot fluid of 0.5 kg/sec flows at a velocity of 0.3 m/s and cold fluid of 2.58 kg/sec flows with a velocity of 1 m/sec. This heat transfer caused the cold fluid temperature to increase by 10 °C as it exits the tube, while the temperature of the hot fluid fell to 45 °C as it exits the shell. The pressure drops in both the shell and tubes were within the allowable range, and hence, accepted. With the overall heat coefficient at 134.23 W/m2K and the efficiency of the system at 73.3%, the study is said to have achieved its objective.