Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is a private university located in&nbsp;Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 1984, as Vellore Engineering College, the institution offers 20 undergraduate, 34 postgraduate, four integrated and four research programs. It has campuses in Vellore, Amravati, Bhopal and Chennai.

VIT is one of the top ranked private universities in India according to NIRF, THE and QS Rankings.&nbsp;Govt. of India has recognized&nbsp;VIT, Vellore as an&nbsp;Institution of Eminence. This has allowed VIT to take independent quality initiatives and move up in world ranking.

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VIT University

Mechanical

The consequence of using cerium oxide (CeO2) nanoparticle as additive in Lemongrass Oil (LGO) emulsion fuel was experimentally investigated in a single cylinder, constant speed diesel engine. A novel biofuel plant was introduced in this project, namely lemongrass whose binomial name is Cymbopogon flexuosus. The main objective of the project is to reduce the level of harmful pollutants in the exhaust such as unburned hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), and smoke. The engine performance could also be increased due to the addition of CeO2 nanoparticle. The LGO emulsion fuel was prepared in the proportion of 5% of water, 93% of LGO and 2% of span80 by volume basis. Span80 acted as surfactant and it would reduce surface tension between the liquids with a hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB) value of 4.2. The ceria nanoparticle was dispersed with the LGO emulsion fuel in the dosage of 30 ppm (ppm). The diesel engine performance, combustion behavior and emission magnitude were compared with diesel and LGO as the base fuels. The whole investigation was conducted with a single cylinder diesel engine using the following fuels, namely neat diesel, neat LGO, LGO emulsion and LGO nano emulsion fuels respectively. The LGO emulsion fuel could reduce smoke and NOX emissions and could improve Brake Thermal Efficiency (BTE), Brake Specific Energy Consumption (BSEC) compared with neat LGO despite the marginal increase in HC and CO emissions. For ceria nanoparticle blended test fuel, the drastic reduction of carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbon (HC), oxides of nitrogen (NOX) and marginal decrease of smoke opacity emission could be achieved compared with the LGO emulsion and diesel fuel at various power outputs. Improvement in BTE was also observed for LGO nano emulsion test fuel compared to neat LGO and LGO emulsion fuels due to improved atomization and rapid evaporation rate of fuel owing to large surface area to volume ratio of CeO2 nanoparticle. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

School of Mechanical Engineering

Chennai Campus

World University root node

Department of Automotive Engineering

Vellore Campus

Energy Conversion and Management

An assessment on performance, combustion and emission behavior of a diesel engine powered by ceria nanoparticle blended emulsified biofuel

As the study of formability of perforated sheet metals using conventional approach is exhaustive and time consuming, Finite Element Analysis is used to carry out the same. This paper attempts to study the effects of perforation parameters (viz. hole size, open area and thickness) on the formability of square hole Perforated Mild Steel Sheet Metal. Finite element analysis is done using commercial Finite Element Analysis software LS-DYNA. Parametric analysis is carried out to optimize process parameters using Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array. From the results obtained through simulation, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) is carried out to determine which group has best condition for drawing and regression equation is obtained to know, how a single response variable (Major or Minor strain) is related to a variety of predictor variables (percentage open area, hole size and thickness) and the graphs are plotted between them using MINITAB software.

VIT Unitversity

Applied Mechanics and Materials

Study of Forming Behaviour of Square Hole Mild Steel Perforated Sheet Metal

This project is based on design and analysis of a glass fibre trolley, for carrying engineering components, other materials at an engine manufacturing plant. Currently AISI 1020 mild steel trolleys are used for moving the goods around the stores or assembly area. These are simple in design but hefty, with four rollers but no braking mechanism. Use of glass fiber as a trolley material is advisable. Stress analysis has been performed for a typical load. This project will ensure weight reduction as well as an improved design, that makes use of electro pneumatic braking system.

Design and Analysis of a Glass Fibre Trolley

The usage of unmanned aerial vehicles has grown drastically because of their ability to operate in dangerous locations while keeping their human operators at a safe distance. In the present work, an attempt has been made to design and fabricate a quadcopter for video surveillance. For continuous video streaming, a miniature wireless camera has been installed in the quadcopter. The camera helps the user to guide the vehicle and also to receive continuous clips of the surveyed location in laptop. Further analysis has been carried out on the frame material to determine better feasible option for carrying out the fabrication. The control system consists of a RC joystick, which sends the input to the multi rotor board using transmitter and receiver. KK 2.1.5 board is used as the brain of the device. Since quadcopter has a better dynamic stability than helicopter, giving the user more comfort of flying, they play a predominant role in different areas for surveillance, military operations, fire sensing and many other complex situations.

Design and Fabrication of RC Quad-Copter for Video Surveillance

This paper presents the study of influence of core geometry on vibration and acoustic response characteristics of sandwich panels which are used as aerospace structures. Sandwich panels considered in this research work are: (a) Honeycomb core, (b) Truss and Z core, (c) Foam core. The present study has found that (i) For a honeycomb core sandwich panel in due consideration to space constraint, the better acoustic comfort can be achieved by reducing the core height and increasing the face sheet thickness. (ii) It is demonstrated that, for a honeycomb core sandwich panel, vibration and acoustic response is not sensitive to the cell size. (iii) It is observed that, triangular core gives better acoustic comfort for the truss core sandwich panel compared to other type of core. (iv) For foam core sandwich panels, it is observed that sandwich panel with carbon-epoxy (high stiffness) face sheet radiates less sound in the lower frequency range (0–100 Hz). While the sandwich panel with Titanium (high density) face sheet radiates less sound at the higher frequencies. In order to reduce the preprocessing time and computational effort throughout the analysis in the present study, equivalent 2D elastic properties are calculated and used to find out the vibration and acoustic response characteristics. © 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS

Aerospace Science and Technology

Influence of nature of core on vibro acoustic behavior of sandwich aerospace structures

This paper investigates the effect of structural, electrical and thermal coupled field phenomena on electric contact used in the electric switches. An axis symmetric two dimensional elastic-plastic finite element (FE) model for sphere and plane is developed to predict the contact behavior with smooth surface. Structural analysis of finite element analysis is performed and the FE model is coupled with electric-thermal analysis model through COMSOL multi-physics software. The model is simulated with different boundary conditions and contact area to analyze the temperature fall at the point of contact. Electro-thermo-mechanical coupled field simulation is carried for alternative current (AC) with frequency of 50 Hz. The comparison between analytical and numerical results is to predict the behavior of electric contacts for two different types of currents DC and AC which is used in electric switches. © 2016 IEEE.

2016 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI)

Electro-thermo-mechanical FE simulations of OFHC Cu material for electric contact with DC/AC currents

This paper deals with design of nozzle/diffuser and the use of piezoelectric effect for the actuation of diaphragm of valve-less micro pump which has application in medical field for drug delivery. A three dimensional FE model of nozzle/diffuser and actuator is used for numerical simulation. Fluid flow analysis of nozzle/diffuser is performed to calculate their efficiency and frequency. The simulation is performed for variable converging and diverging angle by varying their length and width to calculate steady flow rate. Analysis of actuator unit is also carried out by using the COMSOL multi-physic software. The simulation of actuator unit depends on mechanical properties of material such as Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio. The numerical result used to predict the actual behavior of actuator unit for higher frequency range which helps in proper selection of material. The comparison between analytical and numerical results is done which helps in predicting the flow rate and actual working of micro pump. © 2016 IEEE.

Characterization of valveless micropump for drug delivery by using piezoelectric effect

The present study deals with an exact analysis of free transverse vibrations of annular plates having small core and sliding inner edge and the outer edge being elastically restrained based on classical plate theory. This study focuses mainly on the influence of variations in the elastic restraint parameters on the fundamental frequencies of plate vibration. The natural frequencies for the first six modes of annular plate vibrations are computed for different materials and varying values of the radius parameter and these natural frequencies may correspond to either axisymmetric and/or non-axisymmetric modes of plate vibration. The extensive data of values of fundamental frequency parameter presented in this paper is believed to be of use in the design of acoustic underwater transducers, ocean and naval structures, compressor and pump elements, offshore platforms. These results may serve as bench mark values for researchers to validate their results obtained using approximate numerical methods. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Applied Acoustics

An exact frequency analysis of annular plates with small core having elastically restrained outer edge and sliding inner edge

This article describes the energy separation with the simulation of a three dimensional flow field in Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube. Rectangular and trapezoidal shaped inlets with varying aspect ratio are compared and analyzed while other geometrical parameters are held constant. Air is used as a working fluid. The nature of flow field inside the vortex tube is observed for different cases at an inlet pressure condition of 6 bar (absolute). From the results, it is observed that inlet with higher aspect ratio gives higher temperature separation. The trapezoidal inlet configuration is found to give higher temperature separation as compared to a rectangular shape. The streamlines emanating at the hot and cold end exits for both the rectangular and trapezoidal are visualized. Residence time for two shapes is calculated and found to be higher for trapezoidal shape. The increase in turbulence kinetic energy for the cold end exiting streamlines at the dividing region between core and periphery could be an important factor towards energy separation. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.