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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Mechanical

Automated Guided Vehicles are used to help the process of carrying materials from one place to another. AGVs are widely used in the materials handling process in different industries hence, the reasoning behind their extremely wide usage in industries such as Automotive, manufacturing, Medical, etc. This research deals with the obstacle avoidance of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV). This paper propose an algorithm that helps to build obstacle-free trajectories for AGV that leave the original track and again get back to the original track by avoiding the obstacle. The new path also have to act according to the dynamic &amp; kinematic constraints of the AGV. The proposed method will be validated using simulations. © 2021 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.

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Journal of Physics: Conference Series

Intelligent obstacle avoiding AGV using vector field histogram and supervisory control

Due to the growing environmental awareness, the development of sustainable green composites is in high demand in composite industries, mainly in the automotive, aircraft, construction and marine applications. This work was an attempt to experimentally and numerically investigate the dynamic characteristics of Woven Flax/Bio epoxy laminated composite plates. In addition, the optimisation study on the dynamic behaviours of the Woven Flax/Bio epoxy composite plate is carried out using the response surface methodology (RSM) by consideration of the various parameters like ply orientation, boundary condition and aspect ratio. The elastic constants of the Woven Flax/Bio epoxy composite lamina needed for the numerical simulation are determined experimentally using two methods, i.e., the usual mechanical tests as well as through the impulse excitation of vibration-based approach and made a comparison between them. The numerical analysis on the free vibration characteristics of the composite was carried out using ANSYS, a finite element analysis (FEA) software. The confirmation of the FE model was accomplished by comparing the numerical results with its experimental counterpart. Finally, a comparison was made between the results obtained through the regression equation and finite element analysis. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Polymers

Dynamic characteristics of woven flax/epoxy laminated composite plate

This study presents the performance evaluation of a system consisting of a Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and steam turbine where the fuel cell is powered by synthetic gas from municipal solid waste (MSW). Analysis is performed based on first and second laws of thermodynamics. The modelling of the system is done in a flow sheeting software Cycle Tempo®. This work mainly focusses on the effective utilization of solid waste by producing the Syngas from gasification. Syngas after cleaning is supplied to the SOFC along with air. The syngas undergoes internal reforming at the fuel cell producing hydrogen which acts as fuel for SOFC. The influence of various operating parameters such as compressor pressure ratio, turbine inlet temperature (TIT), upon thermal efficiency and specific power output are studied. Exergy destruction of various components of the system are also evaluated. The evaluation results are helpful for making suitable modification of the parameters for obtaining optimum configuration of the system. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering

Thermodynamic investigation of a SOFC- Steam turbine hybrid system powered by Synthetic gas from Municipal Solid Waste

Hydrogen gas stands as a renewable energy fuel for the transportation sector. The hydrogen to air ratio is an essential factor in deciding the combustion and therefore the thermal efficiency of an internal combustion engine. In this study, the mixing of hydrogen and air is considered among the four geometrical configurations. These cases are considered from the simple duct and vortex tube which induces an additional swirl inside a cylinder. The approach of the study involves the meshing and computation of mass, momentum and energy equations by finite volume method. After the convergence of results, mixture ratio is analyzed with the velocity components and vorticity variables. The ratio of hydrogen to air is found to vary between 8 and 35 among the cases considered. The desired ratio could be obtained from the combination of vortex tube and plain duct configurations. Stratification of mixture is found to be significant from the gradient of velocity components in this study. © 2021 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy

Numerical investigations of hydrogen and air mixture with vortex tube and duct combinations

Diesel engines are commonly employed for transportation and power generation. Injection of diesel into the cylinder plays a crucial role towards cycle efficiency and emission regulations. The literature overview of several parameters, such as swirl ratio, injection timing, exhaust gas recirculation, fuel temperature and combustion chamber geometry, is presented in this review work. It is suggested that Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations inside the cylinder are useful for predicting the flow field, combustion and pollutant formation. Future directions are indicated for further research on direct injection diesel engines. © 2021 Engineers Australia.

Australian Journal of Mechanical Engineering

A review of computational studies on the effect of physical variables in direct injection diesel engines

Depletion of natural fuel resources, rising fossil fuel costs and emission have led to use of renewable energies. Use of solar energy for drying is one of the most effective methods due to its renewable nature and availability. Increasing demands for healthy food and low-cost natural foods are fulfilled by solar drying. Miscellaneous types of solar dryers have been introduced and used in several countries based on their design, working and technical performance. Design and performance of natural convection and forced convection solar driers with different configurations have been reviewed. New trends and developments in hybrid dryers are mainly focused in this article. Solar driers especially designed for drying fruits, vegetables, medicinal leafs and grains along with different types of dryers used in different parts of the world are also reviewed. The economic analysis of different driers has also been discussed in this article. © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

International Journal of Ambient Energy

Solar power drying system: a comprehensive assessment on types, trends, performance and economic evaluation

Centrifugal pumps are an inevitable part of modern life, and these devices are significant consumers of electric power. In general, a pump is a mechanical device for moving a fluid from a location to the other location spatially, or from a lower altitude to a higher altitude. In the process industries, more than 90% of pump applications have been covered by centrifugal pumps as it has very few moving parts and is available in a wide range of flow rates and pressure differential. Centrifugal pumps are probably among the most often used machinery in industrial facilities as well as in common life. For technical applications selection of centrifugal pump and proper analysis of pump output parameters such as discharge head and efficiency are important factors to be considered. The performance of a centrifugal pump can be enhanced by optimizing the design of the centrifugal pump. Some design modifications related to parts of a centrifugal pump such as nose-cap improve the performance. They behave similar to a nozzle which increases the velocity of the fluid at the entry of the impeller. In this paper, the various profile of the nose-cap such as linear, quadratic, exponential and power equation curves are derived. Among all these curves the best profile is fabricated and the nozzle is threaded to the shaft. The CFD analysis for the profile is also performed. It is concluded that the overall efficiency of the pump is on an average 2–3% higher for all the three nose-caps when compared to the pump without nose-cap. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering

Investigation on Centrifugal Pump Performance for Various Nose-Cap Geometries

This paper reports on the numerical investigation of assisting and opposing mixed convection flows and heat transfer performance of nanofluids in a cubical enclosure under turbulent conditions. The enclosure side wall consists of a partially heated heat source and the nanofluid is pumped into the enclosure through the inlet port. A three-dimensional, turbulent two-phase mixture model is developed to investigate the thermal performance of nanofluids by considering the effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis. The base fluid is considered as water into which different nanoparticles such as aluminum oxide (Al2O3), copper (Cu) and silver (Ag) are dispersed for different particle volume fractions (ϕ) varied from 0% to 4%. The Richardson number (Ri) and Reynolds number (Re) are varied between 0.01 ≤ Ri ≤ 10 and 3.1 × 103 ≤ Re ≤ 105 and the Grashof number (Gr) is maintained at a constant value of 108. The nanoparticles are considered as monodispersed spherical particles with a uniform diameter of 100 nm. The results indicate that the temperature and turbulent kinetic energy distributions for opposing flows are higher than assisting flows. It also found that the average heat transfer rate increases with decrease in Richardson number and increase in volume fraction for both assisting and opposing flows. The effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis are more significant in assisting flows than opposing flows. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.

Powder Technology

Effects of nanoparticle dispersion on turbulent mixed convection ows in cubical enclosure considering Brownian motion and thermophoresis

As in the current industrial process, mixing is an essential process for various streams of application in engineering fields. The aim of this paper is to predict flow behaviour of the mixing process in mixing tank with the Rushton impeller and find out the best suitable design that creates required turbulence for producing a better degree of homogeneity in mixing. The rotation of the impeller is modelled using MRF in a single-phase medium treating the walls with a no-slip boundary. The mixing characteristics of single and multiple impellers are investigated by varying the impeller speeds and the results of velocity and pressure contours are compared to identify the best impeller with enhanced mixing. © 2021 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.

CFD simulation of turbulent flow behaviour in a mixing reactor with Rushton impeller

Harmonic drives are power transmitting devices with high torque and precision. They are used in many applications for their advantage of providing high torque ratio and reduced backlash, thereby reducing the power loss in the drive. The primary objective of this project is to modify the design of the harmonic dives by introducing harmonic teeth instead of existing straight teeth. The harmonic drives were modeled using SolidWorks. Three incremental loads are applied on a tooth of each harmonic drives and the stress developed on the tooth was found out using structural analysis in ANSYS. The results showed that the stress generated on the helical tooth of the flex spline was less compared with that of the stress developed on the straight tooth. There was an increase in the stress developed as the force acting on the tooth increased. © 2021, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.