The hitherto manual sorting of 1,200 letters per hour in the post offices is laborious, labour-intensive and time-consuming. This paper seeks to design a letter sorting machine (LSM) based on the conveyor belt transportation and letter sorting principle to replace the manual method of sorting letters. This machine is designed to make sorting of letters very effective and efficient thus, minimizing sorting into wrong destination bins and increasing the number of well-sorted letters per hour to over 30,000. A programmable logic controller (PLC) installed in-between the sensors and actuators effects programming flexibility by way of the control program in its memory. Optical character recognition (OCR) technology and barcode sorter (BCS) systems are employed to read handwritten and printed addresses as well as barcodes. Coding of the regions and a proposed addressing format is resolved thereby enhancing compatibility with the postal optical character reading system. This paper therefore seeks to design a letter sorting machine for the regional post offices in Ghana to increase effectiveness and efficiency of letter delivery.

The experiments carried out focused on shea butter extraction with a centrifuge machine. Experiments were carried out in the laboratory with a small centrifuge, with a view to determining how parameters such as kernel paste temperature, dilution rate and centrifugation speed affected extraction efficiency. High efficiencies (over 30%) were obtained with accelerations over 1,293 g, a kernel paste temperature over 90°C and dilution over 50%. The centrifuge machine that had been designed was then tested using the same variables as parameters for butter extraction efficiency at various sites. Extraction efficiency was found to be barely higher than 30% on average. Mean efficiency values with traditional methods were found to be virtually the same as for the centrifugal process.

An analytical study was performed to study the effects of thermal radiation on unsteady free convection flow past an exponentially accelerated infinite isothermal vertical plate with mass transfer in the presence of magnetic field. The fluid considered here is a gray, absorbing/emitting radiation but a non-scattering medium. The plate temperature is raised linearly with time and the concentration level near the plate is raised to C^t_w. The governing equations are solved in closed form by the Laplace transform technique. The influence of various parameters, entering in the problem, on the velocity field and skin friction is discussed with the help of graphs.

ECG contains very important clinical information about the cardiac activities of heart. The features of small variations in ECG signal with time-varying morphological characteristics needs to be extracted by signal processing method because there are not visible of graphical ECG signal. Small variations of simulated normal and noise corrupted ECG signal have been extracted using FFT and wavelet. The wavelet found to be more precise over conventional FFT in finding the small abnormalities in ECG signal.

Abstract:

Although water is as important for survival of human being as much as food, air etc., but hardly any attention is paid for its economical use and conservation of this precious resource. Due to indiscriminate pumping of ground water, the water table is going down abnormally and if the problem is not given a serious look, then the future generations may have to face severe crisis of water. Rains are the main source of water and if rain water is harvested, the scarcity of water can be eliminated altogether. This is an ideal solution of water problem where there is inadequate groundwater supply quantitatively and qualitatively and surface sources are either lacking or insignificant. Rain water is bacteriologically pure, free from organic matter and soft in nature. In urban areas, rain water available from rooftop of buildings, paved and unpaved areas goes waste. This water can be stored in tank and can be used directly and also indirectly by diverting to recharge the aquifers through existing GW tapping arrangements and thereafter can be utilized gainfully at the time of need. The paper aims towards the development of the framework for domestic rooftop harvesting for drinking water. The paper is based on the analysis of survey record of around 50 houses of different rooftop areas of peri-urban area of Dhule city. The estimation of the appropriate size of the water tanks & their costs required to fulfill the annual drinking water demand through DRWH from rooftop of different areas are done. A mathematical equation expressing the relationship between the required size of water tank and different rooftop areas is developed. The DRWH systems for all houses are designed considering the existing rain water outlets and cost estimation for each individual house is done. A cost model expressing the relationship between rooftop area and cost of DRWH system is developed.

Abstract:

The time between Failures distribution observed on four selected feeder lines in the distribution system of Southwestern Nigeria was investigated in this study. Starting with data gathered on the selected feeder lines, the graphical representation of the time between failure distributions on each of them was presented. Least square plot, Bartlet test and Maximum Likelihood estimator technique were used to establish that the distributions were exponential. The distribution parameter, failure rate denoted by, λ , obtained from the least square plot of  the feeder lines are 0.0054 f/h, 0.0071f/h, 0.0177f/h and 0.026f/h. The reliability distribution function obtained for each of the feeder lines can be used to estimate the probability of no failure within any given time.

Abstract:

Experiment was performed to draw a mercury adsorption stoichiometry of ceramic and activated carbon from aqueous phase in two parts - first part dealt with the effect of three different pH - 4, 7 and 10, whereas second part was designed to determine the effect of three temperatures - 15, 25 and 35°C. SEM-EDS analysis of adsorbents clearly showed highly uneven and porous surface structure of activated carbon compared to ceramic that contains SiO2 (73.65%) as a major constituent with negligible amount of metals, whereas C (98.46%) is the only constituent in activated carbon. Activated carbon exhibited 15 to 52% (experiment of pH effect) and 49 to 70% (experiment of temperature effect) higher adsorption efficiency than that of the ceramic, which inferred that the activated carbon is a proficient Hg adsorbent compared to the ceramic because of having greater available Hg adsorptive total surface area than ceramic and in contrary, high ionic competition on the surface of ceramic prevents more Hg adsorption from aqueous phase which is entirely absent in activated carbon. PH 7 and pH 4 revealed the highest Hg adsorption in ceramic and activated carbon, respectively. It also signified that pH 7 facilitates Hg adsorption reducing positive ions competition on the ceramic surface which is higher in rest of the pH levels, whereas pH 4 may be optimum to reduce HgCl2 into Hg (I) over the remaining pH in activated carbon for adsorbing maximum Hg. In the experiment of temperature effects, highest temperature (35°C) exhibited a higher rate of adsorption (ceramic 32 - 35% and activated carbon 0.13 - 0.84%) than the remaining temperatures. Therefore, it may also be concluded that highest temperature (35°C) of the medium promotes the used adsorbents to remove higher quantity of Hg from water phase because surface group activity of adsorbents, ionization and movements of Hg ions increases with increasing temperature that leads to the higher rate of Hg adsorption.

Abstract:

Density and sound velocity data for aqueous solutions at 303K containing Sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS), Cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and Tween 20 in the absence and presence of β-Cyclodextrin were analyzed to calculate the apparent molar volume and adiabatic compressibilities. For the binary systems Фv and Фk values of the pure surfactants in water have been obtained as a function of the concentration. For the ternary systems, remarkable increases of both the molar volume and compressibility of the surfactant at infinite dilution with respect to the value in water is observed. The positive molar compressibility of the surfactant, when it is forming the complex, compared to the negative value in pure water, proves the hydrophobic components of the interaction. Both molar volumes and compressibility of the surfactants are the same in the absence and in the presence of β-CD at high surfactant concentrations, indicating the non participation of the complex into the micelles and the CMCs are displaced. Using FTIR spectroscopy, the complexation of β-CD at high with anionic, cationic and non-ionic surfactants.

Abstract:

Estimating damping in structures made of different materials and processes still remains as one of the biggest challenges. Aluminium is one such pioneer material which is being used extensively in aerospace, automotive and the manufacturing industry. Aluminium components are mainly manufactured by traditional casting and powder metallurgy process. The main objective of this paper is to estimate the damping ratio of aluminium manufactured through powder metallurgy (P/M) process and compare it with the commercially available Cast aluminium. Aluminium powder is compacted, sintered and then it is extruded to the required geometry. Cantilever beams of required size and shape are prepared for experimental purpose and the damping ratio is investigated. Damping ratio is determined by sweep sine test using half power bandwidth method. Free vibration tests also confirmed the damping ratios obtained by sweep sine method. It is observed that damping ratio is higher for sintered aluminium than cast aluminium which may be attributed to increased porosity.

Abstract:

Transient performance of any electrical machine is greatly affected by sudden changes in its supply system, operating speed, shaft load including any variations in moment of inertia due to gear arrangement applications. D, q- axis modeling which is universally acceptable to determine such analysis may be adopted using stator reference frame/rotor reference frame/synchronously rotating reference frame. In this paper, rotor reference frame is used for the simulation study of three phase induction motor.  MATLAB/SIMULINK based modeling is adopted to compare the transient performance of three-phase induction motor including main flux saturation with and without the moment of inertia (MOI) of the system attached to the motor.  Simulated results have been compared and verified with experimental results on a test machine set-up. A close agreement between the simulated and experimental results proves the validity of proposed modeling.

Abstract:

Wireless mobile communication systems will be more sophisticated and wide spread in future. This growth demands not only for capacity but also high quality of service and better coverage without increase in radio frequency spectrum allocated for mobile applications. Wireless systems used fixed antenna systems in the past, but space division multiple access systems use smart antennas. These smart antennas dynamically adapt to changing traffic requirements. Smart antennas are usually employed at the base station and radiate narrow beams to serve different users. The complex weight computations based on different criteria are incorporated in the signal processor in the form of software algorithms. This article focuses on adaptive beam forming approach based on smart antennas and adaptive algorithms used to compute the complex weights like Least Mean Square (LMS) and Recursive Least Squares (RLS) algorithms.

Abstract:

This paper investigates the performance of flexible pavement on expansive soil subgrade using gravel/flyash as subbase course with waste tyre rubber as a reinforcing material. It was observed that from the laboratory test results of direct shear and CBR, the gravel subbase shows better performance as compared to flyash subbase with different percentages of waste tyre rubber as reinforcing material. Cyclic load tests are also carried out in the laboratory by placing a circular metal plate on the model flexible pavements. It is observed that the maximum load carrying capacity associated with less value of rebound deflection is obtained for gravel reinforced subbase compared to flyash reinforced subbase.

Abstract:

Machining of steel and other hard materials under high speed-feed condition requires instant heat transfer from the cutting interface of the tool and the work material where the intensity of cutting temperature is the maximum to avoid surface distortion and to improve tool life. Conventional cooling fails to control the cutting temperature and to maintain the product quality. Moreover it is hazardous for human being and a major source of pollution in the industries. High pressure and high velocity coolant may provide the best control to reduce cutting temperature and tool wear as well as to increase tool life. This paper deals with an experimental investigation of the effect of high-pressure coolant on temperature, tool wear and surface roughness in machining of 17CrNiMo6 and 42CrMo4 steels using uncoated carbide tools and comparing them under dry cut condition as well as the materials themselves. The inspiring experimental results include the reduction of cutting temperature and tool wear and improvement of surface finish with the use of high-pressure coolant. But increasing hardness increases cutting temperature and tool wear rate.