Advancing Endodormancy Release in Temperate Fruit Trees Using Agrochemical Treatments

Endodormancy in temperate fruit trees like Prunus is a protector state that allows the trees to survive in the adverse conditions of autumn and winter. During this process, plants accumulate chill hours. Flower buds require a certain number of chill hours to release from endodormancy, known as chilling requirements. This step is crucial for proper flowering and fruit set, since incomplete fulfillment of the chilling requirements produces asynchronous flowering, resulting in low quality flowers, and fruits. In recent decades, global warming has endangered this chill accumulation. Because of this fact, many agrochemicals have been used to promote endodormancy release. One of the first and most efficient agrochemicals used for this purpose was hydrogen cyanamide. The application of this agrochemical has been found to advance endodormancy release and synchronize flowering time, compressing the flowering period and increasing production in many species, including apple, grapevine, kiwi, and peach. However, some studies have pointed to the toxicity of this agrochemical. Therefore, other non-toxic agrochemicals have been used in recent years. Among them, Erger® + Activ Erger® and Syncron® + NitroActive® have been the most popular alternatives. These two treatments have been shown to efficiently advance endodormancy release in most of the species in which they have been applied. In addition, other less popular agrochemicals have also been applied, but their efficiency is still unclear. In recent years, several studies have focused on the biochemical and genetic variation produced by these treatments, and significant variations have been observed in reactive oxygen species, abscisic acid (ABA), and gibberellin (GA) levels and in the genes responsible for their biosynthesis. Given the importance of this topic, future studies should focus on the discovery and development of new environmentally friendly agrochemicals for improving the modulation of endodormancy release and look more deeply into the effects of these treatments in plants.

Process Plant Upgradation Using Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) Criteria

The objective of this study is to propose a solution for process plant upgradation becoming extinct due to obsoleteness of spares. The study will help in reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) based upgradation of control system of process plants in developing countries. Available options for plant upgradation are compact control, modular, and semiautomatic. RAM based upgradation provides solution which is high in reliability and availability (usually all parts are replaced with upgraded and compatible technology) and is easy to maintain throughout the service life of process plant. Case study for stacker and reclaimer of cement plant upgradation is considered to both implement and evaluate the idea. Upgradation methodology is finalized by expert’s feedback regarding selection of hardware with respect to availability, market survey to validate the opinion, and economical availability viability of selected hardware. Pre- and postupgradation scenarios are analyzed to validate the implementation of study and conclude the expected outcomes. The process plant upgradation yielded a cost-effective solution to the problem with automation increasing by 17%, plant maintainability increasing by 80%, and downtime of plant decreasing by 17%. Among all available options, modular design Op1 is considered the best choice that can satisfy RAM criteria.

Discharge and atmospheric dispersion modelling in case of hazardous material releases

One of the most important tools for improving the OHS level in process industries is represented by risk analysis and assessment. Within industrial units in operation or in the ones which find themselves in the design phase, risk assessment is carried out for determining the hazards which may occur and which may lead to unwanted events, such as hazardous toxic releases, fires and explosions. Accidental releases of toxic/flammable/explosive substances may have serious consequences on workers or on the neighbouring population, therefore the need to establish safety areas based on best practices in the field and on scientific grounds is fully justified. Pressure tanks containing hazardous materials represent one of the most relevant industrial facilities within process plants, being most of the time exposed to hazardous toxic releases, fire and explosion risks. The current study aims to evaluate the consequences and discuss the safety distances required in case of an accidental release of a hazardous material from a tank located within a process plant, using process analysis software tools. Accident scenarios are modelled for comparison purposes with consequence modelling software widely used in safety engineering.

Innovative Study on Microstructural Change in Duplex Stainless Steel in Corrosive Media

Duplex Stainless Steel was developed long back in 1930 and gradually finds its wide application because of its high strength, good weldability, good toughness and resistance to stress corrosion cracking. This alloy finds its application in pressure vessels, bridges, process plants and also in typically down to minus 50 degree centigrade applications. However, because of its high alloy content thermal conductivities of duplex stainless steel are low. Casting this alloy is difficult and can be industrially used after proper heat treatment. In this present study corrosion rates were measured for CD4MCu in terms of weight loss/unit area/hour and microstructures were observed in different corrosive medium with time as variable.

Detection and Blocking of Replay, False Command, and False Access Injection Commands in SCADA Systems with Modbus Protocol

Industrial control systems (ICS) are being used for surveillance and controlling numerous industrial process plants in national critical infrastructures. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system is a core component in ICS systems for continuous monitoring and controlling these process plants. Legacy SCADA systems are working in isolated networks and using proprietary communication protocols which made them less exposed to cyber threats. In recent times, these ICS systems have been connected to Internet and corporate networks for data sharing and remote monitoring. They are also using open protocols and operating systems. This leads to vulnerabilities of the system to cyberattacks. Cybersecurity threats are more prevalent than ever in ICS systems. These attacks may be external or internal. Modbus is a widely deployed communication protocol for SCADA communications. There is no security in design of Modbus protocol, and it is vulnerable to numerous cyberattacks. In this paper, we worked for False Command Injection attack, False Access Injection attack, and replay attacks on Modbus protocol. Initially, a real-time SCADA testbed was set up, and we envisaged the impact of these attacks on Modbus protocol data using the testbed. In this work, we used local area network (LAN) environment only for simulating the attacks. We assumed that the attacks penetrated the LAN network. We proposed and developed (a) a method to detect replay attacks by incorporating time stamp and sequence number in Modbus communications and (b) a frame filtering module which will block unauthorized attacks like False Command Injection and False Access Injection attacks to reach programmable logic controller (PLC). Numbers of attacks were simulated and the performance of the method was measured using attack block rate (ABR). It blocked 97% of malicious Modbus transactions or attacks to reach the PLC. It protects SCADA systems from attackers, which is a core component of industrial control systems. The solution enhanced the security of SCADA systems with Modbus protocol.