A Future Trend on Research Scope of Numerical Simulation on Conical Fluidized Bed

Fluidized bed technology is a well-established environment friendly technology, by which energy can be generated through combustion and gasification techniques. It is widely prevalent today owing to its excellent heat transfer, mixing characteristics and compactness. The design and scale-up of the fluidized beds are vital to the enhancement of heat transfer and mixing characteristics. However, heat transfer characteristics play a key role in determining the combustion and gasification characteristics. CFD is a technique which helps to optimize the design and operation of fluidized bed combustor and gasifiers. Enhancement of computing speed and numerical techniques has led to CFD being used as a widely implemented tool to provide a bridge between laboratory scale and industrial study. In this chapter, a comprehensive review of CFD modelling and experimental study on the conical fluidized bed has been carried out. Primarily this chapter demonstrates probable future accomplishments and identifies trends and regions where further research is required.

Corrosion Protection of Construction Steel

Reinforced concrete is one of the most versatile materials for construction. In spite of this, the performance is limited by corrosion, cracking, and spalling of the steel rebars. The steel embedded in the concrete is protected by a passive film from the corrosive attack of chlorides, carbon dioxide, and sulphates. As the concentration of chlorides, carbon dioxide, or sulphates increases above a certain threshold value at the concrete rebar interface, the passive film breaks and leads to a severe increase in the corrosion rate. Further, dynamic loading and the temperature of the surroundings also affect the durability of the reinforcements. The rebar may be protected from such a corrosion attack by the suitable selection of material, improving the concrete quality and tailoring its composition or application of protective coatings. The present chapter highlights and summarizes the different grades of steel for their high corrosion resistance. Further, surface engineering and application of corrosion resistance coatings for the prevention of corrosion of construction steel rebars has been also discussed elaborately.

Task Allocation and Path Planning of a Multi-Robot System Using Heuristic Coupled Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

This study deals with a plant layout where there were ninety predefined locations which have to be inspected by using three multiple robots in such a way that there would not be any collisions between the robots. A heuristic integrated multiobjective particle swarm optimization algorithm (HPSO) is developed for allocating tasks to each robot and planning of path while moving from one task location to another. For optimal path planning of each robot the research utilized A* algorithm. The task allocation for each robot is carried out using a modified multiobjective particle swarm optimization algorithm where the earliest completion time (ECT) inspired technique is used to make the algorithm applicable in multi robot task allocation problems. At the later stage of this study, in order to test the capability of HPSO an instance is solved by the algorithm and is compared with the existing solutions of a genetic algorithm with the A* algorithm. The computational results showed the superiority of the proposed algorithm over existing algorithms.

Demand Forecasting

This chapter provides a proposal for demand management in furniture SMEs located in the city of Puebla, México. The historical production data reviewed, and the classification of the most critical articles was made using the ABC classification methodology. Subsequently, the literature of SMEs was analyzed as well as the current situation and statistical information was sought. Additionally, it presented an overview of the models to forecast demand and applied to the most relevant articles. Due to the results and previous study, it was decided to implement a forecasting technique which is modelled by artificial neural networks. The ANN model developed with the TANSIGMOID transfer function by using MATLAB software. The appropriate forecasting techniques selected according to the variability of the demand of the articles takes a short-term planning horizon. This research will help the company reduce uncertainty, forecasting sales, and achieve better production planning through ANNs.

Corrosion and Wear Behavior of Electroless Nickel Coatings

This chapter describes how corrosion is the degradation of a material due to a reaction with its environment. Wear is another deteriorating phenomenon which erodes the contacting surfaces of any mechanical component gradually. Although corrosion and wear are two different phenomenon they are often interdependent and in most practical situations take place simultaneously. Fortunately, several surface modification methods exist which can protect the surface of metal against corrosion and wear. Among them, electroless nickel coatings is a technology where a coating is applied without the use of external current source. The primary advantages of electroless coatings include uniform coating and ability to coat non-conductive materials. Electroless nickel coatings possess excellent properties such as high hardness, good wear resistance and corrosion resistance. The corrosion and wear behavior of these coatings mainly depend on bath ingredients, deposition conditions, heat treatment temperature, etc.

Performance Evaluation of Cloud Systems by Switching the Virtual Machines Power Mode Between the Sleep Mode and Active Mode

Data centers are cost-effective infrastructures for storing large volumes of data and hosting large scale service applications. Cloud computing service providers are rapidly deploying data centers across the world with a huge number of servers and switches. These data centers consume significant amounts of energy, contributing to high operational costs. In this chapter, we study energy savings of data centers by consolidation and switching off of those virtual machines which are not in use. According to this policy, c virtual machines continue serving the customer until the number of idle servers attains the threshold level d; then d idle servers take synchronous vacation simultaneously, otherwise these servers begin serving the customers. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model for the data center management in particular, to quantify theoretically the tradeoff between the conflicting aims of energy efficiency and Quality of Service (QoS) requirements specified by cloud tenants.

Manufacturing, Control, and Automation

This chapter identifies the common needs for process controls and automation that include methodologies to enable in-situ-level process controls, optimization at the plant or industry level, open-architecture software tools, adaptive control systems, methods and diagnostic tools for condition-based maintenance of process equipment in a manufacturing industry.

Methodology for Storage Location Allocation Based on the Planning of Material Requirements

The general goal of warehouse management is to ensure the correct supply of materials to the production line. In this context, this document presents a supposed instance for a general problem of a raw materials warehouse with poor control of inventories and poor internal traceability. An internal material requirement planning (MRP) and storage location-allocation problem (SLAP) for sixty materials was used to supply the restocking store that provides for the production line, to see the materials with the highest turnover and to reassign the materials in the general warehouse to minimize the internal long-term logistics costs. As a result of the methodology, the company determines the products with the highest turnover in a variable demand environment. Also, the company reallocates these products in the warehouse of raw materials reducing logistics costs and supply in 100% on-time the stock store that, in turn, supplies the production line.

Supply Chain Management via System Dynamics in Flexible Manufacturing System

System dynamics is a method that allows analysts to separate complex social, and behavioral systems into components, to visualize them by reconstructing them as a whole again, and to develop a simulation model. In this chapter, a system dynamics model is developed for a flexible manufacturing system. The case study is developed using Vensim package program. To manage a flexible manufacturing system it is important to determine production schedule rules and examine results. System dynamics is a tool to test these rules without any production loss.

Non-Destructive Testing of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Composite Using Thermosonic Technique

Composite materials are often subjected to low velocity impacts which leads to delamination in subsequent layers. Linear ultrasound-based approaches are not accurate enough to detect it properly. The local defect resonance (LDR) based thermosonic is proved to be an efficient candidate for detection of such defects. LDR frequency excitation leads to high amplitude vibration which raises defect temperature drastically, detectable by an infrared camera. In this chapter, a numerical investigation of LDR frequency excited ultrasound thermography is carried out on delaminated carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) plate. The location and size of the delamination can be easily understood from thermal signature. The temperature gradient variation is found to be high at first and then it decreases due to higher heat conduction rate. The delamination in CFRP plate is detected by standard phased array ultrasound testing (PAUT) using flat bottom hole in aluminium plate as a case study. Delamination detection by PAUT is found to be very time consuming process compared with thermosonic technique.