Journal Articles
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Item Efficiency improvement on the multicrystalline silicon wafer through six sigma methodology(2012) Saravanan, S.; Mahadevan, M.; Suratkar, P.; Gijo, E.V.Crystalline silicon solar cell technology continues to be dominant in the photovoltaic (PV) technology due to its novel process flow and the clear understanding of the material. Being a mature material-based technology; on the one hand, it has quite a few opportunities for improvement, on the other hand, the expansion of solar energy should depend on this technology. Due to increase in the global energy consumption and high competition level in the market, it has become necessary to show significant improvement in the performance of the present process/product. The demand for high efficiency solar cells at low costs with shorter cycle times forced the manufacturing industries to improve their processes by applying systematic methodologies such as Six Sigma. This paper illustrates the importance of anti-reflective coatings (ARCs) on the silicon solar cell processes and the successful implementation of Six Sigma to improve the efficiency of the silicon solar cells. The different phases of the Six Sigma DMAIC approach applied to the process and the results are interpreted. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.Item Removal of ammonia and particulate matter using a modified turbulent wet scrubbing system(2012) Byeon, S.-H.; Lee, B.-K.; Raj Mohan, B.Conventional scrubbers are typically modified to serve the needs of modern industries that discharge effluents that cause synergetic, adverse effects on the environment. We designed and developed a modified turbulent wet scrubber (MTWS) to remove air pollutants as they emerge from a coal furnace. Experiments were conducted to estimate the pressure drop and the efficiencies of ammonia gas and particulate removal via the MTWS. The optimum water levels and gas flow rates for effective scrubbing of ammonia gas at different concentrations and particulate matter at different feed rates were estimated. For ammonia gas at a concentration of 45 ppm, a gas flow rate of 3.5 m 3/s and a water level of 58 cm in MTWS and position B (central position of the nozzle) in the water level of the nozzle yielded efficient ammonia gas removal for the given time. Similarly, for a fly ash feeding rate of 140 mg/min, the same gas flow rate and water level in the MTWS yielded high efficiencies even for particles at the submicron level. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Item Effect of oxygen enrichment of intake air on the performance and emission of single cylinder CI engine fueled with cardanol blends(Taylor and Francis Inc. 325 Chestnut St, Suite 800 Philadelphia PA 19106, 2015) Dinesha, P.; Mohanan, P.In this study, the effect of intake air enrichment on the performance and emission characteristics of a single-cylinder direct-injection diesel engine fueled with non edible oil namely Cardanol-diesel-methanol blend (B20M10) are investigated. With increase of intake air oxygen concentration, CO and HC decreased while brake thermal efficiency and NOx considerably increased. The maximum Brake Thermal Efficiency of 33.98% is obtained for B20M10 with 7% oxygen enrichment of intake air. Maximum NOx emission 20% is obtained for B20M10 with 7% oxygen enrichment for the full load condition. Decreases of 20% and 14.5% in CO emission are obtained for B20M10, over B20M10 with 7% oxygen enrichment, where as 76.8% and 74% decrease in hydrocarbon emission is obtained over B20M10 without oxygen enrichment.Item Effect of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) on diesel engine using Simarouba glauca biodiesel blends(Regional Energy Resources Information Center (RERIC) enreric@ait.ac.th, 2015) Bedar, P.; Pandey, J.K.; Kumar, G.N.This article deals with the usage of non-edible Simarouba glauca (paradise) oil as a biodiesel for single cylinder diesel engine with application of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rates. Biodiesel blends B10, B20 with EGR rates of 10%, 15%, and 20% are used for different load conditions. Parameters like brake thermal efficiency (BTE), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC) and smoke opacity were evaluated from the experimental study. The results show that Simarouba glauca biodiesel usage decreases HC, CO and smoke emissions with slight increase of NOx, also an improvement in the performance was observed for B10 blend. EGR rates 10% and 15% are beneficiated in terms of performance and emission but negative trend is observed for 20% EGR rate. On the whole it is concluded that a better trade-off between NOx and other emissions is attained with simultaneous application of EGR (15%) and biodiesel blend (B10) without compromising engine performance.Item Modeling and design of field programmable gate array based real time robust controller for active control of vibrating smart system(Academic Press, 2015) Parameswaran, A.P.; Ananthakrishnan, B.; Gangadharan, K.V.The current paper focuses on accurate mathematical modeling of a vibrating piezoelectric laminate cantilever beam theoretically as well as experimentally so as to obtain the best replication of the system dynamics on the software platform for simulation studies. The developed models were tested for accuracy in time as well as frequency domain by employing the sweep sine test. The focus of the study is on the flexural modes of vibrations of the cantilever beam. Here, modeling is focused on the first vibratory mode as it has been observed that the effects of felt vibrations would be maximum in terms of system stability and its operational efficiency when the excitation frequency matches with the first natural frequency of the system (fn1). This was validated by appropriate non-parametric modeling of the smart system by subjecting it to the Impact Hammer test. Development of accurate system models play an important role in designing and testing various control algorithms for reliable active vibration control (AVC). In the final stage, a real time active vibration robust controller was designed using a proportional derivative sliding mode control (PDSMC) technique and deployed on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform. The efficiency of the developed real time controller was proved in time as well as frequency domains by subjecting the closed loop system to harmonic excitations at first natural frequency as well as sweep sine test focussing on the first vibratory mode with the conclusion that the developed controller will function satisfactorily at higher modes of vibrations. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.Item An extreme learning machine approach for modeling evapotranspiration using extrinsic inputs(Elsevier B.V., 2016) Patil, A.P.; Deka, P.C.Precise estimation of evapotranspiration is crucial for accurate crop-water estimation. Recently machine learning (ML) techniques like artificial neural network (ANN) are being widely used for modeling the process of evapotranspiration. However, ANN faces issues like trapping in local minima, slow learning and tuning of meta-parameters. In this study an improved extreme learning machine (ELM) algorithm was used to estimate weekly reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo). The study was carried out for Jodhpur and Pali meteorological weather stations located in the Thar Desert, India. The study evaluated the performance of three different input combinations. The first input combination used locally available maximum and minimum air temperature data while the second and third combination used ETo values from another station (extrinsic inputs) along with the locally available temperature data as inputs. The performance of ELM models was compared with the empirical Hargreaves equation, ANN and least-square support vector machine (LS-SVM) models. Root mean squared error (RMSE), Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient (NSE) and threshold statistics (TS) were used for comparing the performance of the models. The performance of ELM model was found to be better than the Hargreaves and ANN model. The LS-SVM and ELM displayed similar performance. ELM3 models, with 36 and 33 neurons in hidden layer were found to be the best models (RMSE of 0.43 for Jodhpur and 0.33 for Pali station) for estimating weekly ETo at Jodhpur and Pali stations respectively. The results showed that ELM is a simple yet efficient algorithm which exhibited good performance; hence, can be recommended for estimating weekly ETo. Furthermore, it was also found that use of ETo values from another station can help in improving the efficiency of ML models in limited data scenario. © 2016 Elsevier B.V.Item Highly efficient panchromatic dye-sensitized solar cells: Synergistic interaction of ruthenium sensitizer with novel co-sensitizers carrying different acceptor units(Elsevier Ltd, 2016) Babu, D.D.; Elsherbiny, D.; Cheema, H.; El-Shafei, A.; Vasudeva Adhikari, A.V.Herein, we report the molecular design, synthesis and photovoltaic performance studies of three new organic co-sensitizers, N1-3 carrying indole and thiophene units linked to different acceptors/anchoring groups, as co-adsorbents for dye sensitized solar cells. We present the role of anchoring/acceptor units on co-sensitization properties N1-3. Their photo-physical and electrochemical results along with molecular geometry, obtained from Density Functional Theory are utilized to rationalize the influence of co-sensitizer structures on photovoltaic properties for DSSCs. We have shown that, the co-sensitization effect is profoundly dependent upon the anchoring/acceptor unit in the co-adsorbents. Among them, N3 containing 4-aminobenzoic acid shows promising co-sensitization results and exhibits an enhanced efficiency of 9.26%, when co-sensitized with a ruthenium dye, HD-14. Further, the study highlights the importance of molecular matching between the sensitizer and co-sensitizer in enhancing the efficiency. Furthermore, vertical electronic excitations are calculated using time dependent density functional theory studies. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Item Electroactive poly(vinylidene fluoride) fluoride separator for sodium ion battery with high coulombic efficiency(Elsevier B.V., 2016) Janakiraman, S.; Surendran, A.; Ghosh, S.; Anandhan, S.; Adyam, A.Electroactive separators are recent interest in self-charging rechargeable batteries. In this study, electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is characterized as an electroactive separator for Na-ion batteries. The intrinsic ?-phase with high porosity of the separator is confirmed from X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) studies. The electroactive separator is immersed in 1M NaClO4-ethylene carbonate (EC)/diethyl carbonate (DEC) (1:1 by weight) solution. The physicochemical characteristics of electroactive separator electrolyte (EaSE) were investigated using sodium ion conductivity, ion transference number and contact angle measurements. Linear and cyclic voltammetry studies were also carried out for the electrolyte system to evaluate oxidation stability window. The inherent ?-phases of the separator as obtained by electrospinning has an ionic conductivity of ~ 7.38 × 10- 4 S cm- 1 under ambient condition. Sodium ion cell made from EaSE with Na0·66Fe0.5Mn0·5O2 as cathode and Na metal as anode has displayed a stable cycle performance with a coulombic efficiency of 92% after 90 cycles. © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.Item Computational analysis of unsteady flow in turbine part of turbocharger(Springer Heidelberg, 2017) Rao, H.K.S.; Raviteja, S.; Kumar, G.N.Turbocharging technique is widely employed in internal combustion engines to improve the performance and to reduce the exhaust emissions. Flow analysis through the turbocharger has been a guiding method to optimize the turbocharger design. Usually, the turbocharger turbine is analyzed at steady states. But in practical scenario the turbine operates with unsteady flow due to the reciprocating motion of exhaust port and creates unsteady environment in the turbine. In order to increase turbine efficiencies and effective engine turbocharger matching, proper understanding of unsteady flow physics within the turbine is essential. Currently the turbine and compressors maps are obtained by using 1D code which includes extrapolation techniques. These methods neglect heat transfer and windage effects, hence resulting in lower aerodynamic efficiencies. Three dimensional analysis could lead to a better estimation of the flow field, helping the designer to build a high efficiency turbocharger. The present article concentrates on investigating unsteady flow field in the turbine part of a turbocharger. The necessary unsteady conditions at turbine inlet were obtained using commercially available one dimensional engine simulation software AVL Boost. A turbocharged twin cylinder CRDI diesel engine test rig was modelled within the workspace. The exhaust mass flow rate, pressure and temperature were recorded as a function of crank angle. These results were used as the boundary condition for the 3D analysis of the turbine. ANSYS CFX tools were used to solve the unsteady case. The turbine geometry was generated using ANSYS bladegen. The model selected for analysis is k-? turbulence Model. The pulsating performance, effect of secondary flows and entropy generation are discussed in the paper. © Springer India 2017.Item Fenton's treatment of actual agriculture runoff water containing herbicides(IWA Publishing 12 Caxton Street London SW1H 0QS, 2017) Sangami, S.; Manu, B.This research was to study the efficiency of the Fenton's treatment process for the removal of three herbicides, namely 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D), ametryn and dicamba from the sugarcane field runoff water. The treatment process was designed with the Taguchi approach by varying the four factors such as H 2 O 2 /COD (1-3.5), H 2 O 2 /Fe 2+ (5-50), pH (2-5) and reaction time (30-240 min) as independent variables. Influence of these parameters on chemical oxygen demand (COD), ametryn, dicamba and 2,4-D removal efficiencies (dependent variables) were investigated by performing signal to noise ratio and other statistical analysis. The optimum conditions were found to be H 2 O 2 /COD: 2.125, H 2 O 2 /Fe 2+ : 27.5, pH: 3.5 and reaction time of 135 min for removal efficiencies of 100% for ametryn, 95.42% for dicamba, 88.2% for 2,4-D and with 75% of overall COD removal efficiencies. However, the percentage contribution of H 2 O 2 /COD ratio was observed to be significant among all four independent variables and were 44.16%, 67.57%, 51.85% and 50.66% for %COD, ametryn, dicamba and 2,4-D removal efficiencies, respectively. The maximum removal of herbicides was observed with the H 2 O 2 dosage of 5.44 mM and Fe 2+ dosage of 0.12 mM at pH 3.5. © IWA Publishing 2017 W.