Metal System for Chemical Reactions and for Studying Properties of Gases and Liquids

An all-metal system, made of copper, is herein described. It is suitable for working with those chemicals which do not attack copper. In particular it has been found very useful in the purification of BF3 and B(CH3)3. Some important features of such a system are (1) a complete absence of contaminants; (2) reactions may be carried out up to 500°C; (3) pressures up to several hundred pounds per square inch may be used; (4) flow of gases from very low to very high pressures may be easily controlled; (5) the system is very rugged. This latter point is particularly desirable where noxious or inflammable gases (such as B(CH3)3) are used. A method is also described whereby gases from sealed-off containers under either high or low pressures may be easily retrieved without introducing impurities. Other important advantages of such a system are mentioned in the text

An investigation into the friction stir welding of aluminium pipe with stainless steel plate

In this project the feasibility of friction stir welding (FSW) of Aluminium alloy pipe with Stainless Steel plate is investigated. Aluminium alloy and Stainless Steel are widely used in aerospace, automotive, marine, defense, construction etc. due to their high strength, low weight, high machinability, good conductivity of heat and electricity etc. Friction stir welding is preferred for joining these materials as it is a solid state forge welding process and problems related with welding of Aluminium alloys and stainless steel can be subdued through this process. This welding process is a solid state welding procedure that uses a non-consumable rotating tool that is permitted to rub against the work piece hence generating frictional heat. When the weld constraints such as tool or work piece rotation speed, welding time, axial load are optimum the friction between the work piece and the tool generates enough heat to create a plastic deformation layer at the weld interface. The process doesn’t involve any melting process and whole process occurs in solid state through plastic deformation and mass flow among the work pieces. The experimental investigation of FSW is done by varying the friction stir welding parameters such as work piece rotation speed, welding time, feed (axial load).The work piece is rotated at the speeds 860 rpm, 1400 rpm and 2000 rpm. The experiment is done in a general purpose center lathe machine. To hold the work piece a fixture is designed. A tool(C-45 carbon steel) is also designed. The experiment is done using Aluminium alloy pipe of different diameters such as Aluminium pipes with diameters 18.5 mm, 25 mm and 32 mm. The experiment is conducted and the results are assessed

Finite element analysis of multifarious machine components

Finite element analysis is a sophisticated technology based on the principle of discretization and numerical approximation to solve scientific and engineering problems. In this methodology any structure under consideration is discretized into small geometric shapes and the material properties are analyzed over these small elements. This method scores over the general strength of material methods in the way that in this technique complex beam elements with differential cross sectional geometry can be analyzed quite easily. In this work we apply the method of finite element analysis to one dimensional beam elements. The elements that have been analyzed range from simple beams with concentric loading to beams having non uniformly varying loads. Towards the end we have taken machine components on elastic supports and beams subjected to combined bending and torsion and axial loading. Finally we have applied a new FEA method to analyze the effect of crack in a beam. Throughout this work we have restricted ourselves to calculation of deflection and slope at each nodes of the beam. We have compared our results with the results obtained by strength of material method and enlisted them in a tabular form. For this work we have used the standard C program for solution of simultaneous equation by Gauss elimination to solve the reduced matrix equations. To calculate the global matrix we developed our own program in C

Using big data for decisions in agricultural supply chain

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54).Agriculture is an industry where historical and current data abound. This paper investigates the numerous data sources available in the agricultural field and analyzes them for usage in supply chain improvement. We identified certain applicable data and investigated methods of using this data to make better supply chain decisions within the agricultural chemical distribution chain. We identified a specific product, AgChem, for this study. AgChem, like many agricultural chemicals, is forecasted and produced months in advance of a very short sales window. With improved demand forecasting based on abundantly-available data, Dow AgroSciences, the manufacturer of AgChem, can make better production and distribution decisions. We analyzed various data to identify factors that influence AgChem sales. Many of these factors relate to corn production since AgChem is generally used with corn crops. Using regression models, we identified leading indicators that assist to forecast future demand of the product. We developed three regressions models to forecast demand on various horizons. The first model identified that the price of corn and price of fertilizer affect the annual, nation-wide demand for the product. The second model explains expected geographic distribution of this annual demand. It shows that the number of retailers in an area is correlated to the total annual demand in that area. The model also quantifies the relationship between the sales in the first few weeks of the season, and the total sales for the season. And the third model serves as a short-term, demand-sensing tool to predict the timing of the demand within certain geographies. We found that weather conditions and the timing of harvest affect when AgChem sales occur. With these models, Dow AgroSciences has a better understanding of how external factors influence the sale of AgChem. With this new understanding, they can make better decisions about the distribution of the product and position inventory in a timely manner at the source of demand.by Derik Lafayette Smith and Satya Prakash Dhavala.M.Eng.in Logistic

Evaluating Crash Consistency for PM Software using Intel Pin

Ongoing advancement in non-volatile memory such as NVDIMMs have prompted to huge improvement in the area of persistent memory. It is faster, byte addressable and can persist without power. It allows direct manipulation of data in memory unlike other memory system like hard disk and SSD . It furthers overcomes the limitation of file system overhead that incurs extra burden to application to handle crash during failure. A Persistent program needs to correctly implement certain crash consistency mechanisms such as undo and redo logging. The program should be able to recover to consistent state after failure. Due to volatile caching and reordering of writes within memory hierarchy, programs need to carefully manage the order in which writes become persistent when implementing crash consistent software. Persistent-memory applications ensure the consistency of persistent data by inserting ordering points between writes to PM allowing the construction of higher-level transaction mechanisms.PM System have introduced new instructions such as CLWB and SFENCE from x86 and DC CVAP from ARM to ensure ordering and further introduced high level transactional libraries to ensure persistence. Required by the crash consistency guarantee, that is a program returns to a consistent state and resumes the execution after a failure, a testing tool is expected to detect inconsistencies during the entire procedure of execution, recovery, and resumption. Therefore, we proposed new method that will the log all the I/Os using intel pin tool and replay the all the I/Os and check the consistency of program by comparing the initial image and a final image.We are checking the consistency of program post failure by emulating the failure by removing some of I/O’s writes while replaying to check if program can recover itself after cras

Development of a flood forecasting model for Flamingo Tropicana Watershed in the Las Vegas Valley

Floods are among the most frequent natural phenomenon that occur due to excessive precipitation. Accurate and current forecasting of floods is necessary to avoid social and economic losses. Forecasting floods in an event of intense rain allows the concerned agencies to adopt appropriate measures such as warnings and evacuations and to initiate corrective and remedial efforts before disaster strikes (Chapman and Canaan, 2001); Las Vegas has experienced rapid population growth since the 1990s. This has brought large-scale increase in impervious land surface due to the expansion of residential, commercial, and industrial area in the valley. The increase in impervious area produces more runoff volume and peak flows and consequently shortens the time that the floodwaters take to reach their peak (Hall, 1984). To effectively convey the runoff from the impervious land surface, the Clark County Regional Flood Control District (CCRFCD) has established regional flood control facilities. Most of the times, these facilities are adequate to protect human life and property. However, there still exist some areas of concern as recent rainfall events have caused flooding in part of the watershed thereby causing huge loss to properties and threat to lives; This research focused on developing a hydrologic model to be used in time of intense rainfall for real-time flood forecasting. The research was carried out in the Flamingo Tropicana watershed. The existing HEC-1 flood hydrograph model of the CCRFCD was utilized to develop the flood forecasting model using the HEC-HMS software developed by United States Army Corps of Engineers. The modeling was carried out using the real-time rainfall data available through the Flood Threat Recognition System (FTRS) of CCRFCD and the gridded radar rainfall data having different resolution. The simulated hydrographs using the different rainfall data were compared with the observed data at different places in the watershed. In overall the model predicted the time to peak very well. The analysis of the results indicated that the model can be used for real-time flood forecasting in the Flamingo Tropicana Watershed. The information provided by this research can be applied to develop an integrated flood forecasting model for the entire Las Vegas Valley

Detection of Knots in the Logs Using Finite Element Analysis

The detection of internal log defects has been shown to have a potential for increasing the lumber value. As an alternative to other available expensive log scanning devices, a method using radio frequency waves has been used to detect the knots. The main focus of the current research is to investigate the effectiveness of using radio frequency waves to detect the knots. Electrostatic finite element analysis is performed to predict the defects in logs. A script has been written using the commercial finite element ANSYS software to predict defects in log sections. The results are then compared with the experimental data measured on actual log sections. Analysis proved that it is possible to detect presence of knots in the log sections

Moral Philosophy and Ethical Decision Making in an Information Technology Dilemma

This study explores the fundamental philosophical differences found in the ethical decision making approaches of studentsenrolled in a Management Information Systems (MIS) course required at an accredited university in New England. Thedecision choices of the students were classified according to five widely accepted theories of ethics: (a) Axiological, (b)Deontological, (c) Perfectionist, (d) Utilitarian, and (e) Relativistic. Based on their major areas of study, students wereclassified into three categories: (1) Arts & Sciences majors, (2) Business majors, and (3) Information Technology majors.The analysis of 103 decisions confirms the existence of statistically significant differences among students in their ethicalapproaches to resolving an information technology dilemma based on their major areas of study. While the Arts & Sciencesmajors prefer Utilitarian ethics, Business majors prefer Axiological, and Information Technology majors favor Relativisticapproach. Some possible reasons behind these differences are discussed in the paper

Meeting the Challenge of Globalization with Information and Communications Technology at an Emerging Multinational Enterprise

Based on a survey and extended interviews with 78 domestic and international managers of a leading bank in India, this paper identifies some problems encountered with the utilization of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) by this enterprise in its global marketing strategy. A comparative analysis of the survey responses reveals recognizable differences among managers within and outside India concerning the problems and prospects of ICT as an instrument of global business strategy. Twenty problems that can diminish the influence of ICT in this strategy are identified and classified into four categories: Infrastructure, Regulation and Restrictions, Training and Culture, and Financial Constraints. The study finds that ICT has assisted the bank in maintaining its global competitiveness but the international managers of the bank do not agree that it has generated any competitive advantage. This paper contributes to the field by empirically exploring the prospects of ICT at an incipient global enterprise from an emerging economy