Fatigue-life estimation of functionally graded materials using XFEM

The present work deals with the fatigue crack growth simulation of alloy/ceramic functionally graded materials (FGMs) using extended finite element method (XFEM). Various cases of FGM containing multiple inhomogeneities/discontinuities along with either a major edge or a center crack are taken for the purpose of simulation. The fatigue life of the FGM plate is calculated using Paris law of fatigue crack growth under cyclic loading. The effect of multiple inhomogeneities/discontinuities (minor cracks, holes/voids, and inclusions) on the fatigue life of cracked FGM plate is studied in detail. These simulations show that the presence of inhomogeneities/discontinuities in the domain significantly influences the fatigue life of the components.     

A multiple-criteria decision problem for optimal management of farm resources under uncertainty - a case study

An attempt is made to minimize the total operational cost and specific energy for rice cultivation, when the constraints relating to the availability of power sources and crop yield are supposed to be stochastic in nature. The Sequential Linear Goal Programming algorithm has been used to solve the resulting multiple objective optimization problem.     

Assessing solar energy potential using diurnal remote-sensing observations from Kalpana-1 VHRR and validation over the Indian landmass

A spectrally integrated clear-sky and three-layer cloudy-sky models were developed to determine atmospheric transmittances and instantaneous surface insolation. Half-hourly observations at 8 km spatial resolution in optical and thermal infrared bands from an Indian geostationary satellite (Kalpana-1) Very High Resolution Radiometer (VHRR) sensor were used to provide inputs to these models in addition to global 8 day aerosol optical depth and columnar ozone. Sensitivity analysis of the clear-sky model showed a higher influence of aerosol on global insolation, diffuse insolation, and its fraction as compared with water vapour and ozone. The root mean square error (RMSE) of insolation estimates of the daily integral was found to be 2.05 MJ m^?2 (～11.2% of measured mean) with a high correlation coefficient (r?=?0.93) when compared with in situ measurements during 1 August 2008 to 31 March 2010 over six locations in India. The errors were found to reduce to 7.5% over 3 to 5 day averages. The comparison of annual estimates and equivalent reanalysis fields showed a mean difference of the order of ±1.7 MJ m^?2 over the majority of the Indian landmass.     

Technical note Monitoring the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) oil well fire at Pasarlapudi,Andhra Pradesh,India

Methods used to infer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from satellite have traditionally been based on regression-tuned split-window fixed-coefficient algorithms. These can give inaccurate SST results when local atmospheric conditions are significantly different from those encapsulated by the regression averaging. The new generation of SST algorithms attempts to correct for atmospheric variability. These approaches include the R₅₄ transmittance-ratio methods of other workers, and the dynamic water vapour (DWV) correction method of the authors. The relative performances of the various methods are compared by applying each to an ocean and satellite dataset obtained off the west coast of Tasmania, Australia in 1987. We also investigate the performance of the NESDIS operational multi-channel, cross-product, and nonlinear formulas for NOAA-9, -11, -12, and-14 when applied to the same dataset. We find the DWV method gives SST retrievals which have significantly smaller bias errors than those returned by the three transmittance-ratio methods. The best overall performance was returned by the NESDIS multichannel (MCSST) formula for NOAA-9, indicating that in low water vapour loading situations, the standard regression-based algorithms work well.     

Computational modelling of industrial pulp stock chests

Agitated pulp stock chests are the most widely used mixers in pulp and paper manufacture. Stock chests are used for a number of purposes, including attenuation of high‐frequency disturbances in pulp properties (such as mixture composition, fibre mass concentration, and suspension freeness) and are designed using semi‐empirical rules based largely on previous experience. Tests made on both laboratory and industrial‐scale pulp chests indicate that they are subject to non‐ideal flows, including channelling and creation of dead zones. In the present work, a commercial computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software (Fluent) is used to model two industrial pulp stock chests. The first chest is rectangular, agitated using a single side‐entering impeller, and feeds a mixture of chemical pulps at 3.5% mass concentration (C_m) to a papermachine. The second chest has rectangular geometry, with a mid‐feather wall used to direct suspension flow through a U‐shaped trajectory past four side‐entering impellers. This chest is used to remove latency from a C_m = 3.5% thermomechanical pulp suspension ahead of stock screening. For CFD computations, pulp rheology was described using a modified Hershel–Buckley model. Steady‐state simulations were made corresponding to process conditions during mill tests. The calculated steady‐state flows were then used to determine the dynamic response of the virtual chests and then compared with experimental measurements and found to agree reasonably well. The computed flow fields provided insight into mixing processes occurring within the chests, showing cavern formation around the impellers (which reduced the agitated volume available for mixing). Mass‐less particle tracking, using the steady‐state flow field, gave insight into the stagnant regions and bypassing zones created in the vessels. This paper discusses difficulties encountered in characterising the mixing (both experimentally and computationally) and the limitations of the industrial data.     

达芬奇效应:简便的数字视频

数字视频将引发人们与电子产品交互方式的变革。实现数字视频不但复杂,而且费时费钱。而这一切难题在达芬奇技术面前全部烟消云散。     

Noise suppression characteristics of InP-based monolithically integrated guided wave balanced photodiodes

Measurements were made of the noise suppression and signal enhancement properties of dual In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As-InP metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiodes integrated with a leaky mode In/sub 0.52/Al/sub 0.48/As waveguide directional coupler, and an electro-optic phase shifter. The experiments were done with a 1.3- mu m laser as the local oscillator. A noise suppression of 11 dB and signal enhancement of 1.3 dB were recorded for the MSM photodiodes.<>     

Polarization-based compensation of astigmatism

One approach to aberration compensation of an imaging system is to introduce a suitable phase mask at the aperture plane of an imaging system. We utilize this principle for the compensation of astigmatism. A suitable polarization mask used on the aperture plane together with a polarizer-retarder combination at the input of the imaging system provides the compensating polarization-induced phase steps at different quadrants of the apertures masked by different polarizers. The aberrant phase can be considerably compensated by the proper choice of a polarization mask and suitable selection of the polarization parameters involved. The results presented here bear out our theoretical expectation.     

Scientific basis for establishing country greenhouse gas estimates for rice-based agriculture: An Indian case study

A comprehensive scientific assessment of CH₄ budget estimation for Indian rice paddies, based on a decade of measurements in India, is presented. Indian paddy cultivation areas contain soils that have low to medium levels of soil organic carbon. The average seasonally integrated CH₄ flux (E _sif) values calculated from these measurements were 15.3 ± 2.6 g m^–2 for continuously flooded (CF), 6.9 ± 4.3 g m^–2 for intermittently flooded (IF) single aeration (SA) and 2.2 ± 1.5 g m^–2 for IF multiple aeration (MA) rice ecosystems. For CF and IF (MA) rice ecosystems having high soil organic carbon, without organic amendments, the CH₄ flux (E _sif) may be increased by 1.7 times relative to low soil organic carbon, whereas it may enhance by 5.3 for CF if amended organically. Organic amendment and high soil organic carbon paddy areas do not alter the methane budget estimates for India (3.6±1.4 TgY^–1) much, due to their small paddy harvested area. Methane estimated using average emission factors (E _sif) for all paddy water regimes, which include harvested areas having soils with high organic carbon and organic amendments, may give a budget of 5 TgY^–1 for India.