Characterization of Clean and Fouled Rail Track Ballast Subsurface Using Seismic Surface Survey Method: Model and Field Studies

The efficiency of track foundation material gradually decreases due to insufficient lateral confinement, ballast fouling, and loss of shear strength of the subsurface soil under cyclic loading. This paper presents characterization of rail track subsurface to identify ballast fouling and subsurface layers shear wave velocity using seismic survey. Seismic surface wave method of multi-channel analysis of surface wave (MASW) has been carried out in the model track and field track for finding out shear wave velocity of the clean and fouled ballast and track subsurface. The shear wave velocity (SWV) of fouled ballast increases with increase in fouling percentage, and reaches a maximum value and then decreases. This character is similar to typical compaction curve of soil, which is used to define optimum and critical fouling percentage (OFP and CFP). Critical fouling percentage of 15 % is noticed for Coal fouled ballast and 25 % is noticed for clayey sand fouled ballast. Coal fouled ballast reaches the OFP and CFP before clayey sand fouled ballast. Fouling of ballast reduces voids in ballast and there by decreases the drainage. Combined plot of permeability and SWV with percentage of fouling shows that after critical fouling point drainage condition of fouled ballast goes below acceptable limit. Shear wave velocities are measured in the selected location in the Wollongong field track by carrying out similar seismic survey. In-situ samples were collected and degrees of fouling were measured. Field SWV values are more than that of the model track SWV values for the same degree of fouling, which might be due to sleeper's confinement. This article also highlights the ballast gradation widely followed in different countries and presents the comparison of Indian ballast gradation with international gradation standards. Indian ballast contains a coarser particle size when compared to other countries. The upper limit of Indian gradation curve matches with lower limit of ballast gradation curves of America and Australia. The ballast gradation followed by Indian railways is poorly graded and more favorable for the drainage conditions. Indian ballast engineering needs extensive research to improve presents track conditions.

Tribology of ethylene-air diffusion flame soot under dry and lubricated contact conditions

Soot particles are generated in a flame caused by burning ethylene gas. The particles are collected thermophoretically at different locations of the flame. The particles are used to lubricate a steel/steel ball on flat reciprocating sliding contact, as a dry solid lubricant and also as suspended in hexadecane. Reciprocating contact is shown to establish a protective and low friction tribo-film. The friction correlates with the level of graphitic order of the soot, which is highest in the soot extracted from the mid-flame region and is low in the soot extracted from the flame root and flame tip regions. Micro-Raman spectroscopy of the tribo-film shows that the a priori graphitic order, the molecular carbon content of the soot and the graphitization of the film as brought about by tribology distinguish between the frictions of soot extracted from different regions of the flame, and differentiate the friction associated with dry tribology from that recorded under lubricated tribology.

Impact-Angle-Constrained Suboptimal Model Predictive Static Programming Guidance of Air-to-Ground Missiles

A nonlinear suboptimal guidance law is presented in this paper for successful interception of ground targets by air-launched missiles and guided munitions. The main feature of this guidance law is that it accurately satisfies terminal impact angle constraints in both azimuth as well as elevation simultaneously. In addition, it is capable of hitting the target with high accuracy as well as minimizing the lateral acceleration demand. The guidance law is synthesized using recently developed model predictive static programming (MPSP). Performance of the proposed MPSP guidance is demonstrated using three-dimensional (3-D) nonlinear engagement dynamics by considering stationary, moving, and maneuvering targets. Effectiveness of the proposed guidance has also been verified by considering first. order autopilot lag as well as assuming inaccurate information about target maneuvers. Multiple munitions engagement results are presented as well. Moreover, comparison studies with respect to an augmented proportional navigation guidance (which does not impose impact angle constraints) as well as an explicit linear optimal guidance (which imposes the same impact angle constraints in 3-D) lead to the conclusion that the proposed MPSP guidance is superior to both. A large number of randomized simulation studies show that it also has a larger capture region.

Air Pollution Control

The air we breathe is being polluted by activities such as vehicles; burning coal, oil, and other fossil fuels; and manufacturing chemicals. Air pollution can even come from smaller, everyday activities such as cooking, space heating, and degreasing and painting operations. These activities add gases and particles to the air we breathe. When these gases and particles accumulate in the air in high enough concentrations, they can harm us and our environment. The module on Air Pollution deals with the various sources of air pollution and the associated environmental and health impacts. It also discusses the appropriate measures to control/prevent the same.

Tar characterisation in new generation agro-residue gasifiers - Cyclone and downdraft open top twin air entry systems

This paper deals with the characterisation of tar from two configurations of bioresidue thermochemical conversion reactors designed for producer gas based power generation systems. The pulverised fuel reactor is a cyclone system (R1) and the solid bioresidue reactor (denoted R2) is an open top twin air entry system both at 75-90 kg/h capacity (to generate electricity similar to 100 kVA). The reactor, R2, has undergone rigorous test in a major Indo-Swiss programme for the tar quantity at various conditions. The former is a recent technology development. Tars collected from these systems by a standard tar collection apparatus at the laboratory at Indian Institute of Science have been analysed at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden. The results of these analyses show that these thermochemical conversion reactors behave differently from the earlier reactors reported in literature in so far as tar generation is concerned. The extent of tar in hot gas is about 700-800 ppm for R1 and 70-100 ppm for R2. The amounts of the major compounds - naphthalene and phenol-are much lower that what is generally understood to happen in the gasifiers in Europe. It is suggested that the longer residence times at high temperatures allowed for in these reactors is responsible for this behavior. It is concluded the new generation reactor concepts extensively tried out at lower power levels hold promise for high power atmospheric gasification systems for woody as well as pulverisable bioresidues.

In Situ Electrochemical Polymerization at Air-Water Interface: Surface-Pressure-Induced, Graphene-Oxide-Assisted Preferential Orientation of Polyaniline

In situ electrochemical polymerization of aniline in a Langmuir trough under applied surface pressure assists in the preferential orientation of polyaniline (PANI) in planar polaronic structure. Exfoliated graphene oxide (EGO) spread on water surface is used to bring anilinium cations present in the subphase to air-water interface through electrostatic interactions. Subsequent electrochemical polymerization of aniline under applied surface pressure in the Schaefer mode results in EGO/PANT composite with PANT in planar polaronic form. The orientation of PANI is confirmed by electrochemical and Raman spectroscopic studies. This technique opens up possibilities of 2-D polymerization at the air-water interface. Electrochemical sensing of hydrogen peroxide is used to differentiate the activity of planar and coiled forms of PANI toward electrocatalytic reactions.

Vaporization and collision modeling of liquid fuel sprays in a co-axial fuel and air pre-mixer

Droplet collision occurs frequently in regions where the droplet number density is high. Even for Lean Premixed and Pre-vaporized (LPP) liquid sprays, the collision effects can be very high on the droplet size distributions, which will in turn affect the droplet vaporization process. Hence, in conjunction with vaporization modeling, collision modeling for such spray systems is also essential. The standard O'Rourke's collision model, usually implemented in CFD codes, tends to generate unphysical numerical artifact when simulations are performed on Cartesian grid and the results are not grid independent. Thus, a new collision modeling approach based on no-time-counter method (NTC) proposed by Schmidt and Rutland is implemented to replace O'Rourke's collision algorithm to solve a spray injection problem in a cylindrical coflow premixer. The so called ``four-leaf clover'' numerical artifacts are eliminated by the new collision algorithm and results from a diesel spray show very good grid independence. Next, the dispersion and vaporization processes for liquid fuel sprays are simulated in a coflow premixer. Two liquid fuels under investigation are jet-A and Rapeseed Methyl Esters (RME). Results show very good grid independence in terms of SMD distribution, droplet number distribution and fuel vapor mass flow rate. A baseline test is first established with a spray cone angle of 90 degrees and injection velocity of 3 m/s and jet-A achieves much better vaporization performance than RME due to its higher vapor pressure. To improve the vaporization performance for both fuels, a series of simulations have been done at several different combinations of spray cone angle and injection velocity. At relatively low spray cone angle and injection velocity, the collision effect on the average droplet size and the vaporization performance are very high due to relatively high coalescence rate induced by droplet collisions. Thus, at higher spray cone angle and injection velocity, the results expectedly show improvement in fuel vaporization performance since smaller droplet has a higher vaporization rate. The vaporization performance and the level of homogeneity of fuel-air mixture can be significantly improved when the dispersion level is high, which can be achieved by increasing the spray cone angle and injection velocity. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thermo-mechanical stability of a cellular assembly of carbon nanotubes in air

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) in bulk form offer outstanding structural and functional properties, and are shown to remain viscoelastic over a wide temperature range (77-1273 K) under inert conditions. We examine the quasi-static and dynamic compressive mechanical response of these cellular CNT materials in ambient air up to a temperature of 773 K. In uniaxial quasi-static compression, several displacement bursts are noted at large strains. These are results of the slippage and zipping of the CNT, and lead to significant mechanical energy absorption. Results of the dynamic mechanical analysis experiments show no degradation in storage modulus and loss coefficient for up to 20 h at 673 K. Hence, these stable cellular CNT structures can be utilized up to a maximum temperature of 673 K in air, which is much higher than the best polymers. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Microwave-assisted, surfactant-free synthesis of air-stable copper nanostructures and their SERS study

A simple, rapid, and surfactant-free synthesis of crystalline copper nanostructures has been carried out through microwave irradiation of a solution of copper acetylacetonate in benzyl alcohol. The structures are found to be stable against oxidation in ambient air for several months. High-resolution electron microscopy (SEM and TEM) reveals that the copper samples comprise nanospheres measuring about 150 nm in diameter, each made of copper nanocrystals similar to 7 nm in extension. The nanocrystals are densely packed into spherical aggregates, the driving force being minimization of surface area and surface energy, and are thus immune to oxidation in ambient air. Such aggregates can also be adherently supported on SiO2 and Al2O3 when these substrates are immersed in the irradiated solution. The air-stable copper nanostructures exhibit surface enhanced Raman scattering, as evidenced by the detection of 4-mercaptobenzoic acid at 10(-6) M concentrations.

Vaporization dynamics of functional droplets in a hot laminar air jet

The vaporization characteristics of pendant droplets of various chemical compositions (like conventional fuels, alternative fuels and nanosuspensions) subjected to convective heating in a laminar air jet have been analyzed. Different heating conditions were achieved by controlling the air temperature and velocity fields around the droplet. A hybrid timescale has been proposed which incorporates the effects of latent heat of vaporization, saturation vapor pressure and thermal diffusivity. This timescale in essence encapsulates the different parameters that influence the droplet vaporization rate. The analysis further permits the evaluation of the effect of various parameters such as surrounding temperature, Reynolds number, far-field vapor presence, impurity content and agglomeration dynamics (nanosuspensions) in the droplet. Flow visualization has been carried out to understand the role of internal recirculation on the vaporization rate. The visualization indicates the presence of a single vortex cell within the droplet on account of the rotation and oscillation of the droplet due to aerodynamic load. External heating induced agglomeration in nanofluids leads to morphological changes during the vaporization process. These morphological changes and alteration in vaporization behavior have been assessed using high speed imaging of the diameter regression and Scanning Electron Microscopy images of the resultant precipitate. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Air oxygenation chemistry of 4-TBC catalyzed by chloro bridged dinuclear copper(II) complexes of pyrazole based tridentate ligands: synthesis, structure, magnetic and computational studies

Four dinuclear bis(mu-Cl) bridged copper(II) complexes, Cu-2(mu-Cl)(2)(L-X)(2)](ClO4)(2) (L-X = N,N-bis(3,5-dimethylpyrazole-1-yl)-methyl]benzylamine with X = H(1), OMe(2), Me(3) and Cl(4)), have been synthesized and characterized by the single crystal X-ray diffraction method. In these complexes, each copper(II) center is penta-coordinated with square-pyramidal geometry. In addition to the tridentate L-X ligand, a chloride ion occupies the last position of the square plane. This chloride ion is also bonded to the neighboring Cu(II) site in its axial position forming an SP-I dinuclear Cu(II) unit that exhibits small intramolecular ferromagnetic interactions and supported by DFT calculations. The complexes 1-3 exhibit methylmonooxygenase (pMMO) behaviour and oxidise 4-tert-butylcatechol (4-TBCH2) with molecular oxygen in MeOH or MeCN to 4-tert-butyl-benzoquinone (4-TBQ), 5-methoxy-4-tert-butyl-benzoquinone (5-MeO-4-TBQ) as the major products along with 6,6'-Bu-t-biphenyl-3,4,3',4'-tetraol and others as minor products. These are further confirmed by ESI- and FAB-mass analyses. A tentative catalytic cycle has been framed based on the mass spectral analysis of the products and DFT calculations on individual intermediates that are energetically feasible.

A computational study of heat transfer, soot production and transport in an acetylene-air laminar diffusion flame in the field of a line vortex

The present work involves a computational study of soot formation and transport in case of a laminar acetylene diffusion flame perturbed by a co nvecting line vortex. The topology of the soot contours (as in an earlier experimental work [4]) have been investigated. More soot was produced when vortex was introduced from the air si de in comparison to a fuel side vortex. Also the soot topography was more diffused in case of the air side vortex. The computational model was found to be in good agreement with the ex perimental work [4]. The computational simulation enabled a study of the various parameters affecting soot transport. Temperatures were found to be higher in case of air side vortex as compared to a fuel side vortex. In case of the fuel side vortex, abundance of fuel in the vort ex core resulted in stoichiometrically rich combustion in the vortex core, and more discrete so ot topography. Overall soot production too was low. In case of the air side vortex abundan ce of air in the core resulted in higher temperatures and more soot yield. Statistical techniques like probability density fun ction, correlation coefficient and conditional probability function were introduced to explain the transient dependence of soot yield and transport on various parameters like temperature, a cetylene concentration.