Abstract: Computational and experimental analysis aiming to recognizing the thermal and fluid flow physical behaviour of tubes fitted with different models of inserted tapes with using a distilled (pure) water and TiO2/water nanofluid as working fluids for the turbulent Reynolds number range from 5,000 to 20,000 is carried out. The tubes with inserts showed better heat transfer rate when compared with plain tube. Nusselt number and friction factor become higher when using swirl generators inserts than their values in plain tapes inserts. Using of nanofluid with 0.1% nanoparticles volume fraction lead to enhance heat transfer rate with slightly increase in pressure drop and friction factor. The investigations included dual plain tapes, dual plain twisted tapes and dual helical screw twisted tapes inserts. The obtained results showed that, a maximum enhancement of 82.2% is achieved in the Nusselt number by using tube fitted with dual helical screw twisted tapes inserts and nanofluid than that observed with the plain tube and distilled water. And the maximum friction factor observed for the same model of the tube fitted with dual helical screw twisted tapes inserts and nanofluid are up to 17.34% than that of the plain tube.

Abstract: The utilisation of natural fibres in composite materials is expanding because of an enactment that constrains automotive makers to reuse and recycle materials, leading to an increase in bio-based materials substances in automotive applications. An experimental investigation was conducted to explore car door map pocket for PROTON Saga FL by using non-woven kenaf (N-W) and hybrid from non-woven/ woven fabric kenaf (HN-W/W). The Hand Lay-up Method followed by vacuum bagging process were used. The results revealed that L2 HN-W/W was the reasonable sample for car door map pocket due to its light weight, good tensile strength and flexural strength as compared to PP. It was also found that the tensile strength and flexural strength were improved by utilising woven kenaf fabric in composites. Result implications and future research directions were also presented.

Abstract: Oxy-hydrogen gas obtained through water electrolysis process is known to improve engine performance and emission characteristics at its constant flow rate and fixed engine operating conditions. This paper aims to present multi-objective optimization of engine operating parameters - compression ratio (CR) and injection advance (INJA) for highest performance and lowest emission characteristics when engine is fuelled with blends of diesel and oxy-hydrogen gas using RSM. Oxy-hydrogen is added in diesel at three flow rates of 100 ml/min (B1), 150 ml/min (B2) and 200 ml/min (B3). CR is varied from 15:1 to 18:1 and INJA is varied from 20 degree before top dead center (DBTDC) to 26 DBTDC at full load condition. Mathematical models are developed for brake power (BP), brake thermal efficiency (BTE), brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), hydrocarbon (HC), carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) using regression analysis. Contributions of operating parameters are determined by performing analysis of variance (ANOVA). Significant interactions amongst the operating parameters are studied by plotting 3D interaction plots. Further optimization is carried out using desirability approach. Highest engine performance with lowest emissions is obtained at 17.86:1 CR and 20.47 DBTDC INJA when engine is fueled with diesel blended with oxy-hydrogen where in oxy-hydrogen is flowing at a rate of 165.104 ml/min.

Abstract: Effect of a catalytic converter on the performance and emissions of a small diesel engine is investigated experimentally. The small diesel engine with an output power (rated) 4.41 kW is operated on single and dual-fuel modes. For the case of dual-fuel operation, the raw biogas which contain methane concentration 60% is used. The flowrate of the biogas is varied from 2 Liter/min, 4 Liter/min, and 6 Liter/min, respectively. The results show that the catalytic converter does not affect the power, specific fuel consumption and thermal efficiency of the engine. The output power, brake thermal efficiency, diesel replacement ratio, and specific fuel consumption of the compression ignition engine are the same when it is operated with and without catalytic converter. The similar facts are shown by the compression ignition engine when it is operated in pure-diesel and dual-fuel modes. However, the catalytic converter significantly affects the exhaust gas emissions. For the engine run in pure-diesel mode, the catalytic converter decreases smoke emission significantly. For the compression ignition engine run in dual-fuel mode, the catalytic converter decreases carbon oxide number, smoke emission, and hydrocarbon number significantly. It is suggested to install a catalytic converter to a diesel engine when it is run in dual-fuel mode in order to diminish the bad environmental impact.

Abstract: Experimental and numerical investigation of the performance of heat exchanger fabricated from nano-composite material was carried out. In the experimental test rig the test section was fabricated from composite material. The composite material consists of polyester with nano-copper material. It's dimension 800 mm length, 20 mm diameter and 1.5 mm thickness. Heat exchanger has been performed in the presented study for horizontal circular insulated tube under condition of constant heat flux (from 1244 W/m2 to 3023.9 W/m2) in laminar flow region (297

Abstract: Multifunction robots are distributed systems need to interface to highly heterogeneous hardware. Robotics researchers have focused on developing new methods and techniques for solving many difficult functional problems, but remained independent of the mechanical design, and performed algorithms test usually just after realization of the physical prototypes. However, realization of physical prototypes is, usually, a complex and expensive process. This paper presents a practical way to build a general model of multilevel control of a complex robot in MATLAB-Simulink®, as well as the implementation of asked tasks and missions. Our most important focus point is the communication between the control structure and the mechanical model in ADAMS® environment, which permits the so true whole system modeling, and testing the mechanical response to orders come from the control levels and supervisor command. It also aims to create a structure within MATLAB-Simulink® environment similar to the way of constructing software components and build a library of control and supervisory components that allows mechatronics programmers to easily construct robot program. Finally, this structure will be applied to simulate a complex practical system, which is the Wheeled Hybrid Mobile Robot.

Abstract: The quality of life and population expansion makes the average of water consumption to be very high, also the operating cost of the customary methods of desalination processes are so expensive and hostile relative to the surrounding. Therefore, it is very important to find clean, inexpensive, recent and simple methods for producing potable water like solar energy desalination systems. To improve the performance of a solar still, the effect of operating variables like solar intensity, wind velocity and designing variables such as water depth in the basin and solar still direction, on the water productivity was studied and then discussed. It can be concluded that the maximum productivity of water has been achieved when the water depth in the basin is at least Also, it can be seen that the best direction of the still was towards the east-south during the June month in Basrah city.

Abstract: In this paper, an improvement is suggested to increase the fatigue life of the isotropic materials combined from glass short fibers and polyester resin materials by adding the reinforcements of powder materials to increase the fatigue strength. Two types of powder materials were investigated, carbon and glass with and without powder reinforcement. The investigation was conducted experimentally and numerically. The experimental program covers the manufacturing the tensile and fatigue samples and evaluate the mechanical properties and the fatigue strength using the different volume fractions and types of powders. The experimental results are compared with those obtained numerically using the finite element technique adopting Ansys program. The comparison has shown a good agreement between the two techniques with a maximum discrepancy of (9.46%). Also, the results indicate that the reinforcement of the composite material by powder materials increase the fatigue limit. Also, the improvement of fatigue life by using the carbon powder is better than that obtained by using the glass powder.

Abstract: The installation of solar drying systems have been constantly developed in the last few years to acquire better effective results and drying performance. Baes on the previous designs, It might be concluded that the efficiency of the solar dryers is essentially depends on the thermal distribution and uniformity of flow inside the dryer chamber. There are various types of solar dryers that have been developed and they are classified based on the mode of air circulation (natural circulation and forced circulation), or based on the type of drying such as, direct solar drying, indirect solar drying and mixed mode solar drying etc. Several solar dryers have been utilized recently, however, they do not perform well in terms of high temperature and air distribution throughout the dryer which negatively affects the efficiency of the dryer. Moreover, relying on a single mode of these drying system might not provide the optimum results. Therefore, in this study a conceptual devise of a mixed mode solar dryer which includes direct, indirect, and forced convection solar drying is proposed and fabricated. An experimental investigation is performed on this device using an automated recording to plot the temperature profile at diverse positions in the dryer. This testing was conducted at five different stated of the dryer to attain the most suitable method for drying based on the resulted temperature and velocity. From the results of the experiments it can be concluded that the mixed mode solar dryer with forced convection is recommended among other states.

Abstract: Pollutant emission from motorcycles in Vietnam where is among the countries with the highest number of motorcycles is very serious problem. From the beginning of 2018, biogasoline E5 will be officially distributed nationwide, and in the next stage, biogasoline E10 will be used in 2019 to replace the as-used fossil gasoline. This work presents the results of empirical research about engine performance, and emission characteristics as using biogasoline E10 for the most popular motorcycle Honda Wave RX110 in Vietnam. As showed results, there are the increases in engine power, thermal efficiency, NOx and CO2 emissions, otherwise, the reduction of fuel consumption, CO emission, HC emission in comparison with E5 and fossil gasoline-RON95 are reported. This study result is the proof of confirmation about the benefits of in-using biogasoline, diversification of fuel sources and reduction of environmental pollution.

Abstract: The cold rolling of a flat plate is a deformation process in which the metal plate is passed through two opposite rotating rollers by compressive forces exerted by them. In the present study, the effect of rolling process parameters such as friction coefficient between roller-plate surfaces , roller's speed and diameter has been investigated. An FE simulation was carried out using ABAQUS 6.12 software (Explicit) to investigate the influence of these parameters on roller's force, equivalent plastic strain (PEEQ) and vonMises stresses. The results show the roller diameter has a significant effect on the effective friction coefficient (EFC) than roller speed, meanwhile, the increasing of roller diameter leads to decrease the rolling process time. Moreover, the vonMises stresses increase throughout the rolling process until reach a certain value then slightly decrease and remain almost in the extent of this value even the finished of the process. Also the equivalent plastic strain (PEEQ) has inverse relation with the roller speed .

Abstract: The industrial applications of aluminum alloys have a wide range in mechanical engineering, therefore, the welding of aluminum alloy is very important in production of a structure combined from aluminum alloy materials. Thus, the friction stir welding technique is used to welding the aluminum alloy materials, thus, the investigation for effect of temperature and other parameters on the friction stir welding will be carried out. Also, since the aluminum alloys used in most engineering applications is subjected to fatigue load, therefore, fatigue life in friction stir welding including the effects of temperature should be studied. The investigation included the evaluation the fatigue life of welding by using experimental techniques. The experimental technique covered manufacturing fatigue device for friction stir welding with effect of different temperature (75, 100, 125, and 150 oC), and then, measurement the fatigue behavior for welding was achieved. The experimental work included the evaluation of the tensile properties and the microstructure for friction stir welding. Where, the aluminum alloy studied in this work is aluminum alloy 2024. The results showed that the fatigue life for welding of aluminum alloy decreases with increasing the temperature applied on the alloy materials. Also, the results showed that the tensile properties for friction stir welding are the best at rotation speed (1800 RPM). Finally, the experimental fatigue results with and without temperature effect are compared with numerical fatigue results calculated by using finite element methods by adopting Ansys program Ver. 16.1. The comparison of fatigue results for friction stir welding gave a good agreement between experimental and numerical techniques used with maximum discrepancy about (9.7%).

Abstract: Robotic rehabilitation has widely being used especially for upper limb impairment due to neurological disorder or accident. Research has shown that robotic training can also provide repetitive movement without therapist assistant. In this paper, we discussed about the problem in identifying the positions (x,y,z) of robot’s arm end effector when generating a circular motion that can vary depending on the vision based feedback of patient hand. The idea to generate circular path is by using point-to-point (PTP) method in Cartesian space. A parametric equation for circle was used to make robot generate circular motion in point-to-point. A camera is employed to obtain the centroid value (x,y) is used with the imposing of inverse kinematic to track the target in PTP. Robot simulation is done using VREP and the algorithm is developed using LUA. Based on the simulation evidence, it is shown that our approach can be effectively used to produce a circular motion with the uncertain speed of target based on the vision feedback with accuracy of 97%. Therefore, it shows that trajectory of vision based robot is adapted to generate circular path and tracking hand motion by varying the speed of target.

Abstract: Energy generated by laminar natural convection from an inclined bundle of cylinders subjected to a constant heat flux was studied experimentally. The test rig was designed to investigate bundle of five cylinders arranged in a form that the bundle has three cylinders in a column and three cylinders in a row and has constant both longitudinal (flow direction) and traversing cylinders spacing distances equal 5 D. The experiments cover RaL, D range varies from 5.06 x 104 to 1.08 x 105 and five angles of inclination 0 o (horizontal), 30 o, 45 o, 60 o and 90o. The variation of local surface temperature Tx, local heat transfer coefficient hx and average heat transfer coefficient hL with cylinder length are depicted for all cylinder orientations and empirical formulas for the variation average Nusselt number NuL, D with the Rayleigh number RaL,D are also presented for all bundle inclination angles and for each individual cylinder in the bundle. Results show that, for all inclination angles with the exception of the vertical and for present cylinders configuration and arrangement as mentioned above, an improvement in the heat transfer rate for second and third cylinders in a bundle column in comparison with first cylinder in the column and other two cylinders in row on the left and right sides of the second cylinder in the column (Three cylinders in the bundle behave as single cylinder showing no interference effect in the bundle). This improvement having a significant ultimate value in horizontal bundle, decreasing in a moderate rate between horizontal to 60o range and a sharp reduction in heat transfer between 60 o to 90 o (vertical orientation lowest heat transfer rate). Generally, the heat transfer process improving as the bundle moves from vertical to horizontal even when consider a situation for single cylinder. For a single horizontal cylinder, heat transfer results show a good agreement with previous work and a contradictory agreement for single vertical cylinder. Heat transfer results also show a good agreement with the available experimental and analytical works for a horizontal inline bundle

Abstract: In this study, the influence of the vanadium content on the grain size and the hardness of a high-manganese steel (HMnS) like Mn15Cr2 were investigated. The HMnS microstructure was studied and determined by using OM (Optical microscopy), SEM (Scanning electron microscopy), EDX (Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy), and BSED (Back scattering electron diffraction). The paper results showed that the carbides in steel were created after adding vanadium, the hardness increased, otherwise the austenite grain size decreased. The dispersive distribution of carbides increased the hardness of steel. The highest impact toughness of HMnS with 1% of vanadium was 115J/cm2, the highest Brinell hardness (HB) was 223. Besides, the results of reduction in impact toughness and hardness after increasing the vanadium content were shown. Also, the analysis of transmission electron microscopy in the microstructure revealed that fine vanadium carbide particles were dispersed within the steel substrate after heat treatment.