(SoE) School of Engineering

<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

Nicotinic acid (also known as pyridine-3-carboxylic acid) is widely used in food, pharmaceutical and biochemical industries. The extraction of nicotinic acid by tri-noctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) with kerosene (diluent) is studied. The equilibrium experiments are carried out to investigate the effects of diluent, extractant (TOPO) composition and initial acid concentration on extraction efficiency. The extraction efficiency is found to increase with increasing TOPO composition concentration (0.10 to 0.60 mol.L -1) and found to decrease with increasing initial acid concentration (0.02 to 0.12 mol.L -1). The number of TOPO molecules in the acid:TOPO complex is estimated through proposed mathematical model using graphical methods as well as though an optimization route using the differential evolution algorithm and found to be 1:1 complexes of TOPO and acid with loading ratio of less than 0.5. The extraction equilibrium constants are also determined. Equilibrium extraction constant (K E1) is found to be 3.27 L.mol -1 in the complete range of acid concentrations and extractant (TOPO) concentrations.

World University root node

Chemical Engineering

AIChE Annual Meeting, Conference Proceedings

Recovery of nicotinic acid from aqueous solution using reactive extraction with tri-n-octyl phosphine oxide (TOPO) in kerosene

Tungsten oxide films were produced using reactive rf magnetron sputtering. In this work, nitrogen doping was used to modify structural and, optical properties of the material in the presence of two inert gases (argon and helium). Substituting helium gas with argon results in a decrease in the particle sizes and thus affects the band gap values. Bandgap values were obtained over the range of 2.43 to 3.01 eV via incorporating oxygen-nitrogen-argon/helium mixtures in the gas ambient. It was also observed that the atomic mass of the sputtering gas plays a major role for changing the primary crystallite size as well as the surface morphology and texture. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Electrical Engineering

Thin Solid Films

Influence of nitrogen doping on the sputter-deposited WO3 films

Sloshing is a potential source of disturbance in liquid storage containers. Coupling effects of ship motion with fluid oscillation inside three- dimensional rectangular containers using a newly developed time domain simulation scheme were studied. Some representative studies are carried out by the authors. When the free-surface profile is involved, the three-dimensional effects became more significant. Coupled analysis predicted that the effect on the ship motion can be even up to 30% due to sloshing inside the container. The results advance the understanding of the dynamic behavior of LNG carrier in three dimensions interacting with the external hydrodynamics. This is an abstract of a paper from Proceedings of the Nineteenth (2009) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference (Osaka, Japan 6/21-26/2009).

Mechanical Engineering

Proceedings of the International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference

A study on complicated coupling effects of 3-D sloshing in rectangular tanks and ship motion

In this paper, a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation based optimal control algorithm for robust controller design is proposed for a nonlinear system. Utilising the Lyapunov direct method, the controller is shown to be optimal with respect to a cost functional, which includes penalty on the control effort, the maximum bound on system uncertainty and cross-coupling between system state and control. The controllers are continuous and require the knowledge of the upper bound of system uncertainty. In the present algorithm, neural network is used to approximate value function to find approximate solution of HJB equation using least squares method. Proposed algorithm has been applied on a nonlinear system with matched uncertainties. It is also applied to the system having uncertainties in input matrix. Results are validated through simulation studies. Copyright © 2009, Inderscience Publishers.

International Journal of Automation and Control

Robust control of nonlinear systems using neural network based HJB solution

Correlations for bubble point pressure, solution gas-oil ratio, oil formation volume factor (for both saturated and undersaturated crude) and viscosity (for both saturated and undersaturated crude) have been developed for Indian crude using support vector regression (SVR). Detailed comparisons have been made with various important correlations currently available in the literature. Radial basis function (RBF) kernel was used along with ε-insensitive loss function for developing the SVR models. The model hyperparameters were optimized using a combination of grid search and Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm. The quadratic programming (QP) problem resulting from the SVR formulation was solved using sequential minimal optimization (SMO). It was found that the developed models outperformed most other existing correlations by giving significantly lower values of average absolute relative error for the parameters studied. This study shows highly favorable results that can be integrated in most reservoir modeling software. © 2009 American Chemical Society.

Energy and Fuels

PVT correlations of Indian crude using support vector regression

The present work explores the possibility of employing non-destructive testing (NDT) technique of thermal wave imaging, using infrared radiations, to study the interface between bamboo and glue, and gaps in glue application therein. This is a relatively unexplored area as regards bamboo, and thus a novelty, though thermal imaging of detecting glue deficiency in laminated wood has been reported. Active thermography technique using Frequency Modulated Thermal Wave Imaging (FMTWI) has been used to identify frequencies which would give good images of the glue deficiencies.Glue bands and gaps up to 5 mm, could be imaged using lock-in thermography through slivers of 2 mm thickness. The inspection time ranged from 65 s to 350 s depending on the glue type. These findings point to the possibility of using thermal NDT for applications of bamboo and its composites/laminates. © KFRI 2009.

Journal of Bamboo and Rattan

Bamboo-glue interface thermography for non-destructive testing

Piezoelectric films, such as aluminium nitride (AlN), are of great interest for the fabrication of thin film bulk/surface acoustic resonators, where the growth parameters and the substrate material influence the morphological properties. Herein, AlN films were deposited using RF reactive sputtering on Si, SiO2, metal (Al, Cu, Cr and Au) coated silicon, GaAs and InP substrates. C-axis (002) oriented AlN films were observed on most of the substrates, where the surface morphologies of the films grown on the 1.5 mm thick SiO2 layer and GaAs substrate were found to be non-uniform. Moreover, AlN films deposited on the Cr electrode exhibit well textured film with fairly uniform grains, while the films deposited on other metal electrodes exhibit a granular type of structure with mixed small and large grains. After optimisation of growth parameters, silicon micromachining was performed by the wet chemical etching method. Suspended Cr-AlN-Cr-SiO2 cantilevers of 20 μm in width were fabricated for futuristic microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) applications. © 2009 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.

Surface Engineering

Morphological investigation of aluminium nitride films on various substrates for MEMS applications

AlN films were grown on silicon substrates by RF reactive magnetron sputtering. At high sputtering powers, (002) preferred orientation as well as Al-N absorption band becomes prominent. The surface roughness and grain size of sputtered films were found to increase with RF power. Surface acoustic wave (SAW) device has been made on the grown (002) oriented piezoelectric AlN film with interdigital transducer (IDT) electrodes spacing corresponding to a wavelength of 60 μm. The centre frequency of the SAW filter was found to be 84.304 MHz, which gives a phase velocity of 5058 m/s with an electromechanical coupling coefficient (K 2) of 0.34%. Low etch rate of AlN films were observed in doped TMAH solution. Threedimensional suspended Cr/AlN/Cr/SiO 2 microstructures were also fabricated by wet chemical etching. © ASM International.