Al-Khwarizmi Engineering Journal

A perturbed linear system with property of strong observability ensures that there is a sliding mode observer to estimate the unknown form inputs together with states estimation. In the case of the electro-hydraulic system with piston position measured output, the above property is not met. In this paper, the output and its derivatives estimation were used to build a dynamic structure that satisfy the condition of strongly observable. A high order sliding mode observer (HOSMO) was used to estimate both the resulting unknown perturbation term and the output derivatives. Thereafter with one signal from the whole system (piton position), the piston position make tracking to desire one with a simple linear output feedback controller after canceling the perturbation term. The numerical simulation results showed excellent performance of the proposed output feedback controller in forcing the piston position to follow the desired reference position. Moreover, the control effort spent was minimal.

This paper presents a meta-heuristic swarm based optimization technique for solving robot path planning. The natural activities of actual ants inspire which named Ant Colony Optimization. (ACO) has been proposed in this work to find the shortest and safest path for a mobile robot in different static environments with different complexities. A nonzero size for the mobile robot has been considered in the project by taking a tolerance around the obstacle to account for the actual size of the mobile robot. A new concept was added to standard Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) for further modifications. Simulations results, which carried out using MATLAB 2015(a) environment, prove that the suggested algorithm outperforms the standard version of ACO algorithm for the same problem with the same environmental conditions by providing the shortest path for multiple testing environments.

This paper describes the problem of online autonomous mobile robot path planning, which is consisted of finding optimal paths or trajectories for an autonomous mobile robot from a starting point to a destination across a flat map of a terrain, represented by a 2-D workspace. An enhanced algorithm for solving the problem of path planning using Bacterial Foraging Optimization algorithm is presented. This nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm, which imitates the foraging behavior of E-coli bacteria, was used to find the optimal path from a starting point to a target point. The proposed algorithm was demonstrated by simulations in both static and dynamic different environments. A comparative study was evaluated between the developed algorithm and other two state-of-the-art algorithms. This study showed that the proposed method is effective and produces trajectories with satisfactory results.

In IRAQ, the air conditioners are the principal cause of high electrical demand. In summer, the outer temperature sometimes exceeds 500C which significantly effects on the A/C system performance and power consumed. In the present work, the improvement in mechanical and electrical performance of split A/C system is investigated experimentally and analytically. In this paper, performance and energy saving enhancement of a split-A/C system was experimentally investigated to be efficiently compatible with elevated temperature weathers. This improvement is accomplished via Smart Control System integrate with Proportional-Integral- Differential PID algorithm. The PIC16F877A micro-controller has been programmed with the PID and PWM codes to control the speed of the proposed DC condenser fan over wide range of speed, also it has been programmed to have a smart characteristics to protect the A/C system parts as the ability to detect a refrigerant leakage, condenser fan stop, and any obstacles for the fan air flow. A comparative study between the conventional and enhanced A/C system is performed. The results show that the proposed system exhibits better performance and saves more energy than the conventional one. The Coefficient of Performance (COP) of the split- A/C system are improved by about 20.56%.

The electrochemical behavior of Al-17%Si alloy is investigated in 3.5wt% NaCl solution. Many alloys with addition of the different wt% magnesium metal of 1wt%, 2%, 3wt% ,4.5wt% ,and 9wt% were prepared by gravity die casting . The microstructures of prepared alloys were examined by optical and SEM microscopes. Corrosion behavior was investigated by using potentiostat instrument under static potentials test and corrosion current was recorded to determine corrosion resistance of all prepared samples. It was found that the addition of Mg metal improves the corrosion resistance of Al-17%Si alloy in 3.5%NaCl solution. The alloy containing 1%Mg shows less corrosion rate than the others while the alloys containing 4.5%Mg, 9%Mg content have the better pitting corrosion resistance than other alloys.

There have been many advances in the solar chimney power plant since 1930 and the first pilot work was built in Spain (Manzanares) that produced 50 KW. The solar chimney power plant is considered of a clean power generation that needs to be investigated to enhance the performance by studying the effect of changing the area of passage of air to enhance the velocity towards the chimney to maximize design velocity. In this experimental and numerical study, the reduction area of solar collector was investigated. The reduction area that mean changing the height of glass cover from the absorbing plate (h1=3.8cm, h2=2.6cm and h3=1.28cm). The numerical study was performed using ANSYS Fluent software package (version 14.0) to solve governing equations. The aim of this work was to study the effect of change the height of reduction area to the design velocity (velocity move the blade of turbine at inlet in the chimney). The results showed that the third height (h3=1.28cm) gives the best result because when decreasing the height between the glass cover and absorbing plate, the area between them decreased and the design velocity increased then the efficiency of solar chimney model was increased.

Electrochemical machining is one of the widely used non-conventional machining processes to machine complex and difficult shapes for electrically conducting materials, such as super alloys, Ti-alloys, alloy steel, tool steel and stainless steel. Use of optimal ECM process conditions can significantly reduce the ECM operating, tooling, and maintenance cost and can produce components with higher accuracy. This paper studies the effect of process parameters on surface roughness (Ra) and material removal rate (MRR), and the optimization of process conditions in ECM. Experiments were conducted based on Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array (OA) with three process parameters viz. current, electrolyte concentration, and inter-electrode gap. Signal-to-noise (S/N), the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to find the optimal levels and to analyze the effect of electrochemical machining parameters on Ra and MRR. The surface roughness of the workpiece was decreased with the increase in current values and electrolyte concentration while causing an increase in material removal rate. The ability of the independent values to predict the dependent values (R2) were 87.5% and 96.3% for mean surface roughness and material removal rate, respectively.

Incremental sheet metal forming is a modern technique of sheet metal forming in which a uniform sheet is locally deformed during the progressive action of a forming tool. The tool movement is governed by a CNC milling machine. The tool locally deforms by this way the sheet with pure deformation stretching. In SPIF process, the research is concentrate on the development of predict models for estimate the product quality. Using simulated annealing algorithm (SAA), Surface quality in SPIF has been modeled. In the development of this predictive model, spindle speed, feed rate and step depth have been considered as model parameters. Maximum peak height (Rz) and Arithmetic mean surface roughness (Ra) are used as response parameter to assess the surface roughness of incremental forming parts along and across tool path direction. The data required has been generate, compare and evaluate to the proposed models that obtained from SPIF experiments.Simulated Annealing Algorithm (SAA) is utilized to develop an effective mathematical model to predict optimum level. In simulated algorithm (SA), an exponential cooling schedule depending on Newtonian cooling process is used and by choosing the number of iterations at each step on the experimental work is done. The SA algorithm is used to predict the forming parameters (speed, feed and step size) on surface quality in forming process of Al 1050 based on Taguchi‘s orthogonal array of L9 and (ANOVA) analysis of variance were used to find the best factors that effect on the surface quality.

In this research, the effect of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on the alumina/chromia (Al2O3/Cr2O3) nanocomposites has been investigated. Al2O3/Cr2O3-MWCNTs nanocomposites with variable contents of Cr2O3 and MWCNTs were fabricated using coprecipitation process and followed by spark plasma sintering. XRD analysis revealed a good crystallinity of sintered nanocomposites samples and there was only one phase presence of Al2O3-Cr2O3 solid solution. Density, Vickers microhardness, fracture toughness and fracture strength have been measured in the sintered samples. The results show that the relative density, microhardness and fracture strength of nanocomposites are significantly improved at low contents of Cr2O3 and MWCNTs. The increase of MWCNT’s content in the nanocomposites has adversely affected due to increasing the tangle and interaction of MWCNTs with each other, which leads to agglomeration in the nanocomposites. Increasing of Cr2O3 content in nanocomposites increases formation of Al2O3-Cr2O3 solid solution that actually requires the high sintering temperature to achieve good densification. The fracture toughness of Al2O3/Cr2O3-MWCNTs nanocomposites was enhanced by increasing the carbon nanotube content.

Many researchers consider Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine mode as a promising alternative to combustion in Spark Ignition and Compression Ignition Engines. The HCCI engine runs on lean mixtures of fuel and air, and the combustion is produced from the fuel autoignition instead of ignited by a spark. This combustion mode was investigated in this paper. A variable compression ratio, spark ignition engine type TD110 was used in the experiments. The tested fuel was Iraqi conventional gasoline (ON=82). The results showed that HCCI engine can run in very lean equivalence ratios. The brake specific fuel consumption was reduced about 28% compared with a spark ignition engine. The experimental tests showed that the emissions concentrations were reduced by 91.27% for NOx, 85.99% for CO, 78.91% for CO2, and 83.56% for unburned hydrocarbons compared to the SI engine. HCCI engine produced little noise with about 26.68% less than SI engine.

Hard water does not pose a threat to human health but may cause precipitation of soap or results stone in the boilers. These reactions are caused by the high concentrations of Ca and Mg. In the industry they are undesirable because of higher fuel consumption for industrial use .Electromagnetic polarization water treatment is a method which can be used for increasing the precipitation of Ca 2+ and CO3 2- ions in hard water to form CaCO3 which leads to decrease the water hardness is research has been conducted by changing the number of coil turns and voltage of the system. The spectroscopy electron microscope was used for imaging the produced crystals. Results of the investigation indicated that the electromagnetic polarization can be used in precipitation to decrease the hardness of water due to increase in the precipitation percent of CaCO3.

This research presents the possibility of using banana peel (arising from agricultural production waste) as biosorbent for removal of copper from simulated aqueous solution. Batch sorption experiments were performed as a function of pH, sorbent dose, and contact time. The optimal pH value of Copper (II) removal by banana peel was 6. The amount of sorbed metal ions was calculated as 52.632 mg/g. Sorption kinetic data were tested using pseudo-first order, and pseudo-second order models. Kinetic studies showed that the sorption followed a pseudo second order reaction due to the high correlation coefficient and the agreement between the experimental and calculated values of qe. Thermodynamic parameters such as enthalpy change (ΔH°), entropy change (ΔS°) and Gibbs free energy change (ΔG°) were also investigated. Free energy change showed that biosorption of Cu (II) was spontaneous and nature endothermic at all studied temperatures (25–45 °C).

CuO nanoparticles were synthesized in two different ways, firstly by precipitation method using copper acetate monohydrate Cu(CO2CH13)2•H2O, glacial acetic acid (CH3COOH) and sodium hydroxide(NaOH), and secondly by sol-gel method using copper chloride(CuCl2), sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and ethanol (C2H6O). Results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that different CuO nanostructures (spherical and Reef) can be formed using precipitation and sol- gel process, respectively, at which the particle size was found to be less than 2 µm. X-ray diffraction (XRD)manifested that the pure synthesized powder has no inclusions that may exist during preparations. XRD results showed the particles size of highest peak at 38.9°, was equal to (15.93nm). In addition, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) were used to describe the prepared CuO nanostructures absorption peak at 610 cm-1 which confirms that the synthesized product is a pure CuO and may be attributed to Cu2O infrared active mode.

In this research tri metal oxides were fabricated by simple chemical spray pyrolysis technique from (Sn(NO3)2.20 H2O, Zn(NO3)2.6 H2O, Cd(NO3)2.4 H2O) salts at concentration 0.1M with mixing weight ratio 50:50 were fabricated on silicon substrate n-type (111). (with & without the presence of grooves by the following diemensions (20μm width, 7.5μm depth) with thickness was about ( 0.1 ±0.05 µm) using water soluble as precursors at a substrate temperature 550 ºC±5, with spray distance (15 cm) and their gas sensing properties toward H2S gas at different concentrations (10,50,100,500 ppmv) in air were investigated at room temperature which related with the petroleum industry. Furthermore structural and morphology properties were inspecting. Experimental results show that the Zn2SnO4 and Cd2SnO4 thin films were achieved from the used salts and samples gas sensitivity which improved with the presence of substrate grooves. Which make the sensor suitable for the detection of lower .concentrations of hazard H2S gas in the petroleum industry.

Enzymatic hydrolysis process of lignocellulosic biomass materials is difficult because of inherent structural features of biomass, which represents barriers that prevent complete hydrolysis; therefore, pretreatment techniques are necessary to render biomass highly digestible in enzymatic hydrolysis process. In this research, (non?) oxidative short-term lime pretreatment of willow wood was used. A weight of 11.40 g of willow wood was mixed with an excess of calcium hydroxide (0.4 g Ca(OH)2/g raw biomass) and water loading (15 g/g raw biomass). Lime pretreatment was carried out for various periods of time including 1, 2, 3.5, 5 and 6 h, with temperatures at 100, 113, 130, 147 and 1600C, and oxygen pressures as oxidativeagent (6, 9, 13.5, 17.8, 21 bar absolute). The optimization of both pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis were depended on the maximum overall yields of glucan and xylan after two processes of lime pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis. The optimal conditions of pretreatment were as follow: 1) 1.33 h, 1470C, 17.8 bar absolute, 0.26 g Ca(OH)2/g raw biomass. 2) 1.25 h, 155 0C, 21 bar absolute, 0.26 Ca(OH)2/g raw biomass. Furthermore, the optimal values for low impact factors such as water loading was 15 g/g raw biomass and particle size was less than 3 mm. The optimal conditions of enzymatic hydrolysis were as follow: Cellulase enzymeloading was 0.1 g /g glucan in raw biomass, at substrate concentration of 50 g/L during 72 h of enzymatic hydrolysis The yield of enzymatic hydrolysis under these conditions were as follow: 96.00 g glucan/100 g of glucan in raw biomass, and 65.00 g xylan/100 g xylan in raw biomass.