Al-Khwarizmi Engineering Journal

In this study, modified organic solvent (organosolv) method was applied to remove high lignin content in the date palm fronds (type Al-Zahdi) which was taken from the Iraqi gardens. In modified organosolv, lignocellulosic material is fractionated into its constituents (lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose). In this process, solvent (organic)-water is brought into contact with the lignocellulosic biomass at high temperature, using stainless steel reactor (digester). Therefor; most of hemicellulose will remove from the biomass, while the solid residue (mainly cellulose) can be used in various industrial fields. Three variables were studied in this process: temperature, ratio of ethanol to water and digestion time. Statistical experimental design type Central Composite Design (CCD) has been used to find a mathematical relationship between the variables and the remaining lignin percent as dependent variable. The results obtained in this study were represented by a polynomial mathematical equation of the second degree. The results showed that the best digestion time was (80 minutes), which gave the best percent remaining concentration of lignin (3%) at temperature of 185oC and ratio of ethanol: water equal to 50: 50 wt/wt. In order to reduce digesting time, the effect of using different catalysts have been studied such as (NaOH, H2SO4, Ca (OH) 2) at low concentration (0.025, 0.025, 0.05M) respectively. It was found that the best catalyst is sodium hydroxide at concentration (0.025) mol/L which gave the same percent of lignin 3% but with low digestion time about 30 min.

In this paper presents two dimensional turbulent flow of different nanofluids and ribs configuration in a circular tube have been numerically investigation using FLUENT 6.3.26. Two samples of CuO and, ZnO nanoparticles with 2% v/v concentration and 40 nm as nanoparticle diameter combined with trapezoidalribs with aspect ratio of p/d=5.72 in a constant tube surface heat flux were conducted for simulation. The results showed that heat flow as Nusselt number for all cases raises with Reynolds number and volume fraction of nanofluid, likewise the results also reveal that ZnO with volume fractions of 2% in trapezoidal ribs offered highest Nusselt number at Reynolds number of Re= 30000.

Anaerobic digestion process of organic materials is biochemical decomposition process done by two types of digestion bacteria in the absence of oxygen resulting in the biogas production, which is produced as a waste product of digestion. The first type of bacteria is known as acidogenic which converts organic waste to fatty acids. The second type of bacteria is called methane creators or methanogenic which transforms the fatty acids to biogas (CH4 and CO2). The considerable amounts of biodegradable constitutes such as carbohydrates, lipids and proteins present in the microalgae biomass make it a suitable substrate for the anaerobic digestion or even co-digested with other organic wastes. The present work investigated methane biogas production by anaerobic codigestion of microalgae, Chlorella vulgaris biomass with organic waste from several sources such as wastewater sludge and dairy manure waste in different proportions as an additional carbon supply to enhance anaerobic digestion and therefore biogas production. Six bottles, employed as batch biodigesters each of 1 liter capacity, were used for that purpose at moderate conditions (35±2 oC). The produced biogas volume was monitored daily along 35 days and the results showed that the daily and cumulative biogas production was increased 4.5 times and 3 times for the bottles with 66.67% microalgae compared with the bottles with wastewater sludge or dairy manure waste only, respectively.

Much attention has been paid for the use of robot arm in various applications. Therefore, the optimal path finding has a significant role to upgrade and guide the arm movement. The essential function of path planning is to create a path that satisfies the aims of motion including, averting obstacles collision, reducing time interval, decreasing the path traveling cost and satisfying the kinematics constraints. In this paper, the free Cartesian space map of 2-DOF arm is constructed to attain the joints variable at each point without collision. The D*algorithm and Euclidean distance are applied to obtain the exact and estimated distances to the goal respectively. The modified Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm is proposed to find an optimal path based on the local search, D* and Euclidean distances. The quintic polynomial equation is utilized to provide a smooth trajectory path. According to the observe results, the modified PSO algorithm is efficiently performs to find an optimal path even in difficult environments.

Zigbee is considered to be one of the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) designed for short-range communications applications. It follows IEEE 802.15.4 specifications that aim to design networks with lowest cost and power consuming in addition to the minimum possible data rate. In this paper, a transmitter Zigbee system is designed based on PHY layer specifications of this standard. The modulation technique applied in this design is the offset quadrature phase shift keying (OQPSK) with half sine pulse-shaping for achieving a minimum possible amount of phase transitions. In addition, the applied spreading technique is direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) technique, which has the effect in getting better performance for the transmitter system in multipath environments. The system is developed through the use of MATLAB/Simulink to show the performance of the proposed system in response to the appliy modulation technique.

Pneumatic processes sequence (PPS) is used widely in industrial applications. It is common to do a predetermined PPS to achieve a specific larger task within the industrial application like the PPS achieved by the pick and place industrial robot arm. This sequence may require change depending on changing the required task and usually this requires the programmer intervention to change the sequence’ sprogram, which is costly and may take long time. In this research a PLC-based PPS control system is designed and implemented, in which the PPS is programmed by demonstration. The PPS could be changed by demonstrating the new required sequence via the user by following simple series of manual steps without having to change the PLC’s original program, which leads to decreasing the cost and time.

In this work, diabetic glucose concentration level control under disturbing meal has been controlled using two set of advanced controllers. The first set is sliding mode controllers (classical and integral) and the second set is represented by optimal LQR controllers (classical and Min-, ax). Due to their characteristic features of disturbance rejection, both integral sliding mode controller and LQR Minmax controller are dedicated here for comparison. The Bergman minimal mathematical model was used to represent the dynamic behavior of a diabetic patient’s blood glucose concentration to the insulin injection. Simulations based on Matlab/Simulink, were performed to verify the performance of each controller. In spite that Min-max optimal controller gave better disturbance rejection capability than classical optimal controller, classical sliding mode controller could outperform Min-max controller. However, it has been shown that integral sliding mode controller is the best of all in terms of disturbance rejection capability

This research presents a on-line cognitive tuning control algorithm for the nonlinear controller of path-tracking for dynamic wheeled mobile robot to stabilize and follow a continuous reference path with minimum tracking pose error. The goal of the proposed structure of a hybrid (Bees-PSO) algorithm is to find and tune the values of the control gains of the nonlinear (neural and back-stepping method) controllers as a simple on-line with fast tuning techniques in order to obtain the best torques actions of the wheels for the cart mobile robot from the proposed two controllers. Simulation results (Matlab Package 2012a) show that the nonlinear neural controller with hybrid Bees-PSO cognitive algorithm is more accurate in terms of fast on-line finding and tuning parameters of the controller lead to obtaining smoothness with small spikes control action as well as minimizing tracking pose error of the wheeled mobile robot than the performance of nonlinear back-stepping technique.

The environmental conditions are important factors, because they affect both the efficiency of a photovoltaic module and the energy load. This research was carried out experimentally and modeling was done in MATLAB –Simulink by monitoring the variation in power output of the system with environmental conditions such as solar radiation, ambient temperature, wind speed, and humidity of Baghdad city. From the results, the ambient temperatures are inversely proportional to humidity and the output power performance of the system, while the wind speed is directly proportional with the output power performance of the system.

Paraffin wax is utilized for the heat storage applications taking advantage from the high stored latent heat during the phase change (from solid to fluid) period. What isn't right with this procedure is that the wax has a little heat transfer rate because of its low thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity improvement of the paraffin wax has been examined utilizing nano-material with high thermal conductivity. In the recent study, (Al2O3) nanoparticles with weights of 1, 2, and 3% of the paraffin wax were added to the paraffin wax. The Iraqi paraffin wax accessible at the local markets was utilized as a phase change material (PCM).Many properties of the wax were changed due to the addition of nanofillers. The wax color was changed from light brown to white. The thermal conductivity of the paraffin wax was expanded by increasing the additional nanoparticles extent with 37.1, 42.3 and 60.32% for 1, 2 and 3% added nano-Al2O3 compared to pure wax conditions. The subsequent change in the thermal conductivity of the paraffin wax makes it reasonable for the use in thermal storage applications.

In this investigation, Al2O3 nano material of 50nm particles size were added to the 6061 Al aluminium alloy by using the stir casting technique to fabricate the nanocomposite of 10wt% Al2O3. The experimental results observed that the addition of 10wt% Al2O3 improved the fatigue life and strength of constant and cumulative fatigue. Comparison between the S-N curves behaviour of metal matrix (AA6061) and the nanocomposite 10wt% Al2O3 has been made. The comparison revealed that 12.8% enhancement in fatigue strength at 107cycles due to 10wt% nano reinforcement. Also cumulative fatigue life of 10wt% nanocomposite was found to be increased by 33.37% and 39.58% for low-high and high-low loading sequences, respectively, compared to the metal-matrix cumulative life.

Knowing the amount of residual stresses and find technological solutions to minimize and control them during the production operation are an important task because great levels of deformation which occurs in single point incremental forming (SPIF), this induce highly non-uniform residual stresses. In this papera propose of a method for multilayer single point incremental forming with change in thickness of the top plate (0.5, 0.7, 0.9) mm and lubrication or material between two plates(polymer, grease, grease with graphite, mos2) to knowing an effect of this method and parameters on residual stresses for the bottom plates. Also compare these results for the bottom plates with the single plate at same thickness 0.9 mm.The results showed that when increase thickness of the top plate the value of residual stresses will decrease for bottom plates and when used graphite with grease between two plates gives less residual stresses (R.S = 60.173 MPa.) reverse when used Mos2 which will gives a larger residual stresses (R.S = 146.617 MPa.) in the bottom plate.

In the field of construction materials the glass reinforced mortar and Styrene Butadiene mortar are modern composite materials. This study experimentally investigated the effect of addition of randomly dispersed glass fibers and layered glass fibers on density and compressive strength of mortar with and without the presence of Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR). Mixtures of 1:2 cement/sand ratio and 0.5 water/cement ratio were prepared for making mortar. The glass fibers were added by two manners, layers and random with weight percentages of (0.54, 0.76, 1.1 and 1.42). The specimens were divided into two series: glass-fiber reinforced mortar without SBR and glass-fiber reinforced mortar with 7% SBR of mixture water. All specimens were tested after curing for 7 and 28 days, glass-fiber reinforced mortar exhibited better properties than control mortar in improvement of compressive strength and lowering the density after curing for 28 days due to the completion of cement hydration reaction.. For compressive strength the best results were achieved with 1.42 wt.% layers glass-fiber reinforced mortar with 7% SBR which gave 41.56 MPa. On the other hand, the addition of 1.42 wt.% random glass-fiber without SBR addition caused the beast reduction in density by 10.6% and produced lighter structure than control sample.

Travel Time estimation and reliability measurement is an important issues for improving operation efficiency and safety of traffic roads networks. The aim of this research is the estimation of total travel time and distribution analysis for three selected links in Palestine Arterial Street in Baghdad city. Buffer time index results in worse reliability conditions. Link (2) from Bab Al Mutham intersection to Al-Sakara intersection produced a buffer index of about 36% and 26 % for Link (1) Al-Mawall intersection to Bab Al- Mutham intersection and finally for link (3) which presented a 24% buffer index. These illustrated that the reliability get worst for link (2), (1) and (3) respectively during the peak period. Extra delay is observed on link(1), (2) and (3) in terms of 95% percentile travel time of about (301.9, 219.4, and 193.8)sec. for Link (1, 2 and 3) respectively. Higher value for 95% travel time is obtained for link (1). Travel time index (TTI) of 4.2 %, 4.9% and 4% is obtained for Link (1, 2 and 3) respectively. Maximum value for delay per km that obtained for link (1) which is about 266 sec/km and 268 sec./km for link (3) and 244 sec/km for link(2). Different predicted model for the three studied links of Palestine street have been developed based on the obtained field data. A best fit is presented as compared the predicted models with the observed field travel time data for all the models of studied links which illustrated that the predicted model can present the actual field data.

The hydrometallurgical method was used to platinum and palladium leaching with aqua regia solution (3HCl: HNO3). The leaching experiments were designed to obtain the optimum conditions by using Taguchi method with 16 experiments at three different factors (time, temperature and solid to liquid ratio), and each factor has four different levels. In this study, leaching the powder sample of catalytic converter that contains platinum and palladium was conducted on the basis of the formation of chloro complexes platinum and palladium (PtCl62-, PdCl42-) with different concentrations in the acidic solution. The optimum conditions for leaching process are (time = 120 minutes, temperature = 100°C, and solid to liquid ratio = 1/20).The best efficiency for platinum and palladium leaching at these conditions were 97.58%, 93.23%, respectively. After leaching process at optimum conditions, platinum was firstly precipitated in the form of (NH4)2PtCl6 (ammonium chloroplatinate) by adding (5ml/l) of ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) as a precipitant agent .Then, palladium was precipitated in the form of (NH4)2PdClO3 (palladium ammonium chlorate) by adding (5g/l) of sodium chlorate (NaClO3) as a precipitant agent to the remaining solution after the removal of platinum. The best efficiency for platinum and palladium recovery at optimum leaching conditions were 91.94%, and 98.82%, respectively.