Sulaiman Hassan

Design and Optimisation of Pressure Vessel Using Metaheuristic Approach

The objective of design optimization of pressure vessels is cost reduction by reducing weight with adequate strength and stiffness. Optimization is the act of obtaining the best result under given circumstances. Conventional design aims at finding acceptability design which merely satisfies the functional and other requirements of the problem. In general, there will be more than one acceptable designs and the purpose of design optimization is to choose the best. In the present work parameters such as thickness of the shell, and dish end, length and radius of the pressure vessel are optimized by making use of ACO has been shown for a Pressure vessel problem with four variables and four design constraints. It is found that the results obtained from ACO are better as its search is for global optimum as against the local optimum in traditional search methods. The results of the ACO have been checked using ANSYS, and it is found to perform satisfactorily.

Identification of Methyl Ester Content from Waste Cooking Oil Using Gas Chromatographic Method

Waste cooking oil has always been an environment problem in food factories and one method of effect disposing this oil without effecting the environment is to convert it to fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) using small scale pilot plant. The conversion of waste cooking oil with sodium hydroxide as a catalyst in conversional process at 22kHz speed. The reaction of time, molar ratio, speed, catalyst and amount of catalyst will be effect in FAME quality. The quality of biodiesel define is total ester content using gas chromatography. Gas chromatography analysis is a one of technique for identification and quantitation of compounds in a biodiesel sample. From biodiesel sample can identification of contaminants and fatty acid methyl ester. In this research biodiesel sample were analyses using a gas chromatography-flame ionization detector ( Perkin Elmer GC Model Clarus 500) equipped with a DB-5 HT capillary column ( 0.53mm x 5 m) J&W Scientific. The analytic conditions for ester content were as follow by: column temperature used 2100C, temperature flame ionization detector (FID) of 2500C, pressure of 80kPa, flow carrier gas of 1ml/min, temperature injector of 2500C, split flow rate of 50ml/min, time for analysis 20 minute and volume injected of 1 μl. The ester content (C), expresses as a mass fraction in present using formula (EN 14103, 2003a) calculation. Conversion of triglyceride (TG) to FAME using conversional process obtained 96.54 % w.t with methanol to oil molar ratio 6:1, 1%w.t acid sulphuric and 1% w.t sodium hydroxide catalyst.

The Effect of Sodium Chloride (NaCl) Coagulant Medium of Polysulfone Ultrafiltration Membrane

This study investigates the effect of Sodium Chloride (NaCl) coagulant medium with different concentration to produce Polysulfone (PSf) ultrafiltration (UF) asymmetric membrane. The polymer membrane prepared by a phase inversion method using Polysulfone (PSf) as a base polymer, Polyethylene glycol (PEG) 400MW as copolymer additive, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent and NaCl coagulant medium with different concentration as nonsolvent. In this work, the concentration of immersion medium for membrane phase immersion process prepared based on different coagulation concentration medium NaCl was modified repeatedly in the range of 1-5%. These membrane performance were analyzed via pure water permeation and solute rejection of humic acid. Based on these results, the membrane immersed in 4% concentration of NaCl coagulant medium showed the highest pure water permeation (235.69 l.m-2. h-1) and solute rejection of humic acid which is up to 98%.

Performance Evaluation of Cryogenically Treated Worn CBN Insert by Turning Process

Machining of materials is to produce desired shape and size with smooth surfaces for the performance. Machining is carried out using various cutting tools starting high speed steel to recently developed tools like CBN and PCBN etc. These tools are used to machine difficult to cut materials like high strength alloy steels, stainless steel, Inconel 718, Titanium etc. The inserts used are thrown out or no longer required for finish machining. It can be used for rough machining where smooth surface is not primary important and subjected to subsequent machining using fresh inserts. The used inserts can be used subsequently by subjecting them cryogenic treatment at – 196◦ C in a closed chamber. It is longer process for more than 30 hours in a liquid nitrogen chamber. This treatment gives additional strength to cutting inserts to improve the cutting ability and wear resistance. The components used in high strength applications like an aerospace, automobile industries are treated with cryogenic process to improve wear strength. The operating parameters are cutting velocity, feed rate and constant depth of cut. In this research, CBN inserts after turning for 750 mm length was cryogenically treated and again used with same operating parameters as previous machining conditions. Each inserts were measured for flank wear by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) after treatment and re-used with same turning conditions as before. Performances of all inserts used were producing the same results or results near to same. The treated inserts were acting as fresh cutting edges. The results showed that cryogenically processed CBN inserts performed very close to previous results.

Investigation on Surface Integrity of STAVAX ESR AISI 420 Martensitic Stainless Steel by Cryogenically Treated Steel Balls with Low Plastic Burnishing Tool

Low plasticity burnishing (LPB) is a new method of surface improvement, which raises the burnishing to the next level of sophistication. LPB can provide deep compression for improved surface characteristics. The study focuses on the surface roughness, micro-hardness and surface integrity aspects on soft AISI 420 STAVAX ESR martensitic stainless steel AISI 420 material. This material is pronounced as difficult to cut materials like titanium, Inconel 718 etc. The investigation of surface integrity was done on this materials in terms of operating parameters like sliding speed, feed rate and depth of penetration (DOP) identifying the predominant factors among the selected parameters. The steel balls used were cryogenically treated at sub zero temperature of -176 degrees. Sub-surface micro-hardness study were also done to asses the depth of compression altered zone, surface roughness and surface hardness. The process can be applied to critical components effectively as the LPB process has cycle time advantages and also low investment cost. This can be also realized by introducing on high speed machines. This process was studied by using cryogenically treated different ball diameters at various operating parameters. This also improved on concentricity of work material. More the depth of compression produced low surface roughness at low sliding speed, feed rate with larger ball diameter. The DOP also helps to improve on surface and sub-surface hardness and close roundness. There are limitations on DOP beyond which the surface deteriorated.