A cantilevered piezoelectric beam with a tip mass at its free end is a common energy harvester configuration. This paper introduces a new principle of designing such a harvester which increases the generated voltage without changing the natural frequency of the harvester: The attraction force between two permanent magnets is used to add stiffness to the system. This magnetic stiffening counters the effect of the tip mass on the natural frequency. Three setups incorporating piezoelectric bimorph cantilevers of the same type in different mechanical configurations are compared theoretically and experimentally to investigate the feasibility of this principle. Theoretical and experimental results show that magnetically stiffe

This research estimates the effect of independent factors like filler  (3%, 6%, 9%, 11% weight fraction), normal load (5N, 10N, 15N), and time sliding (5,7 , 9 minutes) on wear behavior of unsaturated polyester resin reinforced with jute fiber and waste eggshell and, rice husk powder composites by utilizing a statistical approach. The specimens polymeric composite prepared from resin unsaturated polyester filled with (4% weight fraction) jute fiber, and (3%, 6%, 9%, 11% weight fraction) eggshell, and rice husk by utilizing (hand lay-up) molding. Dry sliding wear experiments were carried utilizing a standard (pin on disc test setup) following a well designed empirical schedule that depends on Taguchi’s experimental design L9 (MINIT

Artificial roughness applied to a Solar Air Heater (SAH) absorber plate is a popular technique for increasing its total thermal efficiency (ηt−th). In this paper, the influence of geometrical parameters of V-down ribs attached below the corrugated absorbing plate of a SAH on the ηt−th was examined. The impacts of key roughness parameters, including relative pitch p/e (6–12), relative height e/D (0.019–0.043), angles of attack α (30–75°), and Re (1000–20,000), were examined under real weather conditions. The SAH ηt−th roughened by V-down ribs was predicted using an in-house developed conjugate heat-transfer numerical model. The maximum SAH ηt−th was shown to be 78.8% as predicted under the steady-state condition

Construction projects are complicated in nature and require many considerations in contractor selection. One of the complicated interactions is that between performance with the project size, and contractor financial status, and size of projects contracted. At the prequalification stage, the financial ‎requirements restrict the ‎contractors to meet minimum limits in financial criteria such as net worth, working capital and ‎annual turnover, etc. In construction projects, however, there are cases when contractors meet these requirements but show low performance in practice. The model used in the study predicts the performance by training of a neural network. The data used in the study are 72 of the most recent roadw

The present investigation deals with experimental study of three-phase direct-contact heat exchanger, for water-Freon R11 system, where water is the continuous phase (liquid) and Freon R11 (liquid-gas) is the dispersed phase. The test section consisted of a cylindrical Perspex column with inner diameter 8cm and 1.2m long, in which, water was to be confined. Liquid Freon R11 drops were injected into the hot water filled column, through a special design of distributors at the bottom of the column. The liquid Freon R11 drops rose on their way up and evaporated into two-phase bubbles at atmospheric pressure. The study was devoted to express the effect of process variables such as c

The efficiency of internal combustion engines (ICE) is usually about thirty percent of the total energy of the fuel. The residual energy is lost in the exhaust gas, the lubrication, and the cooling water in the radiators. Recently much of the researcher’s efforts have focused on taking advantage of wasted energy of the exhaust gas. Using a thermoelectric generator (TEG) is one of the promising ways. However, TEG depends entirely on the temperature difference, which may be offered by the exhaust muffler. An experimental test has been conducted to study the thermal performance of a different muffler internal design. The researchers resort to the use of lost energy in an ICE using TEG, which is one of the ways to take adv

The aim of this research is to study the effect of high concentrations of salts, pressure and temperature on the performance of the RO membrane with time. Four different (Na2CO3) concentrations (5000, 15000, 25000 and 35000) ppm and various pressures such as (1, 3 and 5) bars at different temperatures of the feed solution (i.e., 25, 35 and 45) ◦C were used in this work. It was found that, as the concentration of salt and feed temperatures increase, the rejection of the salt decrease. While the salt rejection of the membranes increases with increase of transmembrane pressure.

        In this study the design and installation of evaporative air cooler was carried out using completely outdoor air (fresh air) according to two stage evaporative cooling principle. The laboratory equipment was installed by designing and manufacturing a cross flow plate heat exchanger, where aluminum plates used for this purpose with dimensions (50 × 30 × 40 cm). The surfaces of heat exchanger were covered by sawdust from wetted channels side, to increase the percentage of wetting these surfaces and hence improve the performance and efficiency of air cooler.

        An experimental study was carried out to estimate the performance of cooling system, where som

The effect of using grinded rocks of (quartzite and porcelanite) as powder of (10 and 20) % replacement by weight of cement for self-compacting concrete slabs was investigated in this study. Five slabs with 15 concrete cubes were tested experimentally at 28 days to study the compressive strength, ultimate load, ultimate deflection, ductility, crack load and steel strain. The test results show that, the compressive strength improvement when replacement of local rock powder reached to (7.3, 4.22) % for (10 and 20) % quartzite powder and (11.3, 16.1) % for (10 and 20) % porcelanite powder, respectively compared to the reference specimen. The ultimate load percentage increase for slabs with (10 and 20) % rep