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Reducing energy consumption and providing high performance for a vapour compression refrigeration system are big challenges that need more attention and investigation. This paper provides an extensive review of experimental and theoretical studies to present the vapour compression refrigeration system and its modifications that can be used to improve system’s performance and reduce its energy consumption. This paper also presents the challenges that can be considered as a gab of research for the future works and investigations. Cooling capacity, refrigerant effect, energy consumption can be improved by using vapour injection technique, natural working fluid, and heat exchanger. Based on the outcome of this paper, vapour injection technique using natural refrigerant such as water can provide ultimate friendly refrigeration system. Future vision for the vapour compression refrigeration system and its new design technique using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) is also considered and presented.

This study aims to determine the optimum geometrical and operating parameters of supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO2) flow through a straight pipe for enhanced heat transferusing the Response Surfa...

In Australia and others developed countries, concerns about global warming have increased, and these concerns influence the use of refrigerants as working fluids in mechanical vapour compression refrigeration systems. One of the most important aspects of refrigerant selection is to reduce its impact on the environment and the ozone layer. This paper provides a comprehensive review of various theoretical and experimental studies which have been carried out on air conditioning and refrigeration applications to investigate the effect of refrigerants on the environment. The analysis in this paper reveals that alternative refrigerants are the most suitable working fluids that can be used in refrigeration systems to meet the needs of the environment. This study also suggests that natural types of refrigerants such as water, carbon dioxide, and hydrocarbon will play a significant role in protecting the environment and providing alternative friendly refrigerants to be used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems.

The utilization of fossil fuels can be minimized by the application of solar energy. In this paper, the performance of Parallel-Type (PT) Evacuated Tube Solar Collectors (ETSC) using Al2O3 nanoflui...

Nanoparticle additives and water emulsified fuels have been reported by many researchers to be the best methods in emission control and improving engine performance. The effects of nano additives the engine combustion and exhaust emission are thoroughly discussed from numerous researches from the past. The temperature of the carbon combustion is lowered by Cerium Oxide which improves the oxidation of HC. Complete fuel combustion is then achieved this way. The nano additives are then further discussed of its effects to humans by way of toxicity, engine corrosion, real time applications and limitations that ensue. The liver and kidney are seen to be affected by nano materials due to its toxicity. In dosing nanoparticles additives in diesel and biodiesel that are dosed with nanoparticle additives are reported by most researchers to enhance the performance of engines and reduce emission characteristics. Ce2O3, Copper, water-based coolants and Al2O3 are the targeted nanomaterials. Thus, there are advantages and disadvantages of application nano-additives on engines and effects on humans.

This paper elaborates the experimentation on a Turbocharged Direct Injection engine using calophyllum biodiesel and producer gas. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance and emi...

Utilization of tri-fuel emulsion (a composition of diesel, biodiesel, and alcohol) has been introduced to alleviate existing drawbacks of diesel engines by means of reducing the level of emissions without compromising its power output. Tri-fuel is proposed to facilitate the efficient performance of compression ignition (CI) engines while promising the enhanced combustion characteristics, improved performance, and reduction of unwanted emissions without requiring major engine retrofitting. The current manuscript has critically reviewed the existing research on tri-fuel technology, linking preparation protocols and physicochemical properties with the enhancement of engine performance and emissions. Furthermore, several advantages of tri-fuel in CI engines as a blend and emulsion were reviewed including the capability of secondary atomization known as micro-explosion phenomenon. Despite these stated advantages, limited information is available regarding the puffing and micro-explosion of tri-fuel, as they are only considered under non-combustion conditions. It was found out that droplet size was too large in most of the experimental cases, while due to doubtful setup configurations, Leidenfrost or hotplate techniques were found to be not suitable for the investigation of micro-explosion involving tri-fuel, as they were not representative of conditions in CI engines. Furthermore, the filament or thermocouple in contact with the droplet may distort the droplet and lead to an unrealistic situation. Hence, tri-fuel entitlement to the claim of secondary atomization attributes has been recognized as needing further investigations. Along the way, the review exposes other possible research gaps such as tri-fuel's optimum ratio, post-injected droplet microstructure, mixing strategy and combined physicochemical properties, which could be key indicators for micro-explosion signature.

Nanotechnology has emerged to be an essential aspect of science and technology. The growth of this field has been enormous specifically in the development of nanomaterials. Till date, numerous nanomaterials have been developed and designed to suit various applications from mechanical to biomedical. Among the developed nanomaterial, alumina (Al) has been subject of interest due to its notable chemical and physical properties. Specifically, in thermal properties, Al has been shown to have superior thermal conductivity, convective heat transfer coefficient and heat transfer coefficient properties. As such, Al has been utilized in different forms in various fields of applications and verified for its importance, significance and efficiency. Though it had shown outstanding results in the field engineering and sciences, their effect towards the environment and human health is yet to be explored extensively. The present paper aims to review the significance of Al nanoparticle addition in mono- and hybrid nanofluids. Also, this paper intends to provide the reader with an overview of the works that have been carried out using Al nanoparticles and their findings.

Since a decade ago, investigation on nanofluids has grown significantly owing to its enhanced thermal properties compared to conventional heat transfer fluids. This engineered nanofluid has been widely used in the thermal engineering system to improve their energy consumption by improving the thermal efficiency of the system. The addition of nano-size particles as additives dispersed in the base fluids proved to significantly either improve or diminish the behaviour of the base fluids. The behaviour of the base fluid highly depends on the properties of the additives material, such as morphology, size, and volume fraction. Among the variety of nanoparticles studied, the conducting polymers have been subject of high interest due to its high environmental stability, good electrical conductivity, antimicrobial, anti-corrosion property and significantly cheap compared to other nanoparticles. As such, the main objective of the present review is to provide an overview of the work performed on thermal properties performance of conducting polymers based nanofluids.

Wolbachia, a naturally endosymbiotic bacteria, has shown its potential as one of biological control agents for vector borne diseases. Due to large number of mosquitoes involved in Wolbachia screening, Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) is recommended as a convenient and time-saving technique. This study aimed to evaluate a newly developed LAMP assay for detection of Wolbachia by targeting 16S rDNA gene in samples of wild mosquito populations. The LAMP products were confirmed by colorimetric detection using hydroxy naphthol blue (HNB), digestion with RsaI restriction enzyme and gel electrophoresis. The restriction enzyme digestion of PCR products was performed to differentiate between Wolbachia supergroups A and B. Out of 765 mosquito samples tested, 349 (45.6%) and 237 (31%) of the samples were positive for LAMP and PCR techniques respectively. The prevalence of Wolbachia detected in mosquitoes was significantly higher using LAMP as compared to PCR. There is significant association between numbers of mosquitoes positive with Wolbachia detected using LAMP and PCR (χ

A composite material is a combination of two or more different materials between resin and fiber. The characteristic of this material is that it has a high level of corrosion resistance. This study aims to analyze the strength and durability of Jaloe Kayoh made of jute fiber polyester composite materials. Static analysis on Jaloe Kayoh is carried out through simulation or modeling using CAE-based software with the Finite Element Method (FEM), in static-general conditions. The parameters studied include the stress and strain values for centralized loading on the body of the boat with a minimum load of 650 N and a maximum load of 1950 N. The variations of the materials applied to Jaloe Kayoh include jute, jute-glass, jute-glass-jute, and fiberglass. From the simulation results on the 1950 N loading, the maximum stress is obtained by the jute-glass material with a value of 3.356 × 109 Pa. The greatest maximum strain by jute-glass material is with a value of 1.442 × 10−1. The results of this study show that the four composite materials are categorized as good to be applied as the main material of the Jaloe Kayoh.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the non-dimensional numbers of fluid flowing through inside the tubes of flat plate solar collectors. Empirically, to abate the cost and energy consumption or to boost up the performance and efficiency of solar collectors; computational simulation plays a vital role. In this study, CFD numerical simulation of aqueous ethylene glycol (60% water + 40%) ethylene glycol fluid flow has been done with ANSYS 15.0. Non-dimensional numbers such as surface Nusselt number, Skin friction coefficient and Prandtl number of fluids have been observed based on empirical and experimental properties. The geometry of design has been prepared using Solidworks software in accordance with the actual experimental model. The analysis revealed that the Nusselt number showed effective convection behavior, the skin friction coefficient was positive while the Prandtl number was large for both properties of aqueous ethylene glycol.

Thermophysical properties of phase change material (PCM) and their thermal stability over their lifetime are necessary to be understood to build an efficient latent heat storage system. This study aims to investigate the degradation in thermophysical properties of a phase change material (paraffin wax) because of repeated thermal cycling. The samples were prepared by heating the PCM using bottom heat source and cooled at ambient temperature. This process was repeated over the period of 200 cycles. The thermal conductivity, thermal properties (stability and void formation) and the density of the samples were investigated. The voids formation has a significant effect on the thermophysical property degradation. Differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) results showed 25.17% decline in the latent heat capacity and 33.72% drop in peak degradation temperature from cycle 1–200. The sample mass was reduced by 33.72% at 600 °C after 200 cycles. In addition, after 200 cycles the thermal conductivity increased by 12% hence, repeated thermal cycling showed a significant increment in its thermal conductivity. This result indicates the potential of paraffin wax as a heat storage material in Latent heat thermal energy storage system. The decline in the percentage of property and stability is very low after 200 cycles compared to previous studies.

Industrial robots often use planetary gear system to have high joint torques; therefore, the influence of the rotary inertia of the number of the equally spaced planet-gears on the dynamical behavior of the robot is very important. The main objective of this paper is to develop the dynamic modeling of robot actuated by (n) equally spaced planet-gears in the case where the planet-carrier is fixed, no closed solution has been reported for this dynamic modeling, and to compare between the dynamic behavior of robot actuated by (n+1) and (n) equally spaced planet-gears for a same trajectory planning. The authors derive the explicit dynamic model for an elbow down of 2-R manipulator holding an external mass. Finally, the obtained simulation results by using Matlab/Simulink of the dynamic modeling are verified by modeling the same robot and using an advanced simulation via SolidWorks (2014).

In this paper, cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) – ethylene glycol (EG) + Water (W) based nanofluid was developed and assessed for their thermophysical properties and the usefulness towards machining performances. The nanofluid was prepared by adopting two-step preparation method and at volume concentration of 0.1%, 0.3%, 0.5%, 0.7%, 0.9%, 1.1%, 1.3% and 1.5%. The nanofluid with 1.3% and 1.5% concentration showed to have superior the conductivity properties, around 0.559 W/m·K at 70 °C. However, the 0.5% concentration has the highest stability with 0.52 W/m·K at 70 °C. The 0.5% nanofluid concentration was then selected for the machining performance evaluation. The machining performance was evaluated by using a lathe machining operation to determine the heat transfer and tool life properties. The cutting variables such as cutting speed, depth of cut and feed rate are varied to understand the effect of developed nanofluid on the machining bahaviour. Findings revealed that the tool failure on machining using MWF is flank wear, chipping and abrasion and fractured at the maximum cutting distance of 500 mm. However, machining using CNC-EG+W nanofluid revealed the tool failure to be flank wear, adhesion and build- up-edge (BUE) and fractured at the maximum cutting distance of 772 mm.

In order to reduce the use of fossil fuel without interfering the availability of food crop, Cerbera manghas biodiesel has been studied as potential renewable fuel. This study investigated Cerbera manghas biodiesel as a replacement for pure petro-diesel and palm oil biodiesel produced in Indonesia. The investigation result indicates that Cerbera manghas biodiesel fuel has a lower density, kinematic viscosity, sulfur content, color (lighter), water content, distillation point compared to pure petro-diesel and palm oil biodiesel. Higher flash point and cetane index value in Cerbera manghas biodiesel were also discovered. The study investigated further the effect of biodiesel derived from Cerbera manghas biodiesel compared with pure petro-diesel and palm oil biodiesel in a single cylinder diesel engine. The study suggested that Cerbera manghas biodiesel has better engine performance (fuel consumption, brake mean effective pressure, thermal efficiency, torque, and power) compared to pure petro-diesel and palm oil biodiesel. The utilization of Cerbera manghas biodiesel gave better engine performance output compared to pure petro-diesel and palm oil biodiesel. This study supported the viability of Cerbera manghas biodiesel to be implemented as an alternative diesel fuel without interfering food resources or requiring additional modification to the existing diesel engine.

Transportation and shipping activities are major contributor to air pollution at sea where most of it occurs as a result of exhaust emissions from ships. Stringent emission limitations enforced by the International Maritime Organization have hastened the need to find a new alternative fuel for marine diesel engines. Thus, biodiesel fuel was chosen as one of the environmentally friendly alternative energy that can reduce ship toxic gas emissions and at the same time reduces dependence on petroleum-based fuels. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of biodiesel as an alternative fuel for marine diesel engine applications. This review covers the biodiesel fuel background, engine performance, history, recent progress, engine warranty, issues, challenges, and possible solutions on using biodiesel for marine applications. A significant number of literatures from indexed journals were cited accordingly. The results of previous studies had shown that the use of biodiesel would mostly increase the amount of brake specific fuel consumption and nitrogen oxide gas while conversely reducing other toxic gas emissions. Although a number of issues and challenges arise, most marine engine manufacturers give conditional warranty against the use of biodiesel in the engines. The study concluded that biodiesel and its blends have a bright future in the marine sector, provided some of the highlighted issues can be solved.

A walking bipedal robot by adding passive springs like mono and biarticular muscles which correspond to rectus femoris (RF), biceps femoris (BF), gastrocnemius (GAS) and tibialis anterior (TA) in human legs has been modeled in this paper. The stability of human-like leg walking can be achieved by adding these passive springs in the leg mechanism of bipedal robot. On the other hand, using these springs may inflict a fatigue during walking due to the additional work that can provide to the joints. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the total work of the robot during walking by proposing four cases of the preload of the springs at the equilibrium position. It’s found from this study that the case that has the most energy saving and ensure the comfortable walking to the robot is when the two muscles (GAS) and (TA) are not preloaded to support the total weight at the equilibrium position.

Colloidal suspensions of nanomaterials size not more than 100 nm in basefluid are defined as nanofluids. The thermal and rheological properties study of oil based nanofluid is conducted to develop stable transformers palm oil based nanofluid. This paper describes the analysis techniques to determine the enhancement of thermal properties of nanofluids. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has dispersed in the palm oil to prepare nanofluids with volume concentration (0.01–0.09) percentage. Both thermal conductivity and viscosity of nanofluid have measured by using the hot wire method and viscometer equipment respectively. Results indicate that the stable nanofluids improve the thermal properties as compared to palm oil. Results showed that the friction factor decreases as the Reynolds number increases and increases as the volume concentration increases. Additionally, the Nusselt number increases as the Reynolds number and volume concentration of the nanofluid increases.

Shipping activities are major contributors to air pollution at sea which mostly occur as a result of ships exhaust emissions. Stringent emission limits imposed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and concerns about the depletion of fossil fuel reserves have hastened the need to find new alternative fuels for marine engines. This study investigates the effects of a low proportion of palm fatty acid methyl ester (PFAME) biodiesel which is renewable and environmentally friendly fuel on marine diesel engines performance and combustion characteristics. The results revealed the use of PFAME biodiesel blends reduces the harmful gases emission CO2 and NOX emission up to 9.1% and 7.8%, respectively. Oxygen elements in biodiesel has contributed to increase peak in-cylinder pressure and heat release rate up to 2.7% and 4.5% respectively, thereby promoting complete combustion. Besides that, the brake specific fuel consumption raised by 18.8% at higher engine speeds. This finding suggests that a low concentration of PFAME biodiesel is suitable for use in marine diesel engines without engine modification, thereby providing a positive benefit to the environment in terms of lower emission of toxic gases.

Alternative fuel and renewable energy is becoming important issue due to unstable fuel supply and price. Recently, bio-fuels are much interested because of their beneficial effects on environment, agriculture and economic development. Raw vegetable oils – a kind of bio-fuels, even though it has many disadvantages, are potential renewable fuel replaced for ever-exhausted fossil fuel. In this work, vegetable oil available in the South of Vietnam such as raw coconut oil is used by heating up to aim at reducing its high viscosity, surface tension, density and meeting the fuel requirements. Experimental and comparative study is carried out on an 80 hp small marine diesel engine fueled with heated coconut oil (HCO) and fossil diesel fuel. The results of engine performance and emission characteristics are measured. The results show that, specific fuel consumption, CO, HC and smoke emissions are higher, but thermal efficiency and NOx emission are lower as using HCO in comparison with diesel fuel. Besides, this study also denotes that, heated raw coconut oil up to 100 oC is considered as the most proper fuel to achieve the engine performance and emission characteristics, which are equal to diesel fuel.

Energy sources are becoming a governmental issue, with cost and stable supply as the main concern. Oxygenated fuels production is cheap, simple and eco-friendly, as a well as can be produced locally, cutting down on transportation fuel costs. Oxygenated fuels are used directly in an engine as a pure fuel, or they can be blended with fossil fuel. The most common fuels that are conceded under oxygenated fuels are ethanol, methanol, butanol Dimethyl Ether (DME), Ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and biodiesel that have attracted the attention of researchers. Due to the higher heat of vaporization, high octane rating, high flammability temperature, and single boiling point, the oxygenated fuels have a positive impact on the engine performance, combustion, and emissions by allowing the increase of the compression ratio. Oxygenated fuels also have a considerable oxygen content that causes clean combustion. The aim of this paper was to systematically review the impact of compression ratio (CR) on the performance, combustion and emissions of internal combustion engines (ICE) that are operated with oxygenated fuels that could potentially replace petroleum-based fuels or to improve the fuel properties. The higher octane rating of oxygenated fuels can endure higher compression ratios before an engine starts knocking, thus giving an engine the ability to deliver more power efficiently and economically. One of the more significant findings to emerge from this review study was the slight increases or decreases in power when oxygenated fuel was used at the original CR in ICE engines. Also, CO, HC, and NOx emissions decreased while the fuel consumption (FC) increased. However, at higher CR, the engine performance increased and fuel consumption decreased for both SI and CI engines. It was seen the NOx, CO and CO2 emissions of oxygenated fuels decreased with the increasing CR in the SI engine, but the HC increased. Meanwhile, in CI engine, the HC, CO and NOx decreased as the CR increased with biodiesel fuel.

Spilled oil has been considering as extremely serious disaster in the maritime field and oil exploration, and its effects lasted for decades, even hundreds of years. Oil spill treatment and recover...

The world natural gas reserve is plentiful. Instead of using gasoline to power ground vehicles, usage of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) can improve the environment and reduce energy cost. However, most engines that runs on CNG are converted from gasoline based engine. Hence, the engines are not optimized for CNG. Other problems of converted engines are loss of power due to slower burn rate of CNG and gas displacement effect of CNG, hotter exhaust gas which degrade engine’s reliability, low mileage per tank and higher NO x . Since, converted engines are gasoline base engine, a dual fuel injection engine system can be developed to reduce the stated problems. Are activity controlled approach was incorporated where both gasoline and CNG are mixed before going into the combustion chamber. With this technique, when a blend of high reactive 35% gasoline and 65% CNG was used, the engine had its engine performance such torque, power and efficiency increasing by 10%. Also, the engine emissions such as hydrocarbon was reduced by 50% and carbon monoxide emission was reduced by 75% and NO x emission was reduced by 50% when compared with CNG baseline. Combustion of spark ignition engines converted to bi-fuel CNG is unstable and proper air and fuel mixing strategy is a concern here.

Currently, development of recycling, renewable, and sustainable products to replace fossil fuel products is an essential matter for industrial profiteering as well as environment protection. In the present study, waste cooking oil blended with SAE10W-40 should reduce the wear and friction on the piston skirt. Wear and friction performance were evaluated using piston skirt-liner contact tester, and the piston material was aluminum 6061. The design of experiment (DOE) was constructed using the response surface methodology (RSM) technique. Influence of different operating parameters such as rotational speeds (200 RPM, 250 RPM, 300 RPM), volume concentration (5% and 10% of waste oil), and loads (2 kg, 5.5 kg, and 9 kg) were optimized. Based on the results of moisture content and viscosity; as the concentration of waste cooking oil increases, the viscosity of the lubricant decreases. The lowest moisture content was at the 5% volume concentration. The increase in the coefficient of friction occurred in 5% and 10% volume concentration of waste cooking oil for both pairs. The RSM model showed that the speed, load, and volume composition have a significant effect on the coefficient of friction (COF) and specific wear rate (WR). The optimum obtained for both output (COF and WR) were 0.0596μ for COF and 0.6827μ for WR. The relevant parameters such as speed, load, and volume composition are 200 rev/min, 9.0 kg and 0.7071% of volume concentration respectively. Afield emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) analysis shows mild abrasion, pitting corrosion, and severe delamination of the specimen surface increased when running at higher load.

The thermal energy storage (TES) system using phase change materials (PCMs) has been studied since past three decades. PCMs are widely used in heat storage applications due to their high storage density, as well as the wide range of melting and solidifying temperatures. Nevertheless, the main disadvantage of PCMs, especially salt hydrates, is their corrosive behavior with container materials. PCMs are normally encapsulated in containers, hence the compatibility of the container materials with PCM plays an important role. As such, this paper summarizes the investigations made on the corrosion behavior of PCM in various applications, besides suggesting ways to reduce (or rectify) the effect for long term successful energy storage. Moreover, PCM-storage material interaction in the latent heat TES system is important as the issue of corrosion affects the life of the container, as well as the performance of TES. The compatibility of the most commonly used PCMs with several major container materials was reviewed and it was revealed that stainless steel has emerged as the most compatible storage container material among others. On the other hand, aluminum was found to be corrosive when it is used with salt hydrates. Nonetheless, some contradictory articles are reported that several salt hydrates demonstrated compatibility with container materials. Corrosion causes thinning of cross sectional area of materials, making it brittle thus leading to an easy collapse. This situation is even more critical mainly in large scale concentrating solar thermal power plants. Hence, with the fact that there are currently large scale power plants employing TES under operation and under construction; issues pertaining to PCM-storage material compatibility should be properly and accurately addressed. Therefore, more research work is recommended in the area of finding new eutectics and less corrosive container material(s).

Alcohol, as an alternative fuel, has attracted the attention of many companies and researchers worldwide. In fact, several studies have looked into emission and performance characteristics of alcohol used in compression-ignition (CI) engines. Fusel oil is an alcohol-based fuel collected as a by-product from the fermentation of alcohol. Hence, this experimental study compared fusel oil–diesel blended fuel F20 (20% vol fusel oil and 80% vol diesel) with pure diesel in a single cylinder four-stroke CI engine. The test was performed at two engine loads (50% and 75%) and five engine speeds (from 1200_2400 rpm with intervals of 300 rpm). In fact, the main goal of the current study was to determine engine power, torque, indicated specific fuel consumptions, in-cylinder temperature, energy release rate, cumulative energy release, and emissions (carbon dioxide, CO2; carbon monoxide, CO; and nitrogen oxide, NOx) with F20, as well as in comparison with diesel. The results revealed that the engine power and the torque for F20 slightly dropped compared to those with pure diesel. Moreover, the indicated specific fuel consumption (ISFC) was slightly increased, especially with 75% load at high engine speeds and at around 8% at an average, while the ignition delay for F20 had been longer by 7% at all engine speeds and loads compared to those with diesel. Furthermore, a reduction in nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions was observed at all engine loads and speeds, while the highest reduction in NOx for F20 was 28% with 1500 rpm at both loads. In addition, it was found that both CO2 and CO emissions increased. Nevertheless, high water content, low cetane number, and low heating value of fusel oil had been the reasons for the negative effect displayed upon the performance of the engine.

The major limitation in the usability of fusel oil as blend fuel in spark-ignition (SI) engine is the presence of moisture that plays a negative role in the calorific value (CV). The main objective of the current study is to improve the CV of fusel oil by the extraction of moisture content. In addition to this, it is aimed to conduct comparative study on the effect of the improvement of the CV of the blend fuel on the combustion and performance. The experiment is conducted in an SI engine under and engine speed of 4500 rpm, 60 throttle open and at different blending ratio of gasoline-fusel oil. The parameters examined in the current study are the effects of test fuels upon the brake power (BP), the brake thermal efficiency (BTE), the brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), the in-cylinder pressure, the rate of heat release (ROHR), the rate of pressure rise (ROPR), the mass fraction burned (MFB), the combustion durations (CD), the indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) and the coefficient of variation of the indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) (COVimep). With the reduction of the moisture content of the fusel oil from 13.5% to 6.5%, the improvement on the CV is reported to be by 13%. The BP, BSFC and BTE have slightly improved with the extraction of moisture. On the comparative study on the combustion and performance, the peak cylinder pressure, the maximum ROPR and the IMEP increased, and its corresponding COV reduced after reducing the moisture content at 10% concentration of fusel oil. CD has also reduced with the moisture extraction. As a conclusion, the moisture content of fusel oil has played negatively to limit the combustion and performance of the fuel blend despite the high oxygen content of fusel oil.

Modern nanotechnology can produce metallic or non-metallic particles of nanometer dimensions that have unique optical, mechanical, magnetic, electrical, and thermal properties. The purpose of this review is to summarise important published articles on the enhancement of convection heat transfer using nanoparticles dispersed in Ethylene Glycol (EG) and the effects on thermal properties and applications. This paper reviews all the articles relevant to nanoparticles suspended in EG. The studies of thermal properties including experimental measurement and correlations are reported. The effects of nanofluid volume fraction, temperature, and base fluid have been included. The stability of nanofluid was shown through testing to avoid agglomeration and clusters for many applications. In this paper, the applications of nanofluids in different types of heat exchangers, cooling systems, and solar energies are reviewed. In the field of economics, nanotech reduces manufacturing costs as a result of using a low-temperature process. In order to focus future studies of nanofluid applications, the articles on this field are summarized.

Alternative fuels are becoming important due to higher energy demands but with limited fuel supplies. Fusel oil is a by-product obtained through the fermentation of some agricultural products such as beets, cones, grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice and wheat. Fusel oil can be used as a clean and high-efficiency spark ignition fuel with a reduced NOx. The energy value of fusel oil is near to other alternative combustible types and the limited number of researches on the use of fusel oil as an alcohol derivative in spark ignition engines constitute to the base of this research. The literature relevant to fusel oil use was reviewed and summarized to demonstrate the viability of fusel oil as an alternative fuel from renewable energy source. The aim of this paper was to review the potential for the utilization of fusel oil as a candidate for an alternative fuel for spark-ignition engine, while also describing the production and utilization of fusel oil generally. The octane number and density of fusel oil present the most important properties that make fusel oil a candidate for an alternative fuel for SI fuel engines. It was observed that the octane number increased with the increase in percentage of fusel oil in the blend tests. It was also noted that when the fusel oil was used as a blend with gasoline, the engine torque was slightly increased and the volumetric efficiency and specific fuel consumption also increased. The hydro-carbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions were averagely increased. Furthermore, knocking and nitrogen oxides (NOx) were observed to decrease when fusel oil was used. On the other hand, negative effects occurred in the engine performance caused by the higher water content in fusel oil.

Nowadays, the concern of vehicle manufacturers towards improving engine performance, reducing fuel consumption and exhaust emissions that can cause the pollution of the atmosphere, concerns of strict emission pollution control regulations. Intercooler heat exchanger devices are used for engine charge air temperature improving for engine performance and emissions reduction. This paper introduces a new add-on technology of intercooler heat exchanger- (IHE) developed for utilizing in intake charge air density enhancement in engine combustion for better performance. Presenting a challenge in contributing a framework process for geometry designing development procedure for accurate and reliable scale design size of an air-vapour gas shell-and-tube IHE type, used refrigerant coolant medium. The process presents effective IHE in design time consumption, accurate in scale with higher performance and reliability operation in all environment weather due to reversibility system. A selected design geometry of 60 bunches of tubes with 7.53 mm inner diameter and 150 mm long placed. Effectiveness and design parameter geometry calculation are conditions of the IHE dependent relations of the shell size to tube length in condition of engine space availability control. Pressure drop and cooling capacity of IHE configuration design are proportional to the availability of design space or pressure drop control by the engine. Numerical and simulation results expressed a significant ability of IHE of 2–13 kW cooling load and process applicability for qualified design geometry configuration for selected IHE type. The developments present significant geometry flexibility design with the ability of cooling load or heating effect if reversible system, which offered multipurpose use in widely all vehicle types. © Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia. Universiti Putra Malaysia Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM: 9525100 The author would like to thank University Putra Malaysia for providing research facilities and grant. The study is supported by GP-IPS research grant from UPM with project code GP-IPS 9525100.

The objective of this study was to compare the Bullwhip Effect (BWE) in the supply chain through two methods and to determine the inventory policy for the uncertainty demand. It would be useful to determine the best forecasting method to predict the certain condition. The two methods are Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Support Vector Regression (SVR), which would be applied in this study. The data was obtained from the instant noodle dataset where it was in random normal distribution. The forecasting demands signal have Mean Squared Error (MSE) where it is used to measure the bullwhip effect in the supply chain member. The magnification of order among the member of the supply chain would influence the inventory. It is quite important to understand forecasting techniques and the bullwhip effect for the warehouse manager to manage the inventory in the warehouse, especially in probabilistic demand of the customer. This process determines the appropriate inventory policy for the retailer. The result from this study shows that ANN and SVR have the variance of 0.00491 and 0.07703, the MSE was 1.55e-6 and 1.53e-2, and the total BWE was 95.61 and 1237.19 respectively. It concluded that the ANN has a smaller variance than SVR, therefore, the ANN has a better performance than SVR, and the ANN has smaller BWE than SVR. At last, the inventory policy was determined with the continuous review policy for the uncertainty demand in the supply chain member.