Search

In this paper ride comfort of Indian road and rail vehicle is evaluated using ISO 2631-1 comfort specifications. A three wheel vehicle, light four wheel vehicle and general sleeper ICF coach of Indian railway have been evaluated on the basis of 1 hr, 2.5 hrs, 4 hrs and 8 hrs ISO 2631 comfort specifications in seated position as these are the normal duration for passengers. An insight to comfortable ride duration for these vehicles is presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: Electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) is used to identify early signs of fetal deterioration. However, caution is advised when interpreting cardiotocographic parameters. A promising alternative is umbilical cord blood sampling. The analysis of blood gases and lactate levels in the cord within the initial minutes of life is a recommended approach. STUDY DESIGN: This prospective cohort study, conducted over eighteen months from June 2021 to December 2022, enrolled 70 patients with non-reactive and 70 with reactive cardiotocograph (CTG) patterns. APGAR scores were recorded at 1 and 5-minute intervals. 1 ml of umbilical artery blood was assessed in an arterial blood gas machine and fetal acidosis was defined as pH <7.0 and a lactate concentration exceeding 4 mmol/L. RESULTS: In the non-reactive CTG group, 35.7% had early decelerations, 37.1% had variable decelerations, and 17.1% had late decelerations (p<0.001). The mean cord blood lactate was 5.220±1.970 mmol/L in the non-reactive CTG group and 3.400±0.228 mmol/L in the reactive CTG group. Similarly, the mean cord blood pH was 7.030±0.007 in the non-reactive CTG group and 7.170±0.076 in the reactive CTG group (p<0.001). 14.3% of cases in the non-reactive CTG group had a 5-minute APGAR <7, with a higher APGAR score in the reactive group. CONCLUSION: The study suggests that abnormal or indeterminate CTG readings are linked to a higher risk of intrapartum fetal acidosis. Non-reactive CTG results were associated with higher mean cord blood lactate and pH levels and more number of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) admissions. There is a definite correlation between abnormal CTG patterns and poorer neonatal outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation quantifies the advantages of transitioning from a cash to electronic toll collection (ETC)/open road tolling (ORT) system in an Indian setting. The real-world driving emissions approach, which is considered more suitable at locations with frequent acceleration and deceleration events, was adopted for actual onroad emissions data. Observations demonstrated that, unlike diesel vehicles, emissions generated during the waiting phase in gasoline vehicles were relatively minor when compared with acceleration and deceleration phases. As a result, for queues of equivalent length, the benefits of ETC were not pronounced for gasoline vehicles. Simulations were also carried out using a traffic simulation model VISSIM under three separate regimes – a 100% cash-based system, ETC, and ORT. Results revealed that the emissions generated by the ETC and cash-based systems were respectively 2 and 4 times greater than those generated by ORT. Likewise, the cumulative weekly time-delay experienced under the cash system was 2.5 times greater than that experienced under ETC. Furthermore, a comparison of efficiency of the cash and ETC systems was carried out by assessing the time-headway between transactions of both toll collection systems. The same was found to be approximately 21 s for the cash and 13 s for the ETC system in India. These results provide ample justification for the Indian government to contemplate a shift to ORT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an investigation on the influence of the fineness of fly ash on the carbonation and electrical conductivity of concrete. Fly ash collected from three thermal power stations in India (with a Blaine's fineness of 200, 255, and 305 m2/kg, respectively) were used for this study. The study also involved three replacement levels (15, 25, and 35% of cementitious materials) for each fly ash sample. Accelerated carbonation studies were performed on specimens cured for 3, 7, and 28 days. The electrical conductivity of concrete was evaluated by measuring the charge passed in coulomb (per ASTM C1202) on 28-day-cured specimens. The test results indicated that the carbonation depth of concrete increased as fly ash replacement increased. However, the carbonation resistances of concrete increased with increased fly ash fineness. Furthermore, the carbonation resistance of concrete increased significantly with a prolonged curing time. The coulomb charge passed through the concrete at an age of 28 days was significantly reduced with the incorporation of fly ash, and the magnitude of reduction increased with increased in fly ash fineness and replacement level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's rice production has come under pressure from a number of biotic and abiotic stresses, resulting in a significant deceleration in its productivity growth in recent years. Hybrid rice technology is considered a sustainable option for boosting productivity growth. The adoption rate of hybrid rice technology, however, has remained sluggish. This paper, using data from a large-scale, nationally representative survey of farm households, identifies causes of low adoption of hybrid rice technology and subsequently assesses the impact of low adoption on crop yield. Our findings demonstrate that in India, hybrid rice is often grown on relatively poor soils, resulting in greater costs for irrigation as well as for other inputs, such as fertilizers, essential for growth. Although hybrid rice technology appears to be scale neutral, farmers' poor access to information on its biochemical traits and agronomic practices, as well as poor access to financial resources, hampers scaling up its adoption. More important, our findings reveal that the relative yield advantage of hybrids over open-pollinated modern varieties is not large enough to incentivize rapid adoption of hybrid rice technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In view of the major advancement made in understanding the seismicity and seismotectonics of the Indian region in recent times, an updated probabilistic seismic hazard map of India covering 6–38°N and 68–98°E is prepared. This paper presents the results of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis of India done using regional seismic source zones and four well recognized attenuation relations considering varied tectonic provinces in the region. The study area was divided into small grids of size 0.1°×0.1°. Peak Horizontal Acceleration (PHA) and spectral accelerations for periods 0.1s and 1s have been estimated and contour maps showing the spatial variation of the same are presented in the paper. The present study shows that the seismic hazard is moderate in peninsular shield, but the hazard in most parts of North and Northeast India is high. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents a detailed study on the seismic pattern of the state of Karnataka and also quantifies the seismic hazard for the entire state. In the present work, historical and instrumental seismicity data for Karnataka (within 300 km from Karnataka political boundary) were compiled and hazard analysis was done based on this data. Geographically, Karnataka forms a part of peninsular India which is tectonically identified as an intraplate region of Indian plate. Due to the convergent movement of the Indian plate with the Eurasian plate, movements are occurring along major intraplate faults resulting in seismic activity of the region and hence the hazard assessment of this region is very important. Apart from referring to seismotectonic atlas for identifying faults and fractures, major lineaments in the study area were also mapped using satellite data. The earthquake events reported by various national and international agencies were collected until 2009. Declustering of earthquake events was done to remove foreshocks and aftershocks. Seismic hazard analysis was done for the state of Karnataka using both deterministic and probabilistic approaches incorporating logic tree methodology. The peak ground acceleration (PGA) at rock level was evaluated for the entire state considering a grid size of 0.05° × 0.05°. The attenuation relations proposed for stable continental shield region were used in evaluating the seismic hazard with appropriate weightage factors. Response spectra at rock level for important Tier II cities and Bangalore were evaluated. The contour maps showing the spatial variation of PGA values at bedrock are presented in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

general neural network based methodology that has the potential to replace the computationally-intensive site-specific seismic analysis of structures is proposed in this paper. The basic framework of the methodology consists of a feed forward back propagation neural network algorithm with one hidden layer to represent the seismic potential of a region and soil amplification effects. The methodology is implemented and verified with parameters corresponding to Delhi city in India. For this purpose, strong ground motions are generated at bedrock level for a chosen site in Delhi due to earthquakes considered to originate from the central seismic gap of the Himalayan belt using necessary geological as well as geotechnical data. Surface level ground motions and corresponding site-specific response spectra are obtained by using a one-dimensional equivalent linear wave propagation model. Spectral acceleration values are considered as a target parameter to verify the performance of the methodology. Numerical studies carried out to validate the proposed methodology show that the errors in predicted spectral acceleration values are within acceptable limits for design purposes. The methodology is general in the sense that it can be applied to other seismically vulnerable regions and also can be updated by including more parameters depending on the state-of-the-art in the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian power sector is experiencing a lot of pressure to supply sustainable electricity at affordable cost due to heavy demand especially in the summer peak season. Most of India's electricity is produced by fossil fueled power plants, which are the source of CO 2 emissions. In this case, renewable energy sources play a vital role in securing sustainable energy without environmental emissions. This paper examines the effects of renewable energy use in electricity supply systems and estimates the CO 2 emissions by developing various scenarios under the least cost approach. The LEAP energy model is used to develop these scenarios. The results show that in a ARET (accelerated renewable energy technology) scenario, 23% of electricity is generated by renewables only, and 74% of CO 2 reduction is possible by 2050. If the maximum energy savings potential is combined with the ARET scenario, the renewables share in electricity supply rises to 36% as compared to the reference scenario, while the CO 2 emission reduction in this case remains at 74%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new aircraft engine along with its fuel control system is under design and development in India. In this paper, the flow through First Stage Pump (FSP) has been studied under various aircraft accelerations. For energy transfer in a rotodynamic machine, Euler's equation has been used to calculate the total head developed considering inviscid fluid. However, the viscous losses in rotor have been incorporated implicitly as 4-5% of the total head developed. The calculated head-discharge characteristics for the FSP have been compared with actual test data to assess if there is any significant change in the characteristics under normal ground conditions. Subsequently, theoretical analysis was carried out to check the fuel flow through FSP under various aircraft accelerations (g forces). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel approach with a rule-based acceleration control strategy for electric vehicles. This proposal has a straightforward goal for minimizing the complexities of the existing controllers used in vehicles. The use of fuzzy logic enables the heuristic rule-based technique to be used, as an efficient solution. The fuzzy logic controller designed here is a combination of fuzzy decision maker and fuzzy speed controller. The fuzzy decision maker is designed in such a way that it takes into account the battery's state of charge, speed, type of terrain, road load, brake, acceleration, and gear as input parameters, which gives the reference speed to the fuzzy speed controller according to the changing situations. The fuzzy speed controller is designed for the d.c. chopper-fed drive for the seperately excited motor. The fuzzy logic controller determines the vehicle speed according to the scenarios in Indian road conditions. Simulation results would specify the performance of the new proposed fuzzy controller. The results have been compared with the conventional controller proportional integral. From the results it has been inferred that the range of the vehicle has been increased, with less error in speed, with the fuzzy logic controller, than with the classical proportional integral controller. This controller has also been implemented in the embedded chip, field programmable gate array (FPGA) and results shown experimentally, which is the future vehicle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Near-Fault Ground Motion (NFGM) spectral characteristics of three moderate-sized Himalayan earthquakes, viz., the 1986 Dharamsala earthquake (Mw = 5:5), the 1991 Uttarkashi earthquake (Mw = 6:8), and the 1999 Chamoli earthquake (Mw = 6:5) have been studied from the 33 available strong ground motion recordings. Pulse characteristics of fault-normal components in terms of pulse-periods and pulseindicators have been extracted adopting wavelet analysis. Seven mother wavelets were used in the analysis, and it was found that db4 and db7 mother wavelets were more efficient in extracting the pulse-type characteristics. NFGM spectra, at Bhatwari and Gopeshwar stations, showed higher spectral amplitudes in the velocity-sensitive and acceleration-sensitive regions compared to Indian codal response spectra. This is attributed to high PGV/PGA ratios. The study shows that NFGM leads to widening of acceleration-sensitive region, and the structures that are designed according to the Indian seismic code as flexible structures shall behave as stiff structures when subjected to NFGM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ride quality and ride comfort are the most important performance indices of road or rail vehicles and is affected by various factors, such as vibrations, acoustics, smell, temperature, visual stimuli, humidity and seat design. Among these vibration is a dominant factor that influences the performance indices the most. In this work the coupled vertical-lateral mathematical models of Indian rail and road vehicles have been formulated using Lagrangian. The roadway vehicles considered for this analysis are three wheel and light four wheel Indian passenger vehicle. The rail vehicles considered for this analysis are General sleeper ICF coach of Indian railway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of source and epicentral distance on the local seismic response in the Kolkata city is investigated by computing the seismic ground motion along 2-D geological cross-sections in the Kolkata city for the earthquake that occurred on 12 June 1897 ( M = 8.1; focal mechanism: dip = 57°, strike = 110° and rake = 76°; focal depth = 9 km) in Shillong plateau. For the estimation of ground motion parameters, a hybrid technique is used, which is the combination of modal summation and finite difference method. This technique allows the estimation of site specific ground motion for various events located at different distances from Kolkata city, taking into account simultaneously the position and geometry of the seismic source, the mechanical properties of the propagation medium and the geotechnical properties of the site. The epicenter of the Shillong earthquake is about 460 km away from Kolkata. The estimated peak ground acceleration (PGA) varies in the range of 0.11-0.18 g and this range corresponds to the intensity of IX to X on the Mercalli-Cancani-Sieberg (MCS) scale and VIII on the Modified Mercalli (MM) scale. The maximum amplification in terms of response spectral ratio (RSR) varies from 10 to 12 in the frequency range 1.0-1.5 Hz. These amplifications occur in correspondence to low-velocity shallow, loose soil deposit. The comparison of these results with earlier ones obtained considering the Calcutta earthquake that occurred on 15 April 1964 ( M = 6.5; focal mechanism: dip = 32°, strike = 232° and rake = 56°; focal depth = 36 km) shows that the source parameters (magnitude and focal mechanism) and epicentral distance play an important role on site response but the variation in the frequency of the peak values (RSR) is negligible. The obtained results match with observed reported intensities in Kolkata region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study derives ground-motion prediction equations for the horizontal elastic response spectral acceleration for 5% damping for application to the Indian Himalayas. The present equations include a consideration of site category (rock/soil) and style-of-faulting (strike-slip/reverse). Due to a lack of near-field data from India, additional strong-motion data have been included from the Zagros region of Iran, which has comparable seismotectonics to the Himalayas (continental compression). A set of 201 records from 16 earthquakes were used within the regression. The derived model predicts similar ground motions to previously published equations for the Himalayan region but with lower standard deviations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An endeavor is made to compute peak ground horizontal accelerations at bedrock level in the Delhi region due to the seismogenic sources present around Delhi. The entire area is divided into six seismogenic sources for which seismic hazard analysis is carried out using the complete and extreme part of the seismicity data. Maximum likelihood estimates of hazard parameters viz., seismic activity rate λ, b value and maximum probable earthquake Mmax are made for each zone. The return periods and the probabilities of occurrence of various magnitudes for return periods of 50, 100 and 1000 years are also computed for each zone. The peak ground acceleration (PGA) values for 20% exceedance in 50 years are then computed for the Delhi region from each zone. The maximum PGA value considering all the zones is 0.34 g, which is due to the Mathura fault zone. The seismogenic zones V and VI, i.e., Mathura fault zone and the Sohna fault zone are observed to be contributing maximum PGA values in the Delhi region governing the isoacceleration contours computed for the region. The seismic zonation map for the PGA values at the bedrock level is obtained for the Delhi region. This can be used directly as input for the microzonation of ground motion at the surface by incorporating the local site conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]