Collection of Abstracts - mechanical.eng.usm.my · Then, a rope brake dynamometer system was used to determine the engine’s efficiency. A rope brake dynamometer, measures the output

Abstracts of Final Year Projects (2016/2017) EMD452

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MUHAMMAD RABBANI B ABD RANI (115753) & Dr. Mohd Azmi Ismail (MAI) SIMULATION STUDY OF FLOW PROFILE OF AIR CHAMBER AT VARIOUS HEAT SUPPLIED The wind tunnel is one of the most common experimental testing facilities used in mechanical or aerospace engineering for the testing

of fluid flow behaviour. The flow profile of a fluid is vital component to gets a general comprehension of how the flow profundity

changes in a chamber. The viscosity and velocity of a fluid can altogether influence the route in which it flows through a chamber.

The utilization of hot air is vital in these days’ application, for example, drying processes, washing processes, pasteurisation processes

and so forth. Different temperature levels are connected in mechanical applications. Thus, the objective of this project is to do the

flow profile of air chamber at different intake velocity so that we can determine and get overall understanding of how the flow varies

in a chamber affected by the heater and stopper equipped. Next, simulation using ANSYS Workbench-Fluent software has been

developed to obtain the volume rendering of the air chamber and the velocity contour at the outlet of the air chamber. From the result,

it is found that the heater will affects the velocity magnitude at the outlet of the air chamber. The stopper also will affect the velocity

distributed across the outlet of the air chamber.

MUHAMMAD ZAEEM BIN MOHAMAD ZAN (115755) & Dr. Mohamad Yusof Idroas (MYI) PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTIC IMPROVEMENT OF AN UPSCALED GAMMATYPE STIRLING ENGINE BY USING HEAT REGENERATOR The rise of concern on green and sustainable power production system has led to a rise of interest among researchers in developing

external combustion engines such as Stirling engine. In this study, an up-scaled gamma-typed Stirling engine with the total swept

volume of 85cc., volume compression ratio of 1.5 with the use of mesh-wired heat regenerator has been tested for its performance.

The heat regenerator is mesh-wired, made of steel wool with the diameter of 3.2cm and height of 1.5cm which is placed inside the

working fluid flow passage in between the displacer cylinder and the power piston cylinder. The working fluid used for the engine

operation is air, the heat source is Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and the cooling jacket to stabilize the cold temperature is using

water. Based on the experimental results, it shows that at the heat input of 65J, the gamma engine was able to operate in self-

pressurized mode at the hot source temperature of 280C and cold temperature of 32C. The overall performance of the engine using

heat regenerator has improved over the performance of the engine without heat regenerator. At no load test condition, the brake power

from Beale formula has improved by 1%, brake thermal efficiency (BTE) has improved by 0.9% at the higher temperature difference

between hot source and cold temperature of 1% as compared to the engine performance without heat regenerator.

KHO EE PING (117040) & Mr. Mohzani Mokhtar (MM) DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF SMALL SCALE LASER CUTTING MACHINE

Cutting various types of material using laser has been highly preferred in industries over the decades due to its benefits in terms of

contour precision, quality, productivity and flexibility compared to conventional machining. The CNC automated laser cutting

machine often comes in a large size, heavy weight and demands a high capital investment. This shortcoming of the machine has

limited its application and rarely used by small and medium- scaled industries as well as non-manufacturing sectors. This thesis aims

to develop a small- scaled laser cutting machine which is light and portable at an affordable cost. Different types of lasers, mechanical

systems and electronic firmware were reviewed. The proposed laser cutting machine utilized a 5.5W diode laser, H-bot mechanism,

aluminium structure, Arduino microcontroller and open source software. The model was illustrated in CAD software besides

necessary simulation and calculations were performed. The finished prototype had a working area of A5 size, weighed 1.7kg, cost

RM 1230.85 and was able to cut the tested materials, which include thermoplastics, Nomex, polyproprene, wood, cloth and paper.

Modification on the mechanical structure especially the slider assembly was suggested for further improvement. This design had a

bright prospect in enhancing the industrial performance in small and medium-scaled industries, promoting research and prototyping;

and encouraging more creative individuals in society.


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AHMAD FIRDAUS BIN MURAD (120357) & Dr. Ahmad Zhafran Ahmad Mazlan (AZAM) CHARACTERIZATION OF THE PIEZOELECTRIC PATCH SENSOR AND ACTUATOR

The study presents the characterization of the piezoelectric patch as a sensor and actuator and its application for the active vibration

control (AVC) system. Piezoelectric patch is a versatile component due to its dual-functionality which can be used as sensor and

actuator and it corresponds to the mechanical and electrical energy conversion. This study consider the beam structure and the EMA

result shows that, there are four natural frequencies of the beam which occurred at 30.4 Hz, 227.9 Hz, 709.9 Hz and 923.9 Hz. For

the characterization of the piezoelectric patch actuator, the highest beam acceleration of 315.08 m/s2 is achieved at operating

frequency of 200 Hz with 500 V due to the effect of second natural frequency (227.9 Hz) of the beam. The saturation effect starts to

occur at the operating frequency of 300 Hz with 300 V of input voltage. The piezoelectric patch continues to saturate within operating

frequencies of 300 Hz to 500 Hz with the input voltages of 300 V to 500 V. The result also shows that, the non-linearity effects such

as hysteresis, creep and vibrational effects are getting worse, as the operating frequencies and voltages increase above 200 Hz with

200 V for the actuator. In term of piezoelectric patch sensor, the highest output voltage induced by the patch is 4.43 V at operating

frequency of 200 Hz with 500 V which is caused by the resonance frequency of the beam. However, the piezoelectric patch does not

experience any saturation effect within 100 Hz to 500 Hz with 100 V to 500 V and this corresponds to the FRF of the aluminium

beam. The piezoelectric patch sensor is effective at frequency of 100 Hz and 200 Hz due to less non-linearity effects (hysteresis, creep

and vibrational effects). As the frequency gets higher, the effects becomes significant and resulting large hysteresis formation. This

study also includes the application of the piezoelectric patch actuator for AVC system. The result shows the patch is capable to reduce

the vibration up to 42 % at frequency of 100 Hz with 100 V. However, the percentage of acceleration reduction decreases as the

operating voltage is getting higher.

AHMAD SHAZZULHILMI BIN AHMAD HASNAL (120358) & Dr. Muhammad Iftishah Ramdan (MIR) SIMULATION OF CONVENTIONAL PASSENGER VEHICLE USING ENGINE MAP WITH DIFFERENT CONDITION

This study simulates a backward facing mathematical model of vehicle in Malaysia (Perodua Myvi) with the presence of torque

converter model and the simulations is running on different condition. The conditions are normal driving; start and stop; early down

shift; early up shift; late down shift and late up shift. Normal driving and start and stop condition for fuel consumption results from

the simulation are compared to the experimental fuel consumption of the same vehicle run on the same drive cycle, to verify the

mathematical model for Perodua Myvi that was simulated by using Matlab. The drive cycles data are gathered twice at different times

of the day based on city roads and high way in the state of Penang and Kedah, Malaysia. The best fuel economy found is the control

strategy of start and stop. Simulation and experimental results are comparable, with the average percentage difference of 13.3 % for

the vehicle model.

AMIRUL AMRI BIN MOHD ZULKIFLI (120359) & A. Prof. Dr. Roslan Ahmad (RA) ON OBTAINING THE FIRST IMPACT RESPONSE OF SPLIT HOPKINSON PRESSURE BAR APPARATUS

Split Hopkinson Pressure bar (SHPB), also referred as Kolsky bar is commonly used setup for high strain rate testing. SHPB is suitable

for high strain rate test for safety and structural integrity assessment of structures subjected to dynamic loading. A sample is

sandwiched between two bars and compress after impact from striker bar that propelled via gas gun. During testing using SHPB

apparatus, a multiple impact on sample is exist. The multiple impact came from disturbance wave inside the bar of the SHPB that

effect failure behavior of the sample. The aim of this study is to design, fabricate, and commission a momentum trap suitable for

SHPB apparatus and to obtain the first impact response of it in the form of impulsive pulse. The momentum trap were set up in front

of the existing SHPB before test. The test were done with comparison the behavior of voltage (v) vs time (s) graph that used to

indicated impact behavior of the apparatus. A comparison of incident pulse in voltage graph are made before and after using the

momentum trap. Finally, the result show that the multiple impact can be avoid by using the momentum trap.


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ARIF IZZUDDIN BIN MUHAMMAD (120361) & Prof. Zainal Alimuddin Zainal Alauddin (ZAZA) TAR THERMAL CRACKING VIA MICROWAVE REACTOR

The major problem for the extraction of SG from biomass is the tar contamination. The tar may cause serious problem in the piping

system such as blockage and etc. To overcome this issue, tar cleaning by thermal cracking via microwave reactor was conducted. A

downdraft gasifier was selected and characterized. From the characterization of gasifier experiment, it was found that the best air flow

rate for the experiment was 160 lpm because it had the highest LHV. The SG produced was flown through an industrial microwave

and heated for tar cracking. The best temperature to be use was 1250 °C. This two parameters had been proven to produce clean SG

with low tar content and tar conversion efficiency of about 91%. The cooling system managed to reduce SG temperature from 750 °C

after the thermal cracking process to 57 °C where all the water vapor had been condensed before SG was compressed.

BARATHAN BASKARAN (120362) & Prof. Zainal Alimuddin Zainal Alauddin (ZAZA) PERFORMANCE OF COMPRESSED AIR ENGINE MODIFIED FROM SPARK IGNITION ENGINE WITH CAM MODIFICATION

As non-renewable energy depletes as the day goes by, increasing variety pollutions all around the world creating an unbalanced

atmosphere. Development of technologies to overcome this situation has been already begun. One of the innovations is to create an

engine where the fuel used is compresses air. The engine used particularly for this research is the HONDA G200 4 stroke gasoline

engine where it has been modified to a 2 stroke engine to increase power and efficiency. The cam lobe has been modified in order to

convert 4 stoke to 2 stroke engine. As the fuel used is compressed air, overlap in valve and cam would cause power loss because a

certain amount of compressed air that comes through the intake port will immediately exit through exhaust port without going through

the cycle. Power loss will cause the engine to be less efficient. The aim of this project is to determine does the cam and valve have

overlap and how much is the duration of the overlap. Then, a rope brake dynamometer system was used to determine the engine’s

efficiency. A rope brake dynamometer, measures the output torque or the required driving torque of the engine. As for this particular

project, a leather belt was used instead a cable for a lower friction coefficient. In the end, it was determined that the valve and cam

has an overlap issue and suggestions are made on how to eliminate the overlap to minimal. The mechanical efficiency of the engine

was in the range of 7% to 28% at a different variable used.

CHAI JIEN WEI (120363) & Dr. Mohamad Aizat Abas (MAA) SIMULATION OF BLOOD FLOW THROUGH MECHANICAL HEART VALVE USING ANSYS FLUID STRUCTURE INTERACTION

A successful mechanical prosthetic heart valve design is the bileaflet valve, which has been implanted for the first time more than 20

years ago. A key feature of bileaflet valves is the geometry of the two leaflets, which can be very important in determining the flow

field. The aim of this research is to observe the flow pattern of the blood through the heart valve with different leaflets curvatures. In

addition, the structural analysis of the leaflets was investigated. The simulation is carried out using ANSYS Fluid Structural

Interaction(FSI). Particle image velocimetry experiment will also be conducted to validate the simulation results. Finally, the results

such as velocity contour and vorticity are compared, revealing great similarity in leaflet motion and flow fields between the numerical

simulation and the experimental test. Also, in this study, the leaflets which curved inwards with greater degrees are found to be the

best configuration as it allows the greatest blood flow dynamic. Moreover, the maximum von mises stress is found to be at the hinge

region. These results will serve as a basis for valve design to improve the hemodynamic of the heart.

CHAN ZHEN YU (120364) & Professor Dr. Mani Maran Ratnam (MMR) BULLET IDENTIFICATION BASED ON STRIATION FEATURES USING FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM AND ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

Firearms identification from bullet specimens is important and useful in crime and forensic investigation. When a bullet is fired,

characteristic markings are created due to contact between the bullet and the barrel of the gun. Every firearm has its own unique

characteristic markings, also called ‘fingerprint’ regardless of its size, type and model. These unique characteristics are the important


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features in identifying firearms. However, traditional bullet identification is a labor intensive activity with several weeks of time being

devoted to a single analysis and comparison. This paper investigates the firearm identification method based on fast Fourier transform

(FFT) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). This project presents an approach to examine and analyze the bullet specimens using

FFT technique for 9 mm handgun identification. There are 5 types of bullets classes and 6 specimens per class. A total of 30 specimens

bullet were used in the identification method and they were scanned by using Alicona Infinite Focus measurement machine.

Fundamental frequency and harmonics were extracted by the FFT technique and act as input parameter for neural network training.

ANN was applied in this project to identify the bullet classes. Experimental result show that the proposed system can achieve 66.7%

accuracy through analyzing the fundamental frequency and harmonics of the fired bullet specimens. Although the amplitude of the

fundamental frequency and harmonics have limited impact to justify the bullet type but there is still room for improvement of the

classification accuracy.

CHOONG JI YING (120365) & Dr. Yu Kok Hwa (YKH) THERMAL STRESS ANALYSIS ON NON-METAL PIPE SYSTEM

This study presents results about stresses including thermal stress in internally heated subsea pipes that are subjected to laminar flow

of crude oils. The hostile environment causes corrosion of carbon steel subsea pipeline in oil and gas applications. The suitability of

high performing non-metal piping in subsea oil and gas applications is explored through ANSYS simulation. Three non-metals are

used in this analysis, namely polyester, polyether ether ketone, and polyvinylidene fluoride. FSI analysis on these non-metal piping

are studied to investigate the influence of the fluid and solid properties on the resulting thermal stresses in pipes. Different flow

temperatures are used in laminar flow to study their influence on the resulting thermal stresses in pipe. Besides, the analysis model is

validated through theoretical calculation on stresses of subsea pipeline.

DARYL TAN HOCK ANN (120366) & Dr. Loh Wei Ping (LWP) MOTION PATTERN TRACKING CLASSIFICATION IN BOWLING MATCHES

Motion pattern tracking is the tracing of object movements and transferring the informative data for analyses. Previous motion tracking

studies in sports focused on the changing position of the players rather than actual body segment interactions. Thus, a gap is identified

for further research works. Therefore, this paper presents a motion pattern tracking approach for bowling game posture classifications.

The objectives are to (i)design a framework to recognize and classify motion patterns, (ii)explore sequences of motion strategies,

(iii)analyze motion to recognize bowlers‟ relative movements by dominant posture sequences and (iv)examine motion pattern

characteristics by classification analysis and rules-reasoning under several parameters namely shoulder, body bend, balance, swing

angles and distance of feet. Motion is tracked on sequential image frames of video records and the numeric data retrieved using the

Photoshop tool. Preprocessed data are classified using WEKA software for analytical information and grouping body motions into

three predefined classes: GOOD, MODERATE, BAD. The main classifier chosen is the Random Tree. The findings show four main

conditions concerning body motion to result in GOOD body motion postures for bowling mainly Rule 1: final shoulder angle is

<109.32⁰ and the final body bend angle<50.13⁰ , (Rule 2: final balance angle<89.03⁰ and the maximum change in swing

angle<82.41⁰ and 48.27⁰ < final body bend angle<50.10⁰ , Rule 3: 17.78cm<maximum change in distance of feet<69.82cm and

final body bend angle>39.17Rule 4: maximum change in distance of feet> 69.82cm and final body bend angle<51.48⁰ and maximum

change in swing angle<56.19⁰ .

FAIZ BIN MOHAMAD (120367) & Dr. Mohamad Ikhwan Zaini Ridzwan (MIZR) EVALUATION OF LOAD-TRANSFER PATTERN IN IMPLANTED FEMUR BY PATIENT-SPECIFIC FE ANALYSIS

Total hip replacement (THR) is considered the most successful orthopedics surgery but eventually there is flaw rise from the effect

of post-surgery itself which is stress shielding. Nature behavior of bone is considered a complex biological material due to its

heterogeneous and anisotropic properties. The differences in stiffness between bone and the implant which is one of the main factor

of occurring shielding stress. Stress shielding occurred in structures combining stiff with more flexible, in which results in bone loss

and cortical thinning which lead to joint prosthesis failure. This research aims to explores the shielding stress would become severe


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when different types of orthopedic implant materials is used in THR. Therefore, 3-D bone model was developed based on CT-data

scan by patient-specific and isotropic with heterogeneous material properties was assigned to the femur, whereby Ti-6Al-4V and Co-

Cr-Mo were chosen as standard orthopedic implant materials. The maximum load generated during one complete gait cycles in normal

walking and climbing upstairs were chosen for FE analysis. The principle elastic strain along the femur, both in intact and implanted

femur conditions, were investigated based on Gruen mapping zone. Results show that maximum tension favors on the lateral side at

region 4 and maximum compression mostly tends to occur on medial side at region 3 and 4. For both type of activities, there are

percentage difference in strain value between femur and implanted femur, where differences is higher in CoCr-alloy implants rather

than Ti-alloy implant. The large percentage difference between intact and implanted femur indicates that that gap strain value is high,

and this is merely due to effect of stiffness used in implants that eventually shielded the stress from distribute along the femur, which

can lead to implant loosening and prosthetic failure.

FARAH NAIMAH BINTI ROGAIZAT (120368) & Dr. Ahmad Zhafran Ahmad Mazlan (AZAM) APPLICATION OF THE ACTIVE FORCE CONTROL METHOD TO REDUCE THE VIBRATION OF THE SUSPENDED HANDLE

In this study, active vibration control (AVC) methods with two types of controllers are applied to attenuate the vibration of the

available suspended handle experimentally. The vibration is simulated to the suspended handle using shaker and the vibration

measurement is taken using two accelerometers, whereby one is placed at the actuator location and another one at the handle of the

suspended handle. Piezoelectric actuator is used to counter the vibration of the suspended handle that excited by the shaker. Two types

of controllers are used in this study, which is Proportional-integral-derivative (PID) and Active Force Control (AFC). The result shows

that, the PID controller can reduced the vibration (i.e., acceleration) up to 42.56 % at the actuator location and 39.78 % at the handle

location, respectively. When AFC is included to the system, the vibration is further reduced up to 38.35 % at the actuator location and

36.95 % at the handle location, respectively. This result proved that, by using PID-AFC controller, the vibration reduction of the

suspended handle can be further improved and this controller can be applied to reduce the vibration of the hand-held power tool in a

daily application.

FARHANA BINTI MOHAMAD FATHI (120369) & Professor Dr. Zaidi bin Mohd. Ripin (ZMR) DESIGN OF THERMAL CAUTERY DEVICE

Cauterization is a technique whereby a portion of tissues is burnt off for the purpose of closing the wound. It mitigates bleeding by

destroying some tissues to reduce the risk of other possible injuries. Thermal cauterization uses heat for cutting of vessels, unlike the

regular cutting with knife. Temperature measurement of the existing thermal cautery device is carried out to obtain the temperature

of the heating element. The temperature is then verified with the results obtained from the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) by using

the ANSYS software. The highest temperature measured by the thermal infrared camera is 620 °C while the result obtained from the

simulation is 678 °C. This gives a percentage error of 9.4%. The design study of the thermal cautery device is required in order to

improve the overall safety aspects of the device. The existing thermal cautery device lacks in protection and has exposed heated parts

which could injure both patients and surgeons. By implying the safety features of LigaSureTM small jaw instrument from Covidien

Medtronic, a new design of the thermal cautery device is proposed. In this proposed design of the thermal cautery device, the heating

element is completely hidden when it is not in used, thus reducing the possibilities of accidental injuries. A heating notification switch

is included to ensure the surgeon about the cutting. Total time of 5 seconds are needed to prepare the heating element to temperature

of 620 °C. After the switch is released, there would be no more heating of the heating element to avoid any accidental errors. The first

order lever system would help to increase the precision and reduce the exchange of instruments during surgeries. The improvement

of the design of thermal cautery device in term of safety could help reduce accidents and injuries due to electrical devices.

GO HOW CHIANG (120370) & Dr. Mohamad Aizat Abas (MAA) EXPERIMENT AND SIMULATION REFLOW PROCESS OF PDMS MATERIAL

Electronic packaging plays a very crucial role in an electronic industry. Evolution of electric components happens from non-

stretchable to stretchable electronics. PDMS is commonly used in producing stretchable electronics. However, solder made from


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PDMS has weaker electric conductivity while stretched. This happens to be the interconnectivity among the filler material (Silver)

inside the solder is not established well. Due to previous failure in interconnectivity among silver powder, silver flakes are simulated

to study the distribution inside the solder. The filler material is treated as particles to run simulation for interaction between VOF and

DPM. Different weight percentages of silver filler are selected for simulation. The weight percentages seems to have effect on the

distribution, wetting time, velocity and pressure. The wetting time tends to prolong with higher silver percentages. Velocity and

pressure distribution shows similar trend for different weight percentages of silver fillers but they are not evenly distributed within

the solder. The velocity and pressure decreases as the weight percentage of the silver increases. The distribution of the silver flakes

are shown and verified with an experiment and the silver particles tend to accumulate at the upper region of the solder. The

experimental and simulation model shows a good agreement. The silver filler tends to accumulate at the top of the solder regardless

the silver weight percentages. The trajectories of the particles are also studied to determine possible voids formation in the PDMS

solder. There are more trajectories as the silver weight percentage increases which in turn will increase the probability of void

formation within the solder material.

GOH CHONG TEIK (120371) & Professor Dr. Zaidi bin Mohd. Ripin (ZMR) WIRELESS HAND TREMOR MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

Observational tremor rating scales that can be used to assess the level of tremor of patients based on the type of disease suffered by

the patients such as Movement Disorder Society sponsored Unified Parkinson’s Diseases Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) and The

Essential Tremor Rating Assessment Scale (TETRAS). Doctors employed observational tremor rating scales to assess the level of

tremor of patients especially of the upper extremities. For example, MDS-UPDRS uses discrete integer score from 0 to 4 to indicate

the severity of the assessed type of tremor such as resting, postural and kinetic tremor for patients who suffered from Parkinson’s

disease. Score 0 means that the subject suffered no tremor whereas score 4 indicates that the subject suffered from severe tremor with

amplitude at least 10 cm. Subjectivity is one of the problem when rating is based on human observation. One way to overcome this is

to use a sensor-based hand tremor measurement system. A wireless hand tremor measurement system using inertial measurement unit

(IMU) with on-board attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) is developed to measure hand tremor. The wireless hand tremor

measurement system provides measurement results that can quantify and classify the tremor motion in terms of relative joint angular

displacement which can be further used to classify the tremor direction of the hand such as pronation-supination, flexion-extension

and abduction-adduction. The system is tested with in-laboratory hand tremor simulator. 20 samples of simulated hand tremor data is

obtained in root-mean-squared value. The test-retest reliability result showed that the system has correlation coefficient of 0.994 and

standard error of measurement (SEM) of 0.006. The validation results showed that correlation coefficient of the system and the

encoder system from the hand tremor simulator is 0.985 with mean of difference of 0.020.

HASRATUL AZWAN BIN DARUN (120372) & Dr. Ooi Lu Ean (OLE) IDENTIFICATION OF NONLINEAR CHARACTERISTIC OF THE RUBBER MOUNT

Rubber mount is a type of vibration isolator. It provides an interface between two parts, damping the energy transmitted through the

rubber mount. A common application is the engine mounting where the rubber mount is used to reduce vibration transmitted by the

engine towards the passenger compartment. This paper investigates the nonlinear characteristic of the rubber mount using the

hysteresis loop method. The test done in this paper is shaker test. The test setup consists of accelerometer, force transducer, shaker,

power amplifier, LMS data acquisition system, impact hammer. The usage of LMS analyzer and LMS test lab ensured the data obtain

is accurately recorded according to the test and the received signal. Shaker tests were performed to determine the nonlinear

characteristics of the rubber mount which the range of operation is 3.0N to 10.0N for the amplitude of excitation and range of 0Hz to

300Hz for the excitation frequency. It was found out that the stiffness of the rubber mount decreases as the amplitude of excitation

increases before achieving transition. The loss factor obtain from hysteresis loop increases as the amplitude of excitation increases

before achieving transition. The rubber mount shows its nonlinear characteristic at the frequency of 80Hz with different amplitude of

excitation ranging from 3.0N to 10.0N.


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HAZIQ BIN JAMALUDIN (120373) & Dr. Ahmad Zhafran Ahmad Mazlan (AZAM) PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF THE AFC-CRUDE APPROXIMATION AND AFC-FUZZY LOGIC CONTROLLERS IN REDUCING THE VIBRATION OF THE SUSPENDED HANDLE

This study aims to suppress the vibration produced by any power tools to the suspended handle model using Active Force Control

(AFC) method with embedded of an intelligent method. Prolonged use of the power tool with the high level of vibration can lead to

the hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVs). Due to this, a dynamic analysis of the suspended handle model is necessary in order to

reduce the vibration of the system. The suspended handle is modelled as a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system and a sine wave

disturbance is applied to the system. Apart from that, some coefficients such as mass, spring and damper values and the control

parameters are obtained from the previous study. In this simulation study, four systems are investigated and compared which are

passive system, AVC with proportional-integration-derivative (PID), AVC with PID-AFC-Crude Approximation (CA) and AVC with

PID-AFC-Fuzzy Logic (FL) controllers. From the previous study, the AFC scheme has been proven as a robust controller to the

suspended handle. Based on this, the study is extended using the intelligent method (FL) to determine the AFC controller parameter

which is an estimated mass (EM). From the study, the optimum EM obtained from CA method is 0.04 kg while for the FL method is

0.04223 kg. This value produced by the triangular-shaped membership function in the FL controller. In addition, overall performances

are also compared by changing the target input value to zero and the AFCFL can still produce the best result to the system.

JEROME LEE JIE JEN (120375) & Dr. -Ing Muhammad Razi Abdul Rahman (MRAR) BENCHMARK ANALYSIS OF HEAT CONDUCTION PROBLEMS WITH ADAPTIVE FEA CODE POLYDE

Adaptive FEM is a topic of interest in research. As different implementations of research code have been developed, it is crucial to

test the algorithms on benchmark problems so assessment of the performance can be done in a standard way. This work studies the

performance of adaptive FEM code PolyDE on 3-dimensional steady-state heat transfer problem. PolyDE simulations were run for

different adaptivity strategies with elements of different polynomial orders on curved surface and flat surface geometry domain. The

adaptivity strategies studied were h-FEM and hp-FEM. H-FEM involves refining the mesh at the region where finer elements are

required while hp-FEM involves combination of refining the mesh and changing the polynomial orders of the elements to improve

the accuracy of the solution. Within the limitation of the number of degree of freedom tested, it was found that error for hp-FEM fits

quadratic curves while the error for h-FEM fits linear line in logarithmic-logarithmic plot with respect to number of degree of freedom

(NDOF) and CPU time (sec). The goodness of fits was proven with coefficient of determination, 2, which shows value above 0.9

for all the fitted linear lines and quadratic curves. Hence, it was concluded that hp-FEM performs better than h-FEM in faster error

convergence. Difference in polynomial order of elements has no significant effect on error convergence rates. PolyDE has issue with

memory management. For example, NDOF obtained is limited at 28468 for simulation with hp-FEM starting polynomial order 1 on

the curved surface geometry. PolyDE’s performance on curved surface domain geometry is acceptable, with the simulation results

for curve surface geometry showing higher error convergence rate than the flat surface geometry. The radial heat sink simulation

results replicated in PolyDE is in agreement with [1]. It is concluded that PolyDE is reliable for application in actual LED heat sink

analysis. The case studies have been established for benchmarking the performance of PolyDE.

KHIEW CHEE KEONG (120377) & Dr. Yu Kok Hwa (YKH) FLUID STRUCTURE INTERACTION (FSI) STUDY AT SMALL BORE CONNECTION (SBC) DUE TO WATER HAMMER (PRESSURE SURGE)

Water hammer is a hydraulic transient phenomenon that occurs when there is a sudden change in the fluid velocity. This often occurs

when valve is suddenly closed, thereby causing the water to stop flowing. The presence of water hammer could give rise to burst

pipes, damaged supports, and leakage in the piping system. In a water piping system, small bore connection could be vulnerable to

the damage caused by the water hammer. By definition, small bore connection is a connection between a pipe with diameter smaller

than DN 50 and a main pipe. In this study, water hammer in a piping system with a small bore connection is numerically simulated

using the ANSYS FLUENT. The effects of fluid velocity, small bore diameter, and distance of small bore connection from the valve


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on the water hammer are studied. Instead of assuming the small bore connection to be perfectly rigid, one way fluid structure

interaction is performed to explore the interaction of the deformable connector with the fluid transient phenomena. The results show

that the flow velocity has significant effect on the pressure amplitude while small bore diameter and distance of small bore from valve

have minor effect on the pressure wave frequency. One way fluid structure interaction also shows that the von-Mises stress appears

to be maximum at the inner wall of the small-bore connection.

KOGULAN A/L LETCHUMANAN (120378) & Dr. Loh Wei Ping (LWP) DATA MINING APPROACH ON ASSESSING THE HUMAN MOTION BALANCING MECHANISMS

Data mining approach can be described as the process of converting a big and uncontrolled size of data into a more simple and useful

form data. This project uses data mining approach to access human stability when a motion involved. In this project, we involve the

activities perform a normal human being to find out the perfect posture for them to do that activity. Data mining comprises of few

stages which are data collection, data preprocessing, data processing and knowledge discovery. Data are analysed by using a group

of people consist of 10 people from different age and physical appearance. By applying data mining approach to human motion, we

can avoid injuries and take proper safety precautions.

LEE HONG LEAN (120380) & Dr. Teoh Yew Heng (TYH) DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMATED ENGINE TEST CELL SYSTEM FOR SINGLE CYLINDER DIESEL ENGINE

Engine is getting more advanced which provided higher energy conversion as compared to when it first invented. Besides, the

development of alternative fuels such as biodiesel caused more and more research and studies in the performance of engine. Due to

large amount of data that must be collected in conventional engines, engineers are looking toward new methods of accelerating aside

from manually setting the parameters. One of the solution is to make it automated and designing the software for engine test cell

system by using processing device and measuring sensor with a reduced cost without compromising the performance and capabilities

of an engine test cell. Automating engine test can greatly reduce the amount of testing time as well as provide robustness that manually

changing setpoints cannot offer. In this research, in order to investigate the performance, emission and combustion of the engine

effectively, an automated test cell has been developed. It provided automated recording of the quantifiable data including the torque

measurement, speed measurement, fuel flow measurement, combustion data acquisition and emission data acquisition. It is also

designed to provide real-time control on the dynamometer which make us easier to control the engine. A study of performance,

emission and combustion characteristic of Palm Methyl Ester biodiesel and diesel, the B100 generally shows lower torque. Power

and brake thermal efficiency. However, it have a higher specific fuel consumption. The difference in emission and combustion for

B100 are lower CO and CO2 emission by 17-45% and 25-43% and also maximum 52% lower NOx emission.

LEE MEI WEN (120381) & Dr. Abdullah Aziz Saad (AAS) STRESS ANALYSIS OF STRETCHABLE THERMAL SENSOR

This paper present a summary of the performance of modelling for stretchable circuit. For this new technology, the stretchable board

can achieve mechanically bendable and stretchable by using the elastomer based substrate and interconnect. Hence, the study on

mechanical properties of substrate effect on design of interconnect is important on the fatigue lifetime and reliability of circuit.

Nowadays, the reliability of stretchable circuit is still an existing issue when it continuously supplied by cyclic stresses which will

cause the elastic strain deformation during stretch and compress. The purpose of this paper is to present the stress and strain

deformation on the interconnect design and reliability of stretchable circuit. By using the Finite Element Method (FEM), it enables to

define a more reliable design and suitable material of the stretchable circuit. The stretchability performance can be evaluated on the

strain and stress applied to the interconnect and substrate. Suitable material properties of substrate able to offer the less damage during

elongation. PDMS and TPU are chosen as material of substrates because of its high elongation before break and it allows high

stretchability. This study demonstrates the effect of stress and strain deformation on new design of stretchable board by using proposed

material for the substrates at different elongation.


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LEONG YONG SHENG (120382) & Dr. Muhammad Iftishah Ramdan (MIR) SIMULATION OF SERIES AND PARALLEL HYDRAULIC HYBRID MYVI

The paper compares the fuel economy of Perodua Myvi with 2 different architectures of hydraulic hybrid vehicle which are parallel

and series architectures. The simulation was done to predetermine the feasibility of transforming conventional Myvi to a hydraulic

hybrid Myvi. The fuel economy was simulated with backward-facing model on the Malaysian drive cycle using MATLAB coding. A

rule-based control strategy was manipulated manually to fulfill the requirement with respect to the drive cycle. The parallel

architecture shows a good improvement on fuel economy which is 97% while 47% in series architecture. However, even the parallel

hybrid would take 12.4 years for the return of investment costing which is infeasible.

LIEW SHAN KUN (120383) & Dr. Yu Kok Hwa (YKH) ANTI-SLOSH BAFFLE PERFORMANCE IN HORIZONTAL CYLINDRICAL SEPARATOR TANK

In oil extraction process, baffle is employed in the horizontal cylindrical separator tank to dampen the sloshing dynamics of the fluids

mixture. Different baffle configurations affect the efficiency of the separation process and anti-sloshing performance. Simulation of

different baffle configurations was conducted using ANSYS Fluent software to explore the baffles performance of gate and porous

types. Results from the simulation show that the porous type baffle performs better than the gate type baffle in terms of lower sloshing

height and average velocity of fluid mixture across the inspection surface. Parametric study concluded that configuration 9 of porous

baffle with 0.4 void fraction and 0.02 m mean particle size produces the best anti-sloshing performance.

LIM ZHI WEY (120384) & Dr. Muhammad Iftishah Ramdan (MIR) DEVELOPMENT OF FUEL CONSUMPTION ENGINE MAP FOR MYVI ENGINE VOLUMETRICALLY

This study generates fuel consumption engine maps of a Myvi engine (Daihatsu K3-VE). The objective of this study is to produce

reliable fuel consumption engine maps. Previously, fuel consumption engine maps were achieved by gravimetric method. In this

experimental study, the maps were completed in volumetric method whereby the rate of fuel consumption was measured in milliliter

per second (ml/s). Burettes and a digital stopwatch were used throughout the experiment to calculate the fuel consumption rate. The

results from this experiment are compared to the previous results by using the correlation coefficient in Matlab. The correlation

coefficient for fuel consumption, brake power and brake thermal efficiency between gravimetric and volumetric experiments are less

than 0.7, that indicates a moderate matching between both experiment results.

MARK SELVAN A/L ANTHONY ROGERS LOUIS (120385) & Prof. Zainal Alimuddin Zainal Alauddin (ZAZA) PERFORMANCE OF MICRO STEAM ENGINE

Steam engines were the first engine type to see widespread use. It was the foundation of the industrial revolution. This study is done

to investigate the performance and specification of the components that make up the Micro Wobbler Steam Engine. The system

comprise of 3 parts namely the boiler, the pressure regulating valve and the steam engine. The LPG fired boiler is a vertical fire tube

boiler with a 7.5 L capacity and a maximum operating pressure of 10 Bar. The pressure regulating valve is a Yoshitake GD 45P that

is compact, lightweight and with a minimum inlet pressure of 2 Bar. The steam engine is Micro Wobbler Steam engine. The

performance of the system was determined by varying the inlet pressure and the load while measuring the flowrate and torque.

Subsequently, the brake power, indicated power, friction power, brake thermal efficiency and mechanical efficiency were calculated.

From the experiment carried out, the highest brake power, indicated power and friction power were 4.35 Watts, 17.4 Watts and 13.05

Watts. The highest indicated thermal efficiency was 0.23% while the mechanical efficiency remained constant at 25%. Whereas the

boiler efficiency was 43%. The results indicates a relatively low overall efficiency of the system that is 0.056%.


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MOHAMMAD AMIR IZUDDIN ISHAK (120386) & Dr. Mohd Azmi Ismail (MAI) THE EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF BIAS FLOW ON AERODYNAMIC FORCES OF NACELLE D-CHAMBER The ice protection system and bias liner is an integrated concept that could be used to provide both aircraft ice protection and noise

abatement. Current aircraft uses a Piccolo Tube Anti-Icing system which impinges jets of hot air for ice protection. The bias liner is

an acoustic liner which allows air to flow through each of the cells and act as sound abatement device. If the hot air is dumped

overboard via these cells, it can function as a bias flow. The effect of bias flow towards the aerodynamic performance of nacelle D-

chamber is studied. An investigation was carried out by using two developed models of nacelle D-chamber; one solid model and one

modified bias model. The modified model is having a perforated skin with single row of porous holes at the bottom part. The bias

flow supply was positively quantified by the internal pressure difference of the nacelle D-chamber with the ambient, up to 160 Pa

ranging from 10-20 m/s free stream velocities. According to the experimental study, bias flow does provide a promising result. The

flow helps in reducing drag coefficient and enhance the lift coefficient of the nacelle D-chamber. The experiment also found that

critical pressure of drag reduction is 60 Pa and the percentage of difference for lift coefficient and drag coefficient are independent

with free stream velocity.

MOHAMMAD AMIRUDDIN BIN MOHD.MAIDIN (120387) & Dr. Mohamad Yusof Idroas (MYI) CHARACTERISTIC STUDY OF PHYSIOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF HYBRID BIOFUEL (PALM OIL AND ALCOHOL BLEND) FOR COMPRESSION IGNITION ENGINE APPLICATION

Exponential growth of industrialization and motorization has led arising of petroleum and energy demand. This results in the search

for a new form of energy to cater the depletion of fossil fuel and the environmental degradation condition. Straight vegetable oils is a

renewable alternatives to diesel fuel at the same time provide a cleaner burning, but having high viscosity compared to diesel is

undesirable for diesel engines. In this work, the physiochemical properties of diesel fuel, cajuput oil, refined palm oil and ethanol

mixtures at various compositions were studied. Kinematic viscosity as a function of time, density and calorific value of these biofuel

were studied to be compared to American Society for Testing and Materials Standard (ASTM D6751) to formulate a biofuel that

could be as reliable as diesel fuel running in compression ignition engine. The results indicate that kinematic viscosity of biofuel

decrease with an increase in temperature. Among all 24 samples, the best formulated biodiesel is 10% refined palm oil with 90%

diesel (10RPO:90D), followed by 20% cajuput oil with 80% diesel (20MCO:80D). While for biofuel, 60% cajuput oil with 40%

refined palm oil (60MCO:40RPO) is the best formulated biofuel. The commercialization of this particular biodiesel and biofuel could

result in the decrease reliance towards using diesel fuel solely for compression ignition engine. This finding contributes by proposing

a new straight vegetable oil which is cajuput oil that has not yet being studied in term of its fuel capability to substitute conventional

diesel fuel.

MOHAMMAD HARITH YACCOB BIN SYED (120388) & Dr. Mohd Azmi Ismail (MAI) SIMULATION EFFECT OF HOT GAS IMPINGEMENT ON NACELLE LIP SKIN

Ice accumulation during flight includes the accumulation of icing on the nacelle lip skin of the aircrafts engines. The accumulation

on the ice on the inner surface of the lipskin can be hazardous to any flying aircraft [2]. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has

been widely used to study the effect of ice accretion onto the nacelle lip skin. This study however utilizes the fluid structure interaction

(FSI) to study the effect of hot gas impingement on the nacelle lip skin towards the thermal properties of the material. It was found

that the material used for this study, AL 1 series, 2 series and 7 series has a temperature dependent behavior which is closely related

to their microscopic properties. This study has shown that the tensile strength of the materials decreases as the temperature increases

and this study also has concluded that aluminum 7 series is the most suitable material to be used for the nacelle lip skin material

MOHD AMIER HASIEF B. MAT ZAHIT (120390) & Dr. Abdullah Aziz Saad (AAS) STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY STUDY OF ULTRA-FINE SOLDER JOINT USING MICROSCOPY INVESTIGATION


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The electronic industries are changing the solder used from the lead solder to the lead-free solder. The elimination of lead solder is

done due to the new laws and restrictions. The lead-free solder is extensively used in the electronic assemblies and there is also

concerns about the lead-free solder reliability. Solder joints in electronic products are used as interconnection material for enabling

electrical, thermal and mechanical function in the electronic packaging. Addition of nano particles in the solder joint is to investigate

the relation between the percentage and the quality of the solder joint. The quality of the solder joints is one of the most important

aspect that we need to consider to make a good solder joint. The hardness test of the solder joint is to know what is the relation

between hardness and the percentage of the nano particles in solder joint. Three types of solder joints that contain 0.01%, 0.05%, and

0.15% of Fe2O3 (Feric Oxide) are used in the experiment with small (01005), medium (0603) and big (0805) size of the component.

MOHD FAHMY BIN ROSLI (120391) & Dr. Abdullah Aziz Saad (AAS) THERMOFORMING PROCESS STUDY OF STRETCHABLE ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT

Thermoforming is a manufacturing process where a plastic sheet is heated to forming temperature and formed to a specific shape in

a mold, then trimmed to create a usable product. A wide range of application from plastic toys, cafeteria trays to aircraft windscreens

can be perform or produce by thermoforming technique. Low cost equipment is the main reason thermoforming process used. The

main objective of this project is to study the development of the thermoforming process, then this process is simulated by using

ANSYS Polyflow simulation. Distribution of the film thickness is the most important decision in the process of thermoforming. Film

thickness distribution results are then compared to the results of the strain to see the relationship between the thickness and stretching

area. Subsequently, the grid test was also conducted to see area stretch and deformation grid. A comparison is made for experimental

and simulation works. From the result, simulation result is matched with the experimental result. So, the simulation setup has proven

to be correct. In conclusion, understanding and technique of Thermoforming process development has been fully developed.

MOHD HAFIZ BIN ABDUL SATAR (120392) & Dr. Mohamad Aizat Abas (MAA) THE STUDY OF FILLING TIME IN UNDERFILL ENCAPSULATION OF DIFFERENT BALL GRID ARRAY PACKAGING USING PARTICLE IMAGE VELOCIMETRY AND FINITE VOLUME METHOD

A ball grid array (BGA) package may described as a type of surface-mount packaging used in integrated circuit (IC). It has gain

industry interest as it provides high input and output connection and more reliable. Yet, it subjected to drawbacks such as extended

filling time, incomplete filling and void formation. Thus, the project is to studies the drawbacks and will involve the experimental and

numerical approach of three different shapes of ball grid array (BGA) in underfill encapsulation process. A physical model is also

prepared and study using particle image velocimetry (PIV) to obtain experimental results. Whereas, for numerical approach, the finite

volume method (FVM) has been applied based on the algebraic equation. The result show that the hourglass BGA has lowest filling

time and lesser tendency to has void formation compared to other shape. Nevertheless, both method have comparable results and good

agreement.

MOHD HAZIM SADIQ BIN ABD SAMAD (120393) & Dr. Mohd Sharizal Abdul Aziz (MSAA) INFLUENCE OF SQUEEGEE IMPACT ON STENCIL PRINTING PROCESS: CFD APPROACH

High requirement of smaller size, lighter weight, and high performance PCB in electronic packaging has contributed to the wide

application of stencil printing for soldering process. Stencil printing offers good consistency of soldering performance as well as

produce larger process output at short time that make it one of the best option for high volume application in Surface Mount

Technology (SMT). However, the soldering method also contributes to major percentage of soldering defect compared to other

methods which is necessary to be addressed through research and development. One of the common defects due to the stencil printing

is regarding to the printing quality of solder paste on substrate such as Printed Board Circuit (PCB) with respect to the variation of

process parameters. Uncontrolled process parameters cause the soldering defects such as solder bridging that can lead to product


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failure in further processes in production line. An investigation has been conducted to predict the real time observation of solder paste

Sn96.5Ag3.0Cu0.5 (SAC305) filling process into stencil apertures as well as print quality in stencil printing by using Computational

Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach. A 3-Dimensional stencil printing model was developed and simulated in FLUENT by using different

squeegee parameters which are angle and print speed. An experimental work was performed to be compared with part of the simulation

results in term of print quality for validation purpose. It is found that squeegee angle 60° to 80° has potential to obtain good print

quality of solder paste. In addition, print speed range between 35 mm/s to 95 mm/s also can be the good print speed option to achieve

good print quality in stencil printing process. Finally, the maximum pressure distribution of solder paste also changes substantially as

the squeegee travel further with respect to different values of tested parameters.

MUHAMMAD ABDUL QAHHAR BIN ABDUL MALIK (120394) & Professor Dr Zaidi Mohd Ripin (ZMR) ANALYSIS OF ROLLING CONTACT

In mechanical engineering and tribology, Hertzian contact stress is a description of the stress within mating parts. This kind of stress

may not be significant most of the time, but may cause serious problems if not take it into account in some cases. An ideal bearing

surface is the one with smooth surface and having relatively deep scratches to hold and distribute lubricant. The arithmetic average

of the absolute value (Ra) and bearing area curve (BAC) had been recognise as better way to characterise 304SS roller surface.

Deformation on the rolling surface can be reduced by applied low viscosity lubricant. Roughness value will increase as the number

of cycles increase. The test have been conducted in two conditions (dry and lubricated) and endure one hundred cycles each. The two

surface parameters with the highest value are average roughness Ra (0.7101µm) and bearing area curve (16.2656µm). Both results

from dry condition.

MUHAMMAD AFIQ BIN JAAFAR (120395) & Prof. Dr. Zainal Alimuddin Zainal Alauddin (ZAZA) DRYING RATE AND THERMAL PROPERTIES OF SOLID FUEL PRODUCED FROM HYDROTHERMAL AND VAPOURTHERMAL CARBONIZATION OF HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT BIOMASS MATERIAL

Energy improvement of high moisture content biomass material can be done by using water (in HTC) and saturated steam (VTC) as

reaction medium, which reduces the necessity for drying process thus reducing energy consumption. At present, there are a few drying

rate analysis on both HTM and VTM. This particular project goal is to determine the influence of water-to-biomass ratio on drying

rate in term of energy consumption and other properties of torrefied product of HTM, and to compare it with VTM. Besides, the

properties of torrefied product was measured and analysed which affect the quality of HTM and VTM. The temperature and pressure

of 220oC and 24 Bar respectively were used for VTM and HTM and fixed for each process. The manipulated parameter of this

experiment were the type of biomass used which was bagasse and lime peel and vary on water-to-biomass ratio. Thermogravimetric

and bomb calorimeter analysis was done to determined and prove the quality of HTM and VTM. The result show that VTM has the

lowest drying rate and rapidly dried compared to HTM while the raw material has the lowest drying rate. HTM with the lowest water-

to-biomass ratio (highest weight of biomass) has the highest drying rate. Moreover, the lime Peel and bagasse HTM with ratio water-

to-biomass of 52.3:1 and 34:1 are the most quality among HTM for each sample with HHV 18.301Mj/Kg and 18.314 Mj/Kg. Besides

that, the fixed carbon of raw material for lime peel and bagasse sample was increase from 2.259%-10.538% and 0.106%-13.428%

respectively. However, VTM was dominated for the most quality torrefied material for both lime peel and bagasse with HHV of

20.957 Mj/Kg and 20.041 Mj/Kg respectively. This study demonstrate determining the correct water-to-biomass ratio is crucial in

determining quality of HTM.

MUHAMMAD AQIL BIN AZMAN (120396) & Dr. -Ing Muhammad Razi Abdul Rahman (MRAR) CONSTRUCTION OF MULTIGRID SOLVER FOR 2D HEAT CONDUCTION PROBLEM This research describes the formulation and application of the multigrid method for the 2D heat conduction problem. A Multigrid

method (MG) is essentially a matrix solver which is used with another computational method for solving partial differential equation

(PDE) such as finite element method (FEM), boundary element method (BEM), finite different method (FDM) etc. The formulation


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between FEM and MG is used to test the performance of this combination through the solution. The solution involves partial

differential equation (PDE) of Poisson equation of 2D heat conduction problem and the solutions solved by using Matlab. The Poisson

equation was tested with various types of heat source and the error L2 norm and H1 norm were computed to validate and prove the

convergence of the solution. The solution of FEM and FEM-MG were compared and FEM-MG contains two types of smoother Gauss-

Siedel and Successive Over Relaxation (SOR). The result shows that the error of L2 and H1 norm in FEM-MG smaller compare to

FEM with conventional linear system solver.

MUHAMMAD AZIZI BIN YAHAYA (120397) & A. Prof. Ir. Dr. Abdus Samad Mahmud (ASM) EFFECT OF FLUORIDE AND ACID ON SHAPE MEMORY BEHAVIOURS OF NITI ORTHODONTIC ARCHWIRE

Nickel-Titanium (NiTi) Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) is new material that had been widely used in orthodontic application that

replacing stainless steel. It is refer to larger elastic strain relieved by martensitic phase transformation. However, these wire properties

will influence by the surface erosion of the wire and lead to Nickel release that may toxic to human. The surface erosion of the wire

normally occur in oral environment due to eating behaviour or tooth brushing activity that will reduce the thermal and mechanical

behaviour of wire. In this research, sodium fluoride and lactic acid was used to study its effect toward thermal and mechanical

behaviour of NiTi arch wire. It was found that the longer the exposure time in acidic solution, the thermal and mechanical properties

will reduce more compare to fluoride solution. This is proven by surface morphology on the SEM image, that obviously show that

the erosion on the surface of orthodontic wire will reducing the thermal and mechanical behaviour and also lead to Nickel ion release

into the human body. It can be concluded that higher value of acidity contribute high rate of corrosion toward the orthodontic arch

wire.

MUHAMMAD DANISH HAZIQ BIN SHAHIDAN (120398) & Dr. Teoh Yew Heng (TYH) EFFECT OF DIFFERENT PERCENTAGES OF BIODIESEL-DIESEL BLENDS ON COMBUSTION, PERFORMANCE AND EMISSION CHARACTERISTICS OF DIESEL ENGINE

A comparative study of effect of different percentages of biodiesel-diesel blends (B20, B45 and base diesel) on performance, emission

and combustion at nine different speed (1600, 1800, 2000, 2200, 2400, 2600, 2800, 3000 and 3200) was carried out. The engine torque

for B45 shows the highest compared with B20 and base diesel. However, the torque reduce at high speed for every biodiesel-diesel

blend and base diesel. Carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC) and smoke emissions decreased will all biodiesel-diesel blends.

However, nitrogen oxide (NO) emission increase at 2600 rpm for all biodiesel-diesel blends and base diesel due to oxygenated fuel,

automatic dynamic injection timing (DIT), higher penetration and higher temperature. The ignition delay period decreased as increase

the biodiesel percentage due to high cetane number. Besides, the pressure rise was low as cetane number increased so engine running

smoothly.

MUHAMMAD HAZIQ BIN ABU BAKAR (120399) & Dr. Mohamad Ikhwan Zaini Ridzwan (MIZR) SIMULATION OF MUSCLE LOADING IN TWO ACTIVITIES WITH FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

No doubt that muscle play important role in manipulating the strain distribution of the femoral bone. However, the significances are

yet to be measured clearly in any literature. This study is conducted to determine the significances of muscles forces in walking and

stairs climbing activities and establish which muscle (abductor, vastus lateralis or vastus medialis) is important in those activities. 3-

D model of the femoral bone was constructed from CT datasets and appropriate loading conditions were subjected to it. The maximum

and minimum strains at two regions of interest (femoral neck and femoral shaft) were recorded. The FE outcomes showed that, for

walking activity, muscles activation (abductor and vastus lateralis) contributed to significant changes in strain distribution (95%,

based on student t-test) in femoral neck region. In stairs climbing activity, contribution of muscles (abductor, vastus lateralis and

medialis) is also notable in femoral neck region (95%, based on student t-test). Hence, muscles is indeed contributed significantly and

required to be incorporated in the analysis.


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MUHAMMAD SHAHRULLAH BIN ABDUL AZIZ (120401) & Mr. Abdul Yamin Saad (AYS) DEVELOPMENT OF LOCALISED DRIVE CYCLE UNDER REAL TRAFFIC CONDITION

A drive cycle is a series of data points representing the speed of a vehicle against time. It is widely used for vehicle manufacturers,

environmentalists and traffic engineers. The drive cycle of cars plays important roles in fuel consumption. A few years ago, the sales

statistic for passenger cars in Malaysia was increased gradually[4]. Drive cycle that represents the real-world driving conditions had

been proposed and estimation vehicle fuel consumption was compared with measured results. The purpose of this study is to develop

a localised drive cycle in a real traffic condition. Furthermore, the study needs to estimate the fuel consumption of the car. The

development of the drive cycle of the vehicle involves three steps: test route selection, data collection, and drive cycle development.

Firstly, the selection of the routes also was conducted. The driving cycle was established for the urban area and also for the extra-

urban area. The study used the on board measurement method which is by using the application from the smart phone that can help

to collect the speed of the vehicle along the road and produce the speed-time profile. The second part of the project was to estimate

the fuel consumption of the same car using the data from on board meter of the car compare with the sample calculation that produced

by drive cycle. The parameters that can compare are duration, total distance travelled, maximum speed and average speed. The

reference data is from the NEDC data. The method is user-friendly. The fuel consumption of the car was produced in term of litre per

100km. The results are in a good fit to the estimated values. The localised drive cycle has their patterns that represent the behavior of

the road test. So this drive cycle cannot be comparing with others country.

NAHWAN HUSSAINI BIN ADNAN (120402) & Dr. Mohamad Yusof Idroas (MYI) EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF AN INLET GUIDE VANE DESIGN (IGVD) FOR EMULSIFIED BIOFUEL APPLICATION IN DIESEL ENGINE The diesel engine is one of the need in many industries including automotive, marine and others. In this project, the main focus was

to design and produce the guide vanes to improve the performance of diesel engines. The scope of this study was to investigate the

effect of different number of vanes and angle of guide vanes towards performance of L70AE Yanmar diesel engine. In this study,

nine samples of guide vanes have been designed and produced. The different angles of the guide vanes that have been produced were

20˚, 25˚, 30˚, 35˚ and 40˚, while different number of guide vanes also designed and produced were 3, 4, 5 and 6 vanes. Alternative

fuels also has been widely used in various industries for various purposes because fossil fuel resources are dwindling. Thus, fuels

such as bio-oil emulsion, has been used to replace diesel fuel. In this study, emulsified biofuel was produced by using palm oil that

has been mixed with water. The mixture was blended using an ultrasonic homogenizer. Emulsion between oil and water able to

produce the phenomenon of micro explosions. The different percentage of water in oil solution would give a different effect. Thus

the properties each percentage of 1-5% water content samples were studied, including the size of microstructure, density and calorific

value. Emulsified biofuel with 5% of water content has a size about 4µm, (in the range to produce the phenomenon of micro

explosions). The sample of design guide vanes were tested to obtain the mass flow rate of fuel, engine torque, brake power, brake

specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency and brake mean effective pressure by using emulsified biofuel with 5% water

content. The best diesel engine performance was observed at the optimum conditions of 3 number of vane and 40 degree angle of

vane using the emulsified biofuel at 5% water composition. Approximately torque produced is about 14Nm, brake power is 5kW,

brake specific fuel consumption is 0.4kg / kwh, brake thermal efficiency is 24% and brake mean effective pressure is 280kPa.

NINA AMANINA BINTI MARJI (120403) & Dr. Mohd Sharizal Abdul Aziz (MSAA) THE EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE AND RHEOLOGY OF SOLDER PASTE DURING SMT PRINTING AND REFLOW SOLDERING PROCESS

The presence of defects such as solder bump, bridging effect, tombstoning and poor wetting are the common failures in Surface Mount

Technology. Two experiments which are SMT Printing and reflow soldering are built and tested to study the effect of temperature

and rheology of solder pastes in SMT laboratory, thus finding the main source of the defects. In this study, the microstructures of

solder paste on PCB and copper substrate are inspected under Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). It is focused on three parameters

that affect the performance of PCB, which includes (1) the filling areas of solder paste (2) the distance between BGA (3) defects


15

detected after reflow process. In particular, the filling area decreases as the temperature increases during SMT printing process. On

the other hand, SAC307 on copper substrate after reflow soldering shows the smallest area and distance compared to other solder

pastes. Lastly, SnPb possessed the most defects after reflow process which is solder bridging of the paste.

NUR AZIMA BINTI AZIZ JAAFAR (120405) & Dr. Ahmad Zhafran Ahmad Mazlan (AZAM) CHARACTERIZATON OF THE SANDWICH-TYPE BEAM WITH DOUBLE PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIALS USING ANSYS SOFTWARE In this study, the characteristics of the sandwich-type aluminium beam with one pair of piezoelectric patches are investigated. The

study uses ANSYS-16 software as a platform to create the finite element (FE) model of the sandwich-type beam. Two case studies

are investigated for beam characteristics which are the single beam and beam with piezoelectric patches. Firstly, the modal analysis

has been carried out, and four natural frequencies have been determining for both cases. Then, the transient analysis is done by

applying the sine wave force excitation at the edge of the right-end of the beam. The analysis is carried out for the frequency range of

0-500 Hz. The results show that, the beam is tending to excite at the natural frequencies when the excitation frequencies are closed to

the natural frequencies of the beam structure. The characteristic of the piezoelectric patch as an actuator is also analyzed by applying

sine wave voltage excitation to the piezoelectric patch. The results show that, the piezoelectric patch material has the possibility to be

used as an actuator to reduce the vibration of the beam structure.

NUR LIYANA BINTI MOHAMAD FADZIELI (120406) & Assoc. Prof. Dr Roslan Ahmad INVESTIGATION OF DYNAMIC FAILURE MECHANISM OF KENAF COMPOSITE USING SEM

The dynamic tests were carried out by using Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) apparatus. The test were conducted on Kenaf

composite at strain rates of 872 −1, 1003 −1 and 1594 −1 per sec. The stress strain curves at various strain rate were plotted and

discussed. Consequently, a quasi-static test on similar material were conducted on Universal Testing Machine (UTM) and the result

were compared to the dynamic tests regarding to the failure mechanism. Failure of specimen from all tests were investigated using a

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The result for the stress-strain graph show the maximum failure stress is increasing depend on

the increasing strain rate. At the dynamic compression, the failure mechanism more progressive at the higher strain rate. The initial

failure mode at the dynamic loading the failure occur starting at the matrix cracking whereas at the static compression the initial

debonding mode presented.

NUR MUHAIMIN AIDIL BIN MUHAIMI (120407) & Mr. Khairil Faizi Mustafa (KFM) DESIGNING A COMBUSTION CHAMBER FOR CASCADING THERMOELECTRIC AND THERMOPHOTOVOLTAIC POWER SYSTEM This work focuses on the design of the combustion chamber which is used for cascading the thermoelectric (TE) and

thermophotovoltaic (TPV) power system. Thus, the design is according to the characteristics of each of the cells itself where the

suitable position of installation on both cells in the combustion chamber is needed. One of the important characteristic is due to how

the cells is functioning to generate the electricity so, for TPV cell is converting the radiation energy into the electricity and TE cell

convert the thermal energy directly into the electricity. However, TE cells have low efficiency for generate electric power than TPV

cells. The development of concept of the design in cascading TE and TPV power generation is where the used heat stream or produced

by the TPV is applied to the input of TE cells. The picture of the design as the combustion chamber in a vertical cylinder shape, the

TE and TPV cells is installed in vertical sequence where the TE is on the top of the chamber and TPV cells at the middle of the

chamber which is closer to the source. Besides, the combustion chamber use the porous media combustion (PMC) as the source of

combustion to enhance the combustion process. Furthermore, one of the important characteristic of this design is the swirl flow of air

in the combustion chamber. The tangential tunnel to the combustion chamber was designed to make the swirl flow. It is an enormous

challenge to fabricate this part due to the curvy surface but it can enhance the heat transfer in the combustion chamber. In other hand,

TE plate is designed to be an adjustable height with five difference height to have a good position for the TE modules. Based on the

experiment, temperatures reading show the design is acceptable.


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ONG HORNG NENG (120409) & Dr. Teoh Yew Heng (TYH) COMPARATIVE STUDY OF VEHICLE FUEL ECONOMY WITH AND WITHOUT ENGINE START-STOP STRATEGIES The start-stop functionality is widely used as a fuel saving solution for on-highway vehicles, being constantly studied and implemented

in new series models. The subject of this work is to demonstrate the same start-stop functionality applied for city road vehicles in

Malaysia. The implementation of the start-stop system in a conventional car aims for a reduction on fuel consumption and prolong

the fuel economy. The start-stop behavior is recorded by using OBD-II adapter through ECU. These interventions are important

discussions topics and include fuel consumption study by using forward facing model developed. The data recorded via OBD-II is

analyzed and used as input in the Simulink model. The result shows that the fuel economy can be boosted up to 1.412%. This indicates

that vehicle with start –stop practice can travel further with same amount of petrol when comparing to conventional vehicle.

SAIFUL SYAZWAN B SHAMSUL JAMIL (120411) & Mr. Abdul Yamin Saad (AYS) ON THE PERFORMANCE OF THE MOTORCYCLE ENGINE USING USED LUBRICANT OIL Due to the rapid need in automotive industries, the production of lubricant oil is so abundant in the market, Manufacturers seek

different technologies such as additives and blend. Due to highly competitive market, this however, increases the price of engine oil

keep arising as many manufacturer competing to sell their product. The cost of vehicle maintenance thus become a burden to the

users. Users then try to discover methods in order to reduce the maintenance cost of their vehicle. In this study, the engine oil that has

been used for several mileage will be reused in order to study the effect on the engine performance, particularly the torque and power

of the engine. The effect will be analysed whether it is practically safe or not to reused the oil to lubricate the engine. The engine was

run using different types of used oil at Wide Open Throttle (WOT). The performance graph will be compared with base engine oil.

Result showed that there were slight drop in performance which are the torque is in the range of around 0.1 - 3.58 % whereas the

horsepower is in the range between 0.01 - 3.8 %. This is due to drop in effectiveness of the used engine oil. The composition of the

used engine oil may also affect the performance drop. This is because the operating condition of the engine has accumulated with

carbon deposit, which consequently affect the efficiency too. However, in the economical aspect, this method could benefit many

vehicle user in order for them to reduce their maintenance cost. Based on few sample of calculation Users could save up to 50% of

their maintenance cost using reused oil or by extending the mileage interval service.

SAPARUDDIN BIN NUDIN (120412) & Prof. Dr. Zainal Alimuddin Zainal Alauddin (ZAZA) PERFORMANCE OF MICRO GAS TURBINE COMBUSTION CHAMBER WITH DIESEL FUEL Development of micro gas turbine has increased in recent year due to high reliability and the ability of self-generating. MGT system

also provides lower power losses and it can operate on both renewable and non-renewable fuels with low level of gas emission.

However, without right design of combustion chamber, sufficient amount air and better spray characteristic of liquid fuel will causes

incomplete combustion occurred and lead to high level of gas emissions. In this paper, a MGT system was developed by using a

Garret turbocharger GT25 with a combustion chamber to operate with diesel fuel. A spraying characteristic was studied of diesel fuels

using various nozzles. The MGT system was characterized experimentally with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for warm up session

and diesel fuel for full operation. The MGT system has achieved low level of CO and NOx emission of about 95ppm and 31ppm

respectively. Besides that, design of dilution zone at the combustion chamber able to prevent temperature of gas exhaust exceeding

1000oC.

SHARON MELISSA KON JIA YI (120413) & Dr. Mohamad Aizat Abas (MAA) VALIDATION STUDY OF SULTAN ABU BAKAR DAM USING NUMERICAL FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION METHOD

The purpose of dams are for the use of power generation, water supply and agricultural activities. The huge volume of water enclosed

in the dam structure poses a significant threat if it is not handled properly. In the event of dam breaks, it can bring much destruction


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to infrastructures and neighbourhood. Hence it is necessary to maintain the structural integrity of the dam by monitoring the water

flow and its characteristics. A study is carried out to model the Sultan Abu Bakar dam using the Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI)

method. The main purpose of the study is to find the volumetric flow rate of water flow and its force which acts on the radial gates.

The data obtained will be used to validate the physical experimental model. The simulation is by via the ANSYS software which

incorporates the application of finite elements analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Data is extracted and

calculated using equations based on the basic laws of physics. The reliability of the model is assessed by comparing the results taken

from both simulation and experiment. It is found to be satisfactory and reasonably accurate.

SIEW MUN HONG (120414) & Dr. Ooi Lu Ean (OLE) VIBRATION AND NOSE IDENTIFICATION OF CONVEYOR SYSTEM Chain conveyor systems are essential machines which are commonly used in manufacturing line in all sorts of industries to provide

solutions in transferring a variety of goods and items within a factory. The vibration spots and high sound pressure level produced by

the chain conveyor system were identified and validated by various types of experiments. Microflown Scan & Paint sound

measurement and Siemens LMS Test lab sound experiment were carried out to determine the sound source, while LK-G Series Laser

head displacement experiment, Modal Analysis and Operating Deflection Shape (ODS) experiment were performed on chain

conveyor system to determine the vibration spots along the conveyor beam. The sound sources on FL chain conveyor system were

identified on four different sections: Motor area, Chain slack area, Joint area and section formed by coordinates B24, A24, B28 and

A28 while the vibration spots on the conveyor system were found out to be at Joint area, Leg supports, Idler end and from Motor area

to B28 and A28 section. The sound pressure level measured from experiements were converted to A-weightage by DAQ and all the

sound source on the chain conveyor system was proven to be originated from the vibration spots.

SITI NURAIMI BT ABDUL HAMID (120416) & Dr. Feizal Yusof (FY) DEVELOPMENT OF A CRACK MOUTH DISPLACEMENT GAUGE FOR FRACTURE MECHANICS SPECIMENS Crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) gauge was designed to perform fracture mechanic testing on fracture mechanic

specimen. In this project, a CMOD gauge was developed to be used in fracture mechanic testing. The designed CMOD gauge follows

the standard by ASTM E399-09. Selection of materials was taken to select suitable materials used to develop the CMOD gauge.

Compact (CT) specimen was used as the fracture mechanic specimen for the test using fabricated CMOD gauge. From the test, crack

mouth opening displacement, Vm was calculated with 0.075974 mm and compared with the theoretical value with error obtained was

1.3%. This result conclude that the designed CMOD gauge can be used to performed the fracture toughness test with error less than

5% which was considered low. Crack length propagation was calculated using strain for every 50 seconds. The crack length growth

was calculated by using the strain value. The final cost calculated to fabricate the CMOD gauge was RM 364.19. The costs obtained

was extremely cheaper than the current market price for CMOD gauge. The development of CMOD gauge proved to be cost effective

and the developed CMOD gauge are able to performed fracture mechanic testing.

SYED MUHAMMAD SYIMIR BIN SYED MOHAMED ANUAR (120417) & Dr. Yu Kok Hwa (YKH) CFD CALCULATION OF IMPINGING CONFINED GAS JET FLAMES/FIRES

The Piper Alpha disaster incident occurred in 1998 clearly demonstrated the potential risk that could result in escalation of hazards

when jet fires impinge on structures. Impinging jets flow has been widely used in many industrial applications as a technique to

enhance heat and mass transfer in heating, cooling, and drying cases. Jet fires method usually occurs in house process equipment

inside the offshore facilities where the probability of having flame impinging on vessels, pipework, and structural support is high.

The nature of jet fires that propagate under flame-turbulence interaction flow and high pressure could cause failures to all equipment.

This leads to the interest in studying jet fire characteristic in predicting the potential risk to structures and personnel of accidental

ignition releases. This research focused on the study of combustion characteristics through the effect of impinging jet flames in a

confined area. In this study, a numerical investigation on the heat transfer rate over the flame temperature at combustor wall is made.

SolidWorks software is used to model the physical problem while ANSYS Fluent software is used to simulate flow behavior of


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impinging jet fire in a confined area. Three factors have been examined, i.e., the thickness of the combustor wall, size of nozzle, and

radiation effect. The results show that temperature is the highest at the combustor wall when the wall thickness is 0.3 mm and the size

of nozzle is 0.2 mm in diameter, which both at 380.28 K. The results also indicate that if the radiation effect is taken into account, a

higher temperature reading is expected at the combustor wall. The results also show that high heat transfer rate occurs for thin wall,

big nozzle size in diameter, and without consideration of radiation.

TAN ZHENG HENG (120418) & Professor Dr. Zainal Alimuddin Zainal Alauddin (ZAZA) PERFORMANCE TESTING OF LPG-FIRED MONOTUBE STEAM GENERATOR

Small-sized steam generators are useful in power generation applications such as small scale power generation and utility purposes.

The monotube boiler design is one of the safest designs available due to lower operating pressure and well-contained water tubes. In

recent years, many optimizations have been done to improve boiler efficiency to reduce emissions and fuel usage. However most of

the studies are done on larger boilers where the impact is most significant whereas studies on smaller boilers are few. This paper

studies the performance of a specific monotube boiler in terms of efficiency and output. The efficiency and output are plotted against

energy input to know the performance characteristics of the monotube boiler. Heat and mass balance was done as verification to the

steam output data. It is determined that the specific design of monotube boiler have significant lower efficiency (15-18%) than

conventional boilers. Modifications are needed to be made for the boiler to be feasible or commercial or practical usage.

TEE KAH HUI (120419) & Ir. Dr. Yen Kin Sam (YKS) APPOINTMENT-BASED QUEUE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM USING GEOLOCATION INFORMATION

Queues are often seen in hospitals across Malaysia. Majority of outpatient departments (OPD) receive patients by unscheduled walk-

in which results in an uncontrollable and unpredictable arrival rate. When the arrival rate exceeds the service capacity of OPD, a

queue is formed. Patients are required to queue for more than two hours at OPD in Malaysia government hospital. Hence, reduction

of waiting time is one of the major issues that need to be tackled. Previous works have never consider reducing the waiting time by

controlling the arrival rate of OPD patient. This work aims to develop an appointment-based queue management system using

geolocation information (GeoQueue) to tackle long queues. A current OPD queue model was simulated with discrete-event simulation

(DES) method. Average waiting time of a queue was obtained as the performance index. GeoQueue was developed to provide the

patients a time slot to arrive at OPD based on their geolocation information. Result from that, the arrival rate of patient is controllable

and predictable. A uniform arrival rate of 16 patients per hour was achieved with GeoQueue. Simulation model reveals that the

GeoQueue realizes a shorter waiting time for patients. Average waiting time of patients had been reduced by 62%.

TEOH CHENG LAY (120420) & Dr. Muhammad Iftishah Ramdan (MIR) DEVELOPMENT OF INSTANTANEOUS FUEL CONSUMPTION MEASURING SYSTEM USING ARDUINO

Instantaneous fuel consumption measurement is playing a key role in combating fuel price hike by allowing drivers to constantly

change their driving behavior to obtain lower fuel consumption while driving. This paper introduces a method of measuring

instantaneous fuel consumption of a vehicle through pulse wave measurement of the injector signal by using Arduino. The

instantaneous fuel consumption measuring system developed is accurate and reliable with a percentage difference between the

measured value and actual value to be less than 8.2%. This measuring system is intended to be used in vehicles that do not have a

builtin instantaneous fuel consumption measuring system.

THENESH A/L SELVAM (120421) & Professor Dr. Mani Maran Ratnam (MMR) EFFECT OF TOOL WEAR ON TURNED SURFACE USING CONTINOUS WAVELET TRANSFORM


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This paper deals with the experimental study of the effect of tool wear on the surface machined profile uing continuous wavelet

transform during turning operation of stainless steel workpiece using coated carbide tool inserts gred GC2025. By using a proper

wavelet family to represent the profile of the turned surface, evaluation on which wavelet family is suitable to study the effect of tool

wear on the turned surface’s profile is also done in this paper. Coefficients values such as mean, root-mean square and variance are

extracted from the wavelet profile of the surface to observe the relationship of these coefficients values to the effect of the tool wear

on the turned surface.

TIEW YIN CHENG (120422) & Professor Dr. Zaidi bin Mohd. Ripin (ZMR) SMART LEG REHABILITATION SYSTEM

The function of the lower limb can be affected by stroke, accident or even aging. Paralysis on one side of the body is a common effect

of stroke which diminishes the strength and control of the lower limb. The lower limb can be rehabilitated by means of exercise. The

passive exercise is when the muscle is moved by the means of external force and the active exercise is when the muscle exerted the

force necessary to create the motion. Passive range of motion exercises are for stroke survivors who are left with mild to severe

paralysation, or paresis. These exercises can help prevent muscle stiffness and spasticity which is the limited coordination and muscle

movement. Resistive exercises involve conscious control of the muscle and physical effort exerted into muscular activity to improve

neural path formation. The aim of this project is to develop a combination of rehabilitation system based on assistive and resistive

mode of motions which cover the flexion-extension of the leg as it is found that the lifting index of conventional rehabilitation by

physiotherapists is more than 1 which indicates a high risk of back pain (according to NIOSH). The assistive mode of motion is set at

10s per motion at 6 cycles per minute which allows a high intensity and repetitive form of knee extension and flexion and also dorsi-

plantar motions. The input pad is used as the data entry and also for data display for monitoring and recording purposes. A simulated

paretic limb for a 45kg person has carried out the passive mode of motion and an average force of 32N is obtained. Then healthy leg

force measurement is carried out at which the person has exerted the maximum pushing force when the cylinder is at rest in retraction

mode and obtained a simulated maximum force of 120N. Resistive rehabilitation exercise is for patient who has slowly regain some

strength. It aims to regain lost movement after stroke by strengthening the neural pathways in the brain that enable the performance

of the movement. The patient is required to exert force on the leg and the force being exerted by the patient during the hip-knee joint

extension will be measured by the load cell at the foot rest. The reading from the load cell is taken as an input to a control system

within myRIO to determine whether enough force has been applied to allow the motion. A pre-set force value of 40N is set in active

mode of motion. The system will only complete the knee extension motion if the paretic limb has achieved the pre-set force value and

it will end the process when it is unable to achieve the pre-set value. This provides a mean for quantitatively monitoring the motor

recovery during rehabilitation. This active mode of motion provides positive feedback on the recovery of the muscle strength that

motivates the patient to work harder to overcome the pre-set force value. The developed system highlight the advantages of the system

in collecting data, driving the actuators, providing suitable resistance level for active exercise based on closed loop control system

and to record the achievement of the patient.

TING KIN CHOON (120423) & Dr. Ooi Lu Ean (OLE) EXPERIMENTAL PARAMETERS STUDY OF MICRO-PERFORATED PANEL AND THE APPLICATION ON VACUUM CLEANER Micro-perforated panel (MPP) are acoustic absorbers that are reclaimable, non-combustible, and environmentally friendly compared

with traditional porous materials. The acoustic performance of MPP sound absorber depends on four major design parameters, such

as perforation diameter, perforation ratio, air cavity depth, and thickness of the panel. In this experimental study, analysis of sound

absorption coefficient of MPP sound absorber at constant thickness with different perforation diameter, perforation ratio and backing

cavity were conducted by using transfer function method (impedance tube). The result showed that small perforation diameter 0.2mm

give large acoustic resistance which turns to increase the overall sound absorption coefficient of MPP sound absorber. Then, the

increase in the perforation ratio from 0.19% to 1.72% increased the sound absorption peak coefficient and shifted toward high

frequency. The increasing in the backing cavity depth from 5mm to 30mm was shifted the sound absorption coefficient peak frequency

to lower frequency range. Overall, the experimental result showed correlation agreement to Maa model. At the last of the paper, the

parameter of MPP was optimized tuned by simulated annealing algorithm. Then, the optimized MPP sound absorber was applied to


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a small utility vacuum cleaner with power 1800W in order to prove the MPP in real life application and the results showed that the

overall noise level reduced by 2.2dB(A) which is 2.69% from the overall operating noise of vacuum cleaner.

UMA PUTRA A/L SILVER RAJU (120424) & Dr. Inzarulfaisham Abd Rahim (IAR) SIMULATION OF A LINEAR BUCKLING PHENOMENA IN THE STUDY OF SCOLIOSIS SPINE DISORDER Scoliosis is a medical condition where the spine is laterally curved more than 10 degreed, forming a “S” or “C” shape instead of a

usual straight shape. Scoliosis affects almost 3% of the population and more than 80 % of the cases of scoliosis is idiopathic, which

means the cause the unknown. From a biological perspective, scoliosis is mainly attributed to the growth of the spine itself. This

differs from the view in engineering fields where the spine is assumed to be a column which buckles under axial compressive

loadings. Three simple spine models (rectangular columns) were constructed to model the behaviour of spine when it is subjected to

axial compressive loadings. The critical load for the spine is calculated analytically. Graphs were constructed to show the correlation

between increasing buckling coefficients (buckling load factor) and parameters used to model the spine (spine dimensions). Buckling

modes and buckling coefficients are used to prove that scoliosis obeys the linear buckling phenomenon. By proving that scoliosis

obeys the linear buckling phenomenon, future research can be done to reduce the effect the buckling of the spine or in other words,

to reduce the curvature progress of the spine.

VISHNUWAARAN A/L MANIVELU (120425) & Prof. Dr. Zainal Alimuddin Zainal Alauddin (ZAZA) DEVELOPMENT AND PERFOMANCE OF COGENERATION BIOMASS STOVE INTEGRATED WITH THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR (TEG) The usage of biomass stoves is all over the place in rural area of developing countries. It is essential to use all the available resources

without letting it go waste such as the waste heat from the stove. A rocket stove has been developed at USM for cooking. The stove

has been designed to be smokeless and high efficient stove. But the wall of the stove is still hot and heat is lost to the surrounding.

Small scale independent electrical generator for home usage such as charging phone, tab and laptop is not available. This is a need to

develop a small scale power generator based on rocket stove which dedicated for power generation. So, two upgraded cogeneration

biomass stoves with different purposes has been developed in our workshop and prototypes have been built. One stove focuses on

better performance of cooking, and at the same time generating power. Another stove focuses on better performance of power

generation, and can use for cooking at the same time. A module called thermoelectric generator (TEG) has integrated with the stove

in order to generate electricity from the waste heat to power the basic electric equipment. This paper discusses the data obtained from

the experiment using commercial TEG compare with the theoretical data for both stoves. Lastly, two different experimental set up

using the TEG and the stoves is presented showing that TEGs generate 2.15W and 4.69W power from each stove and ready to be

used as possible power generator at rural area.

WAN MOHD ALIMIE BIN WAN AHMAD (120427) & Dr. Mohd Azmi Ismail (MAI) SIMULATION STUDY OF HEAT EXCHANGER DESIGN

Heat exchangers are used to transfer heat from fluid at high temperature to fluid at lower temperature. Heat exchangers are used in

industrial purposes in chemical industries, nuclear power plants, refineries, food processing, etc. Sizing of heat exchangers plays very

significant role for cost optimization. Also, efficiency and effectiveness of heat exchangers is an important parameter while selection

of industrial heat exchangers. Methods for improvement on heat transfer have been worked upon for many years in order to obtain

high efficiency with optimum cost. In this project, we are analyzing shell and tube heat exchanger with baffle plates by changing tube

material. The process in solving simulation consists of modeling and meshing the basic geometry of shell and tube heat exchanger

using FLUENT package ANSYS 14.0. Dimensions for the model are taken by existing heat exchanger used by PETRONAS Carigali

SDN BHD. In this project, modeling of shell and tube heat exchanger with baffles tubes and supports created by using GAMBIT

software. Then, the boundary condition will be set and simulate in FLUENT based on the industrial data. The scope of this paper is

to study the heat transfer rate of heat exchanger using ANSYS FLUENT 14.0 software tool. The flow and temperature fields inside

the shell and tube are resolved using a commercial FLUENT package. Our heat exchanger consists of two fluids (crude oil and Danol-


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XHT) of different starting temperatures flow through the heat exchanger. Heat transfer rate of the heat exchanger were calculated by

mathematical modeling equations. Tubes were varied with different materials likes copper, aluminum, carbon steel and graphene.

Finally analysis has been done by varying the tube materials and hence it is observed that copper material gives the better heat transfer

rates than aluminum, carbon steel and graphene.

WONG LIANG CHERN (120429) & Dr. Loh Wei Ping (LWP) VIBRATING EXPOSURE ON ON-LINE AND OFF-LINE HANDWRITING RECOGNITION Handwriting recognition refers to the transformation of a language into symbolic representation from its visual marks [1]. Off-line

handwriting recognition involves the interpretation and conversion of handwritten character from a hardcopy, whereas on-line

handwriting recognition involves constant dynamic conversion of text as it is written on a digital device. Previous related work has

focused on the techniques and methods applied in feature extraction. However, no study has reported on effects of vibration to the

handwriting patterns. Handwritings with exposure to vibration tend to show variation from original handwriting style. Hence, this

study applies the data mining technique to analyse the features extracted from the handwritings to compare between with and without

vibration impact. The objectives of the study are to (i) study the effects of vibration to the recognition of the handwriting characteristic,

(ii) classify handwriting by the vibration, and (iii) relate the differences in handwritten characters recognition by the vibrating impact.

Four stages of data analyses are involved: data collection, pre-processing, processing, and knowledge discovery. KStar, PART, and

J48 classification algorithms were used to classify the data into four predefined classes: on-line normal, on-line vibration, off-line

normal, and off-line vibration. The percentage of classification accuracy achieved from the three algorithms are 100%, 92%, and 96%

respectively. Whether with or without vibration impact, case study findings revealed that the length of last word and second

measurement of size are the crucial identities of a person’s handwriting.

WONG POOI MUN (120430) & Dr. Ooi Lu Ean (OLE) COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ADAPTIVE FILTER IN NOISE CANCELLATION

Adaptive filters have been widely used in adaptive noise cancellation (ANC) applications, including telecommunication. Various

adaptive filters that uses least mean square (LMS) algorithm as basis are available with each performance varies in terms of

convergence rate and accuracy in estimation of noise for noise reduction. This paper compares the performance parameters between

three adaptive filters: single LMS, cascaded LMS and cross-coupled LMS by evaluating the mean square error (MSE), improved

signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and convergence rate. Simulation models of the respective adaptive filter were built in LabVIEW. Using

these models, ANC was simulated by cancelling noise from corrupted speech at the optimum step-size of each respective adaptive

filter. The simulation results are validated through measurements carried out in real-time using myRIO 1900 real time (RT) platform.

It was found that cascaded LMS filter has the highest improved SNR, smallest average MSE at its respective optimum step-size and

the fastest convergence rate at the same step-size as the other adaptive filter. Cross-coupled LMS albeit able to perform when the

noise reference input was corrupted by the desired speech, has the lowest improved SNR, largest average MSE and the lowest

convergence rate. This meant that the ascending order of the most accurate and effective adaptive filter was cross-coupled LMS,

single LMS and cascaded LMS.

YEOH SHEN HORNG (120431) & Dr. Loh Wei Ping (LWP) FINGER MOTION IN CLASSIFYING OFFLINE HANDWRITING PATTERNS

Offline handwriting recognition refers to the ability of a machine to receive and interpret a previous individual-made handwritten

input from a photographed or scanned image. In previous studies, the offline handwriting classification is determined solely based on

the handwriting patterns. To the best of our knowledge, no studies were found to predict the English words inclination based on the

finger motions. Therefore, this study aims to relate the finger movements to handwriting patterns. The specific objectives include: (i)

to determine whether finger motion attributes can distinguish patterns of handwriting, (ii) classify handwriting patterns by sentence

inclination based on different finger motion, (iii) to investigate the rule-reasoning statements between the finger motion and the

handwriting inclinations. This study involves the features extractions from handwriting patterns of 30 subjects with recorded videos


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of finger movements during writings. Raw data undergo three stages of data mining analyses; data preprocessing, data classification

and data interpretation. The preprocessed data is classified using the J48 tree algorithm. The correctly classified accuracy prediction

after trained could achieve up to 98 %, Finding revealed that the angle of thumbs plays a significant role in classification of the

inclination of the English sentence.

Documents

Collection of Abstracts - mechanical.eng.usm.my · Then, a rope brake dynamometer system was used to determine the engine’s efficiency. A rope brake dynamometer, measures the output