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Theses

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2012 - 20195
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Subject: Farm, Machinery and Power × End date: 2019 × Start date: 2010 × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Design and development of planter for tuberose and gladiolus crops and its performacne evauation under field condition
    (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2019-07) Ananda Kumar, T. M.; Singh, T. P.
    Sowing / planting is the pivotal operation in cultivation of any crop which involves factor like correct seed rate, appropriate depth of placement, proper spacing and orientation. These parameters influence the production of crop. Presently the planting of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms is performed manually in the hilly states of Uttarakhand. The time and method adopted for planting Tuberose and Gladiolus corms decisively affect the germination and hence production. The traditional method of planting Tuberose and Gladiolus as adopted by farmers is to make shallow furrow digging with the spade and put the corm (bulb) in the furrow and cover it with the soil which is very tedious and time consuming operation. Hence, mechanization of planting of Tuberose and Gladiolus is one such area where there is a greater scope to increase its production and productivity and make it a profitable business venture for farmers. Thus it requires to develop a single planter which can plant both the crops to achieve planting operation timely. The present study was undertaken to develop a suitable planter for planting Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms in field with minimum bulb damage. During this study, the physical properties of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms namely, size, shape, bulk density, true density, porosity, moisture content, angle of repose and coefficient of friction were also studied to make good use of the result in designing the components of the planter. Firstly picker wheel type metering mechanism was developed and evaluated in the soil bin. The performance of this mechanism was not found satisfactory for both Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms. Hence, another metering mechanism, wheel with curved fingers was developed and evaluated for both Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms in soil bin. The performance of this metering mechanism was found satisfactory in soil bin test and hence a prototype planter with four rows was designed and developed by incorporating the developed metering mechanism. Thereafter the prototype planter was evaluated in actual field condition for both the mentioned crops. The performance parameters namely mean spacing, missing index, multiple index, quality feed index, coefficient of uniformity, precision, coefficient of precision (CP3 values), visible damage and number of bulbs per meter length were calculated and analyzed statistically. The economics of planter was also determined and was compared with current practice of planting of bulbs/corms i.e. manual method. From the results, the values of geometric mean diameter, arithmetic mean diameter, sphericity was found as 29.6 and 26.74 mm, 0.435 respectively. Similarly for Gladiolus corms these parameters were found as 33.91 and 34.56 mm, 0.77. The bulk density, true density, porosity and angle of repose of Tuberose bulbs were found as 656 and 875.2 kg/m3, 25.02 % and 37° respectively whereas for Gladiolus corms these values were found as 580 kg/m3, 879 kg/m3, 33.92 % and 32° respectively. The soil bin test results indicated that wheel with curved fingers type mechanism gave the better results for both Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms at forward speed of 1.5 and 2.0 km/h for all the three nominal spacings of 15, 20 and 25 cm. The quality feed index of 98.12, 93.89 and 96.26 % was obtained for Tuberose bulbs at forward speed of 1.5 km/h for nominal spacings 15, 20 and 25 cm respectively whereas for Gladiolus corms it was observed 96.37, 97.12 and 97.62 % at all three nominal spacings respectively. Visible damage of bulb/corms was found zero for all three nominal spacings at forward speeds of 1.5 and 2.0 km/h for both Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms. The result of field evaluation of planter for both crops was found better at forward speed of 1.5 km/h and wider nominal spacing of 25 cm. The draft requirement, actual field capacity and field efficiency of the planter was found as 3310.4 N, 0.135 ha/h and 83.05 % respectively. The average fuel consumption of the tractor to operate planter was observed as 6.75 lph and 50.00 l/ha. The total cost of manual planting of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms per hectare was found as Rs. 14732.00 and Rs. 15237.00 respectively while the same by planter was found as Rs. 6623.70/- per hectare. Thus a saving of 55.04 and 56.93 % was found in planting of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms by the developed planter over the compared to manual method.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Optimization of process parameters for conversion of pine needles to bio-oil, biochar and product gas through batch and continuous pyrolysis
    (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2018-04) Mandal, Sandip; Bhattacharya, T.K.
    Experiments were conducted to convert pine needles into bio-oil, biochar and product gas through pyrolysis as an alternate way to use pine needles to reduce forest fire. Batch pyrolysis of pine needles was carried out in a stainless steel tubular reactor using CO2 as sweep gas. Process parameters such as pyrolysis temperature, gas flow rate, vapour cooling temperature, heating rate, holding time were optimized by employing central composite design (CCD) in Response Surface Methodology (RSM) for the batch process. Continuous pyrolysis experiments were conducted in a screw reactor using N2 as sweep gas. Process parameters were optimized by Taguchi’s L9 Orthogonal Array. A batch type biochar production unit was also designed and developed to convert pine needles to biochar in bulk. Chemical characterization of bio-oil was conducted using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and gas chromatographic/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS). Fuel properties of bio-oil and biochar were determined using ASTM standard methods. Product gas composition was determined using gas chromatography. Bio-oil was produced from pine needles with a recovery rate of 26.7 wt.% in batch pyrolysis experiment and 28.98% in screw pyrolysis. The adaptation of response surface methodology indicated the optimum conditions for maximum bio-oil yield at pyrolysis temperature of 547C, 1.85 l min−1 gas flow rate, 15C vapour cooling temperature and 50C min−1 heating rate. The optimum conditions in screw pyrolysis experiments were pyrolysis temperature of 500C, particle size of 1.25 – 2.0 mm, residence time of 15 min and N2 gas flow rate of 30 l h–1. Bio-oil produced at optimum condition had a high heating value of 28.52 MJ kg−1 and had less oxygen content than parent material. The GC/MS analysis showed presence of about 50% phenolic compounds and many other valuable compounds. Conversion efficiency of the biochar production unit with pine needle as substrate was found to be 28.88% at 80% loading, 12% moisture and air flow rate of 40 m3 h1. Bio-char had a higher pH value and high heating value with suitability for both acid soil ameliorant and solid bio-fuel. The average composition of product gas was 6.8% H2, 65.7% N2, 3.9% CH4, 10.46% CO, 12.1% CO2 and 1.06% C2H4 with a high heating value of 4.16 MJ Nm3. The quantitative results of energy analysis indicated that the all three processes could be used to produce bio-oil, biochar and product gases to recover energy from pine needles. Among three processes, screw pyrolysis process was most energy efficient.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Studies on compatibility of tyre pyrolysis oil as fuel for diesel engine
    (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2017-08) Wankhade, Ratnakiran Dnyandeo; Bhattacharya, T.K.
    The development of alternative renewable liquid fuel has become nowadays necessity for better economy of the country and saving the environment from further deterioration. The pressure of increasing fuel prices, deteriorating global supplies of crude oil demand an urgent need of finding alternative resources. The studies were conducted to assess the performance and combustion characteristic of a CI engine on formulated fuels. Eight different fuel blends were prepared by blending high speed diesel and ethanol with distilled refined tyre pyrolysis oil in 10, 20, 30, 40, and 5, 10, 15 and 20 % ratio, respectively. The distilled refined tyre pyrolysis oil was obtained by acid treatment with different levels of H2SO4 and distillation after the moisture removal. The fuel properties like relative density, kinetic viscosity, high heat value, ash content, carbon residue, flash point, fire point, pH and copper strip corrosion were studied at every stage of refining process like initial, acid treatment, distillation and blending and compared with high speed diesel to check its suitability as fuel in CI engine. The performance of multi cylinder CI engine in terms of brake mean effective pressure, brake power, brake specific fuel consumption, fuel consumption, air-fuel ratio, heat input, heat equivalent to brake power, heat carried away by water jacket, heat carried away by exhaust gas and heat un-accounted was compared on high speed diesel as well as selected fuel blend to assess their suitability as engine fuel. The observed results of the experiment indicate that the raw tyre pyrolysis oil contain 10 to 14% moisture. Also there was improvement in the fuel properties by acid treatment but high concentration of acid resulted in low pH of the sample. Hence, acid concentration up to 6% level was most effective. It was also observed that after distillation there was also improvement in the fuel properties because of removal of suspended contaminants. It was also observed that there was positive effect of blending the distilled refined tyre pyrolysis oil with high speed diesel and ethanol which shows the non-significant differences in fuel properties. It was also clear from the performance of engine on high speed diesel blend with refined tyre pyrolysis oil that engine had similar power producing capacity from all blend compared to the diesel. The brake specific fuel consumption on blended fuels was higher than diesel. The air-fuel ratio of blends was found much lower than that of diesel at high load which indicate the poor combustion. Also, in case of ethanol engine developed same power on blends as well as diesel on all load conditions. The fuel consumption of engine increases with increase in anhydrous ethanol in blend. The air-fuel ratio was lower than diesel at all load condition. Hence, it required combustion booster as an additive and certain change in injection timing to allow more time for combustion of fuel.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Analysis of Thermal and Resistance Characteristics of Fixed-Bed Regenerator with Small D/dp Ratio
    (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2016-07) Panwar, Kuldeep; Murthy, D. S.
    The present thesis investigates the performance of the Fixed-bed regenerator from the study of inertial, viscous resistance and thermal characteristics of the packed bed regenerator with small D/dp ratios. The Ergun’s equation has been accepted widely to calculate the pressure drop in the thermal regenerator with its two coefficients, 150 and 1.75. Revised Ergun’s equation is achieved for thermal fixed-bed regenerator with new coefficients, 294 and 0.72. The values of coefficients of Ergun’s equation calculated by simulation are compared with the experimental results and are fond in good agreement. The thermal characteristics of the regenerator are studied by using 3-D transient model. The variation of pressure drop, temperature, effectiveness, velocity along the regenerator bed is studied and presented. With the help of mathematical modeling of regenerator codes are written in MATLAB software to evaluate various parameters of design of the fixed- bed regenerator. Regenerator length, switching time, thermal mean residence time and various other design parameters for maximum single-pass efficiency, maximum heat storage factor and maximum thermal efficiency of fixed-bed regenerator are calculated. The thesis also presents the 3D, CFD modelling and analysis of unsteady flow through a fixed-bed regenerator. Fixed-bed regenerator having particle to diameter ratio (D/dp) 3, 8, 12 were used to analyse the flow complexities and thermal characteristics of the regenerator. To study the detailed flow complexities within these vicinities commercial Ansys Fluent 14.0 software is used. The predicted results of pressure drop and wall effect were compared with the previous experimental results and a good agreement found between them.