The Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (KSCST) recently approved two student project proposals from the Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru for sponsorship under its Student Projects Program 2012-2013.
This 36th edition will provide support for BTech and MTech projects that are relevant to society and help in development and demonstration of useful technologies by students.
The two Amrita student projects selected to receive funding are Automatic Garbage Bin – Waste Segregation System and Flow Visualization over Different Aerodynamic Bodies in the Wind Tunnel.
Final-year BTech students of Mechanical Engineering, Upendra Shenoy M., Gadicherla Sreeram, Vissa Surya Sasank and Akarapu Ajay Krishna Reddy have teamed up to build the automatic garbage bin.
Prashanth B. N., Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering is playing a pivotal role, mentoring and guiding these students.
The second project on flow visualization is also led by final-year BTech students of Mechanical Engineering, Aneesh Ravikumar, Mohammad Irfan, R. Madan and Siva Sembian. Here, Dr. S. R. Nagaraja, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering is providing guidance.
“Our automatic garbage bin can help with effective waste management at the locality-level. Even though segregation of waste at source has been mandated in our city, practically we find that laborers have to do it manually. The implementation of our system would be preferred in such cases and would result in a lower cost as well. Academic institutions, offices and small / medium enterprises can implement these as well,” explained student members of the first team.
The students plan to use processes and techniques of magnetic separation, air classification, density separation to implement their proposed system. They visualize different chambers in the garbage bin with automatic release doors to segregate the waste in three stages.
“If food waste is not mixed with the other types of waste, then the major components of the municipal waste stream are paper, plastic and metal. Most of this waste, if properly segregated, can be recycled. These materials span a wide range of bulk densities and moisture content, resulting in a wide range heating values, hence burning is not recommended,” the students explained.
Meanwhile, the second team is getting ready to undertake flow visualization experiments using various aerodynamic bodies in a low-speed wind tunnel.
“Our wind tunnel has a test section of 250 mm x 250 mm and a blower with capacity of 10450 m3/ hr. A pitot tube will be fabricated for flow velocity measurement. Different NACA airfoils will be fabricated as well, along with a mounting stand, to adjust the airfoils at different angles of attack. A jet smoke will be generated to aid the flow visualization experiments. The lift and drag forces, acting on various aerodynamic bodies will be thus measured,” student team members explained.
But what will be the practical use of their work?
“A major problem faced by physicists and engineers working with fluids is the identification of various physical parameters responsible for the phenomena in fluid dynamics. This makes it almost impossible to accurately simulate or mathematically model the phenomenon theoretically. Engineers need a method to reliably test their designs. For this, we are practically recreating the fluid phenomena affecting the objects,” the students explained.
“Flaws in design pertaining to aerodynamics can be identified using a wind tunnel. A wind tunnel can also be used to observe and record data from fluid phenomena more easily. We will use the wind tunnel for demonstrating the effect of change in angle of attack on stream line flow over aerodynamic bodies. This can be used for aerodynamic design of various components/products,” the students added.
May 16, 2013
Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru
