Investigation of active vibration drilling using acoustic emission and cutting size analysis

This paper describes an investigation of active bit vibration on the penetration mechanisms and bit-rock interaction for drilling with a diamond impregnated coring bit. A series of drill-off tests(DOTs) were conducted where the drilling rate-of-penetration(ROP) was measured at a series of step-wise increasing static bit thrusts or weight-on-bits(WOBs). Two active DOTs were conducted by applying 60 Hz axial vibration at the bit-rock interface using an electromagnetic vibrating table mounted underneath the drilling samples, and a passive DOT was conducted where the bit was allowed to vibrate naturally with lower amplitude due to the compliance of the drilling sample mountings. During drilling, an acoustic emission(AE) system was used to record the AE signals generated by the diamond cutter penetration and the cuttings were collected for grain size analysis. The instrumented drilling system recorded the dynamic motions of the bit-rock interface using a laser displacement sensor, a load cell, and an LVDT(linear variable differential transformer) recorded the dynamic WOB and the ROP, respectively. Calibration with the drilling system showed that rotary speed was approximately the same at any given WOB, facilitating comparison of the results at the same WOB. Analysis of the experimental results shows that the ROP of the bit at any given WOB increased with higher amplitude of axial bit-rock vibration, and the drill cuttings increased in size with a higher ROP. Spectral analysis of the AEs indicated that the higher ROP and larger cutting size were correlated with a higher AE energy and a lower AE frequency. This indicated that larger fractures were being created to generate larger cutting size. Overall, these results indicate that a greater magnitude of axial bit-rock vibration produces larger fractures and generates larger cuttings which, at the same rotary speed, results in a higher ROP.

Effect of Variety and Size of Stem Cutting on Flesh Root Yield and Yield Components of Sweet Potato

Sweet potato is an important food crop which contributes to food security. Storage roots are stored in the ground and harvested when needed. In coastal Kenya, the production of the crop is limited by lack of adaptable varieties and shortage of planting materials at the onset of long rains. The prevailing prices of sweet potato vines for planting present a hindrance for sweet potato cultivation culminating to low acreages by farmers. This study was carried out during the long rains of 2011 to 2013 to determine the effect of variety and size of sweet potato cutting on root yield. Four sweet potato varieties were planted under four stem cutting sizes of four, six, eight and 10 nodes. The four varieties were K135, Bungoma, SPK004 and Mtwapa 8 （check）. The experimental design was a split plot with varieties assigned to main plots and cutting sizes to sub-plots. The number of roots per plant for Bungoma variety was significantly （P 〈 0.05） less than that for the check, and variety K135 showed significantly （P 〈 0.05） higher number of marketable root per plant than the check. The same trend was observed for root yield per hectare. The check variety had the highest percent of dry matter and was significantly higher than that of SPK004 and Bungoma varieties. There were no significant （P 〈 0.05） differences among the stem cutting sizes as regards to number of roots per plant, number of marketable root per plant and percent of dry matter. The cutting size of six nodes gave similar root yield as the recommended eight nodes, and therefore farmers can adopt shorter vines than the recommended, hence saving on the cost of planting materials.

Classification performance of model coal mill classifiers with swirling and non-swirling inlets

The classification performance of model coal mill classifiers with different bottom incoming flow inlets was experimentally and numerically studied.The flow field adjacent to two neighboring impeller blades was measured using the particle image velocimetry technique.The results showed that the flow field adjacent to two neighboring blades with the swirling inlet was significantly different from that with the non-swirling inlet.With the swirling inlet,there was a vortex located between two neighboring blades,while with the nonswirling inlet,the vortex was attached to the blade tip.The vorticity of the vortex with the non-swirling inlet was much lower than that with the swirling inlet.The classifier with the non-swirling inlet demonstrated a larger cut size than that with the swirling inlet when the impeller was stationary(~0 r·min-1).As the impeller rotational speed increased,the cut size of the cases with non-swirling and swirling inlets both decreased,and the one with the non-swirling inlet decreased more dramatically.The values of the cut size of the two classifiers were close to each other at a high impeller rotational speed(≥120 r·min-1).The overall separation efficiency of the classifier with the non-swirling inlet was lower than that with the swirling inlet,and monotonically increased as the impeller rotational speed increased.With the swirling inlet,the overall separation efficiency first increased with the impeller rotational speed and then decreased when the rotational speed was above 120 r·min-1,and the variation trend of the separation efficiency was more moderate.As the initial particle concentration increased,the cut sizes of both swirling and non-swirling inlet cases decreased first and then barely changed.At a low initial particle concentration(b 0.04 kg·m-3),the classifier with the swirling inlet had a larger cut size than that with the non-swirling inlet.

Modeling the effects of mechanical parameters on the hydrodynamic behavior of vertical current classifiers

This study modeled the effects of structural and dimensional manipulations on hydrodynamic behavior of a bench vertical current classifier. Computational fluid dynamics （CFD） approach was used as modeling method, and turbulent intensity and fluid velocity were applied as system responses to predict the over- flow cut size variations. These investigations showed that cut size would decrease by increasing diameter and height of the separation column and cone section depth, due to the decrease of turbulent intensity and fluid velocity. As the size of discharge gate increases, the overflow cut-size would decrease due to freely fluid stream out of the column. The overflow cut-size was significantly increased in downward fed classifier compared to that fed by upward fluid stream. In addition, reforming the shape of angular overflow outlet＇s weir into the curved form prevented stream inside returning and consequently unselec- tire cut-size decreasing.

Development of a drill energy utilization index for aiding selection of drill machines in surface mines

Drill machines used in surface mines, particularly in coal, is characterized by a very poor utilization （around 40%） and low availability （around 60%）. The main purpose of this study is to develop a drill selec- tion methodology and simultaneously a performance evaluation technique based on drill cuttings produced and drilling rate achieved. In all 28 blast drilled through were investigated. The drilling was accomplished by 5 different drill machines of Ingersoll-Rand and Revathi working in coal mines of Sonepur Bazari （SECL） and Block-II （BCCL）. The drills are Rotary and Rotary Percussive type using tri- cone rock roller bits. Drill cuttings were collected and sieve analysis was done in the laboratory. Using Rosin Ramler Diagram, coarseness index （CI）, mean chip size （d）, specific-st trace area （SSA） and charac- teristic particle size distribution curves for all the holes drilled were plotted. The predictor equation for drill penetration rate established through multiple regressions was found to have a very good correlation with an index of determination of 0.85. A comparative analysis of particle size distribution curves was used to evaluate the drill efficiency. The suggested approach utilises the area under the curve, after the point of trend reversal and brittleness ratio of the respective bench to arrive at drill energy utilization index （DEUI）, for mapping of drill machine to bench, The developed DEU1 can aid in selecting or mapping a right machine to right bench for achieving higher penetration rate and utilizations.

Efficient Clustering and Simulated Annealing Approach for Circuit Partitioning

Circuit net list bipartitioning using simulated annealing technique has been proposed in the paper.The method converges asymptotically and probabilistically to global optimization.The circuit net list is partitioned into two partitions such that the number of interconnections between the partitions is minimized.The proposed method begins with an innovative clustering technique to obtain a good initial solution.Results obtained show the versatility of the proposed method in solving non polynomial hard problems of circuit net list partitioning and show an improvement over those available in literature.