ERU - 2007

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://192.248.9.226/handle/123/14684

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 65

item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Proceedings of the 13th Annual Symposium (Pre Text)
(The Engineering Research Unit University of Moratuwa, 2007-10) Wickramasinghe, V
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
A Successful Growth of the e-Learning System at University of Moratuwa
(2007) Sarveswaran, K
A successful e-Learning system primarily consists of a Learning Management system and a Content Management system. A Learning Management System addresses the user administration and related managerial requirements. This may include student registration and management, student enrollment, subject management and offering management.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Wave reflection from coastal and harbour structures
(2007) Hettiarachchi, SSL; Samarasekara, MMPD
Coastal and Harbour structures are used to shelter the areas behind them, landmasses or water bodies, from the adverse effects of ocean wave action. Different types of structures can be identified in practice among which are structures with non-porous slopes, nonporous slopes with berms, armoured porous slopes, armoured porous slopes with berms, non-porous vertical walls, porous vertical walls and vertical walls with porous sloping protection.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Use of infrastructure related information in education planning and management
(2007) Perera, AADAJ; Dassanayake, AHMDR
Information on education infrastructure has a greater impact on planning and management decisions. As administration of an education system is always being challenging, before addressing the data needs, it is a prerequisite to identify where decision making is actually taking place across the system (Crouch et ai, 2001). Once the decision making process at different levels (Strategic, management and operational levels) are identified, each level must be provided with the correct information in order to make proper decisions. Not only the educational authorities but also the external stake holders who provide assistance to a country's education system require very accurate information timely for their planning and monitoring activities.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Use of elastic shortening line to interpret static load• settlement data of piles
(2007) Thilakasiri, HS
Accurate interpretation of the Load-settlement data obtained by static or dynamic load testing of piles is very important to understand the load carrying mechanism of the pile. Even though dynamic load test results provide more information regarding the behavior and condition of the pile, only the load-settlement curve is obtained from the static load testing of piles. Therefore, developing of tools to interpret load-settlement data obtained from static load testing of piles is very vital. In developing such tools, the shape of the load-settlement curve can be made use of. Thilakasiri (2007a) used a numerical procedure to simulate the static load - settlement curve. A new methodology, using the elastic shortening line of a pile, is introduced in this paper to get an understanding of the behavior of the pile.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Ultra sound technique in natural dye application to textiles
(2007) Samudrika, UG; De Silva, NGH; De Alwis, AAP; Vankar, PS
The conventional method of textile dyeing has been to boil the fabric or yarn in dye bath, till the desired color is obtained. Enormous amount of heat is consumed in terms of heating the dye bath. Some dyes, which are heat sensitive, cannot be used in conventional dyeing because prolonged heating decomposes the dye molecules. The dye uptake by the fabric is also far from exhaustion and as a result fair amount of dye is wasted and gives rise to significant environmental pollution. The study carried out is to couple a different dyeing technique with natural dyes and to observe process effectiveness.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Tsunami hazards: public awareness and response
(2007) Samarawickrama, SP; Ratnasooriya, AHR; Hettiarachchi, SSL; Lawrance, MKD; Kumara, GGA
The objective of this research study was to assess the degree of public awareness on tsunamis. The results of the study are useful in planning awareness programs, the preparation of the Hazard Maps and in the implementation of research findings of the other components of the overall research project. A questionnaire survey was carried out covering a sample of more than 1200 people. The survey covered around 600 members of the general public and 600 school children.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Transient response and stability of anaerobic reactors following interm tttant feeding
(2007) Rathnasiri, PG; Hayun; Bakke, R
Anaerobic treatment offers a number of attractive advantages in the treatment of highstrength organic waste water, but difficulties in maintaining process stability is a disadvantage. The process is sensitive to changes in environmental and operating conditions and disturbance in microbial balance often results in failure of the process. Industrial anaerobic reactor operations seldom can be characterized by true steady state operations. Stability is paramount in the operation of large scale anaerobic co-digestion plants which are operated intermittently under varying feed flow patterns and feed compositions. If instability occurs, variations of biogas compositions will lead to make operating problems in subsequent operations such as electricity generations. Most of anaerobic co-digestion processes are run below maximum capacity due to the danger of failure of overloading. Thus it is needed to conduct lab scale experiments to screen different options before designing and commissioning large scale processes.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
The flow behavior of mineral particles through glass funnels
(2007) Rohitha, LPS; Dissanayaka, DMDOK; Fernando, WLW
In industry the flow of mineral particles in silos playa very important role in the recovery of these particles into containers for bagging and transport. The silo design parameters and particulate properties are restricting the flow behavior in silos thereby controlling the rate of packing into containers as a finished product or else in the utilization of these particles for subsequent unit operations down the processing line. Further, telescopic silos have been introduced recently in mining industry [1] for dust suppression in quarries, gravel pits by minimizing the distribution of dust and fines in to the surrounding areas. There are factors affecting the flow behavior in silos [2] such as particle size, angle of repose. moisture content, static electric charges of powders and so on. In order to simulate the behavior of mineral particulates in silos, glass funnels of different dimensions have been chosen due to their transparency.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
The effect of scaling on frictional losses in pipes
(2007) Wijesekera, NTS; Ratnasooriya, AHR
The ability to predict the hydraulic performance of a pipe network during its working life plays an important role in the planning and design of water supply schemes. The nominal diameter and the friction factor of pipes are two essential parameters in the analysis of pipe networks. The values of these parameters are usually known for commercially used new pipes. With aging, corrosion and scaling in pipes may cause a reduction of diameter and an increase in surface roughness, leading to a reduction of carrying capacity. In this experimental study, attention is focused on the effect of scaling on frictional losses of commercially used pve pipes.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
The effect of infill on shear behaviour of idealised joints under constant normal stiffness conditions (CNS)
(2007) Welideniya, HS
The shear behaviour rock joints infilled with graphite, bentonite and clayey sand under eNS conditions were studied through a comprehensive laboratory testing programme to assess its influence on rock mass stability. A range of infill thicknesses such as 1.5, 3, 6 and 9mm, initial normal stresses (O'no) of 0.56, 1.1 and 2.43 MPa and two idealized joint types with 9.5° (Type 1) and 18.5° (Type 2) asperity angles were used in testing (Indraratna, Welideniya and Brown. 2005). This paper describes analysis of test results leading to better understand the effect of mobilised and apparent friction angles on shear strength envelope.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Swift decision making for agile software paradigm - a proficient guide
(2007) Perera, GIUS; Femando, MSD
Agile software paradigm was recently introduced to overcome the problems with the classical paradigms. The prime difference of the Agile process models is that it has an utterly flexible process model where anybody can alter it according to their environments.[3] On the other hand it merely relies on the product deliverables and not with the process documentation and related monitoring activities. This becomes the foremost crisis with the Agile practice in reality. Hence, the Agile process heavily depends on the connoisseur people and becomes more vulnerable to failure due to the improper practice.[2] Nevertheless, Agile triumphs over the other processes by its ability to meet rapid changing business requirements, by forming quick decisions on requirement changes as they emerge.I l] However, by the nature of agility, there is no such model or tool to assist such decisions and merely they are just from the gut feeling of the expert in the project team. This situational approach creates a high uncertainty about decisions and high probability for taking wrong decisions at critical stages of the project [4].
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Study on drying characteristics of gliricidia
(2007) Kannangara, M; Amarasinghe, ADUS; Sugathapala, AGT
At present, gliricidia is becoming a commercialized fuel and there is a tendency to grow Gliricidia as an energy plantation to cater for the increasing demand. Gliricidia is adapted to wide-ranging agro-climatic and soil conditions and can be cultivated all over Sri Lanka except in coastal areas, on mountain tops and in arid areas. Further, it was found to offer series of other complementary benefits as far as soil and environmental aspects are concerned. Gliricidia is historically grown as a boundary fence tree which does not require any special agronomic practices, care of pest control measures due to some inherited genetic characteristics typical of it. It is a leguminous tree with very high rate of nitrogen fixation. However, there are some issues related to use of gliricidia as a commercialized fuel, including high initial moisture content, poor drying characteristics and decaying during storage.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Sport -event management framework (SEMF)
(2007) Anuruddha, KD; Damayanthi, RGI; Gamage, DCGU; Kariyawasam, KINC; Jayasena, VSD; De Silva, T
Managing a sport event is a complex task. The requirement of a software system for managing such events has significantly increased in the recent years. Sport-event management software has short life time of operation. Most of the time, the software development life cycle is also short. Thus building a high quality and reliable system is difficult. Due to these reasons, such software can be quite expensive.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Sinhala optical character recognition for desktops
(2007) Dias, G; Patikirikorala, TNP; Arambewela, CI; Darshana, RPM; Alahendra, ND
Optical Sinhala Character recognition is a fairly researched area in the local natural language initiative. Although a fair amount of research and development has been undertaken in this field, a comprehensive product is yet to be developed. However, a Sinhala OCR has a formidable academic and commercial value. The value of such a tool is evident in the e-gonvemance intiative as well, where vast numbers of Sinhala documents, forms etc will have to be digitised. OCRs have been developed in English and many other languages, and some of these basic methodologies can be extended for a Sinhala OCR as well. A forerunning concept on OCR is the use of weighted Artificial Neural Networks. However, this method is requires heavy processing power. This abstract proposes a fresh idea to reduce processing power, using image processing and comupter vision techniques.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Shear carrying capacity of composite slabs with concrete filled steel tubes
(2007) Perera, SVTJ; Hettiarachchi, MTP
Steel and concrete composite floor trusses are an economical solution to achieve large column free spans (in the range of 8m - 12m), for multi-storey buildings. They provide the facility to accommodate service ducts within the structural zone.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Seed oil of kara wila mc43 as a source of drying oil
(2007) Prashantha, MAB; Premachandra, JK; Amarasinghe, ADUS
Considerable amount of conjugated trienoic (eleosteric acid) or methylene interrupted trienoic (lenolenic acid) acids in fatty oil contribute to form a dried film when thin film of such fatty oil is exposed to air. Generally air drying brushing paint contains long oil alkyds (more than 60% of oil to the solvent free resin) from drying oil (iodine value above 150mgg-l ) and semi drying oil (iodine value between 150mgg-1 and 120mgg-I)I. Long oil alkyd resin from drying oil tends to dry more rapidly than that from semi drying oil. Oil containing fatty acids with conjugated double bonds dry much faster than those with nonconjugated double bonds.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Runoff coefficients of three wet zone watersheds of Sri Lanka
(2007) Perera, KRJ; Wijesekera, NTS
Computing runoff is very important in water resources development. Estimating runoff from rainfall records in the absence of stream gauge records is extremely important. It is more so in Sri Lanka where most of our watersheds are ungauged. Runoff coefficient enables the estimation of runoff for most of the practical applications.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Rice husk as a low cost adsorbent for removal of malachite green and nylosan blue from aqueous solutions
(2007) Jayatunga, GK; Amarasinghe, BMWPK
Colored dye waste water arises as results of the production of dye and also as a consequence of its use in textile industry. Many types of dyes are used in the textile industries such as direct, reactive, acid and basic dyes. Most of them are toxic and non biodegradable which impede light penetration. Therefore it can affect the photosynthetic activity of aquatic plants and raise the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the effluent. From various methods use to remove dye from waste water, adsorption technology is considered to be the most effective and proven technology. The most common adsorbent used is activated carbon. However, it is quite expensive and regeneration cost is high. So there is a need for low cost and readily available material for adsorption of dyes from waste water. Rice husk is widely available in Sri Lanka at low or no cost. Sometimes this agricultural waste causes disposal problems. Rice husks consist of ligno cellulose materials and they can easily adsorb cationic substances in aqueous medium. Chemically and thermally activated rice husk can be used to adsorb not only cationic substances but also anionic substances.
item: Conference-Extended-Abstract
Resistance to tsunami inundation vegetation: an experimental study by coastal
(2007) Ratnasooriya, AHR; Samarawickrama, SP; Hettiarachchi, SSSL; Bandara, RPSS
More than two thirds of the coastline of Sri Lanka was subjected to inundation by the Indian ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004. The inundation distance and the associated damage caused by the tsunami varied widely with the local near shore wave height, topography and the hydraulic resistance offered to the overland flow. In addition to the ground surface resistance, the resistance offered by vegetation and man made features in the coastal zone are among the contributory factors to the hydraulic resistance. It is important to asses the resistance offered by coastal vegetation to the overland flow in order to identify its effectiveness as a tsunami impact mitigation measure. Such a measure would also have the duel advantages of being environmentally friendly and cost effective.

Browse

Recent Submissions