The present study examines the interaction between concrete and steel plate, particularly on the load bearing capacity of concrete blocks under confinement effects. 12 concrete blocks with the dimensions of 200 mm × 200 mm in cross section and 200 mm high were tested up to failure under compression load through 10 mm thickness of steel bearing plate. A series of experimental testing were performed to determine the maximum load bearing capacity in different sizes of steel plate and to identify the possible failure modes. The experimental data obtained from the experimental investigations were compared with pre-existing experimental data obtained from literature and mathematical formulation in various international standards. Experimental results indicate that the use of larger bearing plate gave higher value of load bearing capacity compared with small bearing plate due to larger contact area, thus, resulting in better effect of confinement. It was found that the concrete blocks fail in the shape of inverse pyramid when the steel plate is placed on top of it. Besides, other failures are vertical cracks and splitting cracks which appeared at the outer edge of contact area.
A mid-size combine harvester with 2.76 m reaping width and 103.53 hp engine output has been employed in grain corn production, especially by small-scale grain corn farmers. This study attempted to determine field performances of a typical mid-size combine harvester by measuring its effective field capacity (EFC), field efficiency (FE), fuel consumption (FC) and field machine index (FMI). Different types of energy inputs such as fuel, machinery, human, included direct, indirect, renewable and non-renewable energy involved in grain corn harvesting were also measured. The field measurements were carried out in 3 ha of grain corn farm, under similar field conditions using a typical mid-size combine harvester. The average values of EFC, FE, FC and FMI for the mid-size combine harvester were found to be 0.23 ha/h, 34.97%, 37.25 lit/ha and 0.91, respectively. The average equivalent energy values of fuel, machinery and human energy were 1780.70 MJ/ha, 587.73 MJ/ha and 8.53 MJ/ha, respectively. The average values of the direct and indirect energy were 1789.23 MJ/ha and 587.73 MJ/ha, respectively. The average values of renewable and non-renewable energy were recorded at 8.53 MJ/ha and 2368.42 MJ/ha, respectively. The mid-size combine harvester investigated in this study exhibited good field performance characteristic using a reasonable amount of energy consumption as compared to harvesting operation for other grain crops. From the results, it can be concluded that good practice in harvesting operation could improve field performance, and minimise operational costs and energy consumption.
Anaerobic composting is a promising method to fully transform food wastes into useful
materials such as biofertilizer and biogas. In this study, the optimum proportions of food
wastes containing vegetable, fruit and meat wastes with dry leaves or cow manure for
composting were determined using the simplex centroid design and response optimizer.
The effectiveness of the pilot-scale composting process was evaluated based on the targeted
compost quality of C/N ratio at 21, pH value at 8 and electrical conductivity of 1 dS/m.
Food wastes composting formulation with dry leaves suggested high percentage of dry
leaves, 86.9% with low food wastes composition of 13.1% constituted by vegetable waste
(1.1%), fruit waste (4.9%) and meat waste (7.1%). With cow manure formulation, only
6% of cow manure was recommended with
another 94.0% of food wastes contributed
by a fair mix of vegetable waste (23.2%),
fruit waste (34.3%) and meat waste (36.5%).
The developed regression models were
experimentally validated with predicted
responses obtained in acceptable ranges for
C/N ratio (21.2 - 21.8), pH (7.92 - 7.99) and
electrical conductivity (0.97 - 1.03 dS/m).