Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad&nbsp;(IIT Palakkad or IIT PKD) is a public autonomous&nbsp;engineering&nbsp;and&nbsp;research&nbsp;institute located in&nbsp;Palakkad,&nbsp;Kerala. It was&nbsp;one of the five new&nbsp;IITs&nbsp;proposed in the&nbsp;2014 Union budget of India. The campus was inaugurated on 3 August 2015. The institute has 94 faculty, 978 students, and 63 non-teaching staffs.

IT Palakkad currently offers four-year Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and two years MS programmes in 8 different engineering disciplines including&nbsp;Computer Science, Electrical, Mechanical, Civil among others.

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IIT Palakkad

World University root node

Department of Civil Engineering

Indian Geotechnical Journal

Performance of Lateritic Soil Slopes at the Onset of Rainfall Infiltration

Steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) is widely recommended where fatigue is a predominant mode of failure, such as concrete bridges, offshore structures and concrete pavements. From a detailed literature review, it was observed that the different fibre parameters like fibre type, fibre volume, aspect ratio, etc., influence the crack resistance performance and thus, the fatigue endurance limit. This paper attempts to understand the effect of various test parameters (stress ratio, frequency) and fibre parameters (length, diameter, volume of fibres, aspect ratio and reinforcing index) on the fatigue life of SFRC based on available literature data. Studies involving SFRC with volume fractions of 0.13–2.0% are included in the analysis. The objective of the current study is to propose a generalized fatigue model, based on statistical analysis of data available from literature, for pre-cracked SFRC with the consideration of the above variables. A multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis using SPSS software was used to perform analysis of variance (ANOVA). The most significant parameters, obtained from the analysis, for the prediction of fatigue life of pre-cracked SFRC are stress ratio, length of fibre and reinforcing index. The generalized expression can be used for the prediction of the post cracking fatigue life of SFRC for volume fractions within the range of 0.13–2.0%. It is envisaged that these generalized models could be integrated into any SFRC design methodology requiring fatigue response prediction, leading to better-optimized designs. Overall, this study expands the state-of-the-art on fatigue behaviour of SFRC and its analysis.

Environmental Sciences and Sustainable Engineering Centre (ESSENCE)

RILEM Bookseries

Statistical Modelling of Flexural Fatigue Response of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete

Reaction of the 1,2-disilylene, [{ArC(NDip)2}Si]2 1 (Dip=2,6-diisopropylphenyl, Ar=4-C6H4But), with CO proceeds via insertion of CO into one Si−N bond and Si−Si bond cleavage, to cleanly give the bis(silylene), {ArC(NDip)2}Si(:)O (Formula presented.) Ar 2, under ambient conditions. The reaction can be partially reversed when solutions of 2 are subjected to UV irradiation. The five-membered heterocyclic fragment of 2 represents the first silicon analogue of an “abnormal” N-heterocyclic carbene (aNHC), a view which is substantiated by a computational analysis of the compound. Reaction of 2 with [Mo(CO)6] under UV light affords the chelate complex, [Mo(CO)4(κ2-Si,Si-2)] 3, while reaction with [Fe(CO)5] gives the unusual silyleneyl bridged complex, [{Fe2(CO)6}{μ-Si[(NDip)2CAr]}2] 4. The same coordination complexes can be accessed by reaction of 1 with [Mo(CO)6] or [Fe(CO)5] under UV light. As is the case for aNHCs, d-block metal complexes of bis(silylene) 2 could prove useful as bespoke catalysts for organic transformations. © 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

Department of Chemistry

Angewandte Chemie

Activation of CO Using a 1, 2‐Disilylene: Facile Synthesis of an Abnormal N‐Heterocyclic Silylene

We consider steady, fully-developed flows of deformable, inelastic grains driven by gravity between identical bumpy walls. Using constitutive relations from extended kinetic theory (EKT) for the erodible bed near the centreline and the collisional flow between the surfaces of the bed and the walls, we calculate the fields of mean velocity, fluctuation velocity and solid volume fraction across the chute. We consider both situations in which the solid volume fraction at and near the centreline is high enough to form a bed and when it is not. We compare results predicted by EKT with recent discrete element simulations results, and obtain very good agreement.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Journal of Fluid Mechanics

Extended kinetic theory for granular flow in a vertical chute

Curvature induced sorting of lipid membrane bound proteins has been widely studied through experiments that induce curvature variation in a giant unilamellar lipid-bilayer vesicle with adsorbed proteins by pulling thin cylindrical tethers. In the theoretical space, this has been supplemented with models that capture curvature dependent interaction between membrane and idealized protein particles, through free energy contributions. Many membrane proteins such as the BAR domain proteins are known to have extremely anisotropic shapes and soft interacting potentials, whereas the idealizations of protein particles explored in models have only assumed them as hard disk-like particles with curvature anisotropy. Here, we present a model of sorting of the proteins while including the effects of softness in their interaction potentials, shape anisotropy in the protein structure and curvature anisotropy in the interactions with the membrane. This is based on a clean separation of free energy contributions from non-ideal fluid behavior of soft anisotropic particles and curvature interactions between proteins and membranes. We probe the behavior of the sorting function under limiting conditions and show that it converges to the previously derived models. In addition to this, we present a comparison of the variation in sorting ratio due to the observed variation in the shape parameter values in known membrane proteins. Finally, using published experimental data for membrane proteins, we perform fitting and derive model parameters. We observe that shape anisotropy adversely affects the sorting of proteins to a high curvature region, whereas curvature anisotropy and softer interaction between proteins favor sorting. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Soft Matter

Sorting of proteins with shape and curvature anisotropy on a lipid bilayer tube

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

US Patent App. 17/492,264

Communication entity and a method for transmitting a video data stream

Landslides and debris flow possess greater damaging power due to their sudden occurrence and relatively high velocity. Landslide flow behaviour can be interpreted using a granular column collapse model. In the present study, dry granular flow behaviour on the erodible and non-erodible layers is analysed. A granular column collapse model with its spreading surface containing an erodible and non-erodible layer is used in this study. The unique property of granular particles to behave in a heterogeneous manner requires its analysis to be done individually. Therefore, particulate-level simulations are performed with the help of the discrete element method (DEM). Particle trajectories and the interaction forces between the particles in the system are studied at every step. Notable changes are found in the flow behaviour with respect to different aspect ratios. Parameters like bulk coordination number and the evolution of energy of the system are taken into consideration in this study. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering

Study of Dry Granular Flow Behaviour with and Without Erodible Layer

The resultant lateral pressure exerted by the backfill soil and its point of application on any earth retaining structure are governed by the mode of wall movement and the soil arching effect. The nonlinear active pressure distribution due to the arching effect under different mode of wall yielding for retaining wall with horizontal backfill has been addressed in the past. In this letter, a new analytical approach for the active earth pressure incorporating arching effect behind a rigid wall with sloping cohesionless backfill subjected to rotation about the base is proposed. The slip surface developed in the backfill is assumed to have logarithmic spiral geometry. Using the proposed formulation, the influence of slope angle, angle of internal friction, and wall friction on the active thrust and its point of action has been investigated. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Innovative Infrastructure Solutions

Active earth pressure on retaining walls with sloping backfill considering arching effect under rotation about base

In a recent article, Pawar and Sharma (2017) presented a mathematically and numerically efficient methodology based on solution to the magnetic induction equation which was referred to as the A4 approach for simulation of nozzle arcs. Despite the issue of current singularity, they demonstrated that the A4 approach is a fast and accurate strategy for predicting arc characteristics by also comparing with a singularity-free hybrid model also proposed by them. Revisiting the A4 approach, we show that a simple coordinate transformation can mitigate the axial current singularity and also describe a new hybrid approach that offers a consistent, cost-effective, and accurate alternative for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of nozzle arcs. © 1973-2012 IEEE.

IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science

Comments on 'Modeling of Magnetohydrodynamics in Nozzle Arc: A Mathematically and Numerically Efficient Approach'

A versatile reusable electrochemical biosensor has been formulated by using colloidal gold nanoparticle (AuNPs) suspension and conducting polymer poly-(3-amino-5-hydroxypyrazole (poly-AHP) modified carbon paste electrode (AuNPs/poly-AHP/CPE) for detection of an important anti-viral drug valacyclovir (VAL). A thin film of poly-AHP incorporated with homogeneous distribution of AuNPs on the surface of carbon paste electrode is fabricated stepwise by applying one by one. An electrochemical potentiodynamic polymerization of AHP was followed by a potentiostatic electrodissolution–induced deposition of AuNPs on poly-AHP. The sensor surface has been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and UV–visible spectroscopy for surface topological/morphological characteristics. Electrochemical efficiency of the present sensor system towards the detection of VAL is explored by cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) and hydrodynamic steady-state current–time analysis, and the fabricated AuNPs/poly-AHP/CPE is recognized as a capable sensor system for electrochemical determination of VAL. Applying DPV under optimized conditions, the anodic peak current exhibited a linear relationship against VAL over the range of 5–80 nM with a detection limit of as low as 1.9 nM and an analysis time of 15 s. Under hydrodynamic conditions mimicking flow-cell analysis, the low detection limit was as low as 2.5 nM (S/N > 4) with rapid analysis time of mere 5 s. Selective determination of VAL was performed in the presence of dopamine and serotonin. Practical utility of the AuNPs/poly-AHP film sensor has been demonstrated for the detection of VAL directly from artificial urine, pharmaceutical formulations and diluted human serum with good recovery limits. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.