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An approach to model coal combustion process to predict and minimize unburned carbon in bottom ash of a large-capacity pulverized coal-fired boiler used in thermal power plant is proposed. The unburned carbon characteristic is investigated by parametric field experiments. The effects of excess air, coal properties, boiler load, air distribution scheme, and nozzle tilt are studied. An artificial neural network (ANN) is used to model the unburned carbon in bottom ash. A genetic algoritiim (GA) is employed to peiform a search to determine the optimum level process parameters in ANN model which decreases tiie unburned carbon in bottom ash.

Aluminum MMCs are finding greater utility in automobile and aerospace industries. To boost up the application of aluminum MMCs in real-time applications, it is essential to weld these specimens to other engineering materials. There are several research works reporting the lacuna in arc welding of dissimilar aluminum/steel joints, viz., preferential melting of the aluminum alloy and formation of brittle iron-aluminum intermetallics. However, friction welding process illustrates positive sign for its employment to join dissimilar aluminum/steel. Conversely, intermetallic formation is still of concern. Consequently, to overcome this prevailing problem, interlayers are introduced in this study. At first, dissimilar Aluminum MMCs and AISI 304 stainless steel friction welds are experimented with and without the presence of silver interlayer for conceptual understanding and to clarify and confirm the phenomenal terminologies based on literature. Based on this experience, a few trials of dissimilar Aluminum MMCs and AISI 304 stainless steel friction welds with silver interlayer are experimented on trial and error basis to find optimized friction welding parameter values and these values are used in ANOVA software to plot and analyze the parameters inter dependencies. Then, upper and lower limits of friction welding parameters are fixed to achieve good-quality welds. These limits are fed into ANOVA to obtain full factorial trials based on design of experiment (DoE). The weldments are also evaluated using destructive and non-destructive tests. The metallurgical characterizations of weldments are analyzed. Further, a preliminary attempt is made to develop a finite element model to investigate temperature governing phenomenon such as deformation, stress and strain.

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