This thesis presents the development of smell agent optimization (SAO) algorithm. The developed algorithm consists of three modes (sniffing, trailing and random modes). The evaporation of smell molecules from the smell source is modelled into sniffing mode using the concept of the hydrostatic pressure of gas and positions of molecules. The fitness ... Continue Reading
A ladle is a foundry tool or equipment specially designed to pour molten metal into a prepared mould. The pouring rate or consistency is one of the factors that may lead to a defect in a cast. To avoid casting defects (cold shut and misrun) associated with pouring, there is need for the design of a suitable pouring ladle that will reduce the time t... Continue Reading
The service conditions of many moving steel components require it to possess both hard and wear resistant surfaces witha tough and shock resistant cores. To achieve this, the suitability of pulverized coconut shell charcoal and periwinkle shell for carburizing 0.08%C mild steel was investigated in order to evaluate the carburizing parameters of the... Continue Reading
Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and Geographical Information System (GIS) based hydrological modelling was applied to Hadejia River Sub-basin- an integral of the Chad Basin in the Northern Nigeria- to determine the impacts of land use/cover dynamics on the hydrological regime of the sub-basin under the changing climate factors. The study enha... Continue Reading
The suitability of hardwood charcoal and snail shell particles for carburizing mild steel was investigated. All the mild steel specimens were carburized at constant temperature of 920�C from one (1) to five (5) hours at intervals of one hour. The mild steel specimen in the as-received and carburized conditions were all prepared for the following t... Continue Reading
This study investigates the suitability of crushed coconut shell (CCS) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as partial replacement of coarse aggregate in concrete. The PET was crushed mechanically to sizes between 0-10mm while the CCS was crushed manually to sizes between 12.7-19.5mm. Various tests were carried out to ascertain the physical and eng... Continue Reading
This research work presents a scheme that identifies line outage and generator outage using contigency analysis and effectively splits the network into a set of predefined islands, with a load shedding strategy to minimise the adverse effect of each outage and to ensure system security. In this research work, Newton Raphson power flow was used for ... Continue Reading
The water in River Kaduna is used for; domestic purposes, fishing, recreational activities as well as irrigation of crops.However, literatures have revealed that there are lots of anthropogenic activities occurring within the middle stretch of the river that could likely deteriorate its water quality as it flows through the Kaduna city metropolis. ... Continue Reading
Sandcrete hollow blocks are widely used in Plateau State. The quality of these blocks produced, however, differs from each manufacturer due to different methods employed in the production and the properties of the constituent materials. This research work focuses on the impact of quality control practices by manufacturers on the quality of blocks p... Continue Reading
In this study, a gas assisted solar powered absorption air �“ conditioning system was designed, constructed and tested under Zaria weather conditions in Nigeria. A technical and economic viability study of the system was first carried out by developing and simulating a TRNSYS model of the system to cool an office block with an average space coolin... Continue Reading
Energy conservation in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is a key area of research aimed at addressing the challenge of efficient energy utilization. This is due to the fact that the Sensor Nodes (SNs) have limited energy. The limited energy has to be utilized efficiently in order to provide longer network lifetime for the wireless sensor network (WS... Continue Reading
The aim of this study was to carry out a flood risk assessment for Ofu River Catchment in Nigeria. Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission Digital Elevation Model (SRTM DEM) and River Map of Africa were used to delineate the catchment boundaries in ArcGIS 10.2.2 coupled with ArcHydro and HEC-GeoHMS extensions while the stream ordering was done using the ... Continue Reading
The restructuring of the electrical power industry has given rise to a high degree of vibrancy and competitive market, which changed many features of the power industry. Energy resources become scarce, the cost of power generation increases, environmental concerns are raised, and an ever-increasing demand for electrical energy characterizes this no... Continue Reading
This dissertation presents the development of an optimized routing scheme for a capacitated vehicle model using Firefly Algorithm (FFA). The conventional model is a formal description involving mathematical equations formulated to simplify a more complex structure of logistic problems. The logistic problems are generalized as the Vehicle Routing Pr... Continue Reading
This thesis presents the development of novel digital image watermarking technique for the shielding of intellectual property rights of digital images. Because of their digital nature, multimedia data can be duplicated, modified, and transformed. In this context, it is essential to develop a watermarking �“based technique for copyright protection ... Continue Reading