E Rajkumar's research while affiliated with VIT University and other places

The focus of our study was to evaluate and compare the mechanical properties, namely tensile and bending strength of natural fibre composites. Natural fibre composites are composites consisting of fibres made from plants and animals. The natural fibre chosen for this study was Tampico fibre. The moulds were made according to ASTM D638 and D790 standards for both tensile and bending specimens. The first set of composites were arranged in three different orientations namely uniaxial, biaxial and criss-cross. The moulds were prepared using the hand-lay-up technique. These fibres were combined with Epoxy LY-556 pitch and Hardener HY-951 in a specific proportion to make the composite. The second set of composites included an additional variant in the form of biaxial E-glass fibres of 270GSM density, to compare the differences in the mechanical strength. The X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy were performed on the specimen to understand the lattice structure and prevalent bonds formed within the composites.

Nowadays, a lot of people are suffering from unexpected Headaches at odd hours of the day due to their hectic schedule and busy lifestyle. Many devices for massage therapy have already been introduced in the market for the same but none of them are actually worth the price as they fail to deliver the quick necessary relief. For overcoming this problem, we have come up with a new design for head massaging which mainly works on the ideal concept of massage therapy by pressing the optimum pressure points located at the extremes of the forehead. The novelty of this paper lies in the mechanism involved that will help us to achieve the desired output. We will be presenting the complete design, control and manufacturing for the product by a series of simulations which will includes Linear Static Stress analysis for evaluating the strength of the design which can produce the right amount of force, Vibrational/Modal Frequency response for analysing the stability while functioning, Fatigue Test for evaluating the maximum stress the design can bear for a good life and finally comes the Thermal Analysis for evaluating the heat dissipation from the electronics. The Computer Aided Design will be developed on SOLIDWORKS Software and the Finite Element Simulations will be conducted on ANSYS for optimization. Some post simulations will also be conducted such as drop test for evaluating the chances of sudden failure under the circumstances of impact loading. At last there will be a complete manufacturing planning for the entire design along with its DFMA planning.

Many fields in Engineering Technology today are focused on encouraging and motivating students to implement their educational concepts in the real world to fight with the increasing demands of new technology in the global market. This paper explores how a project interwoven through the Engineering Technology curriculum can be used to create a product to be sold in the today’s market to do basic household jobs and make them easier. The main focus of the bottle opener product existing in the market is that they are used on specific type of bottles and if to be used for different needs different product and will reduce the feasibility and portability as a greater number of products will be used to carry out these operations. Therefore, to eliminate this problem the objective of the project is to develop a multifunction bottle opener which can be used to deal with all the types of bottles available in the market. This product will work on the basic principles of mechanism like rack and pinion mechanism, cork plug and stress bending. Many researchers compared the shapes and mechanism in their work. Though there are similar work, but in the present work casts a unique design and has a functionality difference which makes this project exclusive from other projects. The optimized form of a common product that is a multi-functional bottle and jar opener is obtained from this project which can be used to open different styles of cap of different bottles.

The mechanized farming can promisingly increase the profitability and prevent the dependency of farmers on foreign labours. The design and implementation of Battery pack and controller for specially designed combined auto-driven mini harvester is presented in this paper. The mechanical load estimation and its mapping with electrical drives are formulated. The interfacing of electrical drives with remote operation is achieved by Electronic Arduino system. The relay control system is designed with individual drive system. The sketches are mapped with the functionality of drives. The drive selection is a dependant function of mechanical load requirement. The mechanical load estimation is done with actual mechanical failure consideration and design approach. The pin-out connections for all the ports are done on the basis of logical sketch command. The open source Arduino software is used to run the sketches. The sketch written for all the drives is compiled and demo prototype machine is tested for functioning. The run trail is successful and can conclude that the Arduino mega gives the sound interface with 8 channel relay. The computation and measurement results of power requirements for the controller and drive are within the limiting conditions.

The rack and pinion steering system, in automobiles, is the most commonly used steering system. Being directly connected to the suspension system in most vehicles, it is a critical component. The main intent of this research is to design a rack and pinion steering system for an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) and to reduce its weight by topology optimization. The design calculations are performed using AGMA bending, and contact stress equation and modelling is done using SolidWorks. ANSYS is used for structural analysis and the stress and deformation distribution is visualized. Vibrational analysis from ANSYS is utilized to obtain the natural frequencies, which are compared with the operating frequencies of the system. Topology optimization is conducted from this analysis to obtain an optimal and lightweight design.

Many Engineering Technologies and day to day applications are now moving towards a eco friendly and environment free solutions for the routine processes. This paper investigates on how the environment friendly products which doesn’t hinder the day to day activities done by the humans without causing any harm to the nature by involving unique engineering technologies which can help the product to be sold in the market and helping the humans to utilize the nature’s resource and fulfilling the daily activities. This main objective of the regular tent existing in the market are based on different needs and specifications but it isn’t able to fulfill the purpose either it isn’t long lasting or not portable to carry for long distance travelling or on tough mountains for hiking. Therefore, to put an end to this everlasting issue this product is developed to cater all the needs of a traveler irrespective of the place he goes. The unique part of this tent is that it is completely powered by solar energy as it will provide in and around electricity in the tent as it has solar panel and LED lights are stuck around it to provide light. Researchers have compared with regular tents with the solar powered tents and notice that apart from lighting the place it can kill the bacteria by ultraviolet rays and keeping the place clean and can be used for necessary chores done during travelling. The Optimized form of product is that it’s a multifunctional and can be used in any sort of place and any sort of travelling.

Less than 3% of 145 million blind people in developing countries at present are literate [1]. At present, in most of the cases, speech output has been the medium for blind people to access materials. For content which require deep understanding such as technical texts etc., it is not an appropriate modality, moreover blind people are more accustomed to braille transcripts and adaptability issues to all audio resources is difficult. And thus, arises the need for a cheap, easily adaptable, less complex solution to the problem. Braille points are varied arrangements of raised dots representing characters which are identified by touch by visually impaired people. Here we discuss in detail, development of a dynamic/refresh-able Braille display which presents Braille points by the up-and-down movement of pins using a completely new, first of its kind, Cam actuated mechanism with just two actuation points instead of a standard 6 used by every single refresh-able braille board in the world at present. Two nested shafts having 8 arrays of precisely calculated and placed cam, each were responsible for keeping the pins in up and down state. The shafts were actuated using two micro-servo motors placed next to each other. X degree rotation of servo after transmission through gear and subsequently shaft resulted in a particular configuration. Henceforth calibration was done so that all braille alphabet could be produced with specific servo rotations.

In the livelihood of farmer, livestock makes up a major part. Getting enough grass and fodder is hard these days. So in order to reduce the wastage of the grass dairy farmers started using grass chopping machines, which cuts down the grass to small pieces. This makes cattle eat every part of grass thus reducing the wastage. But, the cost of grass chopper is way too costly for the small farmer to buy. So in order to make it accessible to them, we are trying to design a hand operated chaff cutting machine which instead of electricity runs on physical power which in turn is a good early morning exercise, and produce similar result as of its superior.

Rush at the railway stations and airports is common in country like India. In most of the cases, there are limited number of escalators. One has to handle luggage manually. Carrying luggage with ordinary trolley bags at the lengthy platforms and terminals are always difficult. Especially when one has to climb up & down the stairs. Design a trolley carrier considering the problem of lugging about handling and maneuvering. Situation becomes more difficult for elderly and women. Keeping in mind all these problems and requirements of different generation, Features added in such a way that it make one’s journey comfortable and headache free. Universal trolley carrier is easy to carry on stair as well as on ground. Even with holes and bumps on road, one can easily handle this. There is folding chair attached with this for self-dependence and helpful during rush. There are some other features power bank etc. The emphasis is on the clear and minimalistic design, as well as the optimized details.

Less consumption of fuel, using cycle for basic transportation can be considered the best mode. The classic standard design do satisfy this need, but new concept of tricycle duly fulfills the basic need as well as being sporty design makes it stand out. The tricycle consist of foldable handlebar and curved frame, of which front wheel is supported with 20 inch tire whereas rear wheel is supported by two small 6 inch tires aligned with a pivot. As the driver's whole weight would be taken by curved frame, stress is induced when it is loaded with human. It can be achieved by performing structural analysis on frame with the help of FEA using suitable boundary conditions. Thus, paper consists of modeling & FEA of the tricycle frame to optimize the structure as well as the fatigue life is estimated and maximum stress area identified.