International Journal of Hydromechatronics (9 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• A review on preparation, characterisation and applications of microencapsulated phase change material slurries for thermal fluid and energy systems  
  by G.V.N Trivedi, Rohan Barbade, R. Parameshwaran 
  Abstract: Microencapsulated phase change material slurries are the functional fluids that have emerged as a prominent energy-saving solution in thermal fluid and energy systems (TFES). These functional fluids, being in the state of flow, can enhance the thermal energy storage capacity of the compared to carrier fluid. The remarkable advantages of these fluids are currently being investigated for utilisation in engineering applications. The review articles written so far have concentrated on the preparation, characterisation and heat transfer studies, and lack comprehensive information regarding applications in TFES. This paper gives a comprehensive review of efforts made by the researchers in investigating these fluids in buildings for heating/ cooling requirements, electronic systems, and biomedical and PV-thermal applications. In addition to this, this review also discusses studies pertaining to the thermophysical and rheological properties of slurries. Some limitations have been put forward to provide direction for future studies.
  Keywords: thermal energy storage; TES; phase change materials; microencapsulated phase change material slurries; thermophysical; rheological properties.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJHM.2025.10068551
   
  
• Intelligent selection of parameters for air-floating piston based on improved multi-objective grey wolf optimisation algorithm  
  by Yifan Jia, Shu Qian, Zhihao Zhang, Hengyang Zhou, Lijiao Liu, Xiang Li, Luis Miguel Ruiz Páez, Pengfei Qian 
  Abstract: The air-floating piston serves as the core component of an air floating frictionless cylinder, which significantly impacts the cylinder’s performance. However, since the radial bearing force and gas consumption of the piston are influenced by numerous factors, designing a piston with excellent performance through numerical simulation and empirical data is impractical. For this reason, a design method of air-floating piston is proposed to intelligently select the parameters of the piston using intelligent optimisation algorithm. To achieve efficient parameter selection, mathematical models are developed for bearing capacity and gas consumption. In view of the weaknesses of the multi-objective grey wolf optimiser (MOGWO) such as imbalance between exploration and exploitation, poor local search capability, an enhanced approach which integrates the golden sine algorithm, chaotic mapping, and t-distribution mutation is proposed. The appropriate parameters of the piston are selected to machine the prototype from the Pareto optimal solution. The test results indicate that the designed air-floating piston exhibits excellent performance.
  Keywords: air-floating piston; multi-objective grey wolf optimisation algorithm; golden sine algorithm; chaotic mapping.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJHM.2024.10069178
   
  
• Experimental investigation of hygrothermal ageing on fracture and crushing behaviour of fibre reinforced composite structures  
  by Sandiri Devaraj, Y.B. Sudhir Sastry, P.R. Budarapu 
  Abstract: An experimental investigation of hygrothermal ageing on the fracture toughness of glass fibre reinforced composite structures has been investigated. Double cantilever beam (DCB) and pipe specimens were immersed in an insulated tank filled with saline water, and thermally aged with the help of an electric heater and a micro-controller, at temperatures of 100°C, 80°C, 60°C and 40°C for six hours. In order to study the delamination, crack growth experiments were conducted on the composite DCB specimens to capture the load-displacement curves. The experiments were extended to estimate the compressive strength of the composite pipes of diameters 50 mm, 75 mm and 100 mm, respectively. As compared to the virgin specimen, the fracture toughness of laminated composite specimens with initial notch is observed to drop by 83.88%, as well as the compressive strength of pipe size 50 mm is observed to reduce by 21.5% when the temperature is raised to 100°C.
  Keywords: fibre reinforced composite laminates; composite pipes; hygrothermal ageing; mode-I crack growth experiments; crushing strength.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJHM.2024.10069542
   
  
• Investigation into the thermal optimisation of low eddy current structure of high-speed on/off valve considering energy consumption and dynamic characteristics  
  by Yuzheng Li, Shaoxian Deng, Niansheng Wang, Heng Du, Hui Huang 
  Abstract: In this paper, the coupling characteristics between various physical fields of HSV are analysed by combining theoretical research and numerical simulation, and the laws of heat generation, temperature rise, and dynamic characteristics are revealed; the low eddy current slit structure is further designed to solve the problem of serious heat generation in the HSV, and the multi-objective thermal optimisation is carried out for the number of slits, the width and the depth of slits of the slit structure by taking into account of the energy consumption and the dynamic characteristics through orthogonal experiments. The results show that the response time of the low eddy current slit structure is shortened by 0.9 ms, a decrease of 5.42%, and the coil temperature rise is reduced by 89°C, a decrease of 37.24%, compared with that of the original structure under the three-voltage, 250 Hz driving mode.
  Keywords: high-speed on/off valve; HSV; energy consumption; dynamic characteristics; thermal optimisation.
  
  
• Determination of the flow rate characteristics of porous media under the positive pressure and vacuum  
  by Wei Zhong, Yihao Wang, Kaiwen Fu, Chong Li, Jiang Shao, Pengfei Qian 
  Abstract: Porous media is widely used to replace the conventional orifices as restrictors in vacuum handling process. In this study, a theoretical model describing the flow rate characteristics, including effects from both viscosity and inertia, is established based on Darcy-Forchheimer's law. The simulation work is firstly conducted, followed by establishing apparatuses to determine permeability and inertial coefficients. The permeability is determined within a small pressure difference (< 2 kPa) and the inertial coefficient is obtained with Re > 0.1 as the boundary. The average permeability is 1.21 × 10^-12 m², 1.56 × 10^-12 m², 3.41 × 10^-12 m² and 12.21 × 10^-12 m², respectively. The inertial coefficient is determined under the positive pressure at the maximum pressure difference and vacuum with pressure difference from 50 kPa to 70 kPa. For different pressure conditions, it is confirmed that the theoretical flow rate can predict the experimental data within a 3% uncertainty, which is sufficient for most applications. Finally, to obtain the inertial coefficient, two methods including the single-point method and the multi-point method are proposed. We found that the single-point method gives an error of 3.1% while the multi-point method gives an error of 1.9% for the determination of the entire flow rate characteristics.
  Keywords: flow rate characteristics; porous media; positive pressure; vacuum; permeability; inertial coefficient.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJHM.2024.10062649
   
  
• Design and modelling of multiple-air-chamber pneumatic soft bending actuators  
  by Xin Liu, Jinhui Zhang, Zheng Li, Shaomeng Gu, Ling Zhao, Bo Liu 
  Abstract: In this paper, we design a multiple-air-chamber pneumatic soft bending actuator made of two-component silicone rubber that can achieve angle bending at any direction in space. Both the design philosophy and the working principle of the multiple-air-chamber pneumatic soft bending actuator are described in detail. Additionally, the dynamic model of the multiple-air-chamber pneumatic soft bending actuator is established by dividing the bending angle into n segments and using the Euler-Lagrange method. By simulating the dynamic model, we can find the optimal number of segments n that achieve desired angle bending control performance. Finally, experimental results of angle bending control for step signal and sinusoidal signal verify that the dynamic model is effective and applicative to obtain desired angle bending control performance.
  Keywords: pneumatic soft bending actuator; dynamic model; angle bending.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJHM.2023.10066215
   
  
• Dynamic characteristics of rotary magnetorheological fluid brake for use with air turbine spindle  
  by Vanisara Kaewnamchai, Tomonori Kato, Yuki Mihashi 
  Abstract: Air turbine spindles are widely used in various machines, such as milling tools and aspherical lens generators. This study aimed to investigate the potential use of commercially available rotary magnetorheological fluid (MRF) brakes as components to effectively regulate the rotational speed of air turbine spindles in the low rotation-speed range from 100 to 500 min^-1. The target speed was set as 300 min^-1 with response time set to 20 s after the speed reached the target. Accordingly, a Hall Effect magnetic sensor was used to measure the low-to-high rotation speed of the air turbine spindle in addition to the magnetic induction generated by the current supply of the MRF brake. Tests were conducted to obtain the rotation speed, resistance torque, magnetic field, and electrical power supply in a commercial MRF brake used to control the shaft of the air turbine spindle. The results show that commercial MRF brake can effectively control the rotation speed in the low-speed region. However, the dynamic characteristic of the MRF brake cause undesirable oscillations.
  Keywords: air turbine spindle; experimental analysis; dynamic characteristic; functional fluid; pneumatic measurement; rotation speed control.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJHM.2024.10066216
   
  
• A closed-loop evaluation identification algorithm for rubber mixing process based on physical information and deep learning  
  by Xueyang Bai, Jiguang Yue, Ruiqi Guan, Zhexin Cui, Rongyan Li 
  Abstract: Rubber mixing process is a crucial link in tyre manufacturing. Accurate mixing model will greatly affect the control performance, thus affecting the final yield and quality of tyres. However, due to the complexity of the mixing process, there is still a great challenge to establish an accurate mixing process model. In this paper, a closed-loop evaluation identification algorithm for mixing model is proposed. On the basis of the state space model established by heat transfer mechanism, the unknown parameters are identified based on CNN-LSTM deep network. A fuzzy evaluation method is utilised to comprehensively evaluate the identification effect in view of the lack of uniform evaluation indexes. The GRU network is used to correct the error of identification results. The deep neural network hyperparameters are iteratively updated based on the genetic optimisation algorithm to achieve the feedback optimisation. Finally, simulation verifies the effectiveness and merits of the proposed algorithm.
  Keywords: parameter identification; rubber mixing; bond graph; deep learning; fuzzy evaluation.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJHM.2024.10067758
   
  
• Automation and synchronisation on electro-hydraulic lifting system of tunnel boring machine segment assembly  
  by Xuyang Chen, Yang Tang, Xin Huang, Wujun Wang, Junke Guo, Fulong Lin, Lianhui Jia, Huayong Yang, Yi Zhu 
  Abstract: Segment lifting, performed by an electro-hydraulic system including two cylinders, is a crucial step in segment grasping, transporting, and assembly in tunnel boring machines. Due to heavy and uneven loading, large vibration, uncertainty of parameters, and nonlinear friction, it is difficult to develop an accurate physical model. This paper presents a comprehensive procedure to achieve two-cylinder automation and synchronisation according to the actual engineering requirements and environments. An improved deviation compensation recursive least squares identification algorithm with a forgetting factor was used to identify the key parameters of the model. To achieve synchronous control and precise control of the lifting system, SMC with improved sliding mode approach rate and the deviation coupling method of fusion single neuron PID were designed and verified by simulation. A full-scale bench test was also performed to show that the tracking steady-state error is below 4 mm, and the synchronisation error is below 2 mm.
  Keywords: tunnel boring; segment assembly; parameter identification; synchronous control; automation.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJHM.2024.10068376