The effect of phthalic anhydride as a coupling agent on the tensile properties and thermal stability of recycled high density polyethylene/wood fiber (rHDPE/WF) composites were studied. Both composites rHDPE/WF and rHDPE/WF/PAH (modified with phthalic anhydride) were prepared using Brabender Plasticorder at temperature of 160° C and rotor speed of 50 rpm. The result indicated that rHDPE/WF/PAH composites exhibit higher tensile strength and modulus of elasticity than rHDPE/WF composites. It was also found that the addition of phthalic anhydride offers better thermal stability in rHDPE/WF/PAH composites than r HDPE/WF composites.

The coupled dynamics of the chamber and the water column are central to the successful modelling of the performance of a floating oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converter. This paper presents a novel system identification method to evaluate the parameters involved in the dynamics of partially submerged bodies in order to predict the motions of the chamber and the water column. The method, based on the reverse SISO appro ach was employed to allow frequency dependent parameters for both the floating structure and the oscillating water column to be independently determined from several forced vibration experiments. To validate the dynamic model proposed, direct and wave force excitation experiments were conducted using two circular floating OWC wave energy converters. The experimental result s obtained agree reasonably well with the dynamic model established.

The production of sewage sludge in Malaysia keeps increasing and the available solution for their disposal cannot cope the huge amount of sludge produced. Most of the treated sewage sludge from the sludge treatment plant in Malaysia were disposed by landfill. However, this disposal technique cannot sustain and harmful to the environment as well as to the human health. Thus, there is needed a new disposal method for treating sewage sludge that can sustain and environmentally friendly. Converting this waste into energy can resolve the disposal problem of sewage sludge and generate the new sources of energy to human kind. However, the moisture content is sewage sludge is high which is more than 85% of moisture content. In order to convert into energy, the small scale disc dryer was developed in order to reduce the moisture content of the sewage sludge which into acceptable level is less than 20% of moisture content for conversion into solid fuel. In this paper, the basic characteristic of the dried sewage sludge for conversion into energy was studied. Besides that, the initial moisture content of sewage sludge, the effect of inlet temperature and mass flow rate also recorded and analyzed. The result obtains for this dryer showed a positive result which produces 17.8% of moisture content of sewage sludge with a h eating value of 16,036.21 kJ/kg which is acceptable for conversion into energy.