Title: ANFIS approach to the working of a compost-heat extractor

Authors: R. Arul Gnanaraj; K.S. Ravichandran; N. Anantharaman; K.M. Meera Sheriffa Begum

Addresses: School of Chemical and Biotechnology, SASTRA University, Thanjavur 613 402, India ' School of Computing, SASTRA University, Thanjavur 613 402, India ' Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620015, India ' Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620015, India

Abstract: Composting is an organic sludge management option in which volatile solids are converted to carbon dioxide and water. As the sugar cane press mud undergoes aerobic composting, the bed heats-up to a temperature in the range of 50-70°C, releasing thermal energy and the heat liberated was extracted using a heat pipe. A neural network approach is applied to analyse the data obtained from the microbially heated press mud compost-bed. This paper discusses, the design, implementation and performance of the proposed neural network and Artificial Neural Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) for the above process.

Keywords: aerobic composting; press mud; compost heat recovery; artificial neural networks; fuzzy inference; ANNs; ANFIS; sugarcane; heat pipes; fuzzy logic.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEWM.2013.050518

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, 2013 Vol.11 No.1, pp.13 - 26

Accepted: 29 Jan 2011
Published online: 20 Sep 2014 *

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