Staff publications (MMD)

Browse

Browsing Staff publications (MMD) by Publisher "Elsevier"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Analysis of key challenges to implementation of FEFO in perishable food supply chain
    (Elsevier, 2025-06) Kandasamy, Jayakrishna; Vimal, K. E. K.; Singh, Aditya Pratap; Magnani, Aaryan; Gokhale, Ameya; Jagtap, Sandeep
    Implementing FEFO practices has become essential for organizations globally to minimize spoilage, enhance inventory turnover, and ensure compliance with health and safety standards. To aid stakeholders in effectively adopting FEFO, it is crucial to identify and address the challenges involved in its implementation. Through an extensive literature review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology and insights from industry experts, this study identifies thirteen core challenges that hinder FEFO adoption. PRISMA methodology was used to systematically organize the existing literature for the purpose of this study. Using tools like Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM), the challenges were examined and ranked according to their interdependencies, providing insights into the cause-effect relationships among them. After applying DEMATEL, an alpha threshold value of 0.368 revealed that challenges in effective storage management are the primary barrier in implementing FEFO practices. With level partitioning, this challenge emerged as the most significant, forming the foundation for a roadmap designed to assist stakeholders. The findings from this study offer managers actionable insights for implementing effective FEFO techniques within their organizations. The study's novelty lies in its combination of DEMATEL and TISM methodologies, along with a roadmap that highlights strategic and policy-focused recommendations to support efficient FEFO adoption and the systematic study of challenges preventing effective FEFO adoption. This paper aids implementation of FEFO for better inventory control and management, reduced wastage and greater efficiency. The paper also effectively outlines and analyses the order of importance of challenges in FEFO implementation and their interdependence.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Assessment of fatigue crack initiation after overloads with substructure-sensitive crystal plasticity
    (Elsevier, 2025-09) Dindarlou, Shahram; Castelluccio, Gustavo M.
    Microstructure-sensitive fatigue initiation prognosis approaches typically assume uniform periodic loading and often overlook in-service overloads, which increase uncertainty and reduce life prediction accuracy. Similarly, certification efforts rarely evaluate experimentally the impact of different overloads due to the prohibitive costs. Therefore, predictive models that estimate overload effects on fatigue initiation damage without extensive experimental data are valuable to improve prognosis approaches. However, the literature lacks microstructure-sensitive approaches capable of assessing overload effects with models that simultaneously predict monotonic and cyclic responses without recalibration. This work presents a novel strategy to predict the effects of overloads on early cyclic damage by evaluating the refinement dislocation structures. A substructure-based crystal plasticity approach relies on independent parameterizations from monotonic and cyclic loading to predict overload responses, without requiring additional experiments. The model agreement with macroscale experiments was further validated by comparing dominant mesoscale structures after overloads in single- and poly-crystals for metals and alloys. The analysis also identified overload-resistant crystal orientations and demonstrated that overloads increase the likelihood of initiating fatigue cracks in low apparent Schmid factor grains under low-amplitude fatigue. We conclude by discussing the value of material-invariant mesoscale parameters to rank overloads effect for materials and loading conditions for which no experiments are available.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Designing nickel coatings for water erosion performance: optimisation of grain size and thickness
    (Elsevier, 2025-06-15) Gaddavalasa, Nithin Chandra; Lodh, Arijit; Cini, Andrea; Saaran, Vinodhen; Mehmanparast, Ali; Starr, Andrew; Castelluccio, Gustavo M.
    Metallic coatings are gaining interest as an alternative to classical polymeric layers for erosion damage prevention due to their extended durability and sustainability. However, their implementation requires a thorough understanding of protective potential and reliability. This study explores the use of brush-plated nickel coatings on carbon-fibre reinforced composites to enhance their performance against water erosion. A combination of experimental analysis and computational modeling explores the effect of different coating thickness and properties to withstand water droplet erosion damage. Findings reveal a minimum critical coating thickness around 40 μ m can significantly improve the erosion resistance.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Exploring circular economy in the United Kingdom based on LinkedIn data from company profiles
    (Elsevier, 2025-04-25) Tsironis, Georgios; Cox, Rylan; Jolly, Mark; Salonitis, Konstantinos; Tsagarakis, Konstantinos P.
    This work explores the landscape of Circular Economy within the business domain through an innovative approach to topic modelling applied to 1396 LinkedIn company profiles in the UK. We explore thematic structures within a dataset curated through the LinkedIn search engine prompt for companies related to the Circular Economy. Leveraging Latent Dirichlet Allocation models, we identify topics that encapsulate the essence of circular and sustainable business practices. Our findings unveil key thematic clusters, including “Waste Management and Environmental Impact,” highlighting companies at the forefront of waste reduction and eco-conscious industry practices. Another significant cluster, “Sustainable Solutions and Customer-Centric Approach,” delves into businesses seamlessly integrating sustainability across product design and customer interactions. Lastly, “Green Technology and Community Building” sheds light on companies excelling in green technology and actively contributing to environmentally responsible global networks. Topic modelling is employed as a powerful tool for unravelling complex business narratives and fostering a holistic approach to sustainable practices.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    In-situ monitoring the structural pathway of a Ti-based alloy from metallic liquid to metallic glass
    (Elsevier, 2025-04-25) Georgarakis, Konstantinos; Stiehler, Martin E.; Hennet, Louis; Guo, Yaofeng; Antonowicz, Jerzy; Louzguine-Luzgin, Dmitri V.; Jolly, Mark R.; Andrieux, Jérôme; Vaughan, Gavin B. M.; Greer, A. Lindsay
    A metallic glass is formed when a molten metallic alloy is cooled rapidly enough that crystallisation is avoided. However, the way the atomic structure of the liquid converts to that of the glass is generally unknown. The main challenge is the sufficiently fast experimental acquisition of structural data in the undercooled liquid regime necessitated by the high cooling rates needed to avoid crystallisation. In the present study, using aerodynamic levitation, the Ni-free Ti-based alloy Ti40Zr10Cu34Pd14Sn2 was vitrified in-situ in a high-energy synchrotron X-ray beam while diffraction data were acquired during cooling from above the liquidus temperature Tliq to well below the glass-transition temperature Tg. The structure in the undercooled liquid regime shows an accelerated evolution. Both the local order in the short (SRO) and medium range (MRO) increases rapidly as the undercooled liquid approaches Tg, below which the amorphous structure “freezes”. Nevertheless, distinct differences between the evolution of SRO and MRO were observed. The structural rearrangements in the undercooled liquid are found to be correlated with a rapid increase in viscosity of the metallic liquid upon cooling. The new findings shed light on the evolution of the atomic structure of metallic liquids during vitrification and the structural origins of the sluggish kinetics that suppress nucleation and growth of crystalline phases.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    “In-situ” x-ray imaging technology for material and manufacturing science: a review
    (Elsevier, 2025-05-15) Nguyen, Van Anh; Le, Duy Han; Damian, Dilen; Tran, The Bach; Le, Quang Hung; Nguyen, Nhu Tung
    “In-situ” X-ray imaging has become a powerful tool in materials and manufacturing science, enabling real-time observation of critical processes. However, access to X-ray facilities remains highly competitive due to limited availability, high operational costs, and technical complexity, restricting its use to a few research groups worldwide. This review addresses this challenge by providing a comprehensive analysis of X-ray imaging technologies, their historical development, and recent advancements in “in-situ” X-ray imaging. It explores applications across various materials and manufacturing processes, including welding, additive manufacturing (AM), casting, high-temperature furnaces, and novel materials. Key topics such as heat transfer, melt pool dynamics, solidification, microstructure evolution, and defect formation in manufacturing processes are systematically examined. Additionally, the review highlights the potential of “in-situ” X-ray imaging for discovering novel materials and advancing manufacturing technologies. It discusses current limitations, particularly the constraints of existing X-ray facilities, and outlines future directions for enhancing this technology. Expanding access to high-resolution X-ray imaging is crucial for accelerating advancements in materials and manufacturing. Integrating artificial intelligence and simulation models will further enhance its capabilities. Achieving these improvements requires upgrading existing X-ray facilities and developing new systems capable of capturing high-resolution, real-time imaging of complex material processes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Microstructure tailoring of a wire-arc DED processed Ti6242 alloy for high damage tolerance performance
    (Elsevier, 2025-05-05) Zakir, Farhana; Syed, Abdul Khadar; Zhang, Xiang; Davis, Alec E.; Sahu, Vivek K.; Caballero, Armando E.; Biswal, Romali; Prangnell, Philip B.; Williams, Stewart W.
    This paper examines the effects of interpass hammer peening and post-process β annealing on the tensile properties, high-cycle fatigue, and fatigue crack growth behaviour of the titanium alloy Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo-0.1Si (Ti6242), processed via wire-arc directed energy deposition (w-DED, also known as WAAM). A major challenge in additive manufacturing of titanium alloys is the development of a coarse columnar grain structure under standard build conditions, leading to significant anisotropy and variability in mechanical properties. This study demonstrates that interpass peening effectively refines the grain structure by inducing recrystallization, resulting in isotropic properties and increased strength without compromising fatigue crack growth resistance. Additionally, post-deposition annealing above the β-transus temperature (β annealing) significantly reduces the fatigue crack growth rate by an order of magnitude through microstructural refinement. The formation of coarse single-variant lamellar colonies promotes crack path branching and deviation, enhancing fatigue crack growth performance. Combining in-process grain refinement via peening with post-process β annealing further increases the threshold stress intensity factor by 2.5 times. These improvements provide substantial benefits for damage-tolerant design principles.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Navigating the landscape through digital human resource management: an initiative to achieve sustainable practices
    (Elsevier, 2025-06) Virmani, Naveen; Sharma, Shikha; Kumar, Pranav; Luthra, Sunil; Jain, Vranda; Jagtap, Sandeep
    The adoption of Digital Human Resource Management (DHRM) is increasing exponentially in the present market landscape; organizations are curious to digitalize human resource practices and enhance organizational performance. The purpose of the presented research is to assess various factors impacting DHRM adoption. The presented study is grounded in social exchange theory and dynamic capability theory. The survey instrument was developed using a literature review. Data from 269 respondents was collected, and Structural Equation Modeling was used to analyze the data. The research investigated the role of DHRM in achieving organizational performance. Furthermore, the role of sustainable Human Resource Practices (SHRP) is examined as a mediating variable. Also, the impact of Employee Engagement is analyzed on organizational performance. Moreover, the role of Management Support is analyzed to assess the relationship between DHRM, SHRP, and Employee Engagement (EENG). The result indicates that external environmental factors significantly impact DHRM practices. Also, SHRP partially mediates the association between DHRM and EENG. DHRM enables professionals to analyze real-time data, allowing managers to make informed decisions. In today's globalized scenario, the emergence of DHRM concept helps to automate and streamline Human Resource (HR) tasks, including performance management, recruitment, training, and appraisal, which eventually help to attain a sustainable competitive advantage. As found in existing literature, the DHRM domain is novel, and more empirical studies must investigate crucial aspects affecting DHRM adoption. Therefore, this study focuses on bridging the identified gaps.