Allan Melvin Andrew
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Preferred name
Allan Melvin Andrew
Official Name
Allan Melvin, Andrew
Alternative Name
Andrew, Allan Melvin
Andrew, Allan M.
Melvin, A. A.
Main Affiliation
Scopus Author ID
36469871200
Researcher ID
GDH-3820-2022

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Prototype Design for Rubik’s Cube Solver

2021-01-01 , Allan Melvin Andrew , Faridah Wahab , Tan Wei Hong , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Amirah A.S.N. , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Lee F.S.

Rubik’s cube is a modern day plastic material puzzle, where the one need to twist and turn to solve the multicolour squares. At the end, the puzzle need to be solved to make all the same colour cubes on the same surfaces. High intelligence is needed to solve it at a shorter time. Therefore, this research is to create a robot solver to solve the Rubik’s cube in short time smartly. Initially, the algorithm will scan the six surfaces of unsolved cube through a webcam and register the colours in the memory. Once it is completed, the solving algorithm will analyse and instruct the servo motors to twist and turn based on the computed solution. It is then pass it to the solving algorithm to identify the solving process and send the moving instruction to the motors by Raspberry Pi. The robot body was constructed using laser cutter. It is to make sure that the measurements are accurate and correct. To solve the cube, four servo motors with high efficiency were used to twist the cube in certain legit with the rules of the game. Another four servo motors are connected to the rack and pinion gears by clamping to hold the Rubik’s cube from falling when it is twisted. An improvised “Kociemba Algorithm”, also called as “The Two-Phase-Algorithm” is used. It reduced the required moves to solve the cube into a maximum of 25 moves and a minimum of 19. Conclusively, the final prototype discussed in this paper is tested with the solving algorithm. The results are presented.

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Acoustical Analysis and Optimization for Micro-Perforated Panel Sound Absorber

2021-01-01 , Tan Wei Hong , Amirah A.S.N. , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Allan Melvin Andrew , Faridah Wahab , Lim E.A.

The main objective of this study is to maximize the rate of sound absorption by applying the parameters of micro-perforated plate (MPP) such as the holes diameter, holes spacing, thickness of MPP, and air cavity depth of MPP. In this study, an optimization algorithm – Firefly algorithm is adopted to determine an optimum set of four parameters for MPP. There are four pieces of MPP with different holes of diameter and spacing was used as specimens. The two-microphone impedance tube method was used to measure sound absorption coefficient (SAC) of MPP sound absorber according to ASTM E1050-12 standard. From the experiments, MPP C (hole diameter = 0.5 mm, hole spacing = 7 mm) for both air cavity depth (30 & 60 mm) score the highest SAC which is 1.00 while MPP B (hole diameter = 0.9 mm, hole spacing = 5 mm) obtain the lowest SAC for air cavity of 30 and 60 mm, which are 0.62 and 0.54 respectively. Then, the firefly algorithm is applied to obtain the optimal solution the set of parameters for MPP sound absorber to reduce the noise level. Hence, it is concluded that by increasing the air cavity depth, holes spacing, and decreasing holes diameter size can increase the rate of sound absorption for MPP. The optimal set of parameters obtained from this study for MPP sound absorber for air cavity, hole diameter and holes spacing are 30, 0.71 mm and 0.5 respectively.

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Analysis of Vibration for Grass Trimmer

2021-01-01 , Tan Wei Hong , Amirah A.S.N. , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Allan Melvin Andrew , Faridah Wahab

Grass trimmer is identified as a type of machine which contributes high vibration level and can cause hand-arm vibration. Hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) can cause musculoskeletal disorder, neurology and complex vascular. The risk of developing HAVS is depending on the magnitude of vibration transmitted to the tool handle, the duration of vibration exposure and the user sensitivity to HAVS. In this study, a prototype handle is designed to reduce the vibration level. Three rubber mounts were used as isolator in the experiment. There are three isolators was selected to measure the different acceleration between the specimen. In addition, the transmissibility of engine was selected to compare between the original and three different isolators but on transmissibility of handle was compared between three rubber mounts. Every isolator has different value of stiffness and damping. When stiffness and damping are decrease in value; the vibration level was decreases. However, decrement of stiffness and damping, the value of transmissibility were decreases. In addition, the dynamic behavior as natural frequency and mode shapes of free analysis was determined between the original handle and the prototype handle. According to the analysis, the local and global vibration were found in the vibration mode of the grass trimmer.

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Failure analysis of leaf spring for commercial vehicle

2021-07-21 , Tan Wei Hong , Faridah Wahab , Allan Melvin Andrew , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Amirah A.S.N.

The objective of this study is to analysis the failure of leaf spring for the commercial vehicle. A given specification of leaf spring is modeled and analyzed using ANSYS software. The material used is 55Si2Mn90. The failure of leaf spring is performed using static analysis, modal analysis and harmonic response analysis. The effect of different loads on the stress, total deformation and frequency response are investigated. The result showed that the stress, total deformation and frequency response increase when load is increased. The failure occurred near the eye of master leaf of the leaf spring due to high stress generated. At the same, it is also observed that the peak response happened on the first mode of natural frequency.

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Mathematical Modelling Development of Sound Transmission Loss for Laminated Glass Using Response Surface Methodology

2021-01-01 , Tan Wei Hong , Faridah Wahab , Allan Melvin Andrew , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Amirah A.S.N. , Lim E.A.

The purpose of this study is to identify parameters that affect the rate of sound transmission loss. Mathematical model of sound transmission loss (STL) is developed for laminated glass and maximize the STL of laminated glass by using response surface methodology (RSM). The main objective of this study is to determine the type of material and number of interlayers for laminated glass on the STL performance. The two-load transfer function method (TFM) coupled with LMS Test Lab Acoustic software to determine the STL. The analysis was made by observing the performance of STL with respect to different materials used, such as glass and Perspex. Besides that, number of interlayers for laminated glass also had been studied for the performance of STL. Next, the RSM will be applied to develop mathematical modelling of STL for laminated glass. Optimization on the variable of laminated glass also has been conducted to obtain optimum variable of laminated glass in order to deliver optimum STL performance.

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Characterization and Properties of PP/NBRv/Kenaf Fibre Composites with Silane Treatment

2021-01-01 , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Allan Melvin Andrew , Faridah W. , Amirah A.S.N. , Tan W.H. , Othman N.S.

The effect of kenaf fibre content and the silane treatment of PP/NBRv/kenaf composites were studied and fabricated via melt mixing at 180 ˚C for 9 min using 15 rpm motor speed. By using silane as a coupling agent for PP/NBRv/kenaf fibre composite, the mechanical and morphological properties have been improved compared to PP/NBRv/kenaf fibre composite without silane treatment. The composites were examined by using Universal Testing Machine (UTM) for tensile testing and Scanning Electron Microspcope (SEM) for morphological study. The tensile strentgh of PP/NBRv/kenaf with and without silane treatment decreased with increasing amount of kenaf filler content but increased in the Young’s Modulus. However, composites with silane treatment indicated better strength values than the composites without silane treatment. The morphology observations of composites have supported the tensile properties which indicated better interaction between the filler and matrix for treated composites.

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Smart SMS- based appointment management system for hospitals in rural area

2021-07-21 , Allan Melvin Andrew , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Amirah A.S.N. , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Tan Wei Hong , Faridah Wahab , Asri A.A.A.

Nowadays, many hospitals are seeking for smart managing their operations. Based on the discussion with a local private hospital in Penang, Malaysia, there are problems in managing the appointments of dialysis patients. The dialysis center staffs currently having manual management system, where the staffs will call the patients one by one to find out whether they are available to fill the empty slots for the dialysis for the day. It is indeed troublesome for the staffs and the patients. Patients at times are not ready for filling the slots even though they wanted the dialysis, may be due to last minute arrangement for timing and transports. Thus, there is a need to have a system which can manage the appointments for dialysis patients. The purpose of the research is to automate the existing manual appointment system by the help of computerized devices, and to develop a dialysis appointment management system which is user-friendly, simple, fast and cost - effective. The main function of the system is to make an appointment and to store patient details, which will be an easier retrieval for the attendants. The system will identify the empty slots available, and will contact the patients to check the availability. Based on the input from the patients through Short Messaging System (SMS), the appointment will be sorted. The administrators can login to the Smart Appointment Management System using an authorized username and password for viewing and making changes manually.

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Performance of concrete gravity dam with various height of dam based on static pushover analysis

2021-07-21 , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Faridah Wahab , Allan Melvin Andrew , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Amirah A.S.N. , Tan Wei Hong

The study was related to the performance of the concrete gravity dam with a various height of dam based on static pushover analysis. Based on the concepts of nonlinear static pushover analysis, a lateral incremental load is applied to the dam body after exerting gravitational and hydrostatic loads. In a concrete gravity dam, inertia loads and hydrodynamic loads are the types of lateral loads generated in earthquakes. The four concrete dams of various height had been analyzed by using ABAQUS. For each model, there were 10 trials analysis of increasing lateral load until the dam reached its limit state. The four finite elements of the concrete gravity dam with various height will be designed. The various height of concrete gravity dam has been specified to 50m, 75m, 100m and 125m. The analysis had been run and the limit state of concrete gravity dam such as cracking will be determined. The magnitude of lateral pushover load will be increased consequently until the dam reached its limit state.

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A novel unsupervised spectral clustering for pure-tone audiograms towards hearing aid filter bank design and initial configurations

2022-01-01 , Elkhouly A. , Allan Melvin Andrew , Hasliza A Rahim @ Samsuddin , Abdulaziz N. , Abdulmalek M. , Mohd Najib Mohd Yasin , Muzammil Jusoh , Thennarasan Sabapathy , Siddique S.

The current practice of adjusting hearing aids (HA) is tiring and time-consuming for both patients and audiologists. Of hearing-impaired people, 40–50% are not satisfied with their HAs. In addition, good designs of HAs are often avoided since the process of fitting them is exhausting. To improve the fitting process, a machine learning (ML) unsupervised approach is proposed to cluster the pure-tone audiograms (PTA). This work applies the spectral clustering (SP) approach to group audiograms according to their similarity in shape. Different SP approaches are tested for best results and these approaches were evaluated by Silhouette, Calinski-Harabasz, and Davies-Bouldin criteria values. Kutools for Excel add-in is used to generate audiograms’ population, annotated using the results from SP, and different criteria values are used to evaluate population clusters. Finally, these clusters are mapped to a standard set of audiograms used in HA characterization. The results indicated that grouping the data in 8 groups or 10 results in ones with high evaluation criteria. The evaluation for population audiograms clusters shows good performance, as it resulted in a Silhouette coefficient >0.5. This work introduces a new concept to classify audiograms using an ML algorithm according to the audiograms’ similarity in shape.

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Characterization of PP/NBRr/Kenaf Composites with and Without NaOH Treatment

2021-01-01 , Faridah Wahab , Allan Melvin Andrew , Nik Zainab Nik Azizan , Ragunathan Al Santiagoo , Amirah A.S.N. , Tan Wei Hong , Hidayah A.W.N.

The use of natural fibers as filler or reinforcement in composite has increased recently due to low cost and the demand to environmentally friendly materials. However, lack of good interfacial adhesion between natural fiber filler and polymer matrix encourage many researches to explore ways to overcome this limitation. In this research, kenaf is used as natural fiber reinforcement with polymeric composites to produce new ideal of green composites. The surface modification using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was carried out to modify the fiber properties. In this study, kenaf were treated by using NaOH of 6% concentration immersed for 24 h. The composites were prepared by using heated two roll mill at temperature 180 °C with speed of 15 rpm for 11 min. The ratio of kenaf filler loading in the composite was varied from 0 up to 25 phr while PP/NBRr matrix was remain constant at 70/30 respectively. Then the mixture compound was molded by using hot press at temperature 180 °C to form 1 mm sheet samples before cut into dumbbell shape. The mechanical properties and morphology of untreated and treated PP/NBRr/kenaf composites at various filler loading were obtained by using tensile testing and Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM) respectively. The results showed that as the filler loading increased up to 25 phr, the tensile strength and elongation at break were decreased while the Young’s modulus was increased. The composites with NaOH treatment of kenaf showed a better performance in tensile strength, elongation at break and Young’s Modulus as compared to composite with untreated kenaf with increment by 32–88%, 0.5–2.8% and 8–32% respectively. It was proved by morphological properties that the composite with NaOH treatment kenaf have a good attachment with the PP/NBR matrices.

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