**Author details**

14 Will-be-set-by-IN-TECH

The dependence of time of the energy absorbed by the structure of the vehicle is plotted on Figure 9. Analysing these results, it becomes clear that the inclusion of a polyurethane foam padding inside the door structure is the best way to increase the capability to absorb impact energy during a side-impact, when compared to both the crash test numerical simulations with no padding and those using paddings made from other cellular materials. The energy absorbed by the structure with the PUF padding exhibits a higher dissipation capability, leading to an increase in energy absorption of approximately 13% when compared to the

**Figure 9.** Variation with time of the energy absorbed by the structure of the vehicle during the

The introduction of a structural padding made from cellular materials inside the lateral doors of common vehicles is suggested as a passive safety mechanism in side-impact vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. In order to evaluate the viability and efficiency of this safety mechanism crash tests were performed using finite element analysis software LS-Dyna™. The EuroNCAP [38] standards and definitions were considered when the defining and implementing the crash-test models. Rigid polyurethane foam, IMPAXX™ , micro-agglomerated cork and aluminium foam paddings were tested and their performance

**4.4. Energy absorption**

structure to no padding.

side-impact crash tests.

**5. Conclusions**

Mariana Paulino *Faculty of Engineering & Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia*

Filipe Teixeira-Dias *Dept. Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro, Portugal*

#### **6. References**


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© 2012 Tawfik, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Tawfik, licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Polyurethane Trickling Filter in Combination** 

**of Tomato Industry Wastewater** 

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Ahmed Tawfik

**1. Introduction** 

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/47982

**with Anaerobic Hybrid Reactor for Treatment** 

The tomato industry is among the most polluting food industries in its huge amount of water consumption. This wastewater is predominantly loaded with organic wastes and is rich in organic content (Bozinis et al., 1996). Biological treatment processes are widely used for the treatment of agro-industry wastewaters, such as tomato industry wastewater which contain high concentrations of biodegradable organic matter (BOM) (Satyanarayan et al., 2005; Tawfik & El-Kamah 2011). Anaerobic treatment of high strength wastewater is widely accepted in the industry (Tawfik et al., 2008; Mehrdad et al., 2007; Del Pozo et al., 2003; Bernet &Paul, 2006). It has several advantages over aerobic processes, which include the use of less energy due to omission of aeration, the conversion of organic matter to methane which is an energy source by itself and can be used to supply some of the energy requirement of the process. Lower production of sludge, which reduces sludge disposal costs greatly and low level of maintenance, are other benefits of anaerobic processes (Tawfik et al., 2006; Cakira & Stenstromb, 2005; Shin et al., 2005). Moreover, high substrate removal efficiencies would be achieved in anaerobic reactors with short hydraulic retention time (HRT) and high organic loading rate (OLR) (Tawfik et al., 2010). One of the most efficient and quite flexible designs available is an anaerobic hybrid (AH) reactor which combines advantages of both anaerobic filter (AF) and up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) designs (Chang ,1989; Hawkes et al., 1995; Wu et al., 2000; Tawfik et al., 2011; Mahmoud et al., 2009). The presence of polyurethane media in the upper portion of AH reactor, in addition to its physical role for biomass retention, also exerts some biological activity which contributes to chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction in a zone where generally active biomass is lacking in a calssical UASB reactor (Elmitwalli et al., 1999; Tawfik et al., 2009). However; the effluent quality of anaerobic reactor is still not complying in terms of COD,
