Digital Commons Network^™

Elementary Computational Fluid Dynamics Using Finite-Difference Methods, Jason Turner, Scott Labrake

Honors Theses

Fluids permeate all of human existence, and fluid dynamics serves as a rich field of research for many physicists. Although the mathematics involved in studying fluids tends to get complicated, the physical intuition gained through daily exposure to such systems bridges the gap between abstract calculations and their physical meaning. We discuss the mathematical treatment and simulations of fluid flows found in everyday life, such as flow in a cavity and through a pipe. Our discussions follow the example set by several notable texts, referenced in the document.

Experimentally Investigating Water Aerosol Formation Via Alpha Radiation In A Humid Nitrogen Atmosphere, Megan Payne

Honors Theses

This project aims to verify the formation of water aerosols induced by an ionizing radiation source in a Nitrogen atmosphere with various levels of humidity. This work is part of an effort to characterize the overall signature of ionizing radiation in Earth’s typical atmosphere. By signature, it is meant all the chemical reactions and physical processes that take place between Earth’s atmosphere and the ionizing radiation. This signature can potentially be used to identify a radiation source out in the field. The identification of a radiation source could potentially be used in a variety of defense applications. To characterize this …

The Proton Veto Project At Wmu/Msu, Justin Swaim

Honors Theses

The Proton Veto Wall (VW) is a charged particle detector designed and built at Western Michigan University for use at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. The VW assists the Large Area Neutron Array (LANA) with discriminating between charged particles detected via proton recoil in the scintillating material and charged particles detected from heavy ion collisions produced in the laboratory. Twenty five Eljen-200 plastic organic scintillators are arranged in a vertical position with photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) mounted to either end. The detector sits directly in front of LANA on a large stand that was assembled using T-slotted …

Some Results From The Lariat Experiment, Derek Walker

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of A Custom Support Vector Machine For Photometric Redshift Estimation And The Inclusion Of Galaxy Shape Information, Evan Jones, J. Singal

Honors Theses

Aims. We present a custom support vector machine classification package for photometric redshift estimation, including comparisons with other methods. We also explore the efficacy of including galaxy shape information in redshift estimation. Support vector machines, a type of machine learning, utilize optimization theory and supervised learning algorithms to construct predictive models based on the information content of data in a way that can treat different input features symmetrically, which can be a useful estimator of the information contained in additional features beyond photometry, such as those describing the morphology of galaxies.

Methods. The custom support vector machine package we have …