Engineering Commons^™

A Resistance Based Structural Health Monitoring System For Composite Structure Applications, Dennis N. Boettcher

Master's Theses

This research effort explored the possibility of using interwoven conductive and nonconductive fibers in a composite laminate for structural health monitoring (SHM). Traditional SHM systems utilize fiber optics, piezoelectrics, or detect defects by nondestructive test methods by use of sonar graphs or x-rays. However, these approaches are often expensive, time consuming and complicated.

The primary objective of this research was to apply a resistance based method of structural health monitoring to a composite structure to determine structural integrity and presence of defects.

The conductive properties of fiber such as carbon, copper, or constantan - a copper-nickel alloy - can be …

Iphone Breathalyzer: Point Oh Wait!, Gurpal Bhoot

Electrical Engineering

This final year project combines hardware and software components to create an alcohol breathalyzer that is compatible with the iPhone. The final design of the circuit and the iPhone application is original and combines multiple components to create the final product. Most of those components are seen in a simplified version of a breathalyzer, while the added components take care of the interface to the iPhone.

Design Of An Rf Cmos Power Amplifier For Wireless Sensor Networks, Hua Pan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Power Amplifier (PA) is the last Radio Frequency (RF) building block in a transmitter, directly driving an antenna. The low power RF input signal of the PA is amplified to a significant power RF output signal by converting DC power into RF power. Since the PA consumes a majority of the power, efficiency plays one of the most important roles in a PA design. Designing an efficient, fully integrated RF PA that can operate at low supply voltage (1.2V), low power, and low RF frequency (433MHz) is a major challenge. The class E Power Amplifier, which is one type …

Video Mosaicing Using Inertial Sensors, Arturo Maya Pereyra

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A method to reduce the process complexity of Video Mosaicing could rely on information concerning the orientation of the camera instead of image feature tracking. Inertial sensors (e.g. accelerometers and gyros) could form part of a low cost motion based technology which can be used in this case and this thesis details an approach for Video Mosaicing based on such technology that requires non-computationally intensive algorithms.

Microfabrication Of Conductive Polymer Nanocomposite For Sensor Applications, Chaoxuan Liu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation developed novel microfabrication techniques of conductive polymer nanocomposite and utilized this material as a functional element for various physical sensor applications. Microstructures of nanocomposite were realized through novel microcontact printing and laser ablation assisted micropatterning processes. Prototype devices including large-strain strain sensor and highly-sensitive pressure sensor were demonstrated showing distinct advantages over existing technologies. The polymer nanocomposite used in this work comprised elastomer poly(dimexylsiloxane) (PDMS) as polymer matrix and multi-walled carbon nananotubes (MWCNTs) as a conductive nanofiller. To achieve uniform distribution of carbon nanotubes within the polymer, an optimized dispersion process was developed, featuring a strong organic solvent—chloroform, …