Engineering Commons^™

Resource Recovery From Crew Metabolic Wastes In Lunar And Martian Habitats: Reuse Of Effluent From An Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Treating Fecal Organic Matter As Fertilizer Source For Plants, Alexandra A. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As humans set their sights on exploration of the Moon and Mars human focused challenges like providing potable water, supplying nutritious food to the astronaut crew, and managing their waste present themselves. There are no readily available resources on the Moon and Mars, therefore nothing should be considered unusable including the organic wastes (i.e., feces and urine) produced by the crew. Fecal matter is not currently recycled and is treated as solid waste. After collection, it is discarded out of the International Space Station where it is incinerated upon re-entry. This approach will not work on the Moon’s surface. There …

Light Intensity Control For Plc-Based Hydroponic Demonstration System, Christian Hitt

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In order to demonstrate a skill set obtained through the University of Arkansas Biological Engineering, a group of students and I developed a hydroponic system where plants could be grown in a chamber. System parameters such as air quality, irrigation, and lighting were controlled by a Programmable Logic Computer (PLC) and an array of sensors and actuators. Each student focused on a certain aspect of this system, mine being the lighting. Developing this system involved researching the relationship between light intensity and plant growth, designing a system to suspend the lights above the growth chamber, and develop a system to …

Design Of A Deep Flow Technique Hydroponic System And An Elementary Education Module For Tri Cycle Farms, Cady Rosenbaum

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hydroponics is an agricultural technique in which plants are grown without soil and are instead grown in water systems that include nutrients and other growth-supporting media. Hydroponic systems typically reside inside, so that the system can be fully controlled by the grower by manipulating the temperature and amount of light the plants receive. The benefits of growing plants using hydroponics include: the amount of water used is reduced, it is less labor to grow organic produce with an indoor system, less space used, and it allows for growing food anywhere. Tri Cycle Farms is planning for the construction of a …

Design Of A Shallow-Aero Ebb And Flow Hydroponics System And Associated Educational Module For Tri Cycle Farms, Julie Halveland

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tri Cycle Farms, whose main mission is to reduce food insecurity in their community, is a non- profit urban farm in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The “Tri” in their name refers to the three parts of their foundation: giving a third of their yield to volunteers, giving a third to local food pantries, and selling a third to sustain the farm and demonstrate the economy of local food production. They want to expand on the third part and have a vision of building a hydroponic greenhouse with the intention that it will create more crops to sell and give, as well as …

Internal Design Of A Hydroponics Greenhouse For Tri Cycle Farms, Sarah Gould

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hydroponics is the agricultural technique of growing plants without soil, using other growing media and added nutrients in a solvent. It is an attractive agricultural method over conventional agriculture because it is more water efficient, is less labor intensive, yields higher quality crops in less time, and is easier to control. According to the Digital Journal, “hydroponics crop value is anticipated to grow to USD 27.29 Billion by 2022 at an estimated CAGR of 6.39% from 2015 to 2020” (Sawant, 2016). Alongside this growing market acceptance for hydroponics, there is also a local demand that requires only a small transportation …

Mapping And Analyzing Energy Use And Efficiency In A Modified Hydroponic Shipping Container, Rachel E. Sparks

Open Access Theses

In urban centers today, vertical farming is becoming a popular alternative to conventional agriculture in an effort to increase local food production and improve urban food security by growing crops using hydroponic methods in controlled environment spaces. More specifically, one vertical method involves growing crops inside refurbished shipping containers, or a “farm-in-a-box” concept, which offers a flexible, mobile, and scalable means of year-round food production in a variety of climates. Despite benefits of producing food locally, some of the concerns associated with these vertical farming systems include high energy consumption from climate control and electric lighting systems as well as …

Determining The Most Efficient Type Of Growth Light For An Aquaponics System Using Yellow Lantern Chilies (Capsicum Chinense), Travis Mceachern

Undergraduate Theses

Abstract

Aquaponics, a type of urban agriculture, shows potential to produce large amounts of food with little water and land requirements. Thus, aquaponics could help address the issue of feeding the growing worldwide population. However, multiple challenges, both technical and economical, are associated with aquaponics, making large-scale implementation of these systems difficult – these systems can require tremendous amounts of energy. This study sought to determine the most efficient types grow lights in aquaponics systems by comparing the growth rates of yellow lantern chilies (Capsicum chinense) when grown under four different types of growth lights: light-emitting diode (LED), …

Project Oasis: Optimizing Aquaponic Systems To Improve Sustainability, Siddharth Nigam, Paige Balcom

Honors Theses and Capstones

Started in Fall 2015, Project OASIS (Optimizing Aquaponic Systems to Improve Sustainability) is an interdisciplinary capstone project with the goal of designing a sustainable and affordable small-scale aquaponic system for use in developing nations to tackle the problems of malnutrition and food insecurity. Aquaponics is a symbiotic relationship between fish and vegetables growing together in a recirculating system. The project’s goals were to minimize energy consumption and construction costs while using universally available materials. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software OpenFOAM was used to create transient and steady-state models of fish tanks to visualize velocity profiles, streamlines, and particle movement. …

Fresh Bytes - Connected Hydroponics For Small-Scale Growing, Jack Bowen

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

Many users are now transitioning to small-scale hydroponics and aquaponics at home. There can be a barrier to entry with these systems as there is a delicate balance of chemicals, pH, etc. that must be maintained. There are sensors for these various components but they are either aimed at commercial production or are un-automated. Fresh Bytes is a microcomputer with sensors to detect all of these unseen components in a hydroponic system. A prototype of this microcomputer is produced along with CAD plans for more professional versions of it. The sensors are verified and future development is contemplated.