Engineering Commons^™

A.C. Moyer Eye-Cap Manufacturing, Thais Bertolus, Alexa Steidl, Hana Welsh, Jarod Kinney, Maya Willis

Mechanical Engineering

A.C. Moyer company has been making eye caps as a family business since 1947. Eye caps are a product used during the embalming process. Currently the machines being used to produce the eye caps are outdated and unsafe. We are a team of 5 mechanical engineering students tasked with either designing new machines or updating the existing machines to make the manufacturing process more efficient, automated, and safer. This document describes the design process, provides background, relevant research, establishes project objectives, and defines plans for project implementation.

Final Design Review Report: The Underdogs, Parker Johnson, Jack Montgomery, Katherine Thomas

Mechanical Engineering

Aspen is a three-legged dog with mobility issues from Berkeley, California. She was hit by a car and her rear left leg was amputated at the hip. Robin Swanson, Aspen's owner, and her friend, Audrey Beil, are the sponsors for this project. Jack Montgomery, Katherine Thomas, and Parker Johnson, “The Underdogs”, are tasked with helping Aspen regain some of her mobility and the ability to go on walks. Research was done into the problem by talking with the sponsors and looking into existing products, designs, and patents. This document, the Final Design Review Report, outlines the background information, problem specification, …

2 Degree Of Freedom Robotic Leg, Oded Tzori, Henry Terrell, Adan Martinez

Mechanical Engineering

Professor Xing, an assistant professor at Cal Poly, proposed the 2 DOF Robotic Leg project for this quarter’s senior project class. The project is to build a robotic leg attached at the hip to a stand, which will be used as a teaching tool and eventually help develop Cal Poly’s very own robotic quadruped. Since this project has multiple uses after its completion, there are multiple customers that it must perform well for: the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering (ME) Department, the ME Lab instructors, and the students. The Scope of Work (Sections 2 & 3) is composed of 2 main …

Formula Sae Monocoque Chassis Development, Kc Egger, Brian Ford, Kyle Nagao, Neal Sharma, Donovan Zusalim

Mechanical Engineering

Formula SAE is a collegiate competition hosted by SAE International with the primary goal being to design, manufacture, and race an open wheel race car. The Cal Poly Racing Formula SAE team strives for improvement every race season and has remained competitive as a result. The 2019-2020 management team determined that further research and development towards the chassis would yield the greatest performance benefit for future seasons, as the previous chassis platform limited packaging and mounting options for vehicle subsystems which interfaced with the chassis.

A redesign of the Cal Poly Racing Formula SAE team’s carbon fiber reinforced polymer monocoque …

Cp Check Valve Design, Alec B. Der Matoian, Jessica M. Dent, Skylar M. Tusting

Mechanical Engineering

This report is to serve as a final design review and update to the project sponsors at Zurn Wilkins for the Check Valve Design Senior Project. The senior project team was tasked with improving upon the design of Zurn Wilkins’ backflow prevention assembly for small diameter pipes by reducing the pressure loss created by the check valves within the double check backflow assembly. The information contained in this report builds off the information contained in the Critical Design Report (CDR), as well as feedback and further investigation suggested during an Intermediary Design Review. Based on conclusions from the CDR, our …

Effects Of Powder Recycling In Selective Laser Melting, Nina L. Menon

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The following report analyzes 316L stainless steel powder characteristics of new powder and powder that has been used in the selective laser melting process for 40-50 builds. A literature review was done of powder characteristics, different ways flowability can be tested, and effects of recycling other types of metal powders in Additive Manufacturing. Flowability improved over 21 reuses of the titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V and resulted in stronger printed parts. Flow of S17-4 PH steel powder was measured with a Hall flowmeter and increased significantly over the course of 10 reuses. Heavily recycled (estimated 50 reuses) 316L SS powder and brand …

Modular Cable Buoy, James J. Marinas, Gabriela Vargas, Anthony Catello, Joseph Heald

Mechanical Engineering

Cable terminations are often the least reliable and most expensive components of a maritime system. These cables are suspended in water by a buoy to reduce wear at the terminations. The Naval Information Warfare Center requires a modular auxiliary float with tunable buoyancy that can be placed along such cable. Our system must be able to be deployed, adjusted, and retrieved quickly and easily during operational use. This report focuses on our team’s final design concept and includes all analysis to justify our design direction along with safety, maintenance, and repair considerations. The report further elaborates on cost analysis, manufacture …

Prosthetic Foot Shell, Ql+, Kathryn Victoria Versteeg, Jackson A. Tucker, Ethan William Frey

Mechanical Engineering

This final design review includes an overview of our project and the steps we have taken to create our final product. We discuss the background research conducted, including various products like the foot shell we are trying to design and its related patents, along with similar past senior projects. As our product is considered a medical device, there are also certain standards that we must comply with. After determining our problem statement, we established what we believe to be the wants and needs of our user. These wants and needs were converted into specifications for our design, with durability as …

Heavenly Bodies Rsvp, Justin Tyler Spitzer, Allison Jean Turnbaugh, Jack William Boulware, Braden Alex Lockwood

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of the Heavenly Bodies RSVP project was to design and fabricate planet props, as well as a mechanism by which they could be raised and lowered in California Polytechnic State University’s Pavilion theater. The project team was comprised of four fourth year mechanical engineering students: Allison Turnbaugh, Braden Lockwood, Jack Boulware, and Justin Spitzer. We conducted extensive research to determine the ideal solution for the design problem brought to us by our sponsor. In our analysis, we discovered that the most important aspects of our design were the absolute reliability of the system, fire retardant material selection, and …

Spring Loaded Camming Device, Jared S. Christner, Kaitlin O. Deherrera, Ryan W. Edwards, John S. Hickey

Mechanical Engineering

Spring loaded camming devices or “cams” are used in traditional rock climbing as a means of active fall protection. Climbers place cams in cracks and fissures in the rock wall. The cam’s lobes press against the walls, locking it in place, anchoring the climber in case of a fall. Currently, there is a lack of large cams on the market. Only two small companies produce cams that are usable in cracks 6.5 inches wide and larger, however their designs are either too heavy and/or lack features to be comfortable. We are a group of mechanical engineering students at Cal Poly …

Automated Drone Calibration System, Jackie Kelly Jong-Mee Paik, Zach Nathan Richter, Tyler Wilson Van Den Berg, Ryan Alexander Zhan, Matthew Ward Carlson

Mechanical Engineering

The final design review of the Inspired Flight Calibration Team senior project will detail the process used to complete a verification prototype of a drone calibration device and discuss lessons learned and suggestions for improving this device. Going from brainstorming and conceptual prototyping all the way through verification prototyping and testing, we were able to design a gyroscopic device that met Inspired Flight’s needs for the flight sensor calibration of their drones. The mechanical design involved comprehensive CAD models and hands-on manufacturing. The mechatronics side of the project worked heavily with electrical wiring and writing custom software to communicate and …

Safran Seat Attachment System, Craig John Kimball, Tyler Bragg, Lynette Cox

Mechanical Engineering

This final design review (FDR) document outlines the senior design project being carried out by a team of mechanical engineering undergraduate students attending California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo for Safran Seats in Santa Maria, CA. The project originally was to design, build, and test a universal attachment to secure a widebody business class seat to seven aircraft models with different seat track geometry. The goal was to design, document, and create a finished product that fits design, weight, and manufacturing requirements, as well as passes static 9G FWD testing. Structural analysis, manufacturing analysis, FEA, and CAD assemblies will …

Miniaturized Ultraviolet Imager Phase Iii, Bradley D. Albright, Nicolas A. Armenta, Colin W. Harrop

Mechanical Engineering

This document details the work to date, June 9, 2020, done by the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering senior project team, Miniaturized Ultraviolet Imager: Phase III (MUVI III), sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley – Space Sciences Laboratory (UCB SSL). MUVI III is the third senior project team of an ongoing design, MUVI: the prototype of a 2U sized CubeSat intended to capture aurora images in the ionosphere. The first team, MUVI I, finished development of the UV imager. The second team, MUVI II, designed the mirror mounting and deployable door mechanisms. The goal of MUVI phase III is to …

Fox Factory Bearing Assembly Rundown And Torque Automation Project, David Ethan Daley, Eric Michael Forrester, Christopher Enrique Hansen, Riley Jacob O'Connor

Mechanical Engineering

A machine design was created to partially automate the rundown and torque of a Fox Factory shock bearing housing. This machine is needed at the factory to keep line associates safe by reducing ergonomic strains associated with this stage in the shock assembly process. Due to the lack of applicable torque drivers for this operation, an open ended, geared drivetrain was designed to allow for engagement of the bearing housing while allowing clearance for the shock shaft that the bearing rides on. This open drivetrain is held by a structure of linear rails and bearings to allow the line associate …

Cal Poly Prove Lab Endurance Car Composite Body Paneling Design, Emma Wheelock, Sarah Rutland, Noah Fisher, Brian Menard

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Prototype Vehicles Laboratory (PROVE Lab) needs a body paneling design for their Endurance Car aeroshell which optimizes strength, weight and accessibility while minimizing complexity. Additionally, a low-complexity, accurate manufacturing process for the PROVE Lab Endurance Car aeroshell needs to be developed. PROVE Lab designed the shape of the aeroshell. The aeroshell will serve to reduce the aerodynamic drag on the car at high speed, and is not a structural component of the car. Due to the high-strength and lightweight nature of composites, PROVE Lab requests the senior project team investigate using composites for automotive body paneling applications. …

Tmtt Chimera Valve Attachment Process, Paulina Nguyen, Devin Debouk, Tamar Kazazian, Noah Thompson

Biomedical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Simulating Particle Packing During Powder Spreading For Selective Laser Melted Additive Manufacturing Using The Discrete Element Method In Abaqus, Priscilla Ng

Master's Theses

Metal additive manufacturing allows for the rapid production of complex parts that are otherwise impractical using conventional subtractive manufacturing techniques. Applications for additive manufacturing span across a broad array of industries including aerospace, automotive, and medical, among many others. One metric of printing success is material properties, including part density. While there has been extensive research completed for the density of printed parts, there is little published work concerning powder packing density on the build plate associated with powder spreading.

In this thesis, a Discrete Element Method (DEM) model was created in Abaqus to simulate the spreading behavior of particles …

Service Dog Ramp, Matthew Lundgren, Ariel Tolentino, Dallas Rocha, Adam Mayeda

Mechanical Engineering

This project involves designing a device to help a service dog easily get into and out of a truck. It details the design and manufacturing process. The project was interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so detailed instructions are provided for whoever takes on the project in the future.

Cal Poly Supermileage Dynamometer, Jacob Randall, Nate Deffenbaugh, Kyle Milgram

Mechanical Engineering

Our senior project involves designing a chassis dynamometer capable of simulating variable loads for the Cal Poly Supermileage Vehicle (SMV) team. The chassis dynamometer we are developing uses an alternator to develop additional resistance that the vehicle will have to overcome while testing. To implement a control system for the variable load, we use an Arduino Nano paired with multiple sensors and drivers. This control system allows the user to select different levels of resistance that correlate with different road grades. We designed a custom Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that will contain all the electrical components needed for the control …

Utilization And Standardization Of Beverage Based Containers, Michael T. Bobke, Jack C. Maughan, Kenia Vargas

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this document is to formally describe and explain all of the decisions associated with the data collection and analysis for this Cal Poly Senior Project. Throughout the project, we will utilize and hone the skills that each team member has developed during our time in Cal Poly's Engineering program. In addition, this document will briefly describe some of Blue Diamond’s history as one of the biggest almond companies in the world. The statement of work will introduce and describe the current status of the beverage base container process and international beverage container design. Next it will discuss …

Rebar Impalement Safety, Spencer C. Nefores, Steven M. Hoover

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project is sponsored by Webcor with the purpose of finding a better solution to rebar impalement safety. The current rebar impalement safety caps being used by Webcor were found to frequently fall off after being installed. This results in workers being exposed to the hazard for longer than desired. The research that has been done by the team showed that rebar impalement is a serious hazard and results in injury or death every year. Site visits and interviews were performed to aid in understanding the problem and designing solutions. The customer needs, current state of the problem, existing solutions, …

Parklets San Luis, Owen Kenny, Preston Jag Stebel, Leonidas Goodman, Lukas Braun

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Downtown San Luis Obispo has been a popular destination for tourists, students, families, and roadtrippers. However, according to Ryan Betz, Interim Assistant to the City Manager, foot traffic and retail business revenue has been decreasing. Downtown SLO does not have enough free public spaces. Recent projects such as sidewalk bump outs and lighted crosswalks have aimed at making SLO more pedestrian accessible, but they have not actually made downtown more pleasurable. These projects have not seemed to drive any more business or traffic downtown. There are a myriad of ways to rectify this; studies show that having a free place …