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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Cam And Design For Manufacturing: Developing A Project-Based Learning Course, Stephen Pierson May 2024

Cam And Design For Manufacturing: Developing A Project-Based Learning Course, Stephen Pierson

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

To effectively serve student career success, mechanical engineering programs must teach students how to account for manufacturing considerations in design. Despite this, manufacturing education is a glaring area of need in current engineering curricula. In fact, basic manufacturing knowledge is one of the only hard skills consistently ranked as one of the greatest weaknesses of mechanical engineering hires in surveys of industrial employers over the last few decades. Without radically changing departmental curriculum to include more emphasis on design-build projects, one solution to combat this is to incubate a lab course in mechanical engineering programs in which undergraduates would practice …


Thermal Resistance Characterization Of High-Voltage Sic Power Module, Landon Lemmons Dec 2023

Thermal Resistance Characterization Of High-Voltage Sic Power Module, Landon Lemmons

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Researchers within the University of Arkansas Electrical Engineering Research Department have embarked on a project aimed at enhancing the thermal performance of high-voltage power modules. To aid in the progress of this project, the design, and development of a thermal tester device are needed. The primary objective of this device is to determine the various thermal properties of high-voltage power modules that the electrical engineering department has developed. Additionally, the project aims to facilitate electrical loading tests on power modules and provide researchers with the means to calibrate the power module in terms of thermal load. This project also possesses …


Autonomous Material Refill For Swarm 3d Printing, William C. Jones May 2022

Autonomous Material Refill For Swarm 3d Printing, William C. Jones

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

3D printing currently offers robust and cheap rapid prototyping solutions. While standard 3D printing remains at the periphery of mass production, the technology serves as a starting point for the development of swarm manufacturing. Since swarm manufacturing is predicated upon autonomy, swarm technology companies such as AMBOTS are seeking to minimize human involvement in the swarm’s functions. At present, the 3D printing swarm consists of the printers, a transporter which can take them between job sites, and the floor tiles which provide power and support the build surfaces. To add to this ecosystem, this project is focused on the design …


Algorithm Development Of Topology Optimization For Pcm Based Heat Sinks, Diego L. De Los Reyes May 2021

Algorithm Development Of Topology Optimization For Pcm Based Heat Sinks, Diego L. De Los Reyes

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

With the inherent usage of the computer when dealing with additive manufacturing, it only makes sense to use that higher computing power through simulation and iterative design to use the mathematical concept of topology and optimize the kind of geometry and shapes to be produced for a certain application, especially thermal ones since most 3D printing applications focus on purely the mechanical. To determine what the shape will be, an objective function of how much heat can be dispersed from a hypothetical heat source, assumed to be a type of electronic device, is maximized while being constrained by other variables, …


Noise Control In Sorting Conveyors, Eyra Herrera May 2021

Noise Control In Sorting Conveyors, Eyra Herrera

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

E-commerce has increased the necessity of effective material handling equipment in warehouses and distribution centers. Sorter conveyors systems facilitate material handling by providing a reliable and automated system to classify and distribute products in a gentle and rapid manner. With the steady increase of speed in sorter conveyors to satisfy today’s industry demand, some systems have started to produce high noise levels that could potentially affect workers’ health. Since decreasing the speed of these conveyors is not a viable option to decrease noise in sorter equipment, industries have opted to find other ways to apply noise control to their equipment. …


Design Of A Scara Based Mobile 3d Printing Platform, Zachary Hyden May 2019

Design Of A Scara Based Mobile 3d Printing Platform, Zachary Hyden

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Currently 3D printers rely heavily on people to run them, there is no automatic way to start a new print after one has finished. On top of this 3D printers are limited in the area they can print on. Even though the additive manufacturing market is rapidly growing and is increasingly being used in product manufacturing there has yet to be a solution to this problem. This research proposes using mobile 3D printing robots to solve both of these issues. The proposed prototype utilizes a Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) based robot capable of cooperatively manufacturing parts. This allows …


Photochemical Etching Of Nitrided Stainless Steel Piston Rings, Steven Sonntag Dec 2018

Photochemical Etching Of Nitrided Stainless Steel Piston Rings, Steven Sonntag

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Piston rings are designed to provide a seal between the piston and the cylinder wall of internal combustion engines, keeping oil from the crankcase from getting into the combustion chamber. This means piston rings are the main point of contact between the piston and the cylinder wall, which causes the piston to experience high amounts of friction and wear. By texturing the surfaces of the cylinder wall and/or the piston ring, the amount of contact area can be reduced, allowing for less friction, slower wear, and better gas mileage. In this thesis experiments, photochemical etching processes were developed to etch …


Optimization Of The Practice Of Slow Cooling Steel Bars: A Redesign And Modernization Of Materials, Eryn Johnston Dec 2018

Optimization Of The Practice Of Slow Cooling Steel Bars: A Redesign And Modernization Of Materials, Eryn Johnston

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Throughout the process of steel making, certain grades of steel are a higher risk for defects caused by the inability to quickly diffuse hydrogen through the steel when cooled to room temperature at a normal rate based on the ambient air temperature. To reduce the hydrogen flaking defects that are caused due to hydrogen entrapment in the steel, the process of slow cooling is utilized. This process reduces the cooling rate of steel bars by keeping them at a higher temperature for extended periods and in turn gives the hydrogen a chance to fully dissipate from the steel. In many …


Phase Field Model Of Thermally Induced Phase Separation (Tips) For The Formation Of Porous Polymer Membranes, Ashley Green, Aria Green May 2018

Phase Field Model Of Thermally Induced Phase Separation (Tips) For The Formation Of Porous Polymer Membranes, Ashley Green, Aria Green

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Most membrane research and development has been done through experimental work, which can be costly and time consuming. An accurate computational model would greatly reduce the need for these experiments. The focus of the research presented in this paper is to create an accurate computational model for membrane formation using thermally induced phase separation (TIPS). A phase field model is employed to create this model including the Cahn Hilliard Equation and Flory Huggins Theory. This model produced computational results that correspond well with theoretical and experimental results. The model was then adapted to correspond to the PVDF/DPC polymer-solvent system by …


Low-Cost Inkjet Process For 3-D Printing, Christopher T. Schmitt May 2016

Low-Cost Inkjet Process For 3-D Printing, Christopher T. Schmitt

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper presents a low-cost 3-D inkjet process design. Current commercially available 3-D inkjet printers (e.g., Objet Connex) that are capable of multi-material printing are expensive and out-of-reach of most consumers. While fused deposition modeling and other extrusion-based hybrid processes for multi-material printing are becoming available, these techniques are slow and relatively low-resolution. This research attempts to fill the gap by presenting a simple and low-cost solution to bring desktop 3-D inkjet to the community by utilizing components from an Epson inkjet printer. The mechanical system was designed with maximum utilization of the Epson carriage system with the addition of …


Droplet Generation At Megahertz Frequencies, John C. Miers May 2016

Droplet Generation At Megahertz Frequencies, John C. Miers

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Droplet formation has been a fascinating subject to scientists for centuries due to its natural beauty and importance to both scientific and industrial applications, such as inkjet printing, reagent deposition, and spray cooling. However, the droplet generation frequency of common drop-on-demand jetting techniques is mostly limited to ~10 kHz. This paper presents an investigation of the possibility of jetting at megahertz frequencies in order to boost the productivity of drop-on-demand material deposition by ~100 times. The focus of this paper is to understand the limitations of generating droplets at a megahertz frequency and to explore possible solutions for overcoming these …