Engineering Commons^™

Performance Loss Rate And Temperature Modeling In Predictive Energy Yield Programs For Utility-Scale Solar Power Plants, Katelynn M. Dinius

Master's Theses

The Gold Tree Solar Farm, designed by REC Solar, has a rated output power of 4.5 MW and began operation in 2018 to provide electricity to Cal Poly’s campus. Gold Tree Solar Farm site terrain consists of rolling hills and uneven slopes. The uneven typography results in interrow shading, requiring a modified tracking control algorithm to maximize power production. Predicting a utility solar field’s lifetime energy yield is a critical step in assessing project feasibility and calculating project revenue. The MATLAB-based predictive power model developed for this field overpredicted power in the middle of the day. The purpose of this …

Process Improvement At "The Manse On Marsh", Kevin C. Manko

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The Manse on Marsh is an independent and assisted living facility that prides itself on providing life-enriching care for the elderly. Considering that the staff is essential to supply this care and turnover rates are a constant factor, the company would like to reduce the time it takes to hire new employees by at least one week. To facilitate this goal, process flow maps are utilized to assess the current state of the hiring process and metrics are applied to support future state design decisions. After performing a value added analysis and identifying areas of waste, a total of 20 …

Healing Alternatives Workspace Remodel, Lissandra Ilcyn, Jenifer Astrid Colmenares, Grace E. Kuffner

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Healing Alternatives is an acupuncture office space located in a repurposed house in San Luis Obispo. Healing Alternatives’ current facility layout does not allow for an additional treatment room or the space to provide additional services because of the wasted space within the facility. Furthermore, patients can be disrupted by noise outside the treatment room causing a negative customer experience. The project team’s objectives are to:

o Design two layout alternatives

o Provide a time estimate for each alternative

o Provide a cost analysis of each alternative

o Implement 5s methodology on the storage room

o Provide a 2D-3D model …

Vial Of Life Redesign, Andrew Scott Heim, Marisonn Manalo

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Cambria Anonymous Neighbors (CAN), a nonprofit organization assisting the residences of Cambria, hopes to standardize first responder procedures and make medical information easily accessible in case of a medical emergency. Currently the container costs $3.78. CAN would like to provide 2000 containers at a lower cost. After researching materials, acrylic was found to be the best option for the container material due to its low cost and durability. A laser cutter was used to cut the acrylic pieces, and then a set of step by step instructions were created to assemble the product. To reduce the cost of acrylic, the …

Corgi: Compute Oriented Recumbent Generation Infrastructure, Christopher Allen Hunt

Master's Theses

Creating a bicycle with a rideable geometry is more complicated than it may appear, with today’s mainstay designs having evolved through years of iteration. This slow evolution coupled with the bicycle’s intricate mechanical system has lead most builders to base their new geometries off of previous work rather than expand into new design spaces. This crutch can lead to slow bicycle iteration rates, often causing bicycles to all look about the same. To combat this, several bicycle design models have been created over the years, with each attempting to define a bicycle’s handling characteristics given its physical geometry. However, these …

Soto's True Earth Market Optimization, Hironari Fujita, Wei Lin Luong, Sean Macwilliams

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Soto’s True Earth Market is a new organic market startup which is located in a historical facility in the small town of Cambria. The new owner of Soto’s Andre Ponce has a vision to create a community revolved around local organic foods and sustainability. Since Soto’s is still in the initial startup phase there is a large amount of room for optimization and redesign in order to create a solid customer foundation. Andre presented several opportunities for improvement to the team. With a time constraint of solely two quarters the project team decided to provide the following:

● Old and …

Multi-Level Route-Optimization Computer Application, Ryan Sutardji, Frank Nguyen

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report provides a detailed analysis on how to optimize driving routes by creating a computer application. There are many different route-optimization issues that logistical companies consistently face, as well as many different solutions and algorithms. With technology on the rise, pick-up, delivery, and transportation services are become a huge part of our everyday lives. When optimizing routes, reducing transportation costs by minimizing travel distance is always ideal, but other factors must be considered such as arriving at a location before or after a certain time. Our objective is to optimize driving routes based on travel distance and priorities. We …

Strasbaugh Nonconforming Report Optimization, Eden Andersen, Angela Asgekar, Rebecca Gregg

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This paper strives to convey the problems and proposed solutions for Strasbaugh’s Nonconforming Report (NCR) Optimization. Strasbaugh is a world leader in silicon wafer polisher and grinder technologies. After a significant down size to the company parts they used to manufacture now have to be purchased, and many of these incoming parts do not conform to Strasbaugh’s high standards. This has led to an increase in NCRs that need to be processed, which takes up time, resources and money.

The objective therefore became to update the multi-sheet carbon copy paper system to better optimize the use of these reports and …

Transient Small Wind Turbine Tower Structural Analysis With Coupled Rotor Dynamic Interaction, George R. Katsanis

Master's Theses

Structural dynamics is at the center of wind turbine tower design - excessive vibrations can be caused by a wide range of environmental and mechanical sources and can lead to reduced component life due to fatigue, noise, and impaired public perception of system integrity. Furthermore, periodic turbulent wind conditions can cause system resonance resulting in significantly increased structural loads. Structural vibration issues may become exacerbated in small wind applications where the analytical and experimental resources for system verification and optimization are scarce. This study combines several structural analysis techniques and packages them into a novel and integrated form that can …