Engineering Commons^™

The Real Energy Burden: Exploring The Intersection Of Equity And Home Energy Efficiency In Vermont, Nathaniel G. Roe

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

This thesis quantifies the financial burden induced by a home energy efficiency and electrification project through a new metric, the real energy burden (REB). REB captures the percentage of income allocated to the annualized capital cost and the annual energy expenditure of an energy efficiency project. To characterize and demonstrate the use of REB, I draw data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ResStock Housing Stock tool to simulate a 2023 energy efficiency and electrification project for three Vermont household archetypes: low, moderate, and high incomes. I find that the REB for the low income archetype is above the energy …

Designing Vr Games To Improve Engagement With At-Home Physical Therapy, Andrada Pantelimon

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions are the leading cause of disability worldwide. Every year, 50% of American adults over 18 years-old develop an MSK condition that requires physical therapy (PT). However, only about 35% of patients fully adhere to their plans of treatment. As the population ages and telehealth permeates the PT industry, there is a growing need as well as an opportunity to use new and emerging technologies to create immersive interfaces that increase motivation. This thesis explores the potential VR-based gameful experiences to improve engagement and follow-through with at-home physical therapy for ACL injury, a common acute MSK condition that …

Detecting The Presence Of Electronic Devices In Smart Homes Using Harmonic Radar, Beatrice Perez, Gregory Mazzaro, Timothy J. Pierson, David Kotz

Dartmouth Scholarship

Data about users is collected constantly by phones, cameras, Internet websites, and others. The advent of so-called ‘Smart Things' now enable ever-more sensitive data to be collected inside that most private of spaces: the home. The first step in helping users regain control of their information (inside their home) is to alert them to the presence of potentially unwanted electronics. In this paper, we present a system that could help homeowners (or home dwellers) find electronic devices in their living space. Specifically, we demonstrate the use of harmonic radars (sometimes called nonlinear junction detectors), which have also been used in …

Modeling The Effect Of Igg Subclasses And Specificity In The Translocation Of Monoclonal Antibodies Across The Placental Barrier, Sayuri Tais Miyamoto Magnabosco

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Infections are responsible for over half a million neonatal deaths every year (Lawn et al., 2014). Thus, there is huge interest in leveraging maternal immunization against infectious diseases to grant fetal protection during its development through the vertical transferring of IgG antibodies, the only Ig subclass that can significantly cross the placental barrier. Studies about vertical immunization rely on in-vitro models to extrapolate physiological conditions of the human placenta. The BeWo Transwell model (Bode et al., 2006) presents itself as a reliable model to mimic the transplacental transport mechanism of antibodies (Ellinger et al., 1999; Poulsen et al., 2009) …

Autonomous Navigation Of The Surface Autonomous Vehicle For Emergency Rescue (Saver), Andrew Skow

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Once dropped into the ocean, SAVER will autonomously navigate towards the Advanced Next-Generation Emergency Locator beacon, worn by every NASA astronaut, that emits a 121.5 MHz distress signal. Using a rotating directional loop antenna SAVER is able to detect and identify the direction of the distress beacon and navigate itself towards the signal source. The autonomous navigation system is dependent on several electrical, and mechanical systems to function properly and presents a novel systems engineering problem. Given testing limitations, NASA requires that SAVER is designed to operate indoors and with an umbilical power supply. The radio direction finding (RDF) system …

Snow Evolution In A Changing Climate, Abigail Brazil

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Climate change is rapidly melting ice and snow worldwide, increasing the production of meltwater on ice sheets and glaciers. Depending on temperature, porosity, and saturation conditions, meltwater may move horizontally as runoff, refreeze into ice, or be stored as a liquid within the snow. When water is stored in the snow for multiple years, it is considered a perennial firn aquifer. These aquifers have received recent attention due to their potential to act as a buffer against sea level rise. Though it is still unclear if this connection truly exists, these features remain of interest to scientists trying to understand …

Design Of Autonomous Coupling Mechanism For Modular Reconfigurable Lunar Rovers, Christopher Lyke

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Modular reconfigurable robotics consist of modules that can join together to form larger entities capable of changing their morphologies for improved versatility, robustness, and cost. Coupling mechanisms play a key role in these systems, as they are the component connecting the modules and enabling the robot to change shape. Coupling mechanisms also define the structure, rigidity, and function of modular systems.

This paper details the development of the autonomous coupling mechanism for SHREWs, a modular reconfigurable system of rovers designed to explore the permanently shadowed regions of the Moon. The coupling mechanism allows the modules to connect and form collaborative …

Flash Radiotherapy: Skin Pigmentation As A Non-Invasive Indicator For Radiation-Induced Damage, Brady Mccallister

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

FLASH ultra-high dose rate radiotherapy (RT) is one of the most rapidly growing subfields of radiation oncology today due to its potential to increase the limits of the therapeutic ratio. The FLASH effect, which includes heightened normal tissue sparing paired with iso-effective tumor cell killing, has been literature documented, in a limited manner, in rodent models, a few large animals, and one clinical patients.

A porcine-based experiment was conducted to test the effects of FLASH RT on normal tissue compared to conventional (CONV) RT. A clinical linear accelerator (LINAC) was reversibly converted to be capable of FLASH RT. A female …

The Thermal Conductivity Of Polar Firn, Simon Oster

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

A custom device is designed, validated, and used to make the first reported direct measurements of the effective thermal conductivity of polar firn. The firn cores spanned depths from 8 to 47 m from an undisturbed site near the South Pole in Antarctica. The thermal conductivity varies with depth, with values ranging from 0.617 to 1.018 W/mK, and the associated thermal diffusivities range from 20.95 to 25.68 m²/a. Density and porosity contribute to the variation in thermal conductivity but cannot be used to completely prescribe the conductivity. Initial analyses indicate that firn microstructure relates to conductivity through Euler-Poincaré …

A Foray Into Laboratory Scale Soil Incubations With Corn Stover And High Lignin Fermentation Byproduct, Michelle Wang

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

As the production of biofuels increases to meet the demands of a growing low carbon economy, questions of sustainability surrounding its feedstock and waste streams have become increasingly relevant. In the biofuel production process, crop residues like corn stover are harvested from the field and converted to biofuels leaving generating a residue called high lignin fermentation byproduct (HLFB). From extensive process modelling in the literature, it is suggested that HLFB should be either combusted to fuel auxiliary conversion processes or returned to the soil in place of the crop residues that were harvested. Currently, there is little literature testing the …

Heat Flux Sensing For Actuation Of Shading In Green Buildings, Jackson Danis

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Space cooling of buildings consumes an estimated 6% of US energy per year and releases a comparable proportion of the country's greenhouse gases. Operable window shading has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by limiting solar heat gain through windows, thereby reducing a building’s cooling load. In computational models, shades controlled using environmental parameters, particularly window heat flux, demonstrate greater reductions in heat gain than shades controlled by illumination, time of day, or other methods. However, the performance of shading when controlled by sensors in the field is unknown, and previous studies indicate that sensor noise may negate …

Application Of Cycle-By-Cycle Analysis To Eeg Data From Individuals With Phelan-Mcdermid Syndrome, Naomi Miller

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

This study aimed to analyze a novel method of processing data from electroencephalography (EEG) recordings, which implements time-domain cycle-by-cycle analysis. This "bycycle" method, developed by the Cole & Voytek laboratory, was implemented on a EEG dataset of children with and without Phelan-McDermid Syndrome in the hopes of uncovering network-level explanations for the genetic disorder. A supplemental Python pipeline was developed to organize and visualize the data. This led to the discovery of group-level differences in measures of cycle symmetry in alpha band waves over the sensorimotor electrodes. Through the same pipeline, the bycycle tool was validated as a sound EEG …

Moffatt Eddies In Subglacial Mountain Valleys, Emily Martinez

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Currently, there is a global emphasis in finding the oldest ice in Antarctica, which will give the longest climate record contained within the ice. This is fundamental in the field of climate science because it will give scientists a proper baseline to compare it to sediment cores amongst other proxy records and work to determine a more accurate account of climate change. The most promising place to find the oldest ice is within the thick, slow-moving East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Within this ice sheet, there is a thick region of ice that sits on a mountain range known as the …

Using Natural Language Processing And Sentiment Analysis To Augment Traditional User-Centered Design: Development And Usability Study, Curtis L. Petersen, Ryan Halter, David Kotz, Lorie Loeb, Summer B. Cook, Dawna M. Pidgeon, Brock Christensen, John A. Batsis

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: Sarcopenia, defined as the age-associated loss of muscle mass and strength, can be effectively mitigated through resistance-based physical activity. With compliance at approximately 40% for home-based exercise prescriptions, implementing a remote sensing system would help patients and clinicians to better understand treatment progress and increase compliance. The inclusion of end users in the development of mobile apps for remote-sensing systems can ensure that they are both user friendly and facilitate compliance. With advancements in natural language processing (NLP), there is potential for these methods to be used with data collected through the user-centered design process.

Objective: This study aims …

Bio Circuits For Evolutionary Biotech, Camilo Toruno

ENGS 86 Independent Projects (AB Students)

The field of bioengineering has much promise for renewable chemical production, bioremediation, and of course medical applications. Developing new useful microorganisms is extremely time and capital intensive, typically taking 50 million USD and eight years. This is due in large part to the low throughput techniques that are characteristic of the field of metabolic engineering. Here we describe the modification of an existing synthetic biosensor to measure the pharmaceutical dopamine, and the use of a circuit simulator Cadence to predict improvements to the biosensor. This biosensor paired with directed evolution techniques could reach throughputs of 5 million cells per day …

Social Distancing Sensor: Devices That Use Ultrasound And Radio Frequency Communication To Facilitate Social Distancing, Namya Malik

ENGS 86 Independent Projects (AB Students)

The rapid transmission of COVID-19 has caused a global health crisis. One of the primary ways to reduce the spread of the virus is to practice social distancing. Specifically, it is important to stay at least six feet away from others. However, it is difficult to implement this, and people can often forget to maintain this distance when they are in a public place.

My solution is a Social Distancing Sensor. This system consists of multiple devices that communicate with each other through both ultrasonic (US) signals and radio frequency (RF) signals. The devices are programmed with the use of …

A Convolutional Neural Network For Fast Fluence Estimation In Complex Tissues, Nicholas Blasey, Geoffrey P. Luke

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a non-invasive diagnostic imaging technique that gives images of photoabsorbers based on their absorption of optical energy. These optical absorption properties can then be linked to important tissue properties. For the method to be quantitative, however, it is necessary to have an accurate estimation of the light fluence in the tissue. The current gold standard in addressing the fluence estimation problem, a Monte Carlo Simulation, is costly in time and computation. In this work, we developed a deep neural network to quickly and accurately estimate light fluence in arbitrary tissue types and geometries. The network was …

Engineering An Er-Targeted Dynein-Anchoring Fusion Protein To Mediate Spindle And Nuclear Positioning In Budding Yeast, Dayle Wang

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Current evidence suggests that, in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the Num1 protein binds and anchors cytoplasmic dynein to the cell cortex, where dynein generates a pulling force that aligns the mitotic spindle during mitosis; however, the exact location where Num1 anchors dynein remains unclear. In this study, I genetically engineered fusions of the dynein-anchoring CC domain of Num1 to a resident ER protein, Tcb3. Through functional microscopy-based assays, I found that the fusion protein Tcb3-CC rescues the mitotic spindle alignment defect in num1Δ yeast, indicating that the cortical ER can serve as an anchoring platform for dynein.

Investigations Of Mycelium As A Low-Carbon Building Material, Kevin Yang

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

With the building industry being responsible for 39% of global carbon emissions, there is an imperative need for low-carbon solutions that can decarbonize the built environment. This thesis aimed to address whether mycelium, the hyphal body of fungi, can be used as a building material. The first part of research involved developing a protocol for creating and testing mycelium samples. Mycelium composites were created by inoculating strains of mycelium onto agricultural substrates such as walnut shells, rice hulls, and a commercially available mix from Ecovative Design LLC. Mechanical compression and tensile tests, as well as thermal conductivity and fire resistance …

Feasibility Of Electric Field Assisted Clogging Reduction In Cold Gas Spraying Nozzle, Hendric Tronsson

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

The relatively novel cold spraying process expands its range of applications constantly. In order to continue this trend, this process still has various hurdles that need to be overcome such as clogging. Clogging within the cold gas spraying process causes porous coatings with less material properties and lower durability; a solution is needed in order to reduce the clogging and so expand the cold gas spraying applications. This study aimed to explore the feasibility of using an electric field to reduce clogging. To do so a simplified channel was used to simulate charged particle trajectory shifts under the influence of …

Cup-Net: Compressed Ultrafast Photography Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Matthew Parker

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Compressed ultrafast photography (CUP) is a cutting-edge imaging technique that uses a variation of the traditional streak camera to obtain video at 100 billion frames per second with a single exposure. In order to achieve this level of temporal detail, CUP leverages compressed sensing (CS). Compressed sensing theory states that a compressed representation of an image can be directly acquired using a non-adaptive measurement matrix so long as the encoding matrix follows certain properties such as restrictive isometry and incoherence. This compressed representation of the original scene can later be reconstructed back into the original form. CUP applies CS by …

A Low Resource Instrumentation Package For Thermal Ion Sensors, Ruth Nordhoff

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

This thesis details the redesign of a reproducible, low-resource instrumentation package for deployment on multipoint sensorcraft arrays. Distributed arrays of sensors allow for the collection of simultaneous multipoint data. This instrumentation package provides power, digitization, timing and telemetry for two suborbital auroral thermal ion sensors. This thesis addressed limitations of a previous design, including measurement synchronization, external interfaces, and customizability. Fabrication and integration procedures developed for the redesigned package were implemented throughout the fabrication of 29 devices built for NASA sounding rockets. Results are presented from the 2019 launch of Sub-Tec 8. Recommendations are made for future design iterations.

Utilizing Neural Networks And Wearables To Quantify Hip Joint Angles And Moments During Walking And Stair Ascent, Megan V. Mccabe

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Wearable sensors were leveraged to develop two methods for computing hip joint angles and moments during walking and stair ascent that are more portable than the gold standard. The Insole-Standard (I-S) approach replaced force plates with force-measuring insoles and achieved results that match the curvature of results from similar studies. Peaks in I-S kinetic results are high due to error induced by applying the ground reaction force to the talus. The Wearable-ANN (W-A) approach combines wearables with artificial neural networks to compute the same results. Compared against the I-S, the W-A approach performs well (average rRMSE = 18%, R^{2 …}

Design And Analysis Of A Piezoelectric Pulse Wave Velocity Sensor, Haley Richards, Andrew Closson, John Xj Zhang

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) is strongly correlated with blood pressure and a valuable biomarker in assessing hypertension. This report evaluates the feasibility of noninvasive blood pressure determination from piezoelectric PWV measurements. A wearable piezoelectric prototype was developed to detect PWV in the radial artery, and a computational model of the sensor was designed to simulate a piezoelectric sensor response under ideal conditions. These methods provide insight into the relationship between PWV and blood pressure, and the ability of piezoelectric materials to detect blood flow characteristics. This work lays the groundwork for future device development in this field.

Sun, Sea, And Ice: Autonomous Observations Of Sea Ice Mass Balance And The Partitioning Of Solar Radiation In Arctic Sea Ice, Mary Tobin

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Three optical sensors were integrated into the Seasonal Ice Mass Balance Buoy (SIMB) 3 to autonomously measure Arctic sea ice mass balance and solar radiation partitioning simultaneously to better understand how Arctic sea ice responds to environmental forces and amplifies climate change. Two pyranometers measure incoming and reflected solar irradiance and an underwater quantum sensor measures PAR and transmitted solar radiation. The optical sensor SIMB-3 was sent to the Beaufort Sea, Alaska, for deployment. Due to complications with Covid-19 and dynamic ice conditions, the device is now scheduled for deployment in spring 2021. The results section presents data from a …

1/Fnoise Modelling And Characterization For Cmos Quanta Image Sensors, Wei Deng, Eric R. Fossum

Dartmouth Scholarship

This work fits the measured in-pixel source-follower noise in a CMOS Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) prototype chip using physics-based 1/f noise models, rather than the widely-used fitting model for analog designers. This paper discusses the different origins of 1/f noise in QIS devices and includes correlated double sampling (CDS). The modelling results based on the Hooge mobility fluctuation, which uses one adjustable parameter, match the experimental measurements, including the variation in noise from room temperature to –70 °C. This work provides useful information for the implementation of QIS in scientific applications and suggests that even lower read noise is attainable …

Human-Centered Data Visualizations And Web Layouts For Life-Cycle Assessment Design Guides, Jonathan Klein

ENGS 86 Independent Projects (AB Students)

User tests with 30 Dartmouth Engineering and STEM undergraduates were performed to investigate preferences toward a set of data visualizations and web layouts showing life-cycle assessment data and corresponding uncertainty. The data was collected and synthesized from academic papers, corporate manufacturers, and self-generated using the LCA software Sustainable Minds. A variety of visualizations were produced to accurately and aesthetically represent the data graphically, and especially understand how non-technical audiences interact with different displays of uncertainty, which is a key component of data visualization that is lacking from most LCA design guides. Web layouts were produced to present key information about …

Group Iv Environmentally Benign, Inexpensive Semiconductor Nanomaterials For Solar Cells, Lisa Je

ENGS 86 Independent Projects (AB Students)

Modern solar cells are composed of silicon, cadmium tellurium, and copper indium gallium diselenide. While these materials are efficient, elements such as cadmium and indium are rare and expensive. To make this renewable energy source more inexpensive and sustainable, the Liu Optics lab is substituting expensive rare earth metals for more commonly found transition state metals. Work has been done to replace the solar cell layers composed of cadmium and gallium to replace them with glass, silicon, and/or thin films. Common metals such as germanium and tin are investigated and characterized to provide a platform for solar cell components.

Developing A Control System To Better Understand The Effects Of Pyruvate Decarboxylase Activity On Clostridium Thermocellum Metabolism, Nicholas Cervenka

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

In order for cellulosic biofuels from Clostridium thermocellum to be commercially viable, the ethanol yield and titer of the microbe must be increased. To accomplish this, it has been suggested to introduce the Pyruvate Decarboxylase (PDC) enzyme into C. thermocellum. In order to demonstrate effects on ethanol production by PDC prior to genetic modification, a cell free system (CFS) has been developed. A purified enzyme system was developed with the CFS to function as a control. Using the purified enzyme system, PDC from Saccharomyces cerevisiae was demonstrated to be a good candidate for further testing in the CFS.

Shape Effects Of Gold Coated Silica Nanoparticles For Localized Plasmonic Resonance Based Biosensing, Russell Beckerman

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Gold coated silica (Au@SiO₂) nanoparticles are promising optical transducers for biosensors due to localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) sensitivity to changes in refractive index. This study investigates the effects of shape, size, and structure on LSPR sensitivity of Au@SiO₂ nanoparticles of spherical, rod, and ellipsoid geometries. Finite-difference time domain simulations in CST were used to examine these key parameters of interest and guided particle synthesis. Simulation and experiments show rod-shaped Au@SiO₂ nanoparticles had maximum sensitivity of 969nm/RIU, an improvement over most particles in current literature. This study examines a method for enhanced LSPR-biosensors that leverages advances …