Engineering Commons^™

Direct Determination Of The Dynamic Elastic Modulus And Poisson's Ratio Of Timoshenko Prisms And Rods, Guadalupe Leon

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In this study, the exact solution of the Timoshenko beam vibration frequency equation under free-free boundary conditions was determined with an accurate shear shape factor. The exact solution was compared with a 3-D finite element calculation using ABAQUS program, and the difference between the exact solution and the 3-D FEM was within 0.15% for both the transverse and torsional modes. Furthermore, relationships between the resonance frequencies and Poisson’s ratio were proposed that can directly determine the elastic constants, unlike the equations provided by ASTM C215. The frequency ratio between the 1^st bending mode and the 1^st torsional mode, …

Scaling Analysis And Experimental Investigation Of A Rotating Detonation Engine, David Thomas Billups

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Pressure gain combustion (PGC) technologies, specifically rotating detonation engines (RDEs), are poised to provide the next big leap in gas turbine engine advancement, significantly increasing the thermal. RDEs make use of thermodynamic advantages of isochoric as opposed to isobaric combustion. Theorized to increase thermal efficiency by up to 7% [1], the RDE would have significant impact on reducing anthropogenic carbon emissions. In addition to efficiency gains, the RDE also provides mechanical simplicity and reduced size advantages compared to it’s traditional counterparts and PGC competition.

The United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) maintains and operates …

A Framework For Energy Optimization Of Small, Two-Stroke, Natural Gas Engines For Combined Heat And Power Applications, Mahdi Darzi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This research was focused on the development of a framework for the energy optimization a natural gas engine for small combined heat and power (CHP) applications operating with low-pressure natural gas (NG) available at homes. The required targets of the ARPA-E GENSETS program for 1 kW electric power generation and previous GENSETS simulation at West Virginia University, suggested a design space for the engine which is currently dominated by simple two-stroke designs. Hence this research focused on screening, modeling, and experimentally evaluation of cost-effective technologies to achieve a system design that maximized thermal efficiency and utilization factor, while reducing emissions. …

Carbon Deposition On Ni/Ysz Anode Sofc For Direct Methane Steam Reforming, Haiyang Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) are electrochemical devices that produce electricity directly from oxidizing fuels. Compared to direct combustion of hydrogen to generate power, it has a big advantage in aspects from efficiency and safety when using hydrogen as the fuel of SOFCs. Hydrocarbon reforming is one of the conventional methods to convert natural gas into hydrogen. While considering the difficulty in storage and transportation of hydrogen, we can utilize the supporting materials on the anode side of SOFCs as catalyst to generate hydrogen via hydrocarbon reforming process and pour the hydrogen as fuel into the SOFC system. Ni/YSZ is …

Time-Dependent Deformation And Associated Failure Of Roof In Underground Mines, Yuting Xue

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In underground coal mines, roof falls are a major contributor to injuries and fatalities. Studies have related the occurrence of roof fall to weak immediate roof, high horizontal stress, entry orientation, etc. An often-neglected factor in studies on this topic has been the influence of time-dependent behavior of the roof rock on roof falls. The time-dependent roof failure activity involves both intact and failed rocks. Numerical simulation techniques are available that include time-dependent behavior; however, they lack constitutive models that consider both the intact and the failed behavior of rock. In addition, input properties for the creep models only include …

Pharmaceutical Scheduling Using Simulated Annealing And Steepest Descent Method, Bryant Jamison Spencer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In the pharmaceutical manufacturing world, a deadline could be the difference between losing a multimillion-dollar contract or extending it. This, among many other reasons, is why good scheduling methods are vital. This problem report addresses Flexible Flowshop (FF) scheduling using Simulated Annealing (SA) in conjunction with the Steepest Descent heuristic (SD).

FF is a generalized version of the flowshop problem, where each product goes through S number of stages, where each stage has M number of machines. As opposed to a normal flowshop problem, all ‘jobs’ do not have to flow in the same sequence from stage to stage. The …

Kidney Ailment Prediction Under Data Imbalance, Ranaa Mahveen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is the leading cause for kidney failure. It is a global health problem affecting approximately 10% of the world population and about 15% of US adults. Chronic Kidney Diseases do not generally show any disease specific symptoms in early stages thus it is hard to detect and prevent such diseases. Early detection and classification are the key factors in managing Chronic Kidney Diseases.

In this thesis, we propose a new machine learning technique for Kidney Ailment Prediction. We focus on two key issues in machine learning, especially in its application to disease prediction. One is related …

Investigation Of Nano-Ceria Catalyst Infiltration Of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (Sofc) Electrodes Using Bio-Inspired Catechol Surfactants, Ozcan Ozmen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Development of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) electrodes with nano-structured grains can show enhanced power density with high catalytic activity owing to the higher surface area to volume ratio of the particles. However, the addition of nano-particles during the conventional electrode manufacturing process causes inevitable structural changes due to the coarsening of nano-particles at sintering temperatures. Wet impregnation/ infiltration methods are a practical and well-utilized method to form nanoparticles within the porous electrode microstructure of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) which requires relatively low calcination temperatures. Critical factors that impact the reduction of the electrode polarization using the nano-catalyst impregnation …

Development Of A Sustainability Evaluation And Control Framework For Chemical Processes, Shuyun Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Industry, government, and society have begun to shift from economic stand-alone focus to the inclusion of sustainability in the decision-making process. This shift can be attributed to the growing environmental and social awareness that makes consumers and stakeholders not only care about product quality and cost, but also products and processes that minimize the environmental impact and conserve natural resources. As a result, some progress has been made in recognizing and understanding the challenges of sustainable development, which helps evaluating the sustainability performance of a specific process/product. In particular, sustainability assessment tools and methodologies have been developed to help the …

Low-Power Reconfigurable Sensing Circuitry For The Internet-Of-Things Paradigm, Alexander Dilello

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

With ubiquitous wireless communication via Wi-Fi and nascent 5th Generation mobile communications, more devices -- both smart and traditionally "dumb" -- will be interconnected than ever before. This burgeoning trend is referred to as the Internet-of-Things. These new sensing opportunities place a larger burden on the underlying circuitry that must operate on finite battery power and/or within energy-constrained environments. New developments of low-power reconfigurable analog sensing platforms like field-programmable analog arrays (FPAAs) present an attractive sensing solution by processing data in the analog domain while staying flexible in design. This work addresses some of the contemporary challenges of low-power wireless …

Experimental And Numerical Study Of The Stirling Engine Robust Foil Regenerator, Koji Yanaga

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The regenerator is located between the heat accepter and the heat rejecter of the Stirling engine. It works as a thermal energy storage component in the engine. Most of the regenerators are made of woven screen or random fiber. However, the flow going through the woven screen or random fiber is similar to the cylinders in crossflow which has flow separation. To achieve higher engine efficiency, it is required to design a regenerator which has higher convective heat transfer, lower pressure drops. Therefore, a parallel channel regenerator called a robust foil regenerator was designed and manufactured.

In this study, a …

Minimizing Trihalomethane Formation Through Source Water Monitoring And Optimizing Treatment Practices, Nashid Mirza

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Trihalomethanes, a family of halogenated disinfection byproducts, are prevalent in finished drinking water. According to USEPA’s Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules (DBPRs), the regulatory standard of the total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) is 80 μg/L, and water treatment plant operators are required to closely monitor TTHMs in the finished water on a quarterly basis. Although total organic carbon (TOC) has been identified as a precursor for the TTHMs, knowledge gaps still exist in how specific water and treatment related factors (e.g., intake water quality, seasonal variation, contact time, and treatment train) affect TTHMs formation. Focusing on water treatment plants in southwestern Pennsylvania, …

Low Power Voltage Reference Cells For Sensing Applications, Kody Ray Tucker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Two low-power voltage reference cells for a system on-chip design are presented in this report. Both cells utilize a combination of standard transistors to produce an output voltage near 1 volt. Choosing the appropriate design procedures can aid in minimizing the temperature coefficient (TC) of the output reference voltage coming out of the cell. One circuit, covered first, is currently being fabricated on a standard 0.5 µm chip complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process, while the other is still in the designing stage. The first one has a TC of 86 ppm/◦C with a reference voltage of 1.10 V while …

Energy Efficiency Evaluation Of Blower Heater Non-Purge Compressed Air Dryers, Alexandra M. Botts

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

There are several compressed air dryers available for industrial use including, refrigerant, desiccant, and membrane. This research focuses on twin tower regenerative closed loop desiccant dryers, specifically: blower heater non-purge (BHNP) with and without cooling water pumps, Compressed-air Heater Purge (CHP), Blower Heater Purge (BHP), and Pressure Swing Heaterless (PSH). These styles of dryers are used mainly in industries that require extremely dry air such as, food manufacturing, medical air, or sensitive technology manufacturers. The research was conducted by collecting and analyzing real time current draw data on air compressors and associated dryers at eight different facilities (13 compressor systems) …

Review Of Water Allocation Models For West Virginia, Madison Lee Alexis Thompson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Modeling river basins started gaining in popularity and usage in the western part of the United States in large part due to its extreme droughts. Planning is necessary to sustain the population, industries, and recreational water use year-round. Water allocation modeling is a tool used to aid in the issues that come from managing water resources. This work considers the continuous models that synthesized the hydrologic processes that occur and provides a simulation of past, current, or future conditions.

West Virginia, located on the eastern side of the United States, does not have an extreme drought problem as seen in …

Analysis Of User Preference With N95 And Powered Air-Purifying Respirators In A Healthcare Work Environment, Brittany Renee Carver

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

For those working in the healthcare field, personal protective equipment is vital. Healthcare workers are often first responders when it comes to dealing with patients who are infected or when a disease outbreak occurs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires all healthcare operations to provide employee protection against blood borne pathogens. With the increase of life-threatening disease outbreaks, such as SARS in 2003 and Ebola in 2014, it is of the upmost importance to make sure respirators are best suited for users and acceptable for long term use. It has been shown through previous studies that due to …

Numerical Modeling Of Hydraulic Fracture Propagation And Comparison With Microseismic Data At A Field Site, Carter Lawrence Hulcher

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

A hydraulic fracturing site in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA was selected to be a research site for the Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory (MSEEL) project which was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The overall objective of the MSEEL research project is to evaluate and improve technologies to enhance shale gas recovery with minimal impacts on the environment. The field site has two previously drilled wells and two newly drilled wells for extracting natural gas. A separate exploratory well (or “science well”) was also drilled and includes a geophone array to extract important seismic/microseismic event information, which …

New Method Of Manufacturing Carbon Foam, Matthew D. Artimez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Carbon foam is a product that has some unique features. Carbon foam is a light weight material that has a high crush strength. It is electrically conductive, but because it is composed of air space between the tendrils, it is not a thermal conductor. Since it contains no volatile content, it is noncombustible. All these features allow carbon foam to have many modern applications. Currently, there are only three methods of producing carbon foam, and all three are not cost- efficient enough to meet the demand of potential new markets.

In this thesis, a new procedure of producing carbon foam …

Evaluation Of Ultra Fine Cigarette Smoke Particles Penetration On 3m 6200 Half Mask Respirators With P-100 Filters, Selcuk Elhan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study was aimed to investigate the effectiveness of half mask respirator with double P-100 filters by determining the penetration of cigarette smoke particles. In this study, faceseal leakage of a breathing manikin donned a 3M 6200 half mask elastomeric respirator with double P-100 filters was determined at various test conditions. A full factorial test conditions of 4 sealing conditions (Non-sealed, only nose sealed, nose and chin sealed, and fully sealed), 2 inspiratory breathing types (Constant, cyclic), 4 flowing rates (15, 30, 50, 85 L/min for cyclic; 15, 30, 50, 80 L/min for constant) were employed and each test condition …

Immunity-Based Framework For Autonomous Flight In Gps-Challenged Environment, Mohanad Al Nuaimi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In this research, the artificial immune system (AIS) paradigm is used for the development of a conceptual framework for autonomous flight when vehicle position and velocity are not available from direct sources such as the global navigation satellite systems or external landmarks and systems. The AIS is expected to provide corrections of velocity and position estimations that are only based on the outputs of onboard inertial measurement units (IMU). The AIS comprises sets of artificial memory cells that simulate the function of memory T- and B-cells in the biological immune system of vertebrates. The innate immune system uses information about …

Optimal Compression Of Point Clouds, Benjamin Robert Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Image-based localization is a crucial step in many 3D computer vision applications, e.g., self-driving cars, robotics, and augmented reality among others. Unfortunately, many image-based-localization applications require the storage of large scenes, and many camera pose estimators struggle to scale when the scene representation is large. To alleviate the aforementioned problems, many applications compress a scene representation by reducing the number of 3D points of a point cloud. The state-of-the-art compresses a scene representation by using a K-cover-based algorithm. While the state-of-the-art selects a subset of 3D points that maximizes the probability of accurately estimating the camera pose of a new …

Comparison Of Drag Area Estimation Using Natural Coast Down And Constant Speed Test Methods, Cem Baki Mr

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Currently in US, more than 26 percent of the total GHG emissions comes from transportation and mostly from heavy duty vehicles. Similarly, the European Council stated that 25 percent of the emissions comes from heavy duty transportation and they expect it to be further increased in the future. However, with the new coming regulations US EPA and European Council aiming to reduce the emissions by 80 percent in US and 60 percent in EU. In order to keep track and control the emissions, both authorities published new regulations and testing methods for certifying the new vehicles.

Aerodynamic testing is one …

Structural Behavior Of Steel Plate Embedded Hybrid Gfrp Shapes, Piyush R. Soti

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The civil infrastructure industry has been dominated by traditional materials such as steel, timber, and concrete. Although these materials offer great advantages, they have major durability issues in terms of corrosion, decaying, and cracking. Traditional material-based structures deteriorate frequently and require regular-interval repairs with huge expenditures. To resolve these maintenance and durability issues associated with traditional materials, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have gained some popularity in the past few decades because of their superior mechanical properties and durability. Carbon-FRPs (CFRPs) and glass-FRP (GFRPs) are the most commonly used FRPs in the market. However, in civil engineering applications, CFRPs are …

Optimizing The Production And Injection Wells Flow Rates In Geothermal Field Using Artificial Intelligence, Muhammet Salih Ariturk

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In a geothermal field, power plants are designed for long-term electricity generation. Therefore, it is crucial to predict the future production and injection flow rates of the wells to determine the capacity of a power plant. In the designing of such power plants, calculations and estimations are based on the current future production, and injection flow rates and pressures in the geothermal field. Prediction of future production and injection flow rates also assist in building surface facilities with cost-efficient power plants. The most common problem in a power plant in geothermal fields is the inability to accurately estimate future expected …

Short Beam Shear Strength Evaluations Of Gfrp Composites: Correlations Through Accelerated And Natural Aging, William Todd Barker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) composites have been materials of interest in replacing or reinforcing steel, wood, and concrete, but lack of understanding of degradation under physical and chemical aging is a main concern. Through many years of research, the understanding of aging or durability of GFRPs has improved. To be able to evaluate aging related degradation rates, an accelerated aging methodology under varying environments is introduced. Accelerated aging is a concept used to age composites in a lab controlled environment under varying pH conditions (2 to 13) and temperatures (~ -20° to +160°F). Once acceleratedly aged testing is completed, Arrhenius …

Retaining Wall System With Soldier Pile And Composite Resin Infused Lagging Elements, Shane Phillip Moore

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Retaining walls are used as an alternative to installing drainage and soil reinforcement, depending on site conditions. This report discusses the design of a retaining wall with steel soldier piles and lagging elements for rocky slopes. The design consists of six different options, three options with a span of eight feet and three options with a span of ten feet between soldier piles. The three options for both spans are the same concept but designed for different load conditions. These options include: timber with glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP) wraps, reinforced concrete with GFRP wraps, and an FRP Prodeck system …

Shear Stress Estimates In The Approach And Bridge Section By Using Various Formula, Jun Seon Lee

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Shear stress is the resistance force on top of the contact surface caused by moving flow and is one of the important variable in fluid mechanics. Thus, a lot of researches have been conducted to predict accurate value of shear stress. However, calculating shear stress with existing equations has several limitations because only gradually varied flow and/or uniform flow was considered in their studies. Therefore, direct applying those methods into complex flow type, such as around a bridge, to predict shear stress is questionable.

Thus, laboratory experiments were carried out in a laboratory flume to attack the objective of this …

Evaluation Of A Marketing Strategy Based On The Concept Of Virtual Energy Audit, Goutham Kumar Reddy Challa

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

With the growing world population and efforts to bring better energy access to the people, energy needs of the world are expected to grow in the coming years. Given the limited availability of non-renewable resources, there has been a mounting consensus among the users and the stakeholders to utilize the available energy in the most efficient way by implementing various methods like use of advanced technologies, source reduction, behavioral changes, etc. Energy efficiency in general is considered as a win-win scenario for all the users and/or stakeholders involved as it not only lowers the base load for power generating companies, …

Effect Of Metacarpal Gloves On Pinch And Grip Strength, Aaron Anthony Fonner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Hand Injuries are common in industrial settings. In 2014 alone, there were 137,440 total cases of hand injuries in the United States that required days away from work. Hand injuries can be classified into six general categories: lacerations, fractures and dislocations, soft tissue injuries and amputations, infections, burns and high pressure injuries. Some of these injuries can be prevented with proper personal protective equipment. In recent times, metacarpal gloves are widely used to protect the workers against hand/metacarpal injuries in various industries including mining. The benefits of wearing metacarpal gloves for protection are unquestionable, but little is known about how …

Impact Of Natural Fracture Induced Elastic Anisotropy On Completion And Hydraulic Fracturing Designs, Emre Can Dundar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Shale has been usually recognized as a transverse isotropic (TI) medium in conventional geomechanical log interpretation due to its laminated nature. However, when natural fractures (NFs) exist in the rock body, additional elastic anisotropy can be introduced, converting Shale to an orthorhombic (OB) medium. Previous study illustrates that treating the naturally fractured shale rock as a TI medium by ignoring the NF-induced anisotropy can cause the erroneous estimation of the geomechanical properties (i.e. Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, brittleness index, and etc.) and in-situ stress. In this paper, the study is extended to quantify the impact of NF-induced elastic anisotropy on …