Engineering Commons^™

Comparison Of Beta Backscatter And X-Ray Fluorescence Methods To Measure Coating Thickness, Sergio Palomo, Bernice Mills

STAR Program Research Presentations

This work compares and assesses the effectiveness of beta backscatter (BB) and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) for measuring the thickness of gold coatings on two substrates: silicon and an iron-nickel alloy. A set of samples of known gold coating thickness, ranging from 0.5 – 4.0 microns, was measured in each case along with the substrate alone. In BB the number of electrons (beta particles from a very small radioactive source, Pm-147 in this case) backscattered from a sample in a fixed time period is counted. The XRF method uses x-rays generated in the sample from a primary x-ray beam of higher …

Design And Fabrication Of Liquid Scintillator Counter, Andrea Calderon Saucedo, John L. Orrell

STAR Program Research Presentations

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is currently developing an ultra-low background liquid scintillator counter (ULB LSC) in the shallow underground laboratory. At a depth of 35-meters water-equivalent, the underground laboratory has a multi-layered shielding to keep out cosmic-ray induced background. The ULB LSC, which is located in a clean room facility, is a multi-layered design made up of various materials, including plastic scintillator veto panels, borated polyethylene, lead and copper. These layers help lower the contributions of the terrestrial background and intrinsic background, resulting from the impurities present in the materials, to the overall background count rate observed by the …

Radiographic Density Of Selected Materials At Different Thicknesses, Thien Quang Vu-Nguyen, Bernice Mills

STAR Program Research Presentations

X-rays are widely used in medicine and materials science to identify impurities or fractures within the target object. In material science, x-rays can be used to identify the thickness of samples with different material densities. The current method is to collect a radiograph using estimated conditions, evaluate the results, then make changes to the conditions. The residual image can be rescanned making it possible to obtain an image of lower radiographic density. By tabulating or graphing the effects of energy changes and rescans, a more informed choice of conditions is possible.

For this study, six materials were chosen with a …

Effect Of Surface Omniphobicity On Drying By Forced Convection, Madani A. Khan, Jeffrey Alston, Andrew Guenthner

STAR Program Research Presentations

Low energy surfaces can strongly repel both oil and water. Recently these surfaces have been fabricated on various substrates including fabric, aluminum, stainless steel and many other materials. In this experiment we explore the use of low energy surface deposition on aluminum alloy, stainless steel and silicon substrates, to enhance the drying rate of liquids removed from the surface by forced convection. We control surface roughness by substrate abrasion and by the growth of Al₂O₃ nanograss to enhance liquid repellence by use of a hierarchical texture. Liquid repellence of the substrates is measured by contact angles of …

Wet Chemical Synthesis And Characterization Of Nanomaterials For Solar Cell Applications, Krystle N. Sy, Ramprasad Gandhiraman, Jessica E. Koehne

STAR Program Research Presentations

During long term space missions, it is necessary to have a reliable source of energy. Solar cells are an easy and reliable way to convert energy from the sun to electrical energy. NASA has used solar cells manufactured on Earth as an energy source for many of its missions. In order to develop technologies that will enable high efficiency solar cells, we are synthesizing nanostructured materials. A range of nanostructured materials, such as titanium dioxide nanowires, nickel nanoparticles, copper nanoparticles, and silver nanoparticles/nanowires, are synthesized. In this work, we are reporting on the synthesis of these nanomaterials and the electron …

Radiographic Density Of Selected Materials At Different Thicknesses, Thien Quang Vu-Nguyen, Bernice Mills

STAR Program Research Presentations

X-rays are widely used in medicine and materials science to identify impurities or fractures within the target object. In material science, x-rays can be used to identify the thickness of samples with different material densities. The current method is to collect a radiograph using estimated conditions, evaluate the results, then make changes to the conditions. The residual image can be rescanned making it possible to obtain an image of lower radiographic density. By tabulating or graphing the effects of energy changes and rescans, a more informed choice of conditions is possible.

For this study, six materials were chosen with a …

Designing A Remote Aerial System To Image And Analyze The Health Of Grape Crops At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Alexander D. Vice, Dylan Benton, Adipratnia Asmady, Andrew Mercier, Andrew Meyer, Eric Belfield, Aaron Drake

STAR Program Research Presentations

In the last decade the prevalence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has exploded; however, the presence of UAVs in research situations is still a relatively new and untested field. The autonomous flight lab (AFL) at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a new lab site that is dedicated to using UAVs to benefit research for all backgrounds. Before AFL was able to fly missions we first needed to actually receive our vehicles, create a lab space that would provide all of the necessary resources and equipment necessary to fly, and to be granted permission by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) …

How To Save The World: One Life (And Uav) At A Time!, Natalie A. Wright

STAR Program Research Presentations

The proliferation of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) in commercial and public service aviation arenas has begun to gain the attention of many citizens. Popularized vehicles such as quadcopters have applications in aerial photography, small package delivery and hobbyist/consumer interests. Use of small-scale, fixed- and rotary-wing, remotely operated systems has been popularized as a result of such vehicles’ size and operational simplicity, which widens the range of application of this technology. Public service applications have the potential to advance emergency services management, which can substantially contribute to the public wellbeing. This research will examine the utility of multi-rotor systems in the …

Enhanced Presentation Of Tomographic Data, Carmen Watts Clayton, Bernice E. Mills, George Buffleben, Thien Vu-Nguyen

STAR Program Research Presentations

Solid materials can now be viewed non-destructively with x-rays by tomography; a technique for taking many 2D images of an object at many angles and reconstructing the images into a 3D data cube. The data is next rendered into 2D or 3D still images or movies. By nature, x-ray tomography yields a very large amount of data in three dimensions. Effectively displaying this data to an audience is a challenge.

In this work techniques are explored to improve the presentation methods of movies of both 2D and 3D tomographic data for visual appeal and correct perspective. Finding the optimal ways …