Engineering Commons^™

Interface Engineering Of Materials For Energy And Biological Applications, Ardalan Chaichi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Interface interactions are generally classified into solid-liquid, solid-gas, solid-vacuum, liquid-gas, light-matter and electron-matter categories. Surface morphological studies as well as surface chemical reactions can be studied in various types of complex systems thanks to technological advances in materials characterization methods. By employing interface engineering in different applications, it is possible to control electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical and biological properties of materials. Accordingly, we have applied interface engineering in three different areas of energy materials, biomaterials and surface imaging. As a result, firstly, we have introduced a high intensity light flash-based method on engineered substrates for delamination of reduced graphene oxide …

Reinforcement Learning Approach For Inspect/Correct Tasks, Hoda Nasereddin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this research, we focus on the application of reinforcement learning (RL) in automated agent tasks involving considerable target variability (i.e., characterized by stochastic distributions); in particular, learning of inspect/correct tasks. Examples include automated identification & correction of rivet failures in airplane maintenance procedures, and automated cleaning of surgical instruments in a hospital sterilization processing department. The location of defects and the corrective action to be taken for each varies from task episode. What needs to be learned are optimal stochastic strategies rather than optimization of any one single defect type and location. RL has been widely applied in robotics …

An Improved Foam Modeling Technique And Its Application To Petroleum Drilling And Production Practice, Yanfang Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Foam is one of the most common used multiphase fluid in Underbalanced Drilling (UBD) and Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD). Because of its low density, high capacity of lifting and carrying cuttings, low cost and compatibility with formations, foam has become more superior than the conventional drilling mud when depleted reservoir pressure, severe lost circulation, or unstable borehole are encountered. In general, the success of foam applications rely on the understanding of the fundamentals of foam rheology in downhole conditions.

Foam rheology has been studied for decades. Conventional foam rheological models such as Power Law, Bingham Plastic, Herschel-Bulkley to explain foam …

Machine Learning Based Applications For Data Visualization, Modeling, Control, And Optimization For Chemical And Biological Systems, Yan Ma

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation report covers Yan Ma’s Ph.D. research with applicational studies of machine learning in manufacturing and biological systems. The research work mainly focuses on reaction modeling, optimization, and control using a deep learning-based approaches, and the work mainly concentrates on deep reinforcement learning (DRL). Yan Ma’s research also involves with data mining with bioinformatics. Large-scale data obtained in RNA-seq is analyzed using non-linear dimensionality reduction with Principal Component Analysis (PCA), t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE), and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP), followed by clustering analysis using k-Means and Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering with Noise (HDBSCAN). This report focuses …

Fluid-Driven Fracture Initiation From Oil And Gas Wells Considering Lifetime Stresses, Andreas Michael

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Fluid-driven fracture initiation from oil and gas wells is examined in detail. The dissertation covers three subtopics: drilling, completion (stimulations), and post-blowout capping-induced fracture initiation.

Drilling-induced tensile fractures (DITFs) are located in an azimuth orthogonal to wellbore breakouts and are observed from image logs obtained during drilling operations. Fully analytical criteria for the orientation of DITFs initiating from wells in porous, permeable media are derived considering fluid infiltration from a pressurized wellbore. DITF orientation (longitudinal or transverse-to-the-wellbore) is used to constrain the magnitude of the local maximum horizontal principal stress. The range of the possible stress states is indicated on …

Incorporation Of Lignin In Natural And Synthetic Biomaterials To Alter Mechanical And Biochemical Properties For Enhanced Wound Healing, Jorge Alfonso Belgodere

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

It is estimated that chronic, non-healing wounds affect more than 6.5 million Americans annually, with an estimated healthcare cost beyond $14 billion. Here, we attempted to create composites of natural (collagen type I or gelatin-methacrylate) or synthetic (poly(ethylene glycol) polymers incorporating a natural plant component, lignin, to combat the costs and limitations current wound healing methods face. Three-dimensional matrices of collagen type I (Col I) are widely used in tissue engineering applications for its abundance in many tissues, bioactivity with many cell types, and excellent biocompatibility. Inspired by the structural role of lignin in plant tissue, we found that sodium …

Water-Energy Nexus: Studies On Salinity Gradient Energy Harvest And Desalination, Guangcai Tan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Water and energy are fundamentally linked, and both are important for the development of human society. The demand for renewable energy and freshwater are two global challenges in the 21^st century. Herein, a novel chloride-ion (Cl⁻) concentration flow cell (CFC) based on two symmetrical electrodes (BiCl₃, CoCl₂, VCl₃, or BiOCl) separately by a cation-exchange membrane was used as an efficient method to recover salinity gradient (SG) energy. The CFC with metal chloride electrodes (BiCl₃, CoCl₂, and VCl₃) was based on Cl⁻ extraction/insertion, and that …

Adsorption And Reconfiguration Of Amphiphiles At Silica-Water Interfaces: Role Of Electrostatic Interactions, Van Der Waals Forces And Hydrogen Bonds, Yao Wu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ability to explore and predict metastable structures of hybrid self-assemblies is of central importance for the next generation of advanced materials with novel properties. As compared to their thermodynamically stable forms, the kinetically stabilized materials show improved functionality potentially over their stable counterparts. The self-assembly processes usually originate from weak intermolecular interactions, involving a dynamic competition between attractive and repulsive interactions. These weak forces, including van der Waals (vdW), electrostatic interaction and the hydrogen bonding (H-bonding), can be tuned by external stimuli, e.g., confinement, temperature and ionization, and consequently driving hybrid materials into different configurations. It is challenging to …

Centrifugal Microfluidic Platform For Solid-Phase-Extraction (Spe) And Fluorescence Detection Applications, Yong Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Solid phase extraction (SPE) is a widely used method to separate and concentrate the target molecules in liquid mixture. Traditional SPE has to be conducted in the laboratory with professional equipment and skilled operators. The microfluidic and 3D printing technology have opened up the opportunity in developing miniaturized automatic instruments. The main contribution of this research is to integrate the SPE process on a novel centrifugal platform. Various valves are applied on the platform to help control the aqueous sample and reagents in the cartridge.

First, a centrifugal microfluidic platform was built for automatically detecting trace oil pollution in water. …

Intelligent Data-Driven Energy Flow Controllers For Renewable Energy And Electrified Transportation Systems, Juan Rafael Nunez Forestieri

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In recent years, large scale deployments of electrical energy generation using renewable sources (RES) such as wind, solar and ocean wave power, along with more sustainable means of transformation have emerged in response to different initiatives oriented toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Strategies facilitating the integration of renewable generation into the grid and electric propulsion in transportation systems are proposed in this work.

Chapter 2 investigates the grid-connected operation of a wave energy converter (WEC) along with a hybrid supercapacitor/undersea energy storage system (HESS). A combined sizing and energy management strategy (EMS) based on reinforcement learning (RL) is proposed. Comparisons …

A Framework For Augmenting Building Performance Models Using Machine Learning And Immersive Virtual Environment, Chanachok Chokwitthaya

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Building performance models (BPMs), such as building energy simulation models, have been widely used in building design. Existing BPMs are mainly derived using data from existing buildings. They may not be able to effectively address human-building interactions and lack the capability to address specific contextual factors in buildings under design. The lack of such capability often contributes to the existence of building performance discrepancies, i.e., differences between predicted performance during design and the actual performance.

To improve the prediction accuracy of existing BPMs, a computational framework is developed in this dissertation. It combines an existing BPM with context-aware design-specific …

Developing A Competency Model For Highway Safety Engineers: A Delphi Method, Garrett K. Wheat

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the core competencies needed by State DOT Highway Safety Engineers as perceived by Highway Safety experts in the United States. First, a list of competencies was identified. Next, a panel of Highway Safety experts determined the importance of each identified competency for the current year (2020) and for the future (year 2030). Finally, ratings provided by the panel were tested for the presence of consensus.

For this study, the researcher used a Delphi Method as classified by Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gaustafson (1975). Through this method, a panel of forward-thinking …

Optimizing The Performance Of Multi-Threaded Linear Algebra Libraries Based On Task Granularity, Shahrzad Shirzad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Linear algebra libraries play a very important role in many HPC applications. As larger datasets are created everyday, it also becomes crucial for the multi-threaded linear algebra libraries to utilize the compute resources properly. Moving toward exascale computing, the current programming models would not be able to fully take advantage of the advances in memory hierarchies, computer architectures, and networks. Asynchronous Many-Task(AMT) Runtime systems would be the solution to help the developers to manage the available parallelism. In this Dissertation we propose an adaptive solution to improve the performance of a linear algebra library based on a set of compile-time …

Parallel And Asynchronous Distributed Optimization For Power Systems Operation, Ali Mohammadi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Distributed optimization approaches are gaining more attention for solving power systems energy management functions, such as optimal power flow (OPF). Preserving information privacy of autonomous control entities and being more scalable than centralized approaches are two primary reasons for developing distributed algorithms. Moreover, distributed/ decentralized algorithms potentially increase power systems reliability against failures of components or communication links.

In this dissertation, we propose multiple distributed optimization algorithms and convergence performance enhancement techniques to solve the OPF problem. We present a multi-level optimization algorithm, based on analytical target cascading, to formulate and solve a collaborative transmission and distribution OPF problem. This …

Using Spatial Analysis And Machine Learning Techniques To Develop A Comprehensive Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Consolidation Model, Samira Soleimani

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The safety of highway-railroad grade crossings (HRGC) is still an issue in the United States of America (USA). The grade crossing is where a railroad crosses a road at the same level without any over or underpass. To improve the safety of crossings, the crossings’ condition should be explored from several aspects such as engineering design (speed limit, warning signs, etc.), road condition (number of lanes, surface markings, etc.), rail design (the type of track, ballast, etc.), temporal variables (weather, visibility, time of day, lightning, etc.), social variables (population, race, etc.), and last but not least, spatial variables (the type …

Point-Of-Care Devices For Therapeutic, Medical And Environmental Applications, Alisha Prasad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Point-of-care testing (POCT) or Point-of-use (POU) devices or technologies are defined as testing aids that are capable for onsite use or testing. The key advantages of POCT are low sample volume, quick onsite diagnosis, high accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. POCT has the potential and the benefits to facilitate better health care management by rapid routine diagnosis and monitoring. To reach this goal, several researchers as well as the healthcare industry over a few years have conducted cutting edge research to bring science to technology by developing smart diagnostic devices capable of performing as per patient profiles and make personalized health care …

Fabrication And Application Of Flexible Sensors, Tallis Huther Da Costa

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A transfer printing method was developed to transfer carbon nanotubes (CNTs) from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film to poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS) polymer. Carbon nanotubes are composed of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice structure, which are electrically conducting. When embedded in a nonconducting polymer, carbon nanotubes impart electrical conductivity to the nanocomposite, thus forming a nanocomposite that has potential applications in highly sensitive strain and pressure sensors. Several printing methods have been studied to deposit carbon nanotubes onto PDMS, including inkjet printing. Inkjet printing is a desirable deposition method since it is low-cost, simple, and allows the processing of aqueous-based …

Numerical Modeling Of Wave- And Current-Supported Turbidity Currents Over Erodible Bed, Sahar Haddadian

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The physical processes that route sediments from nearshore to the continental margin provide vital information to the global assessment of the geochemically important matter and the life in the ocean. Therefore, understanding these processes at the fundamental level will help develop accurate models that can be integrated into operational ocean models. Wave- and current-supported turbidity currents (WCSTCs) are one of the mechanisms that deliver sediments to the continental margin. WCSTCs are slow-moving turbidity currents where near-bed turbulence driven by strong surface waves and/or currents, tide- and/or wind-driven, maintain the turbidity current in motion. This study investigates the along-shelf current-supported turbidity …

The Effects Of Relational And Social Behaviors Exhibited By Construction Project Team Members On Relationship Quality And Project Outcomes, James Ogechi Kereri

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Relational and social behaviors of construction project team members explain team relationships. Whereas relational behaviors have often been studied in construction project team relationships, the current literature is deficient on the social behaviors. The literature review revealed seven relational behaviors (i.e., harmonization of conflict, propriety of means, restraint of power, reliance and expectation, contractual solidarity, flexibility, and reciprocity) and three social behaviors (i.e., past experience, benevolence, and integrity) commonly exhibited by construction project team members. Through a binomial logistic regression, research findings revealed that past experience was a significant (p < 0.01) predictor for five of the seven relational behaviors while benevolence and integrity were each significant (p < 0.01) predictors for three of the seven relational behaviors. Overall, out of the seven relational behaviors, only propriety of means is predicted by all the three social behaviors. Through multinomial regression, the results indicated that there is not enough evidence to show a relationship between the dimensions of relationship quality and project outcomes. However, there is a relationship between relationship embeddedness and project outcomes. Through internal and external validation, the prediction models performed well based on both positive predictive values and negative predictive values.

From a relationship management standpoint, this research introduces relational and …

Methodologies For Improvement Of Metal Fatigue Life, Ali Haghshenas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A methodology is proposed to identify the onset of crack initiation that utilizes the material damping. The damping is measured using the impulse excitation technique (IET). The damping is also used to correlate fatigue life of additively manufactured (AM) specimens to their damping characteristics. Results reveal that the damping value is inversely proportional to the fatigue life of the specimens.

To detect the damage accumulation and crack initiation in metals due to cyclic loading, another methodology based on the measurement of the surface roughness parameters is introduced. Results presented reveal that the evolution of the surface roughness parameters can be …

Development Of Artificial Intelligence Approach To Nowcasting And Forecasting Vibrio Prevalence In Coastal Waters, Peyman Hosseinzadeh Namadi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Vibrio parahaemolyticus (V.p) is an epidemiologically significant pathogen that poses high risks to the human health and shellfish industry, calling for predictive models for management interventions. This study presents an Artificial Intelligence(AI)-based approach to predicting and reducing the risks. The AI-based approach involves the identification of environmental indicators and their optimum variation ranges favoring V.p prevalence, the development of nowcasting and forecasting models for predicting V.p prevalence, and the creation of remote sensing algorithms for mapping concentrations of V.p and its environmental indicators by synergistically combining the Deep Neural Network (DNN) modeling technique, Genetic Programming (GP) method, R …

Pressure Monitoring For Subsurface Leakage Characterization, Mojtaba Mosaheb

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Undesirable leakage from underground sedimentary formations is a matter of considerable concern due to implications for water resources contamination and greenhouse gas emissions. Leakage in underground formations can remain undetected for a long period. Pressure monitoring is a dynamic method that can be used for leakage detection and characterization. The pressure signals are affected by the hydraulic characteristics of the reservoir media and leakage pathways. Consequently, the pressure data can be interpreted to obtain information about the hydraulic characteristics of the system. Pressure interpretation is useful for early leakage detection, because the pressure signals travel fast in reservoir media. In …

Polymeric Nanoparticles As An Antioxidant Delivery System For Age-Related Eye Disease, Sean M. Swetledge

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Advantages of polymeric nanoparticles as ocular drug delivery systems include controlled release, enhanced drug stability and bioavailability, and specific tissue targeting. Nanoparticle properties such as hydrophobicity, size, and charge, mucoadhesion, as well as administration route and suspension media affect their ability to overcome ocular barriers and distribute in the eye, and must be carefully designed for specific target tissues and ocular diseases. A review was conducted to serve as a guide to optimizing polymeric nanoparticle delivery systems for ocular drug delivery by discussing the effects of nanoparticle composition and administration method on their ocular penetration, distribution, elimination, toxicity, and efficacy, …

Neuromotor Control Of The Hand During Smartphone Manipulation, Prasanna Kumar Acharya

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary focus of this dissertation was to understand the motor control strategy used by our neuromuscular system for the multi-layered motor tasks involved during smartphone manipulation. To understand this control strategy, we recorded the kinematics and multi-muscle activation pattern of the right limb during smartphone manipulation, including grasping with/out tapping, movement conditions (MCOND), and arm heights.

In the first study (chapter 2), we examined the neuromuscular control strategy of the upper limb during grasping with/out tapping executed with a smartphone by evaluating muscle-activation patterns of the upper limb during different movement conditions (MCOND). There was a change in muscle …

Data-Driven And Model-Based Methods With Physics-Guided Machine Learning For Damage Identification, Zhiming Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Structural health monitoring (SHM) has been widely used for structural damage diagnosis and prognosis of a wide range of civil, mechanical, and aerospace structures. SHM methods are generally divided into two categories: (1) model-based methods; (2) data-driven methods. Compared with data-driven SHM, model-based methods provide an updated physics-based numerical model that can be used for damage prognosis when long-term data is available. However, the performance of model-based methods is susceptible to modeling error in establishing the numerical model, which is usually unavoidable due to model simplification and omission. The major challenge of data-driven SHM methods lies in data insufficiency, e.g., …

Brominated Carbon Materials As Positive Electrodes For Nonaqueous Secondary Lithium-Bromine Batteries, Benjamin Beau Peterson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Secondary lithium-bromine (Li-Br₂) batteries have theoretical potentials near 4.1 V vs Li/Li⁺ and capacities more than 2 times greater than conventional Li-ion batteries. Herein, secondary, non-aqueous Li-Br₂ half-cell batteries are reported using a Li metal anode, carbon-coated glass fiber separator, non-aqueous Li-based electrolytes with and without the addition of lithium bromine (LiBr) salt, and positive electrodes consisting of either chemically brominated non-graphitic carbon or carbon derived from the carbonization of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with LiBr embedded into the micro- and mesopores of the carbon matrix. The separator is effective in mitigating the transport of Br_{2 …}

Development Of Water Coning Control Design Metrics In Naturally Fractured Reservoirs, Samir Prasun

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Naturally fractured reservoirs (NFRs) with bottom-water are known for their instant water breakthrough and severe water coning that reduces oil recovery. This is because water channels through the highly permeable fractures easily connecting the well to the aquifer bypassing the oil contained in the matrix. Remedial techniques such as producing below critical-oil rate, optimizing the well spacing and installing the downhole water sink (DWS)/ downhole water loop (DWL) technology, have already been successfully tested in single-porosity reservoirs (SPR). However, applicability of these techniques in NFRs are unknown since only a few studies have been performed on their feasibility in NFRs, …

Metabolic Network Analysis Of Filamentous Cyanobacteria, Daniel Alexis Norena-Caro

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Cyanobacteria were the first organisms to use oxygenic photosynthesis, converting CO₂ into useful organic chemicals. However, the chemical industry has historically relied on fossil raw materials to produce organic precursors, which has contributed to global warming. Thus, cyanobacteria have emerged as sustainable stakeholders for biotechnological production. The filamentous cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. UTEX 2576 can metabolize multiple sources of Nitrogen and was studied as a platform for biotechnological production of high-value chemicals (i.e., pigments, antioxidants, vitamins and secondary metabolites). From a Chemical engineering perspective, the biomass generation in this organism was thoroughly studied by interpreting the cell as a microbial …

Data-Driven Modeling And Prediction For Reservoir Characterization And Simulation Using Seismic And Petrophysical Data Analyses, Xu Zhou

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores the application of data-driven modeling and prediction in reservoir characterization and simulation using seismic and petrophysical data analyses. Different aspects of the application of data-driven modeling methods are studied, which include rock facies classification, seismic attribute analyses, petrophysical properties prediction, seismic facies segmentation, and reservoir dimension reduction.

The application of using petrophysical well logs to predict rock facies is explored using different data analytics methods including decision tree, random forest, support vector machine and neural network. Different models are trained from a set of well logs and pre-interpreted rock facies data. Among the compared methods, the random …

A Study On The Improvement Of Data Collection In Data Centers And Its Analysis On Deep Learning-Based Applications, Dipak Kumar Singh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Big data are usually stored in data center networks for processing and analysis through various cloud applications. Such applications are a collection of data-intensive jobs which often involve many parallel flows and are network bound in the distributed environment. The recent networking abstraction, coflow, for data parallel programming paradigm to express the communication requirements has opened new opportunities to network scheduling for such applications. Therefore, I propose coflow based network scheduling algorithm, Coflourish, to enhance the job completion time for such data-parallel applications, in the presence of the increased background traffic to mimic the cloud environment infrastructure. It outperforms …