Engineering Commons^™

Technology Planning For Aligning Emerging Business Models And Regulatory Structures: The Case Of Electric Vehicle Charging And The Smart Grid, Kelly R. Cowan

Dissertations and Theses

Smart grid has been described as the Energy Internet: Where Energy Technology meets Information Technology. The incorporation of such technology into vast existing utility infrastructures offers many advantages, including possibilities for new smart appliances, energy management systems, better integration of renewable energy, value added services, and new business models, both for supply- and demand-side management. Smart grid also replaces aging utility technologies that are becoming increasingly unreliable, as the average ages for many critical components in utility systems now exceed their original design lives. However, while smart grid offers the promise of revolutionizing utility delivery systems, many questions remain about …

Physics Based Approach For Seafloor Classification, Phu Duy Nguyen

Dissertations and Theses

The seafloor properties are of high importance for many applications such as marine biology, oil and gas exploration, laying cables, dredging operations and off-shore construction. Several approaches exist to classify the properties of the seabed. These include taking direct samples of the seabed (e.g., coring), however, these methods are costly and slow. Underwater acoustic remote sensing techniques are of interest because they are lower cost and faster. The information about the seabed properties can be extracted by studying the energy of single beam echo sounders (SBES). This can be done by either phenomenological or numerical methods [1], [2]. This research …

The Social Acceptance Of Community Solar: A Portland Case Study, Anne Weaver

Dissertations and Theses

Community solar is a renewable energy practice that's been adopted by multiple U.S. states and is being considered by many more, including the state of Oregon. A recent senate bill in Oregon, called the "Clean Electricity and Coal Transition Plan", includes a provision that directs the Oregon Public Utility Commission to establish a community solar program for investor-owned utilities by late 2017. Thus, energy consumers in Portland will be offered participation in community solar projects in the near future. Community solar is a mechanism that allows ratepayers to experience both the costs and benefits of solar energy while also helping …

Laser As A Tool To Study Radiation Effects In Cmos, Bahar Ajdari

Dissertations and Theses

Energetic particles from cosmic ray or terrestrial sources can strike sensitive areas of CMOS devices and cause soft errors. Understanding the effects of such interactions is crucial as the device technology advances, and chip reliability has become more important than ever. Particle accelerator testing has been the standard method to characterize the sensitivity of chips to single event upsets (SEUs). However, because of their costs and availability limitations, other techniques have been explored. Pulsed laser has been a successful tool for characterization of SEU behavior, but to this day, laser has not been recognized as a comparable method to beam …

Lithography Hotspot Detection, Jea Woo Park

Dissertations and Theses

The lithography process for chip manufacturing has been playing a critical role in keeping Moor's law alive. Even though the wavelength used for the process is bigger than actual device feature size, which makes it difficult to transfer layout patterns from the mask to wafer, lithographers have developed a various technique such as Resolution Enhancement Techniques (RETs), Multi-patterning, and Optical Proximity Correction (OPC) to overcome the sub-wavelength lithography gap.

However, as feature size in chip design scales down further to a point where manufacturing constraints must be applied to early design phase before generating physical design layout. Design for Manufacturing …

Synthesis Of Linear Reversible Circuits And Exor-And-Based Circuits For Incompletely Specified Multi-Output Functions, Ben Schaeffer

Dissertations and Theses

At this time the synthesis of reversible circuits for quantum computing is an active area of research. In the most restrictive quantum computing models there are no ancilla lines and the quantum cost, or latency, of performing a reversible form of the AND gate, or Toffoli gate, increases exponentially with the number of input variables. In contrast, the quantum cost of performing any combination of reversible EXOR gates, or CNOT gates, on n input variables requires at most O(n^₂/log₂n) gates. It was under these conditions that EXOR-AND-EXOR, or EPOE, synthesis was developed.

In this …

Impact Analysis Of Increased Dispatchable Resources On A Utility Feeder In Opendss, Crystal Eppinger

Dissertations and Theses

Oregon utilities are replacing their portfolios of traditional fossil fuel generation with renewable generating sources. Stepping away from carbon-producing energy will leave a deficit of on-demand power, resulting in decreased reliability. To overcome these technical challenges, utilities must maximize the use of their present dispatchable resources. One such resource is the Portland General Electric (PGE) Dispatchable Standby Generation Program (DSG), which is an aggregated 105 MWs of distributed generation (DG). These resources are brought on-line when there is a critical need for power. Resources are added to the program if a transfer trip scheme is in place or a modeling …

Early Layout Design Exploration In Tsv-Based 3d Integrated Circuits, Mohammad Abrar Ahmed

Dissertations and Theses

Through silicon via (TSV) based 3D integrated circuits have inspired a novel design paradigm which explores the vertical dimension, in order to alleviate the performance and power limitations associated with long interconnects in 2D circuits. TSVs enable vertical interconnects across stacked and thinned dies in 3D-IC designs, resulting in reduced wirelength, footprint, faster speed, improved bandwidth, and lesser routing congestion. However, the usage of TSVs itself gives rise to many critical design challenges towards the minimization of chip delay and power consumption. Therefore, realization of the benefits of 3D ICs necessitates an early and realistic prediction of circuit performance during …

Generalized Differential Calculus And Applications To Optimization, R. Blake Rector

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis contains contributions in three areas: the theory of generalized calculus, numerical algorithms for operations research, and applications of optimization to problems in modern electric power systems. A geometric approach is used to advance the theory and tools used for studying generalized notions of derivatives for nonsmooth functions. These advances specifically pertain to methods for calculating subdifferentials and to expanding our understanding of a certain notion of derivative of set-valued maps, called the coderivative, in infinite dimensions. A strong understanding of the subdifferential is essential for numerical optimization algorithms, which are developed and applied to nonsmooth problems in operations …

An Ir And Rf Based System For Functional Gait Analysis In A Multi-Resident Smart-Home, Erich Reinhardt Schafermeyer

Dissertations and Theses

Changes in the gait characteristics, such as walking speed and stride length, of a person living at home can be used to presage cognitive decline, predict fall potential, monitor long-term changes in cognitive impairment, test drug regimens, and more. This thesis presents a novel approach to gait analysis in a smart-home environment by leveraging new advances in inexpensive sensors and embedded systems to create novel solutions for in-home gait analysis. Using a simple, non-invasive hardware system consisting entirely of wall-mounted infrared and radio frequency sensor arrays, data is collected on the gait of subjects as they pass by. This data …

Building Energy Model Calibration For Retrofit Decision Making, Nicolas R. Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

Accommodating the continued increase in energy demand in the face of global climate change has been a worldwide concern. With buildings in the US consuming nearly 40% of national energy, a concerted effort must be given to reduce building energy consumption. As new buildings continue to improve their efficiency through more restrictive energy codes, the other 76.9 billion square feet of current building stock falls further behind. The rate at which current buildings are being retrofit is not enough and better tools are needed to access the benefits of retrofits and the uncertainties associated with them. This study proposes a …

Microwave Instrumentation And Sensing Techniques For Quantum Efficiency And Minority-Carrier Lifetime Measurements, Kyle Benjamin Lu

Dissertations and Theses

A non-contact method characterizing the quantum efficiency of a solar cell using the microwave reflectance signature is presented in this thesis. Traditional solar cell quantum efficiency (QE) measurements are only possible near the completion of the fabrication process using contacts in direct physical connection with the metalized surface tabs to probe and extract charge carriers from the device. However, pressure within the solar metrology industry to report the spectral performance of the device earlier in the manufacturing process as part of the process control loop requires that a new non-contact method be developed. This thesis work contributes the development of …

Power-Aware Datacenter Networking And Optimization, Qing Yi

Dissertations and Theses

Present-day datacenter networks (DCNs) are designed to achieve full bisection bandwidth in order to provide high network throughput and server agility. However, the average utilization of typical DCN infrastructure is below 10% for significant time intervals. As a result, energy is wasted during these periods. In this thesis we analyze traffic behavior of datacenter networks using traces as well as simulated models. Based on the insight developed, we present techniques to reduce energy waste by making energy use scale linearly with load. The solutions developed are analyzed via simulations, formal analysis, and prototyping. The impact of our work is significant …

Quadded Gasp: A Fault Tolerant Asynchronous Design, Kristopher S. Scheiblauer

Dissertations and Theses

As device scaling continues, process variability and defect densities are becoming increasingly challenging for circuit designers to contend with. Variability reduces timing margins, making it difficult and time consuming to meet design specifications. Defects can cause degraded performance or incorrect operation resulting in circuit failure. Consequently test times are lengthened and production yields are reduced.

This work assess the combination of two concepts, self-timed asynchronous design and fault tolerance, as a possible solution to both variability and defects. Asynchronous design is not as sensitive to variability as synchronous, while fault tolerance allows continued functional operation in the presence of defects. …