Engineering Commons^™

Ph Effects On The Sorption Of Fluoxetine And Sulfamethoxazole By Three Powdered Activated Carbons, James D. Schneider

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are widely used throughout the world. PPCPs are emerging as pollutants of concern and may pose a risk in the future to drinking water supplies. Two such compounds are sulfamethoxazole (SMXL) and fluoxetine (FLX). These ionizable compounds are not readily removed from water by conventional water treatment technologies. Powdered activated carbon (PAC) is a useful material for removing contaminants from water and is currently used in many water treatment applications. PACs may carry either a net positive or negative surface charge depending on the pH of solution. This study examined the hypothesis that the …

Radio-Frequency Transmitter Geolocation Using Non-Ideal Received Signal Strength Indicators, Samuel Whiting

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Locating a radio transmitter is important in a number of problems such as finding radio tags, people with radios, and devices that are collecting information in an unauthorized manner. Locating a radio transmitter is inherently difficult because the radio waves of concern are not in the visible spectrum, they reflect and distort easily, and they propagate at the speed of light.

A number of methods for locating transmitters are currently used, the majority of which require expensive hardware and extensive processing. This thesis presents a method of using simpler measurements to produce similar location estimates in order to augment or …

Desorption Of Trace Inorganic Contaminants From Solids In Drinking Water Distribution Systems, Tiana W. Hammer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In order to maintain high quality safe drinking water, we need to understand what happens after the water has been cleaned at the drinking water plant and before it gets to the consumer’s house. Even if low concentrations of toxic contaminants enter the drinking water distribution system (DWDS) there is potential for contaminants to accumulate and be released by changes in flow or water conditions in high concentrations at the tap. For this study, we collected solid material from Park City, Utah that accumulated within the DWDS, along with a year of monthly monitoring of the DWDS. These solids were …

The Effects Of Surge Flows On Residential Water Meters, Ryan P. Weller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

All residential water meters have published flow rates for which they will operate as designed. These specifications include a maximum operating flow rate, which is recommended not to exceed. However, there are situations which may cause a meter to flow above the maximum flow rate. This thesis explores what effect these surge flows have on residential water meters.

Twenty-one 5/8”x3/4” meters were tested in this study: three oscillating pistons, six nutating disks, nine ultrasonic, and three electromagnetic. Testing was done at the Utah Water Research Laboratory using a gravimetric test bench specifically designed for residential water meter testing.

The results …

Numerical Evaluation Of Energy Release Rate At Material Interfaces For Fatigue Life Predictions, Robert L. Hendrickson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Composite materials are becoming popular in almost all industries. Carbon-fiber and glass-fiber composites are used in aircraft, sports equipment, boats, prosthetics, and wind turbine blades. In all these applications, the composites are subjected to different loads. Loads can take the form of impact or cyclic/fatigue loading, both of which decrease the strength of composites as micro-cracks grow through the composite. Composite laminates are made up of fiber plies (thin layers of fiber) and the fibers are surrounded by a resin like epoxy. It is common for laminates to fail because of delamination growth (plies peeling apart). Small delaminations do not …

Silane Modulation Of Protein Conformation And Self-Assembly, Abul Bashar Mohammad Giasuddin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research focused on development of nanoparticle- based therapeutics against amyloid fibrils. Amyloid fibrils are associated with various diseases such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, mad cow disease, Alzheimer’s, and cataracts. Amyloid fibrils develop when proteins change their shape from a native form to a pathogenic “misfolded” form. The misfolded proteins have the ability to recruit more native proteins into the pathogenic forms, which self-assemble into amyloid fibrils that are hallmarks of the various protein-misfolding diseases listed above. Amyloid fibrils are highly resistant to degradation, which may contribute to the symptoms of amyloid diseases. Synthetic drugs, natural compounds, and antibodies are widely …

Methods For The Aerostructural Design And Optimization Of Wings With Arbitrary Planform And Payload Distribution, Jeffrey D. Taylor

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The design of an aircraft wing often involves the use of mathematical methods for simultaneous aerodynamic and structural design. The goal of many of these methods is to minimize the drag on the wing. A variety of computer models exist for this purpose, but some require the use of expensive time and computational resources to give meaningful results. As an alternative, some mathematical methods have been developed that give reason ably accurate results without the need for a computer. However, most of these methods can only be used for wings with specific shapes and payload distributions. In this thesis, a …