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The Gift Of Recreation: College Of Engineering, Icon Deliver Innovative Side-By-Side Cycle To Common Ground Outdoor Adventures | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Dec. 22, 2015 – In the spirit of giving this holiday season, the College of Engineering at Utah State University and ICON Health & Fitness delivered a much anticipated gift to the staff and clients at Logan’s Common Ground Outdoor Adventures.

On Tuesday, USU and ICON donated a student-built side-by-side tandem cycle that helps make outdoor cycling adventures possible for persons with disabilities.

Dean Of Engineering Receives Utah Governor’S Medal For Excellence | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Dec. 17, 2015 – Utah State University’s College of Engineering Dean Christine Hailey was among ten state leaders recognized this week by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert for outstanding service in academia, education and industry.

Hailey will receive the Governor’s Medal for Excellence at a special gala event on Jan. 13 at Rio Tinto Stadium along with fellow recipients including three other faculty members from USU.

Undergraduate Research Assistant To Present | Eed, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Steven Wood, an undergraduate research assistant working with Dr. Wade Goodridge in Engineering Education has been accepted to present research at this year’s upcoming Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research (UCUR) located at the University of Utah on February 19th, 2016. He will present research on Spatial Ability and its improvement in a Statics curriculum, a new and leading edge of spatial research that has potential impacts on how we educate our engineering students.

Dr. Goodridge stated “I am very happy that Steven has engaged in this work with me as we need to disseminate to the public the importance that …

Undergraduate Research Assistant Receives Eurp | Engineering Education, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Steven Wood, an undergraduate research assistant working with Dr. Wade Goodridge in Engineering Education has been awarded an EURP for this coming year to engage in research in spatial thinking. Steven will work with over a year of collected spatial ability data to discover the significant gains student achieve in it after completing a Statics course. Spatial ability includes the ability to mentally comprehend an object, diagram, model, etc. and be able to manipulate and visualize it in the mind. Numerous studies have found strong evidence that supports the correlation of high spatial ability to success in STEM coursework and …

Usu Engineering Study Wins Support From American Heart Association | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Dec. 10, 2015 – The American Heart Association is supporting a new study at Utah State University where researchers are developing a technology that may help the human body better protect itself against cardiovascular disease.

Associate Professor of Biological Engineering Jixun Zhan is the chief scientist behind the new study. He and his team are using bacteria to synthesize some of the naturally-occurring compounds found in plants that our bodies already use to combat heart disease.

How Do Changes To The Railroad Causeway In Utah’S Great Salt Lake Affect Water And Salt Flow?, James S. White, Sarah E. Null, David G. Tarboton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Managing terminal lake elevation and salinity are emerging problems worldwide. We contribute to terminal lake management research by quantitatively assessing water and salt flow for Utah’s Great Salt Lake. In 1959, Union Pacific Railroad constructed a rock-filled causeway across the Great Salt Lake, separating the lake into a north and south arm. Flow between the two arms was limited to two 4.6 meter wide rectangular culverts installed during construction, an 88 meter opening (referred to locally as a breach) installed in 1984, and the semi porous material of the causeway. A salinity gradient developed between the two arms of the …

Libsbolj 2.0: A Java Library To Support Sbol 2.0, Zhen Zhang, Tramy Nguyen, Nicholas Roehner, Goksel Misirli, Matthew Pocock, Ernst Oberortner, Meher Samineni, Zach Zundel, Jacob Beal, Kevin Clancy, Anil Wipat, Chris J. Myers

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) is an emerging data standard for representing synthetic biology designs. The goal of SBOL is to improve the reproducibility of these designs and their electronic exchange between researchers and/or genetic design

Mega Wall Block Welded Wire Mesh Connection, Tyler B. Loertscher

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) walls restrain hillslopes to unnatural gradients using reinforced soil. Traditional MSE walls are constructed of large reinforced concrete panels bolted to steel strips for soil reinforcement. Segmented Retaining Walls (SRWs) are a form of MSE walls composed of precast concrete modular blocks that incorporate geosynthetic soil reinforcement. In comparison, traditional MSE walls have faster construction times and are typically stronger, but SRWs have increased in popularity because they are much cheaper to build.

There are many precast companies that produce different SRW block designs, these blocks have facing areas that range from 1 to 13.75 sq. …

Lightweight Deployment Mechanism Of Solar Arrays For Use In Cubesats, John Wood Ellis

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Cube satellites, also referred to as CubeSats, were developed in the late twentieth century, and have since served as a cost-effective method of gathering out-of-this-world data. The development of these small-scale satellites have helped universities and small companies worldwide to perform important experiments, as well as gather critical data in order to provide for further space exploration. Cube satellites are designed to be self-sustaining, by using solar cells to capture impinging thermal energy and convert it to power to be consumed by the electronics housed within the satellite itself. In order to function properly, these cells are extended in an …

Design For Reduction Of Noise Produced By Natural Gas Regulator, Britany L. Chamberlain

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This document describes the design of a multi-stage restrictive orifice device (MSRO) that serves to reduce the noise produced by a regulator valve. The scope of this document explains the determination of the proper design through the development of analytical models, the design of a test fixture to obtain empirical data, and the corroboration of the models with empirical data to obtain a working solution.

Long-Term Winter Inversion Properties In A Mountain Valley Of The Western United States And Implications On Air Quality, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Lawrence E. Hipps, Oi-Yu Chung, Robert R. Gillies, Randy S. Martin

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Because of the geography of a narrow valley and surrounding tall mountains, Cache Valley (located in northern Utah and southern Idaho) experiences frequent shallow temperature inversions that are both intense and persistent. Such temperature inversions have resulted in the worst air quality in the nation. In this paper, the historical properties of Cache Valley’s winter inversions are examined by using two meteorological stations with a difference in elevation of approximately 100 m and a horizontal distance apart of ~4.5 km. Differences in daily maximum air temperature between two stations were used to define the frequency and intensity of inversions. Despite …

Development And Evaluation Of A Physically Based Multiscalar Drought Index: The Standardized Moisture Anomaly Index, B. Zhang, X. Zhao, Jiming Jin, P. Wu

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

In this study, a new physically based multiscalar drought index, the Standardized Moisture Anomaly Index (SZI), was developed and evaluated, which combines the advantages of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). The SZI is based on the water budget simulations produced with a sophisticated hydrological model, and it also includes a multiscalar feature to quantify drought events at different temporal scales taken from SPEI. The Chinese Loess Plateau was selected to evaluate the performance of the SZI. Our evaluation indicates that the SZI accurately captures the onset, duration, and ending of a multiyear …

Master's Thesis Defense By Elizabeth Martinez | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

The Logan Lagoons, Logan City’s Wastewater Treatment Facility ensures 15 million gallons of wastewater are cleaned and filtered each day. With the implementation of new and stricter wastewater effluent standards, the city of Logan now has to guarantee the phosphorous concentration in the effluent is also reduced. Algal biomass produced and harvested from the lagoons has been proven to affect the way nitrogen and phosphorous are removed while having the potential to be converted to biofuels. Therefore, implementing a secondary type clarifier in the Logan Lagoons would produce clean treated water with a reduced phosphorous concentration, and algae feedstock for …

Software-And Hardware-In-The-Loop Verification Of Flight Dynamics Model And Flight Control Simulation Of A Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Calvin Coopmans, Michal Podhradsk, Nathan V. Hoffer

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Unmanned aerial system (UAS) use is ever-increasing. In this paper, it is shown that even with low-cost hardware and open-source software, simple numerical testing practices (software- and hardware-in-the-loop) can prove the accuracy and usefulness of an aeronautical flight model, as well as provide valuable pre-flight testing of many situations typically only encountered in flight: high winds, hardware failure, etc. Software and hardware simulation results are compared with actual flight testing results to show that these modeling and testing techniques are accurate and provide a useful testing platform for a small unmanned aerial vehicle. Source code used in simulation is open …

2015 Graduate Researcher Of The Year Award | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Lifu Xiao received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Fudan University in China, 2011. He has been pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Biological Engineering since 2011 at Utah State University under the supervision of Dr. Anhong Zhou. He obtained a multidisciplinary background in chemistry, biology and engineering working in Dr. Zhou’s lab. His research focuses on developing new methods for sensing and imaging of human disease-related biomolecules and mammalian cells.

Lifu has published five papers in peer reviewed journals. One of his papers, published in Analytical Methods, was ranked as one of the top ten most accessed articles in Feb …

Teaching Computers To See Like We Do | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Nov. 18, 2015 – Recognizing patterns might be easy for some people, but it’s a difficult skill to teach to a computer. Ask Dr. Xiaojun Qi, a faculty member in USU’s Computer Science Department, who was recently promoted to professor for her innovative research in image processing and computer vision.

How Plants Can Make Stormwater Cleaner | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Ever wondered what happens to the surge of stormwater you see racing down your street?

Meet Micro Joe | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Hydrazine is an unstable, flammable liquid that has been used as a propellant in small spacecraft for decades. But the cost of this unique fuel, its transport, storage, servicing and cleanup of accidental releases can be very high, making it difficult for the commercial space industry to expand.

Wideband Fluorescence-Based Thermometry By Neural Network Recognition: Photothermal Application With 10 Ns Time Resolution, Liwang Liu, Kuo Zhong, Troy Munro, Salvador Alvarado, Renaud Cote, Sebastiaan Creten, Eduard Fron, Heng Ban, Mark Van Der Auweraer, N. B. Roozen, Osamu Matsuda, Christ Glorieux

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Neural network recognition of features of the fluorescence spectrum of a thermosensitive probe is exploited in order to achieve fluorescence-based thermometry with an accuracy of 200 mK with 100 MHz bandwidth, and with high robustness against fluctuations of the probe laser intensity used. The concept is implemented on a rhodamine B dyed mixture of copper chloride and glycerol, and the temperature dependent fluorescence is investigated in the temperature range between 234 K and 311 K. The spatial dependence of the calibrated amplitude and phase of photothermally induced temperature oscillations along the axis of the excitation laser are determined at different …

Practitioner Interview, Jayantha Obeysekera

All ECSTATIC Materials

Phone interview with Jayantha Obeysekera from South Florida Water Management District by David Watkins, Jr., and Ali Mirchi. Interview questions asked inquired about (i) practitioner’s professional background, (ii) practitioner’s personal experience with systems analysis techniques and software in their job, (iii) role, benefits, and challenges in using systems analysis concepts in the water resources engineering profession, and (iv) recommendations for improving education of environmental and water resources systems analysis in universities.

Dr. Allan Guymon Undergraduate Seminar | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Photopolymerization has taken an increasing prominent role as a tool in providing unique properties for a wide array of advanced materials. The inherent spatial and temporal control allow great ability to tailor processing conditions and change ultimate properties. This talk will focus on two projects, including work from two Utah State alumni, in which photopolymerization enables directed structure both on the micron and nanometer size scale for unique functionality.

Vision: An Engineer's Tool In The Fight Against Eye Disease | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

If you’ve seen the latest news headlines about Dr. Elizabeth Vargis, you’d think she was an ophthalmologist – a medical expert on vision-related disease and treatment. But Vargis is no physician. She’s an engineer – pure and simple.

Dehalococcoides Abundance And Alternate Electron Acceptor Effects On Large, Flow-Through Trichloroethene Dechlorinating Columns, Babur S. Mirza, Darwin L. Sorensen, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Trichloroethene (TCE) in groundwater is a major health concern and biostimulation/bioaugmentation-based strategies have been evaluated to achieve complete reductive dechlorination with varying success. Different carbon sources were hypothesized to stimulate different extents of TCE reductive dechlorination. Ecological conditions that developed different dechlorination stages were investigated by quantitating Dehalococcoides 16S rRNA (Dhc) and reductive dehalogenase gene abundance, and by describing biogeochemical properties of laboratory columns in response to this biostimulation. Eight large columns (183 cm × 15.2 cm), packed with aquifer material from Hill AFB, Utah, that were continuously fed TCE for 7.5 years. Duplicate columns were biostimulated with whey or …

Dr. Catherine E. Brewer Research Presentation | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Biomass resources are available all around us and are frequently underutilized. These resources can come in the form of agricultural residues like pecan shells or cotton gin trash, forest residues, invasive species like tumbleweed and salt cedar, yard waste, organic materials and nutrients in wastewater, and even garbage on spacecraft. There are many opportunities to use these resources to meet our feed, water, and energy needs—with the right engineering. Thermochemical processes, namely pyrolysis, torrefaction, and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), provide platforms to convert low-value materials into heat, power, liquid fuels, adsorbents, fertilizers, and soil amendments. In this presentation, Dr. Brewer will …

Igem Vs. The Cheese Killer | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Cheese manufacturing is under attack by a type of virus called bacteriophages. The viruses infect bacteria used in the dairy fermentation process that yields our beloved cheese and yoghurt. Utah State’s 2015 International Genetically Engineered Machines, or iGEM, team has been researching ways to fight back against the virus. The iGEM event is a competition that promotes student involvement in real world synthetic biology research.

A Smarter Baby Monitor | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Nate Ruben and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Dr. Jake Gunther can see something on the surface that most people can’t. The two are developing a new technology that uses a video camera to detect a person’s heartbeat. It’s not the first time engineers have tried to remotely measure a heartbeat signal. Medical technology experts have been at it for years with different designs that tether a child or his bedding to an electronic device that alerts parents to the possibility of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS.

Engineers Without Borders | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Nov. 2, 2015 – Members of the Engineers Without Borders Team Mexico have been working with residents in the community of La Salitrera, Mexico for several years to help eliminate arsenic from water supplies using an improved design on a classic tool – the bio-sand water filter.

Tandemonium | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Nov. 2, 2015 — Jay Lindstrom’s love for biking and Laura Birkhold’s enthusiasm for a hands-on project made designing a side-by-side quadricycle perfect for their senior design project. Along with their team members and representatives from Common Ground Outdoor Adventures and Icon Health & Fitness, the group of mechanical engineering students set out to build a unique tandem cycle they dubbed ‘Tandemonium.’

Engineering Thinking | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Nov. 2, 2015 - It’s no surprise: engineering courses are tough. Professors assign complex homework problems that can take hours to solve, and for some the experience feels like drinking from a fire hose.

Most engineering programs begin with a handful of rigorous courses in statics and dynamics that can be stumbling blocks for some. This has engineering education experts looking for retention solutions and rethinking how these difficult courses are taught.

Darp-Mp: Dynamically Adaptable Resilient Pipeline Design In Multicore Processors, Hu Chen, Sanghamitra Roy, Koushik Chakraborty

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this article, we demonstrate that the sensitized path delays in various microprocessor pipe stages exhibit intriguing temporal and spatial variations during the execution of real-world applications. To effectively exploit these delay variations, we propose dynamically adaptable resilient pipeline (DARP)-a series of runtime techniques to boost power-performance efficiency and fault tolerance in a pipelined microprocessor. DARP employs early error prediction to avoid amajor portion of the timing errors.We combine DARP with the state-of-art topologically homogeneous and power-performance heterogeneous (THPH) architecture to build up a new frontier for the energy efficiency of multicore processors (DARP-MP). Using a rigorous circuitarchitectural infrastructure, we …