Engineering Commons^™

Comparison Of Shareholder Value Between Full-Service Airlines (Fsas) And Low-Cost Carriers (Lccs)., William Kee

Honors Theses

Shareholders in the airline industry invest in a service industry that is met with high fixed costs, capital, and external factors such as customer satisfaction and fluctuations in crude oil prices. On one end of the airline spectrum in the United States lie the full-service airlines, such as Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, or United Airlines adopting a product differentiation approach to capture a competitive advantage by providing greater benefits, comfort, and experience to the customer. This approach attracts customers that value the experience more so than simply the price of the fare, but is often met with high operating …

Site Development At The Corner Of Drake And Stadium, Ahmad Sear Rahimi

Honors Theses

This report presents the site layout alternatives for the development located at the corner of Drake and Stadium in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In the report four different layouts are suggested and followed by best management practices for grading and earthwork plans, porous asphalt pavement design, storm water retention design for the proposed site, and storm sewer pipe design. The redesign of the Costco Development Site aims to maximize efficiency of the development area through the warehouse and gas station location, parking lot layout, and trucking routes. Grading design is developed based on the existing site conditions before construction took place. The …

Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Jacob Dean, James Mixter, Jordan Barr

Honors Theses

An open-source Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) capable of performing at the same capacity as many top commercially available multi-rotor vehicles is developed. The system allows users unfamiliar with multi-rotor vehicles to achieve flight and land safely, while also serving as a flexible foundation for other UAV projects and opening the door to features that are not currently available. Applications of drone technology are explored.

Design Of A Tandem Rotor Hovering Vehicle, Brent Kostich

Honors Theses

An investigation of thrust vectoring and an examination of existing tandem rotor dynamics were used to develop a structural body for a tandem rotor vehicle, derive the equations of motion of the system, and simulate a dynamic model of the vehicle. A vehicle prototype was constructed while further application of remote control capabilities, flight testing, and control development were researched. The dynamic simulation was based on a linear model of the system so as to open the possibility of implementing a control system. The simulation results show that thrust synchronization yields a predictable motion response. The prototype constructed did not …

The Development Of An Autonomous Proximity Operations Demonstration System, Spencer Watza

Honors Theses

An Autonomous Proximity Operations Demonstration System is being developed to evaluate low cost hardware for aerial robotics and proximity operations in a GPS denied environment. This report highlights the design work and initial prototypes that have been finished along the project goals. The preliminary and detailed design of the vehicle has been completed and initial prototypes constructed. The demonstration system is a multirotor flight vehicle using a hex configuration (6 rotors). The vehicle carries onboard sensing and computational equipment to perform the mission weighing in at 28 pounds. The primary sensor chosen is the Microsoft Kinect™ to perform visual sensing …

Design And Fabrication Of An Instrumented Cane For The Blind, Aaron Dean

Honors Theses

The most commonly used tool for navigation by the blind is the white cane. A greater understanding is essential in improving the design and performance of these canes. An existing cane was modified with integrated force and acceleration sensors, in order to study the relation between cane vibration characteristics and obstacle or drop-off detection. Data was gathered by these sensors, and then transmitted wirelessly to a computer workstation, where it was recorded and analyzed. Exertion of the forearm muscles was also measured. Care was taken to insure that the cane sensors and transmitter are ergonomically unobtrusive for the user. The …

Implementing A Linear Quadratic Spacecraft Attitude Control System, Daniel Kolosa

Masters Theses

This thesis implements a linear quadratic attitude control system for a low-thrust spacecraft. The goal is to maintain spacecraft alignment with a time-varying thrust vector needed for trajectory change maneuvers. A linear quadratic attitude control approach is used to maintain spacecraft pointing throughout flight. This attitude control strategy uses the thrust-acceleration input obtained from a linear quadratic optimal trajectory control model that simulates the trajectory of a spacecraft in orbit maneuvers. This attitude model simulates a CubeSat, a small satellite that is equipped with a low-thrust propulsion and attitude control system. An orbit raising and a plane change scenario is …

Modeling And Analysis Of Pca Workflow, Ewing Tiong

Masters Theses

Nursing shortage has been reported as a major problem faced not only by the United States but also by many other countries. One of the many interventions that has been used to curb nursing shortage is the increase in employment of Unlicensed Assistive Personnels (UAPs) as an alternative care delivery model. There are many types of UAP and one of them are Patient Care Assistants (PCAs). This research proposes a methodology to model and analyze the work ow of a PCA in terms of completing assigned tasks in a timely manner. The specific objectives of this research are to model …

Computer Aided Brain Tumor Edge Extraction Using Morphological Operations, Warqaa Shaher Alazawee

Masters Theses

Detecting the precise boundary of the area containing a recognized brain tumor is a complex problem and must be addressed since it applies to many medical modalities and tumor types. The objective of this thesis is to provide an efficient algorithm for detecting edges of brain tumors to help neurosurgeons identify the border of the critical area and distinguish the precise margin of the tumor from the rest of the brain tissue during the surgery. This thesis work exploits MRI brain tumor images as a tool to aid surgeons. MRI image segmentation is an essential step as a preliminary process …

Formulation And Evaluation Of Soy Polymer Based, Gravure Printed Resistive Inks For Applications In Printed Electronics, Bhushan Hiralal Patil

Masters Theses

Today, the majority of the commercially available conductive inks are formulated using expensive metallic particles, such as silver and gold. Most of the inks use volatile solvents in the formulation, which are hazardous to the environment as emission of VOCs is the major concern. In the case of water-based inks, usually petroleum-based acrylic polymers are used. Apart from being nonrenewable raw materials, acrylic polymers are carcinogenic in nature. Also, acrylic polymers are used in a variety of applications, such as the automotive, medical device, paint, and adhesive industries. Often times, the ink industry has to compete with other industries for …

Design Of Digital Down Converter Chain For Software Defined Radio Systems On Fpga, Nagarjun Marappa

Masters Theses

Modern communication systems have increasingly attempted to trade off the digital signal processing for analog circuitry. In performing this tradeoff, advanced algorithms have been implemented in both custom programmable hardware and in software; such systems are commonly called Software Defined Radios (SDR). Advanced software defined radios consist of highly configurable hardware and computers used as digital signal processing (DSP) platforms that provide the technology for realizing current and future generations of digital wireless communication infrastructure. Many sophisticated signal processing tasks are performed in SDR, including compression algorithms, channel estimation, equalization, forward error correction and protocol management. This research has focused …

Signage Recognition Based Wayfinding System For The Visually Impaired, Abdullah Khalid Ahmed

Masters Theses

Persons of visual impairment make up a growing segment of modern society. To cater to the special needs of these individuals, society ought to consider the design of special constructs to enable them to fulfill their daily necessities. This research proposes a new method for text extraction from indoor signage that will help persons of visual impairment maneuver in unfamiliar indoor environments, thus enhancing their independence and quality of life.

In this thesis, images are acquired through a video camera mounted on glasses of the walking person. Frames are then extracted and used in an integrated framework that applies Maximally …

Control Of Cation Ordering In Zinc Tin Nitride And In-Situ Monitoring Of Growth, Brian Christopher Durant

Masters Theses

Semiconducting materials with a band gap around 1.5 eV are very much sought after due to their close match to the solar spectrum. However, some compounds that have shown promise for highly efficient solar cells contain rare, expensive, and sometimes toxic elements, such as indium and gallium. As such, a search for earth abundant materials has become more prominent recently. One such earth abundant semiconducting material that has garnered interest is ZnSnN₂. It has been shown through previous studies that there is the possibility of continuously tuning the band gap between 1.0 and 2.0 eV by controlling the …

Simulation Of Lateral Migration And Sedimentation Of A Flexible Fiber In A Vertical Weak Shear Flow, Ali Ibrahim Neamah Neamah

Masters Theses

This research is a thorough numerical investigation and critical analysis of lateral migration of a deformable particle settling in a vertical weak shear flow. Under the vertical weak shear fluid, the deformable particle may move either to the coagulation area, or the dispersion area, depending on Reynolds numbers, shear Reynolds number, fiber flexibility, and aspect ratio. In this study, a lattice Boltzmann equation is used to solve Navier-Stokes equation and a flexible particle method is employed to attack the problem of motion of a flexible fiber. A bounce-back rule is used to deal with moving boundaries interacting with fluids. Several …

A High Performance Architecture For An Exact Match Short-Read Aligner Using Burrows-Wheeler Aligner On Fpgas, Dana Abdul Qader

Masters Theses

Due to modern DNA sequencing technologies vast amount of short DNA sequences known as short-reads is generated. Biologists need to be able to align the short-reads to a reference genome to be able to make scientific use of the data. Fast and accurate short-read aligner programs are needed to keep up with the pace at which this data is generated. Field Programmable Gate Arrays have been widely used to accelerate many data-intensive bioinformatics applications.

Burrows-Wheeler Transform has been used in the theory of string matching which has led to the development of many short-read alignment programs. This thesis presents a …

Morphology Based Framework For Improved Driver's Visibility In Inclement Weather Conditions, Saleem Farhood Hussein

Masters Theses

The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that on average there are 5,870,000 vehicle accidents each year. Twenty-three percent (23%) of these accidents are attributed to weather conditions with an annual average of more than 6,000 people are killed and 480,000 people are injured. Weather-related accidents occur mainly because of the low visibility on the roads under inclement conditions such as snow, rain and fog. While these conditions can be predictable and individuals try to avoid driving in inclement weather, there are circumstances that require driving in such conditions such as emergency responders or when the severity of the storm has …

Studying The Optimum Design Of Automotive Thermoelectric Air Conditioning, Alaa Attar

Dissertations

The remarkable amount of research being conducted on thermoelectrics gives the impression that this technology will have a bright future in power generation and temperature control systems. At the present time, thermoelectrics is applied widely for temperature control, but has not yet replaced conventional air-conditioning systems due to its lower performance. Currently, approximately 10% of annual vehicle fuel consumption corresponds to the air-conditioning system used to cool the vehicle cabin. Conventional air-conditioning systems cool the entire cabin; however, about 73% of a vehicle’s mileage occurs while the driver is the only occupant. These facts indicate the need for a single …

Numerical Simulation And Modeling Of Combustion In Scramjets, Ryan James Clark

Dissertations

In the last fifteen years the development of a viable scramjet has quickly approached the following long term goals: responsive sub-orbital space access; long-range, prompt global strike; and high-speed transportation. Nonetheless, there are significant challenges that need to be resolved. These challenges include high skin friction drag and high heat transfer rates, inherent to vehicles in sustained, hypersonic flight. Another challenge is sustaining combustion. Numerical simulation and modeling was performed to provide insight into reducing skin friction drag and sustaining combustion.

Numerical simulation was used to investigate boundary layer combustion, which has been shown to reduce skin friction drag. The …

Novel Software Defined Radio Architecture With Graphics Processor Acceleration, Lalith Narasimhan

Dissertations

Wireless has become one of the most pervasive core technologies in the modern world. Demand for faster data rates, improved spectrum efficiency, higher system access capacity, seamless protocol integration, improved security and robustness under varying channel environments has led to the resurgence of programmable software defined radio (SDR) as an alternative to traditional ASIC based radios. Future SDR implementations will need support for multiple standards on platforms with multi-Gb/s connectivity, parallel processing and spectrum sensing capabilities. This dissertation implemented key technologies of importance in addressing these issues namely development of cost effective multi-mode reconfigurable SDR and providing a framework to …

Design Of A New Digital Relay For Transmission Line Fault Detection, Classification And Localization Based On A New Composite Relay And Artificial Neural Network Approach, Ahmed Sabri Altaie

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on new approach to detect, classify, and localize the fault in transmission line. Firstly, fault detection was carried out using the New Composite Relay (CR) which, has different characteristics and the ability to detect any type of fault including series faults. Secondly, fault classification was conducted using the Feed Forward Artificial Neural Network (FFANN). In addition, the fault classification led to the investigation of the best use of the FFANN. The data used come from MATLAB/SIMULINK three phase series compensated network. The results obtained using FFANN, were compared with the type of the fault that have been …

An Integrated Framework For Cardiac Sounds Diagnosis, Zichun Tong

Masters Theses

The Phonocardiogram (PCG) signal contains valuable information about the cardiac condition and is a useful tool in recognizing dysfunction and heart failure. By analyzing the PCG, early detection and diagnosis of heart diseases can be accomplished since many pathological conditions of the cardiovascular system cause murmurs or abnormal heart sounds. This thesis presents an algorithm to classify normal and abnormal heart sound signals using PCG. The proposed analysis is based on a framework composed of several statistical signal analysis techniques such as wavelet based de-noising, energy-based segmentation, Hilbert-Huang transform based feature extraction, and Support Vector Machine based classification. The MATLAB …

Application Of Starch-Based Nanoparticle Colloidal Dispersion In Curtain Coating, Ting Chen

Dissertations

In this research, a conventional petro-based latex was partially replaced with a biobased latex in a curtain coating. A common petro-based rheology modifier used in curtain coatings, which is relatively costly and difficult to disperse, was also replaced with two inorganic rheology modifiers. The influence of these materials on coating rheology and curtain stability was thoroughly examined.

In the rheological study, the interactions between biopolymer nanoparticles and inorganic rheology modifiers were found to improve the rheological properties of the biobased latex coatings. Changes in the rheological properties of the coatings were found to depend on the type of rheology modifier …

Development Of A Capacity Deployment Model For Disrupted Supply Chain Networks, James D. Burns

Dissertations

The increasing complexity of modern supply chains is widely accepted as one of the many drivers of risk that can leave organizations vulnerable to the effects of a disruption. This acceptance has contributed to an emerging interest in Supply Chain Resilience in the literature. Resilient supply chains are able to both resist the effects of a disruption and recover efficiently if the disruption is severe. This new body of literature is still in a formative phase and has thus far focused on defining Supply Chain Resilience, proposing frameworks for its implementation, exploring factors that contribute to resilience, and investigating methods …

Impact Of Calendering And Silver Addition To Carbon Nanotube-Based Electrodes Used In Printed Multi-Layer Capacitors, Ramea Awni Al-Mubarak

Masters Theses

As the demand for global energy increases, the need for development of alternative clean and sustainable energy technology increases. Creating advanced energy devices with a large storage capacity plays a significant role in this development. This research focused on investigating the performance of capacitor devices used as energy storage cells by optimizing and determining the impact of silver percentage and structure (nano-wires or silver flake) added to CNT ink on the conductivity of printed layers, and studying the influence of calendering the multi-layer capacitor electrodes. Multi-layer capacitors were fabricated by screen printing three alternative layers of conductive and dielectric inks …

Evaluation Of The Safety Effectiveness Of Clearview Font And Fluorescent Yellow Sheeting On Michigan Freeways And Non-Freeways, Lusanni Mercedes Acosta Rodrieuez

Masters Theses

Halation or irradiation makes guide sign fonts difficult to read. Missing the necessary guide sign information causes anxiety and confusion to drivers, and hence may lead to crashes. In order to avoid or mitigate the situation a newer font, Clearview, is used to provide better readability at long distances. In a similar context the lack of brightness in sheeting material for warning signs reduces conspicuity of sings. Installation of fluorescent yellow sheeting has been done to provide signs with more noticeable and brighter materials. This observational before and after study is an evaluation of the safety and economic benefits of …

Low Melting Glass Frit As An Adhesion And Resistivity Promotor To Silver Nanoparticle Ink Photonically Sintered On Indium Tin Oxide Coated Glass, Jason J. Kleiner

Masters Theses

The objective of this study was the fabrication of a printed circuit resulting from the photonic drying/sintering of conductive circuits, printed using silver nano ink layered on a film of low melting glass frit onto indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrate through the flexographic printing method. The fabrication process flow included material preparation, printing, and photonic drying/sintering in that order.

Investigation of the breakthrough photonic drying/sintering method was studied by varying sintering parameters, specifically the amount of heat energy applied to each specimen, and the speed at which it was applied. Additionally, the adhesion promoting properties of a never …

Oxidized Phospholipids Regulation Of The Monocyte Recruitment Parthway In Human Aortic Endothelial Cells, Piao Jian Tan

Masters Theses

Low-density lipoprotein particles in blood plasma invade the endothelium and become oxidized, creating risk of CHD associated with atherosclerosis, the main underlying condition in coronary heart disease. Oxidation products of the phospholipid 1-palmitoyl- 2-arachidonoyl-sn-glycerol-3-phosphatidylcholine (PAPC) are bioactive components of minimally oxidized LDL that stimulate endothelial cells that line the artery, leading to monocyte binding and atherosclerosis. It is hypothesized that the regulation of the monocyte recruitment pathway by these oxidized phospholipids is mediated by the binding of OxPAPC to one or more mediating proteins. Human recombinant VEGFR2, GRP78, and EP2bind to OxPNB, a biotinylated analog of OxPAPC, demonstrated using Western …

Development And Verification Of A Method To Determine The Long Term Load Carrying Performance Of A Double Sided Pressure Sensitive Adhesive Tape, Rahal Rasheed

Masters Theses

Acrylic foam pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) tapes are used in various applications as an alternative of mechanical fasteners, especially in areas like structural bonding which requires demanding bond strength and durability.

This research focuses on comparing design values of acrylic foam PSA using static shear test method and dynamic shear test method in accordance of J0MP0164 standard specification. Static shear test has lots of disadvantages; but on the other hand it is the test that mimics the real life usage of a tape in a real life application. Dynamic shear test is a faster way of testing and gives a …

Recycling In A Lean Environment, Marylin N. Glass-Hedges

Dissertations

Lean Manufacturing and Green Manufacturing systems co-occur in many manufacturing facilities. This dissertation investigated the relationship between materials recycling—as an important green waste-reduction technique—and lean techniques, and their influence on lean outcomes, specifically 1) if a correlation exists between lean techniques and material recycling, as these two variables also influence lean outcomes; and 2) the mediating effect of materials recycling between lean techniques and lean outcomes. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling were the chosen statistical analysis methods utilized to explore and confirm the lean techniques and lean outcomes constructs, test the models’ hypotheses and answer …

The Design Of Nanostructures From The Blending Of Flowing Agents Influencing Critical Properties Of A Pharmaceutical Formulation, Casey F. Kick

Masters Theses

In the pharmaceutical manufacturing process, it is well known that flowing agents such as MgSt and Cab-O-Sil widely affect critical flow properties that influence the finished product performance of oral dosage tablets. Though the effects of flowing agents are beneficial to some extent, the sensitivity of the pharmaceutical formulation to process shearing of flowing agents during blending can be catastrophic which often results in product and batch failures. Hence it is essential to study the concentration of flowing agents and chemical nature of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) with respect to applied process shear on formulations. Previous studies have shown that …