Environmental Monitoring Using A Drone-Enabled Wireless Sensor Network, Gina Valentino, Laura Yates, Brooke Potter

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Water quality monitoring traditionally occurs via resource intensive field surveys, such as when a researcher manually collects data in a stream. Limiting factors such as time, money, and accessibility often result in less oversight of impaired water bodies, significantly threatening ecosystemic health and related ecosystem services. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 84% of rivers and streams within the United States remain unassessed, resulting in significant lapses in available data. Such lapses prohibit efficient and effective monitoring, restoration, and conservation efforts throughout the United States. The objective of this project was to employ an unmanned aerial vehicle to …

A Feasibility Study Of Industrial Hemp On Virginia Commercial Poultry Production, Aaron Sloss

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This project sought to characterize industrial hemp as a potential competitive agricultural commodity for the state of Virginia. Specifically, industrial hempseed was evaluated as a feedstock for the commercial broiler (meat-chickens) industry in Virginia.

Data were gathered to identify both the advantages and disadvantages of industrial hempseed as a nutritional resource for broilers. Key nutritional compositions were identified, quantified, and compared to several common feed ingredients, such as soybean, wheat, corn, and sorghum. Hempseed (whole seed) was found to have a considerably high amino acid content, protein, fiber, and metabolizable energy – making it an attractive alternative to conventional feedstuffs. …

The Effects Of Finite Precision On The Simulation Of The Double Pendulum, Rebecca Wild

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

We use mathematics to study physical problems because abstracting the information allows us to better analyze what could happen given any range and combination of parameters. The problem is that for complicated systems mathematical analysis becomes extremely cumbersome. The only effective and reasonable way to study the behavior of such systems is to simulate the event on a computer. However, the fact that the set of floating-point numbers is finite and the fact that they are unevenly distributed over the real number line raises a number of concerns when trying to simulate systems with chaotic behavior. In this research we …

Dry River Watershed Valuation And Management Plan, Julia Hutchens

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Water quality has become a major environmental and human welfare concern in the world today, it’s no longer just for developing countries. There have been many incidences in the US of health problems related to water quality and a shortage of water. The City of Harrisonburg and the surrounding community also have a need for a well-developed watershed management plan. The focus of this study will be the Dry River because that is a main source of the city’s water. The Dry River watershed is threatened by illegal dumping, erosion from primitive roads and future road building sedimentation, a lack …

Design Of A Homeopathic Solution For Chronic Cough, Jacob Ziemke

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Chronic cough is most commonly defined as a cough that persists for more than eight weeks and is estimated to affect more than 30 million people in the United States at any given time. Diseases contributing to the onset of chronic cough include asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, lung cancer, postnasal drip, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and bronchitis, and may include lifestyle choices such as smoking. For those who seek medical advice, pharmaceuticals and speech therapy are two common methods of combating chronic cough but serve to mask the symptoms rather than treat the problem; frequently, chronic cough is misdiagnosed or cannot …

Energy Modeling & Design Of Prototype Hydroponic Grow System, Emily Denise Trawick, William James Stinson, Alexander Charles Martin

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Energy and food security relies on innovations that spur sustainable ideologies. This project considers a novel approach to grow microgreens within a controlled environment in a manner that conserves water, minimizes environmental impacts from agriculture runoff, and enables successful agriculture in virtually any environment. The eQUEST® software package, an energy simulator, has been used to create a model of the “grow box” considered in this study. The dimensions were specified, and heating, cooling, and other loads were incorporated into the model which was used to estimate energy consumption. Real-time data were collected from sensors installed in the container and were …

Sustainable Agriculture: Integration Of Aquaponics At Punta Leona Hotel And Club In Costa Rica, Cailin Sierra Dyer, Paris Riley Smith

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Sustainable agriculture is becoming an increasingly important method of food production. As human populations continue to grow, attendant food demand has been increasingly met via agribusiness, including monoculture crop production and factory farming. As is well documented, the rise of agribusiness has led to resource degradation and declining stocks on which “sustainable agriculture” relies. This paper describes a local attempt to re-establish “sustainable agriculture” through the development of an aquaculture system that mimics a naturally occurring cycle that integrates fish and plants. The system was constructed over a three-week period in Punta Leona, Costa Rica. First, the ground was cleared …

The Impact Of Functional Modeling On Engineering Students' Mental Models, Jacob T. Nelson

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The ability to understand complexity and think holistically about systems is an increasingly important part of engineering design. This is embodied in the concept of systems thinking, a concept studied primarily in the fields of systems dynamics and systems engineering. Systems thinking ability is built off mental models, a loosely-defined construct people form to make predictions about their surroundings. Methods to evaluate systems thinking and underlying mental models rely primarily on self-evaluative methods such as questionnaires, or detailed simulations of systems or processes; however these methods fail to directly capture students’ design tendencies. This work presents a visual instrument used …

An Experimental Study On Drag Reduction Of Aftermarket Additions On An Suv, Christiana L. Katsoulos

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Over recent years, the awareness of climate change has become more prevalent worldwide and one major contributor to global warming has been the use of transportation. Vehicles contribute to global warming by releasing petroleum based emissions such as significant amounts of carbon dioxide and numerous other harmful environmental pollutants. SUVs contribute to the emissions problem more so than sedans, since they have lower gas mileage and need more gasoline regularly. The main functionality of sport utility vehicles, or SUVs, includes hauling or off-roading and fuel efficiency is not always the focus in the design process. However, aerodynamic enhancements could improve …

Process Development And Implementation For The Imaging Of Heat Treated A2 Steel For Consolidation Into An Atlas, Jessica Roberts

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Material processes, properties, and microstructure are interconnected, often visualized as the points of a triangle. Changing the process a material goes through will in turn change the properties and microstructure of that material. In materials research and education (specifically with metals), comparison between research or experiment results and scholarly-accepted results is important. When reading textbooks addressing different properties of metals and the process of metal treatment, images are often shown of the various microstructures associated with each property or process stage. The difficulty comes in trying to compare the stages or properties to one another; often different materials and processes …

Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis (Lcsa) Of Polymer-Based Piping For Plumbing Applications, Andy J. Rivas Bolivar

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Water conveyance systems play a critical role in modern developed areas. Polymer pipes have been used for about a century, and their convenient physical properties have positioned polymers as the leading material in the piping industry. Having such influence in the market means that changes in current material selection and manufacturing could lead to significant reductions in the footprint associated with their products. Currently, there are no comparative lifecycle assessments that evaluate the different polymer selections commercially available, which makes it hard to determine what products have the least impact on the environment. Understanding how such impacts are relative to …

Living Tiny Legally, James G. Rollin

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Over the last 40 years, the average new United States house has increased in size by more than 1,000 square feet, from an average size of 1,660 square feet in 1973 (earliest year available from the Census Bureau) to 2,687 square feet last year (Perry, 2016). In that same time period, there was a 91% increase in home square footage per inhabitant and a decrease in average household size. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average home in the United States costs approximately $358,000 to build, an increase of roughly $200,000 since 1998. Meanwhile, the average annual income in …

Experimental Analysis Of R134a, R22, And R404 For An Edibon Taab: Air Conditioning Lab Unit, Kyle T. Heesen

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This paper presents an experimental analysis of an Ebidon® TAABTM: Air Conditioning Lab unit running on R-134a being compared with R22 and R404 refrigerants, a $24,449 piece of equipment purchased by the JMU ISAT Department. In this paper we will compare the performance of the R-134a refrigerant under a range of working conditions and compare them to how the system would run on R22 or R404. The experimental tests use varying fan speeds and the R-134a data collected is compared to simulated data collected for R22 and R404. Analysis of the collected data and simulated data will be compared on …

Understanding Identity And Personality Authenticity Of Engineering Students, Kylie D. Stoup

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Women are underrepresented in engineering, with 18-20% of engineering students being women¹. We, therefore, used the framework of identity theory and self-concept differentiation to better understand female and male engineering student retention. An exploratory approach is used to measure freshman and senior engineering students’ personality and authenticity of personality across engineering and non-engineering contexts. First, we found personality profiles among engineering freshmen and seniors in engineering settings, and then compared them to their personality in nonacademic settings for authenticity purposes. Big 5 Personality and Authenticity scale were methods used through a survey to determine personality and authenticity in …

The Role Of Intrinsic Foot Muscles In Three Running Footwear Conditions, Brian T. Groener

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Running has grown tremendously in popularity and so has running with minimalist shoes. Injuries such as plantar fasciitis (pain and inflammation of a thick band of tissue that runs across the bottom of the foot) are prevalent in runners despite efforts to design footwear to alleviate the impact of running and to reduce the number of injuries. In the past decade, minimalist running shoes have received considerable attention, causing debate amongst runners and scientists as to their utility in injury prevention. While running barefoot or in minimalist shoes reduces initial impact forces, the claim that they lower injury rates remains …

A Comparison Of Algorithms And Heuristics For Solving The O 1 I N D 1 Shortest Route Problems, Steven D. Young

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Shortest-path problems have seen a huge amount of study over the course of the last 50 years. Not surprisingly, this means the original problem of finding the shortest path from some starting location to some destination location has been thoroughly studied. However a large number of slight variations on the original problem still have yet to be thoroughly examined. In this paper we examine one of those variations, namely the problem of determining the optimal route from some source location to some destination location such that at least one location in an intermediate set is included in the route. Three …

Transportation Rating Systems And Social Sustainability: A Comprehensive Analysis, Kelsey Lineburg

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this study is to explore the social sector of sustainability in transportation design and engineering. Along with establishing a definition for social sustainability in transportation from existing literature, this document also includes a comprehensive analysis of current sustainability rating systems based on their evaluation of social sustainability metrics. The goal of this thesis is to inform transportation professionals about the existing social sustainability gaps in transportation literature and sustainability rating systems.

Social sustainability in transportation is comprised of two fundamental concepts: social equity and sustainability of community (Bramley and Power, 2009; Dempsey, 2009; McKenzie, 2004; Magis, 2010; …

Leadership, Culture, And Academic Success, An Internal And External Departmental Analysis And Comparison Of The James Madison University Engineering Program, Sierra Hahn-Ventrell

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Madison Engineering is a unique young program that does not follow the traditional teachings of engineering education. The following study analyzes the output variable of academic success of the Madison Engineering program in relation to the culture of the program and the leadership styles of those in management positions within the department. Eight comparative schools were selected, analyzed, and surveyed to compare to Madison Engineering and cross-examine how different leadership styles affect certain outputs.

From extensive research and benchmarking, data was collected to compare measures of leadership and culture to output variables of academic success. A survey was further conducted …

A Concrete Water Pasteurization Device For Third World Countries, Andrea R. Murchie

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

In the rural areas of South Africa, as well as many other developing countries, people cook food and sterilize their water by heating over open fires. Many times the fires are inside of homes, which more often than not are very small. Children will often be the ones to tend to the fire, out of necessity while parents and other family members are tending to other work and needs.

The purpose of my Senior Honors Project was to design a concrete vessel that can hold water and heat the water to pasteurization (149°F) when exposed to sunlight for an extended …

Methods For Coating Quartz Crystals, William Patrick

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The goal of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness a procedure that can be used to coat quartz crystal microbalance crystals with titanium dioxide. A successful suspension was created by suspending titanium dioxide powder in poly(acrlic) acid and mixed in an ultra-sonication bath. By utilizing a spin-coater, the TiO₂ suspension was successfully dispensed onto a QCM crystal and verified using a surface profiler and microscope. However, after QCM testing, there was no evidence that supports the TiO₂ precursor aiding in photocatalytic reactions.

Customer Complaint Management Systems (Ccms) In A Food Processing Industry, Maggie A. Macleish

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Abstract

The food processing industry must meet customers’ highest quality expectations at the lowest cost. I partnered with Nestlé’s pizza facility in Little Chute, WI, to improve the current customer complaint approach of the quality department, which aimed to improve product quality. To improve the total quality of the system, this project established a defensive method of addressing customer complaints. Some strategies used to improve the current Customer Complaint Management System (CCMS) include Quality Functional Deployment (QFD), fuzzy logic, Kano’s methods, Voice of the customer (VOC) and Go-See-Think-Do (GSTD). These strategies are all related, but have not previously been used …

Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs And Consumption Related Illness, Caitlin M. Shipman

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Currently, 72.2% of the Chesapeake Bay is impaired due to pollutants that impaired water quality. Some common pollutants in the Bay that are also toxic if consumed are: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury, and lead. Pollutants tend to settle on the Bay floor and become accumulate in the sediment. Most shellfish and small finfish live near or on the Bay floor and are may be exposed to high levels of pollutants. Therefore, bioaccumulation and biomagnification of pollutants can occur in shellfish and finfish tissues. These pollutants may cause a risk to human health by either increasing the risk of developing cancer …

Variability In The Fabrication Process Of Bivo4 Photoanodes, Lauren M. Phillips

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Hydrogen gas produced from the photoelectrochemical (PEC) decomposition of water, using sunlight as an energy source, is a promising approach for sustainable fuel production. This decomposition of water is also called artificial photosynthesis. A device that accomplished this process is sometimes call an artificial leaf, which mimics nature inasmuch as it stores solar energy as a chemical fuel (e.g., hydrogen) by splitting water, in this way imitating natural photosynthesis. In 2009, Dr. Keith Holland and Dr. David Lawrence of James Madison University (JMU) initiated a research program to investigate materials for the photoelectrochemical decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen, …

Feasibility Study: The Evaluation Of Polymer Coatings To Prevent Weathering Of Weak Rocks, Lauren Distler

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The weathering and erosion of weak rocks along roadways can cause dangerous and potentially fatal rockfalls.   Various slope stabilization methods exist, but each presents a set of challenges and trade-offs.   The focus of the project is to understand the feasibility of utilizing of a polymerbased slope stabilization technique. Rock samples were collected along US Route 33 in Virginia and West Virginia, and preliminary tests were conducted to evaluate the absorption of water (% mass) and durability. The study evaluates three polymer options in regard to the following criteria: adhesion to rock, layer thickness, semi-permeability, insolubility, and non-toxicity. The polymer selection …

The Significance Of The Transition Of Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (Sada) Systems To Tcp/Ip Platforms, Matthew Alexander Care

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

SCADA system security is a significant United States national security issue based on the systems’ vulnerabilities and the cyber threats that seek to exploit them. Within the last fifteen years as SCADA systems have collectively transitioned to Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) networks, analysts and policy-makers have expressed increased concern over the general security and protection of SCADA systems, which are responsible for monitoring and controlling our nation’s critical infrastructure. SCADA systems are susceptible based on their ease of entry and their attractiveness as a target. In addition, there a number of cyber threats such as hackers and malware, …