Engineering Commons^™

Zips Precious Plastics: Plastic Extruder, Patrick Cole

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project's goal was to design and build an affordable desktop filament extruder that can precisely and consistently extrude filament to a certain tolerance acceptable for 3D printers using wasted printing material. The group is partnering with an on campus organization focusing on engineering applications for sustainable futures. Zips Precious Plastics is a student run design group that intends to bring an innovation space on campus to help educate students about the importance of a closed looped system within plastic manufacturing.

Exploring Shape-Memory Polymers From Silicone I And 1,10-Decanediol Blends, Kristina Nguyen

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Shape-memory polymers (SMPs) are polymeric materials that have dual-shape capabilities. These materials can deform to a temporary shape and will recover to their permanent original shape when induced by an external stimulus such as heat. The purpose of this project was to investigate the thermo-mechanical properties and shape-memory behavior of various blends of Silicone I and 1,10-decanediol to determine if a unique blend of these components can be utilized to develop shape memory surface relief patterns.

Careful iterative experiments were used to develop a robust procedure for the fabrication of crosslinked sheets of blends of Silicone I and 1,10-decanediol over …

Methods For Film Coating Electrospun Fibers, Kristopher Dejean

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Electrospinning uses high voltages to form polymer nanofiber membranes. These membranes have potential for use in filtration, tissue engineering, drug delivery, and catalysis. The nonwoven fiber mat is malleable but has a low tensile strength compared to a solid film of the same polymer. Joining the fibers with a thin film is desired to balance the strength and flexibility. Three methods of producing a film on fiber membrane were tested. The techniques are spraying then melting, spin coating, and dip coating. Electrospinning setup conditions, solvent ratios, damage to fibers, and spin coating speeds were determined. Research was abruptly stopped and …

Methods For Film Coating Electrospun Fibers, Kristopher Dejean

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Electrospinning uses high voltages to form polymer nanofiber membranes. These membranes have potential for use in filtration, tissue engineering, drug delivery, and catalysis. The nonwoven fiber mat is malleable but has a low tensile strength compared to a solid film of the same polymer. Joining the fibers with a thin film is desired to balance the strength and flexibility. Three methods of producing a film on fiber membrane were tested. The techniques are spraying then melting, spin coating, and dip coating. Electrospinning setup conditions, solvent ratios, damage to fibers, and spin coating speeds were determined. Research was abruptly stopped and …

Evaluating Rubber Aging On Tire Durability: Quantitative Evaluation Of Rubber Aging, Brian Auffenberg

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Rubber is considered one of the most important polymers in the world due to its variety of uses. There are many different conditions that can affect the useful life of rubber. The purpose of this research was to determine how the mechanical loading on the rubber may affect the aging of the rubber. The scope of the project was to focus on the rubber used for tire production. The research was limited to focusing only on rubber supplied by industry mentors which was styrene-butadiene rubber. By varying the length of time for testing as well as the temperature of the …

Design Of Pigments For Use In “Cool” Coatings, Tyler Laughorn

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project was focused on the development and testing of several novel pigments that exhibit high NIR-reflectance and therefore show potential for use in “cool” coatings. A “cool” coating will reflect more solar radiation than other standard coatings, and so a coated structure would require less energy to keep cool. Four sets of pigments were synthesized: Co_1-xMg_xCr₂O₄ (teal), Co_0.25Mg_0.75Cr_2-yAl_yO₄ (blue), Ti_1-x-yNi_xSb_yO₂ (yellow), and Cr_2-xFe_xO₃ (black). NIR and TSR values were then measured …

A Comparison Of Fiber Mat Thickness Measurement Techniques Using Laser Interferometry And Water Displacement, Ryan Seabeck

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Polymer fiber mats may often be very thin which leads to complications in measuring thickness. The thickness of fiber mats, however, is crucial in understanding their behavior. Thickness affects how well the mat works as a filter as well as the pressure drop across the mat, and herein lies the need for accurate measurement techniques. Currently two of the available techniques for measuring mat thickness are by laser interferometry[1] and by buoyancy force when submerged in water[2]. Instead of measuring the buoyancy force in this experiment, an enclosure intended to measure the thickness via water displacement was …

Filtration Apparatus Design For Oil-Water Separation Using Membranes And Sponges, Alec Jerger

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

It can be difficult to separate water and oil emulsions through traditional filtration. Therefore, investigations of filtering using thermo-responsive (TR) polymers, in this case poly(vinyl methyl ether) (PVME), was conducted. It’s hypothesized that below its lower critical solution temperature (LCST), PVME has an affinity for water while oil substances do not. Above the LCST the opposite will be true. To verify this hypothesis, iterations of filtration designs were created to provide optimum control over the parameters to measure flow. The final optimized experimental apparatus was a Chromaflex glass column which was air tight and controlled all parameters besides fluid flow. …

Effects Of Hofmeister Ions On Solubility And Swelling On Gelatin Hydrogels, Hannah Eldridge

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Hydrogels are known to be weak and brittle, due to the amounts of water that they hold. Gelatin-based hydrogels specifically are inexpensive and easily accessible, but often have poor physical properties. The goal of my project was to strengthen gelatin-based hydrogels and improve their mechanical properties by forming these hydrogels in different aqueous solutions containing kosmotropic Hofmeister's ions. Prior research has shown that these ions are able to take water away from gelatin-based gels, which forms a tougher hydrogel. The success of this project will be measured by studying the solubility and swelling effects that different Hofmeister ions have on …

A Foundational Approach To Extrusion And Compounding, David Frankart

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

With a history of nearly 200 years, polymer processing and compounding is constantly changing to fit the material science needs of the era. Exposure of undergraduate students to the technology and practices used in industry today in a lab setting would create new opportunities for experiential learning and growth. The objective was to set up a 0.75”, 25 L/D Thermo Haake single screw extruder for lab use and run trials of material in a single screw extruder to set up a basis for experiments. Trials were run of co-polyester resin through a single screw extruder with carbon fiber additives varying …

Controlled Crystallization Of Pet Filaments In Additive Manufacturing, Ryan Kordahi

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) appears in daily life in many forms, the most common being disposable soft drink bottling. To deal with the ever-growing quantitity of disposed PET (both in landfills and environment), a waste plan revolving around depolymerization should be implemented. Specifically, the potential of PET depolymerization through aminolysis into useful, low molecular weight monomers will be explored with the end goal of producing a 3D printing filament and analyzing economic feasibility.

Effects Of Crosslinking Conditions On Biofouling Of Polymer Substrates With A Hydrogel Layer, Laura Davila

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The introduction of a hydrogel coating to a surface has been looked at for different benefits. Certain hydrogels offer antifouling properties that are beneficial to different applications like medical components. Previous attempts (2) (3)have been done to introduce a hydrogel surface to plastic substrates. One of them is to use grafting brushes which works properly but it is not sufficient since the layer is too thin and therefore can be damaged. The second method have a bulkier coating without crosslinking. Opposite to grafting brushes this method has too thick of a layer. Additionally, there is no crosslink therefore the coating …