Engineering Commons^™

Development Of A Process For Thermal And Mechanical Modelling Of Screw-Driven Pellets Extrusion, Kaixiang Shi

Master’s Theses

The overall goal of the thesis project is to develop a process for thermal and mechanical modelling of the screw-driven pellets extrusion process, and applying the model results to design extruder temperature and flow rate controllers.

The proposed extruder is designed for metal 3D printing. The device demonstrates great potential in tackling some of the major issues faced by the metal additive manufacturing community. It eliminates the use of metal powder for workplace and workers safety. It is able to produce end-use parts with industrial grade mechanical and microstructural properties. It utilizes low cost metal-loaded polymer pellets as feedstock. However, …

Solar Powered Atmospheric Water Generation, Ben Conser

Master’s Theses

Several atmospheric water generation (AWG) system configurations were analyzed to determine the feasibility of AWG as a method to combat water stress. In order to best combat water stress, AWG must be implemented in such a way which minimizes the energetic and monetary cost of water production. Thermodynamic and economic analyses were used to compare the performance of several AWG system configurations. Metrics such as specific energy consumption (SEC) and levelized cost of water (LCOW), which measure the energetic and monetary cost of water production respectively, were used to compare each system. Using this approach, the optimal system configuration was …

Effects Of Air-Fuel Ratio And Operating Conditions On Particle Emissions From A Small Diesel Engine, Odinmma John-Paul Ofili

Master’s Theses

Automotive engineers typically increase the air-fuel ratio (AFR) of an engine to control the amount of smoke emitted, but it not quite known how this process affects particulate number (PN). In the work presented, AFR was independently varied to study its effects on PN. It was found that increasing the AFR reduced the concentrations of larger particles from 10⁸ #/cm³ to 10⁶ #/cm³ which is an effect observable as a reduction in smoke. However, the same increases in AFR only resulted in an energy specific PN change from 10¹⁵ #/kWh to 10¹⁴ #/kWh. The …