Engineering Commons^™

A Comprehensive Study Of Nonlinear Effects Of Coupling Materials In Ultrasound Infrared Imaging, Yuyang Song

Wayne State University Dissertations

Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) is a multidisciplinary field of research, which is focused on the development of analysis and measurement technologies for the quantitative characterization of materials, components and structures. It is a key process used in product evaluation, troubleshooting for the quality assurance in industry. Sonic Infrared (IR) Imaging technology is a hybrid sensing and imaging technique, in which cracks in an object are caused to become visible in the infrared imaging through frictional heating associated with the application of a short pulse of low-frequency ultrasound. The technique uses pulses of ultrasonic excitation applied to a sample for a fraction …

Analysis Of A Dual Scissored-Pair,Variable-Speed, Control Moment Gyroscope Driven Spherical Robot, Richard Chase

Wayne State University Dissertations

The objective of this research is to compare barycenter offset based designs of spherical robots to control moment gyroscope (CMG) based designs in order to determine which approach is most effective. The first objective was to develop a list of current state of the art designs in order to gain an overall understanding of what the obstacles in this area of research were. The investigation showed that barycenter offset designs can produce a low, continuous output torque, whereas CMG based designs can usually only produce a high, momentary output torque. The second objective was to develop a CMG based design …

The Application Of Graphene Films In Biosensing And Electrowetting, Xuebin Tan

Wayne State University Dissertations

In recent years, graphene has been found to possess extraordinary electronic, optical, mechanical and electrochemical properties. Graphene is optically transparent and mechanically flexible, and has high electron mobility and conductivity. In this thesis, we propose to investigate graphene's properties in the detection of biomolecules as well as the manipulation of biological samples. Graphene without defects has high charge carrier mobility and surface areas, which is ideal for biosensors. However, literature shows a lot of variations in the measurements using graphene biosensors. In addition, the surface functionalization of graphene in order to enhance the specificity has not been fully investigated yet. …

Study Of Chaotic Ultrasound And Frequency Sweep Excitations In Sonic Ir Nde Technology, Ding Zhang

Wayne State University Dissertations

Sonic Infrared (IR) Imaging Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) technology has shown inherent advantages, such as fast detection for all direction and all dimension flaws, for both metal and composite materials. The purpose of this dissertation is to study and investigate the physical process of two most important methods, frequency sweep excitation and chaotic excitation, to improve the defect detection ability of Sonic IR technology.

The tool used in our study is known as finite element analysis (FEA). According to test process of Sonic IR technology, some special technologies were developed in FEA simulation, such as creating cracks with flat contact surfaces …

High-Performance Accelerometer Based On Asymmetric Gapped Cantilevers For Physiological Acoustic Sensing, Yating Hu

Wayne State University Dissertations

Continuous or mobile monitoring of physiological sounds is expected to play important role in the emerging mobile healthcare field. Because of the miniature size, low cost, and easy installation, accelerometer is an excellent choice for continuous physiological acoustic signal monitoring. However, in order to capture the detailed information in the physiological signals for clinical diagnostic purpose, there are more demanding requirements on the sensitivity/noise performance of accelerometers. In this thesis, a unique piezoelectric accelerometer based on the asymmetric gapped cantilever which exhibits significantly improved sensitivity is extensively studied. A meso-scale prototype is developed for capturing the high quality cardio and …

Development Of Silicon-Based Anodes And In-Situ Characterization Techniques For Lithium Ion Batteries, Jinho Yang

Wayne State University Dissertations

Development of lithium ion batteries (LIBs) with higher capacity has been booming worldwide, as growing concerns about environmental issues and increasing petroleum costs. The demands for the LIBs include high energy and power densities, and better cyclic stability in order to meet a wide range of applications, such as portable devices and electric vehicles. Silicon has recently been explored as a promising anode material due to its low discharge potential (<0.4 V) and high specific capacity (4200 mAh g^-1). The capacity of silicon potentially exceeds more than 10 times of the conventional graphite anode (372 mAh g^-1). However, the silicon anode experiences huge volume …

Management Of Plug-In Electric Vehicles And Renewable Energy Sources In Active Distribution Networks, Junhui Zhao

Wayne State University Dissertations

Near 160 million customers in the U.S.A. are served via distribution networks (DNs). The increasing penetration level of renewable energy sources (RES) and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), the implementation of smart distribution technologies such as advanced metering/monitoring infrastructure, and the adoption of smart appliances, have changed distribution networks from passive to active. The next-generation of DNs should be efficient and optimized system-wide, highly reliable and robust, and capable of effectively managing highly-penetrated PEVs, RES and other controllable loads. To meet new challenges, the next-generation DNs need active distribution management (ADM).

In this thesis, we study the management of PEVs and …

Flexible Mems: A Novel Technology To Fabricate Flexible Sensors And Electronics, Hongen Tu

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation presents the design and fabrication techniques used to fabricate flexible MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) devices.

MEMS devices and CMOS(Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) circuits are traditionally fabricated on rigid substrates with inorganic semiconductor materials such as Silicon. However, it is highly desirable that functional elements like sensors, actuators or micro fluidic components to be fabricated on flexible substrates for a wide variety of applications. Due to the fact that flexible substrate is temperature sensitive, typically only low temperature materials, such as polymers, metals, and organic semiconductor materials, can be directly fabricated on flexible substrates. A novel technology based on XeF2(xenon …

Communication Protocol Design Considerations For Highway Vehicle Platoons And Enhanced Networked Robustness By Stochastic Dithers, Lijian Xu

Wayne State University Dissertations

Highway platooning of vehicles has been identified as a promising framework in

developing intelligent transportation systems. By autonomous or semi-autonomous

vehicle control and inter-vehicle coordination, an appropriately managed platoon can

potentially offer enhanced safety, improved highway utility, increased fuel economy,

and reduced emission. This thesis is focused on quantitative characterization of impact

of communication information structures and contents on platoon safety. By

comparing different information structures which combine front sensors, rear sensors,

and wireless communication channels, and different information contents such

as distances, speeds, and drivers' actions, we reveal a number of intrinsic relationships

between vehicle coordination and communications in …

Vehicle Lane Departure Prediction Based On Support Vector Machines, Alhadi Ali Albousefi

Wayne State University Dissertations

Advanced driver assistance systems, such as unintentional lane departure warning systems, have recently drawn much attention and R & D efforts. Such a system will assist the driver by monitoring the driver or vehicle behaviors to predict/detect driving situations (e.g., lane departure) and alert the driver to take corrective action. In this dissertation, we explored utilizing the nonlinear binary support vector machine (SVM) technique and the time series of vehicle variables to predict unintentional lane departure, which is innovative as no machine learning technique has previously been attempted for this purpose in the literature. Furthermore, we developed a two-stage training …

Parameter Identification And Fault Detection For Reliable Control Of Permanent Magnet Motors, Dusan Vukosav Progovac

Wayne State University Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is to develop new fault detection, identification, estimation and control algorithms that will be used to detect winding stator fault, identify the motor parameters and optimally control machine during faulty condition. Quality or proposed algorithms for Fault detection, parameter identification and control under faulty condition will validated through analytical study (Cramer-Rao bound) and simulation. Simulation will be performed for three most applied control schemes: Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID), Direct Torque Control (DTC) and Field Oriented Control (FOC) for Permanent Magnet Machines. New detection schemes forfault detection, isolation and machine parameter identification are presented and analyzed. Different control …

The Design, Analysis, & Application Of Multi-Modal Real-Time Embedded Systems, Masud Ahmed

Wayne State University Dissertations

For many hand-held computing devices (e.g., smartphones), multiple operational modes are preferred because of their flexibility. In addition to their designated purposes, some of these devices provide a platform for different types of services, which include rendering of high-quality multimedia. Upon such devices, temporal isolation among co-executing applications is very important to ensure that each application receives an acceptable level of quality-of-service. In order to provide strong guarantees on services, multimedia applications and real-time control systems maintain timing constraints in the form of deadlines for recurring tasks. A flexible real-time multi-modal system will ideally provide system designers the option to …