Engineering Commons^™

Development Of Confocal Imaging Techniques For Probing Interfacial Dynamics In Microscale, Gas-Liquid, Two-Phase Flow, Joseph E. Hernandez

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Micro-scale, two-phase flow is found in a variety of devices such as Lab-on-a-chip, bio-chips, micro-heat exchangers, and fuel cells. Knowledge of the fluid behavior near the dynamic gas-liquid interface is required for developing accurate predictive models. Light is distorted near a curved gas-liquid interface preventing accurate measurement of interfacial shape and internal liquid velocities. This research focused on the development of experimental methods designed to isolate and probe dynamic liquid films and measure velocity fields near a moving gas-liquid interface. A high-speed, reflectance, swept-field confocal (RSFC) imaging system was developed for imaging near curved surfaces.

Experimental studies of dynamic gas-liquid …

Factors Influencing Material Loss During Iron Ore Pellet Handling, Joseph A. Halt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Iron ore concentrate pellets have the potential to fracture and abrade during transportation and handling, which produces unwanted fine particulates and dust. Consequently, pellet producers characterize the abrasion resistance of their pellets, using an Abrasion Index (AI), to indicate whether their products will produce unacceptable levels of fines. However, no one has ever investigated whether the AI correlates to pellet dustiness.

During the course of this research, we investigated the relationship between AI and iron ore concentrate pellet dustiness using a wide range of industrial and laboratory pellet samples. The results showed that, in general, AI can be used to …

Comparison Of Computer-Based And Optical Face Recognition Paradigms, Abdulaziz A. Alorf

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The main objectives of this thesis are to validate an improved principal components analysis (IPCA) algorithm on images; designing and simulating a digital model for image compression, face recognition and image detection by using a principal components analysis (PCA) algorithm and the IPCA algorithm; designing and simulating an optical model for face recognition and object detection by using the joint transform correlator (JTC); establishing detection and recognition thresholds for each model; comparing between the performance of the PCA algorithm and the performance of the IPCA algorithm in compression, recognition and, detection; and comparing between the performance of the digital model …

Use Of An Electrical Impedance Tomography Method To Detect And Track Fractures In A Gelatin Medium, Evan G. Lucas

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Electrical impedance tomography is applied to the problem of detecting, locating, and tracking fractures in ballistics gelatin. The hardware developed is intended to be physically robust and based on off-the-shelf hardware. Fractures were created in two separate ways: by shooting a .22 caliber bullet into the gelatin and by injecting saline solution into the gelatin. The .22 caliber bullet created an air gap, which was seen as an increase in resistivity. The saline solution created a fluid filled gap, which was seen as a decrease in resistivity. A double linear array was used to take data for each of the …

Assessment Of Flood Risk Under Future Climate Conditions, Kaye M. Lafond

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Global climate change is predicted to have impacts on the frequency and severity of flood events. In this study, output from Global Circulation Models (GCMs) for a range of possible future climate scenarios was used to force hydrologic models for four case study watersheds built using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). GCM output was applied with either the "delta change" method or a bias correction. Potential changes in flood risk are assessed based on modeling results and possible relationships to watershed characteristics. Differences in model outputs when using the two different methods of adjusting GCM output are also …

Using Probabilistic Graphical Models To Draw Inferences In Sensor Networks With Tracking Applications, Lufeng Shi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Sensor networks have been an active research area in the past decade due to the variety of their applications. Many research studies have been conducted to solve the problems underlying the middleware services of sensor networks, such as self-deployment, self-localization, and synchronization. With the provided middleware services, sensor networks have grown into a mature technology to be used as a detection and surveillance paradigm for many real-world applications.

The individual sensors are small in size. Thus, they can be deployed in areas with limited space to make unobstructed measurements in locations where the traditional centralized systems would have trouble to …

Real Time Fuzzy Controller For Quadrotor Stability Control, Pranav S. Bhatkhande

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

In this report, we develop an intelligent adaptive neuro-fuzzy controller by using adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) techniques. We begin by starting with a standard proportional-derivative (PD) controller and use the PD controller data to train the ANFIS system to develop a fuzzy controller. We then propose and validate a method to implement this control strategy on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.

An analysis is made into the choice of filters for attitude estimation. These choices are limited by the complexity of the filter and the computing ability and memory constraints of the micro-controller. Simplified Kalman filters are found to …

Design And Implementation Of Home Use Portable Smart Electronics, Liqiang Du

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The widespread of low cost embedded electronics makes it easier to implement the smart devices that can understand either the environment or the user behaviors. The main object of this project is to design and implement home use portable smart electronics, including the portable monitoring device for home and office security and the portable 3D mouse for convenient use. Both devices in this project use the MPU6050 which contains a 3 axis accelerometer and a 3 axis gyroscope to sense the inertial motion of the door or the human hands movement.

For the portable monitoring device for home and office …

Scalable Approximation Of Kernel Fuzzy C-Means, Zijian Zhang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Virtually every sector of business and industry that uses computing, including financial analysis, search engines, and electronic commerce, incorporate Big Data analysis into their business model. Sophisticated clustering algorithms are popular for deducing the nature of data by assigning labels to unlabeled data. We address two main challenges in Big Data. First, by definition, the volume of Big Data is too large to be loaded into a computer’s memory (this volume changes based on the computer used or available, but there is always a data set that is too large for any computer). Second, in real-time applications, the velocity of …

Improvements In Sustainability Of Gravity-Fed Water Systems In The Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, Panama: Spring Captures And Circuit Rider Model, Erica Kathryn Jones

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Gravity-flow aqueducts are used to bring clean water from mountain springs in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, Panama, to the homes of the indigenous people who reside there. Spring captures enclose a spring to direct the flow of water into the transmission line. Seepage contact springs are most common, with water appearing above either hard basalt bedrock or a dense clay layer. Spring flows vary dramatically during wet and dry seasons, and discharge points of springs can shift, sometimes enough to impact the capture structure and its ability to properly collect all of the available water.

Traditionally, spring captures are concrete boxes. …

Stability Analysis Of The Slope Along Us-2 Between Epoufette Bay And The Cut River Bridge, Stephanie Watts-Garcia

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Recently, water was observed flowing from a section of steep slope along US-2 near St. Ignace, Michigan in addition to soil sloughing in the area where the water is flowing from the slope. An inspection of the area also showed the presence of sinkholes. The original construction drawing for US-2 also indicated that sinkholes were present in this area prior to road construction in 1948. An investigation was conducted to determine the overall stability of the slope. The slope consists primarily of aeolian sand deposits. Laboratory testing determined the shear strength of the slope material to have a friction angle …

A Study Of Passenger Car Acoustic Cavity Boom Simulation Methods, Shreerang Dhabe

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The project objective is the study of acoustic boom phenomenon at 40 Hz in Chevrolet Cruze LTZ and recommend modeling techniques to improve accuracy of model prediction. Acoustic boom is caused by solid-fluid interaction between car structure and air inside the car cavity.

In this report, finite element analysis software Abaqus 6.12-3 is used to simulate the acoustic-structural coupling. The structural and acoustic mesh for the Chevrolet Cruze LTZ are fully coupled and solved using Abaqus ‘strongly coupled’ solution. In order to understand the physics of acoustic boom in a car simple car box models were designed. Simple box car …

Integration Of Instrumentation And Processing Software Of A Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging System, Jacob James Carrick

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) has the potential to be a powerful tool in medicine, but more research in the field is required so it can be used properly. To help in the progression of Michigan Tech's research in the field, a graphical user interface (GUI) was designed in Matlab to control the instrumentation of the experiments as well as process the raw speckle images into contrast images while they are being acquired. The design of the system was successful and is currently being used by Michigan Tech's Biomedical Engineering department. This thesis describes the development of the LSCI GUI …

Thickness Measurement Of Dynamic Thin Liquid Films Generated By Plug-Annular Flow In Non-Wetting Microchannels, David C. Deisenroth

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Surface tension forces are significant at millimeter length-scales, causing profoundly different flow morphologies in microchannels than in macroscale flows. The existence and morphology of thin liquid films is particularly relevant for predicting performance and operational stability of devices containing microscale two phase flows. Analytical, computational, and experimental methods previously employed in the study of thin liquid films are discussed. Thicknesses before and after a novel film morphology, referred to as a `shock,' are measured with a novel film thickness measurement technique that uses confocal microscopy. Film thicknesses predicted by previous work are compared to experimental results. Methods for increasing the …

Reconciling Function- And Affordance-Based Design, Benjamin T. Ciavola

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Traditional engineering design methods are based on Simon's (1969) use of the concept function, and as such collectively suffer from both theoretical and practical shortcomings. Researchers in the field of affordance-based design have borrowed from ecological psychology in an attempt to address the blind spots of function-based design, developing alternative ontologies and design processes. This dissertation presents function and affordance theory as both compatible and complimentary. We first present a hybrid approach to design for technology change, followed by a reconciliation and integration of function and affordance ontologies for use in design. We explore the integration of a standard function-based …

Age-Dependent Fragility And Life-Cycle Cost Analysis Of Timber And Steel Distribution Poles Subjected To Hurricanes, Abdullahi M. Salman

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Power distribution systems are susceptible to extreme damage from natural hazards especially hurricanes. Hurricane winds can knock down distribution poles thereby causing damage to the system and power outages which can result in millions of dollars in lost revenue and restoration costs. Timber has been the dominant material used to support overhead lines in distribution systems. Recently however, utility companies have been searching for a cost-effective alternative to timber poles due to environmental concerns, durability, high cost of maintenance and need for improved aesthetics. Steel has emerged as a viable alternative to timber due to its advantages such as relatively …

Impact Of Plug-In Electric Vehicles And Wind Generators On Harmonic Distortion Of Electric Distribution Systems, Ritam Misra

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Harmonic distortion on voltages and currents increases with the increased penetration of Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV) loads in distribution systems. Wind Generators (WGs), which are source of harmonic currents, have some common harmonic profiles with PEVs. Thus, WGs can be utilized in careful ways to subside the effect of PEVs on harmonic distortion. This work studies the impact of PEVs on harmonic distortions and integration of WGs to reduce it. A decoupled harmonic three-phase unbalanced distribution system model is developed in OpenDSS, where PEVs and WGs are represented by harmonic current loads and sources respectively. The developed model is first …

State-And-Transition Modeling And Adaptive Management: Tools For Future Co-Development Of Madagascar’S Natural Resources And People, Patrick Thomas Spencer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Madagascar’s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems have long supported a unique set of ecological communities, many of whom are endemic to the tropical island. Those same ecosystems have been a source of valuable natural resources to some of the poorest people in the world. Nevertheless, with pride, ingenuity and resourcefulness, the Malagasy people of the southwest coast, being of Vezo identity, subsist with low development fishing techniques aimed at an increasingly threatened host of aquatic seascapes. Mangroves, sea grass bed, and coral reefs of the region are under increased pressure from the general populace for both food provisions and support of …

Beneficial Reuse Of Locally-Available Waste Materials As Lightweight Aggregate In Lightweight Concrete, Brienna E. Rust

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This study investigated the physical characteristics of lightweight concrete produced using waste materials as coarse aggregate. The study was inspired by the author’s Peace Corps service in Kilwa, Tanzania. Coconut shell, sisal fiber, and PET plastic were chosen as the test waste products due to their abundance in the area. Two mixes were produced for each waste product and the mix proportions designed for resulting compressive strengths of 3000 and 5000 psi. The proportions were selected based on guidelines for lightweight concrete from the American Concrete Institute. In preparation for mixing, coconut shells were crushed into aggregate no larger than …

Electrocatalytic Processing Of Renewable Biomass-Derived Compounds For Production Of Chemicals, Fuels And Electricity, Le Xin

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The dual problems of sustaining the fast growth of human society and preserving the environment for future generations urge us to shift our focus from exploiting fossil oils to researching and developing more affordable, reliable and clean energy sources. Human beings had a long history that depended on meeting our energy demands with plant biomass, and the modern biorefinery technologies realize the effective conversion of biomass to production of transportation fuels, bulk and fine chemicals so to alleviate our reliance on fossil fuel resources of declining supply. With the aim of replacing as much non-renewable carbon from fossil oils with …

An Assessment Of Flow Regime Maps And A Numerical Heat Transfer Correlation For The Stratified/Annular Regime Of Shear-Driven Internal Condensing Flows, Fnu Nikhil Shankar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Several modern-day cooling applications require the incorporation of mini/micro-channel shear-driven flow condensers. There are several design challenges that need to be overcome in order to meet those requirements.

The difficulty in developing effective design tools for shear-driven flow condensers is exacerbated due to the lack of a bridge between the physics-based modelling of condensing flows and the current, popular approach based on semi-empirical heat transfer correlations. One of the primary contributors of this disconnect is a lack of understanding caused by the fact that typical heat transfer correlations eliminate the dependence of the heat transfer coefficient on the method of …

Design And Application Of Wireless Passive Magnetoelastic Resonance And Magnetoharmonic Force Sensors, Brandon D. Pereles

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The objective of the work described in this dissertation is the development of new wireless passive force monitoring platforms for applications in the medical field, specifically monitoring lower limb prosthetics. The developed sensors consist of stress sensitive, magnetically soft amorphous metallic glass materials. The first technology is based on magnetoelastic resonance. Specifically, when exposed to an AC excitation field along with a constant DC bias field, the magnetoelastic material mechanically vibrates, and may reaches resonance if the field frequency matches the mechanical resonant frequency of the material. The presented work illustrates that an applied loading pins portions of the strip, …

Morphology And Mixing State Of Atmospheric Particles: Links To Optical Properties And Cloud Processing, Swarup China

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Atmospheric particles are ubiquitous in Earth’s atmosphere and impact the environment and the climate while affecting human health and Earth’s radiation balance, and degrading visibility. Atmospheric particles directly affect our planet’s radiation budget by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, and indirectly by interacting with clouds. Single particle morphology (shape, size and internal structure) and mixing state (coating by organic and inorganic material) can significantly influence the particle optical properties as well as various microphysical processes, involving cloud-particle interactions and including heterogeneous ice nucleation and water uptake. Conversely, aerosol cloud processing can affect the morphology and mixing of the particles. For …

Density Of Amorphous Carbon By Using Density Functional Theory, Sorayot Chinkanjanarot

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Amorphous carbon has been investigated for a long time. Since it has the random orientation of carbon atoms, its density depends on the position of each carbon atom. It is important to know the density of amorphous carbon to use it for modeling advance carbon materials in the future. Two methods were used to create the initial structures of amorphous carbon. One is the random placement method by randomly locating 100 carbon atoms in a cubic lattice. Another method is the liquid-quench method by using reactive force field (ReaxFF) to rapidly decrease the system of 100 carbon atoms from the …

Multidimensional Optimal Droop Control For Wind Resources In Dc Microgrids, Kaitlyn J. Bunker

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Two important and upcoming technologies, microgrids and electricity generation from wind resources, are increasingly being combined. Various control strategies can be implemented, and droop control provides a simple option without requiring communication between microgrid components. Eliminating the single source of potential failure around the communication system is especially important in remote, islanded microgrids, which are considered in this work. However, traditional droop control does not allow the microgrid to utilize much of the power available from the wind. This dissertation presents a novel droop control strategy, which implements a droop surface in higher dimension than the traditional strategy. The droop …

Evaluation Of Potential Transload Facility Locations In The Upper Peninsula (Up) Of Michigan, Irfan Rasul

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Shippers want to improve their transportation efficiency and rail transportation has the potential to provide an economical alternative to trucking, but it also has potential drawbacks. The pressure to optimize transportation supply chain logistics has resulted in growing interest in multimodal alternatives, such as a combination of truck and rail transportation, but the comparison of multimodal and modal alternatives can be complicated.

Shippers in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP) face similar challenges. Adding to the challenge is the distance from major markets and the absence of available facilities for transloading activities. This study reviewed three potential locations for a transload facility …

Svpwm Switching Pattern For Z-Source Inverter, Simulation And Application, Zhe Huang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The voltage source inverter (VSI) and current voltage source inverter (CSI) are widely used in industrial application. But the traditional VSIs and CSIs have one common problem: can’t boost or buck the voltage come from battery, which make them impossible to be used alone in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV/EV) motor drive application, other issue is the traditional inverter need to add the dead-band time into the control sequence, but it will cause the output waveform distortion.

This report presents an impedance source (Z-source network) topology to overcome these problems, it can use one stage instead of two stages (VSI or …

High Performance, Low Cost Subspace Decomposition And Polynomial Rooting For Real Time Direction Of Arrival Estimation: Analysis And Implementation, Mrudula V. Athi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis develops high performance real-time signal processing modules for direction of arrival (DOA) estimation for localization systems. It proposes highly parallel algorithms for performing subspace decomposition and polynomial rooting, which are otherwise traditionally implemented using sequential algorithms. The proposed algorithms address the emerging need for real-time localization for a wide range of applications. As the antenna array size increases, the complexity of signal processing algorithms increases, making it increasingly difficult to satisfy the real-time constraints. This thesis addresses real-time implementation by proposing parallel algorithms, that maintain considerable improvement over traditional algorithms, especially for systems with larger number of antenna …

Time Lapse Seismic Observations And Effects Of Reservoir Compressibility At Teal South Oil Field, Nayyer Islam

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

One of the original ocean-bottom time-lapse seismic studies was performed at the Teal South oil field in the Gulf of Mexico during the late 1990’s. This work reexamines some aspects of previous work using modern analysis techniques to provide improved quantitative interpretations. Using three-dimensional volume visualization of legacy data and the two phases of post-production time-lapse data, I provide additional insight into the fluid migration pathways and the pressure communication between different reservoirs, separated by faults. This work supports a conclusion from previous studies that production from one reservoir caused regional pressure decline that in turn resulted in liberation of …

Improving Startability And Reducing Emissions In Flexfuel Spark Ignition Direct Injection Variable Cam Timing Engine, Vaibhav S. Kale

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Experimental work and analysis was done to investigate engine startup robustness and emissions of a flex-fuel spark ignition (SI) direct injection (DI) engine. The vaporization and other characteristics of ethanol fuel blends present a challenge at engine startup. Strategies to reduce the enrichment requirements for the first engine startup cycle and emissions for the second and third fired cycle at 25°C ± 1°C engine and intake air temperature were investigated.

Research work was conducted on a single cylinder SIDI engine with gasoline and E85 fuels, to study the effect on first fired cycle of engine startup. Piston configurations that included …