Engineering Commons^™

User Study Of Information Extracted From Engineering Representations, Rachel Hannah

All Theses

It is important for designers to understand the usefulness of different engineering representations in order to save time and money throughout a project. Designers often rely on past experience to decide which model to construct; yet students without this experience have no help. Interestingly there are noticeable gaps in the research literature with respect to how and when to select representations and modeling approaches for engineering designs. This thesis examines the differences between three types of engineering representations, specifically sketches, drawing packages, and physical prototypes. The amount of information designers can extract from these representations and also the correctness and …

Slides: Innovative Best Practices For The Western Slope: Stormwater Management Solutions And Philosophy For The Oil And Gas Industry, Kyle N. Schildt

Best Practices for Community and Environmental Protection (October 14)

Presenter: Kyle N. Schildt, P.E., LT Environmental, Inc.

12 slides

Design And Applications Of Drilled Displacement (Screw) Piles, Prasenjit Basu, Monica Prezzi

JTRP Technical Reports

Drilled displacement (DD) piles (commonly known as „screw piles‟ in Europe) are being increasingly used as foundation elements for structures, particularly in projects requiring accelerated construction or involving the rehabilitation of foundations of existing, overstressed structures. Different types of DD piles are available in practice; each type is classified according to the design of the drilling tool and associated installation method. Installation of DD piles causes substantial changes in the state of the soil surrounding the pile. These changes result from the complex loading imposed on the soil by expansion of a cylindrical cavity to make room for the specially …

Effects Of Meeting Spaces On The Performance Of A Concept Selection Task By Engineering Design Teams, Necmettin Ozkan

All Theses

Given the increasing importance of collaboration and the resulting use of virtual tools, this research investigates the performance of engineering design teams using a concept selection task in three meeting spaces, face-to-face, 2D online and 3D virtual. Cisco's WebEx and Sun Microsystems' Wonderland were used as the 2D online meeting space and the 3D virtual environment, respectively. Twenty-four two-person design teams were formed and randomly assigned to the meeting spaces. Eight teams performed a cell-phone concept selection task in each meeting space. Four dependent variables were measured: task completion time, team satisfaction, self-evaluated quality and expert-evaluated quality. Following data collection, …

Survey Of Concurrent Engineering Environments And The Application Of Best Practices Towards The Development Of A Multiple Industry, Multiple Domain Environment, Jonathan Osborn

All Theses

This thesis investigates the best practices of fifteen existing Concurrent Engineering Environments (CEE). A CEE is defined as any environment, from physical to virtual, designed to facilitate concurrent engineering with multiple domain experts real time. All existing environments surveyed have been focused on the aerospace industry showing significant reductions in design time and cost. I have identified hardware, software, and peopleware as three major classifications as well as sixteen subcategories with which to compare the different CEEs. The success in reducing time and cost of designs seen in the aerospace industry with the introduction of CEEs can and should be …

Verification Of Lrfd Bridge Design And Analysis Software For Indot, Amit H. Varma, Jungil Seo

JTRP Technical Reports

NCHRP Process 12-50 was implemented to evaluate and verify composite steel I-girder bridge design software used commonly in Indiana. A test-bed of twenty one bridges was developed with the guidance from an Indiana Department of Transportation appointed research advisory panel (RAP). The test-bed included five simple-span and sixteen multi-span bridge superstructures. More than 80 parameters were required to define a bridge and they include bridge span, girder spacing, number of beams, section type, steel strength, girder sections, and other required bridge parameters. Some of these parameters were initially selected by INDOT and practitioners.

An indigenous computer program PURDUE CSBD was …

Characterizing Material Property Tradeoffs Of Polycrystalline Diamond For Design Evaluation And Selection, Neil David Haddock

Theses and Dissertations

Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) is used as a cutting tool in many industries because of its superior wear resistance compared to single crystal diamond. Engineers who design new PCD materials must have an understanding of the tradeoffs between material properties in order to tailor a product for different applications. Two competing material properties that are often encountered in PCD are transverse rupture strength and thermal-resistance. Thermal-resistance is directly related to the cobalt content of PCD, and is the ability of the material to withstand thermally induced degradation. In this thesis, we characterize the tradeoff boundary between transverse rupture strength and cobalt …

Electro Mechanical Actuator Test Stand For In-Flight Experiments, Michael Koopmans, Catlin Mattheis, Austin Lawrence

Mechanical Engineering

The Prognostic Center of Excellence at NASA Ames is currently researching actuator prognostics, specifically in the application of electro mechanical actuators (EMA’s). Cal Poly ME students Michael Koopmans and Catlin Mattheis and EE student Austin Lawrence have chosen to undertake the task of building a test stand that will be flown in flight while testing EMA’s specific faults. A stand was designed to fit inside a standard 19” rack, take power from the aircraft 3 EMA’s, a computer, data acquisition, and electric magnets switches are powered. A MIL STD 1553 interface is present to allow fault injection. Vibration and temperature …

A Pulsatile Bioreactor For Conditioning Tissue Engineered Heart Valves, Leslie Sierad

All Theses

Tissue engineered constructs with autologous adult stem cells capable of self-repair and growth are highly desired replacements for diseased heart valves. However, the current approaches have inadequate mechanical properties to withstand in vivo implantation. Therefore, our group hypothesized that an in vitro environment of physiological intra-cardiac pressures and flow will stimulate stem cells to differentiate and remodel valvular scaffold constructs before implantation.
The group developed a pneumatic-driven conditioning system (Aim I) consisting of a three-chambered heart valve bioreactor, a pressurized compliance tank, a reservoir tank, one-way valves, pressure-retaining valves, and pressure transducers. The system can be sterilized using conventional autoclaving …

A System Design Approach For Unattended Solar Energy Harvesting Supply, Jonathan W. Kimball, Brian T. Kuhn, Robert S. Balog

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Remote devices, such as sensors and communications devices, require continuously available power. In many applications, conventional approaches are too expensive, too large, or unreliable. For short-term needs, primary batteries may be used. However, they do not scale up well for long-term installations. Instead, energy harvesting methods must be used. Here, a system design approach is introduced that results in a highly reliable, highly available energy harvesting device for remote applications. First, a simulation method that uses climate data and target availability produces Pareto curves for energy storage and generation. This step determines the energy storage requirement in watt-hours and the …

Embodied Energy Analysis: A Sustainable Construction Design Assessment Tool, Adolf Acquaye, Aidan Duffy, Biswajit Basu

Conference Papers

Embodied energy analysis can be used as a construction design assessment tool in a sustainable matrix for a building. Its implementation however remains challenging mainly because of data measurement errors. A comparison between the deterministic embodied energy (EE) of a building and the stochastic EE of the same building undertaken using Monte Carlo simulation showed a wide variation in results. It is recommended that the specification of EE intensity of building materials in the construction industry can assist in producing accurate and more credible EE values of building.

Design Of A Continuous-Wave Synthetic Aperture Radar System With Analog Dechirp, Matthew C. Edwards

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a design methodology for continuous wave (CW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. The focus is on design considerations specific to small, low-power systems suitable for operation on small aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Well-known results which have been derived in other works, such as the radar equation, are explained in the context of low-power, CW systems. Additionally, design issues unique to CW SAR are addressed and the results generalized. A method for controlling feedthrough between antennas is developed, and the resulting limitations on swath width are discussed. Methods are developed which allow an engineer to design …

An Evolutionary Perspective On Engineering Design, William Grimson, Mike Murphy

Books/Book chapters

No abstract provided.

Design Of An 8-Channel Data Acquisition System For Measuring Diode Junction Temperature, Jason Maynard

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The solid state lighting industry is striving to expand the use of light emitting diodes (LEDs) in more applications, particularly in high brightness applications. As the power of LEDs increase, heat removal becomes a critical issue. To improve device lifetime, quantum efficiency, and LED colour, the diode p-n junction temperature (Tj) must be kept to a minimum. Measuring this key parameter is difficult or impossible with direct methods, such as thermocouples and infrared cameras, due to the small size of LEDs. Fortunately, junction temperature can be measured indirectly by using a relationship between the diode forward voltage (Vf) and junction …

4-Bit Microprocessor: Design, Simulation, Fabrication, And Testing, A J. Ryan, G O. Phillips, R E. Pearson, L F. Fuller

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

The work presented demonstrates the unique ability of Rochester Institute of Technology’s Microelectronic Engineering department to design, simulate, fabricate, and test complex digital integrated circuits. Utilizing the resources available, the author would be the first undergraduate at RIT to successfully drive the creation of a microprocessor from design through fabrication to test. The microprocessor created is the most complex digital circuit ever fabricated at RIT. Fabrication was completed on three lots using the well-established RIT sub μm CMOS Process. Functional CMOS transistors were demonstrated at the Metal 1 level, but complex digital integrated circuits were not realized beyond that.

Design & Fabrication Of An 8 Bit Adc, Garret Phillips

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

MEMs devices at RIT utilize off chip circuitry to be properly utilized. This paper purposes an eight bit successive approximation analog to digital converter (ADC) to add to said devices as to simplify their operation. The ADC was designed and simulated using Mentor Graphics and Winspice software for the digital and analog components respectively. Lay out was then performed for the device as well as a simplified three bit version and various test circuits. Fabrication was done in the RIT SFML using RIT’s Sub-μ CMOS process, which uses a 2μm gate length. Functional transistors and simple devices …

A Particle Swarm Optimisation Approach To Reinforced Concrete Beam Design According To As3600, Timothy J. Mccarthy, Sean Mccluskey

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

A program has been developed to utilise the Particle Swarm Optimisation Algorithm for the cost optimum design of reinforced concrete beams. Multiple constraints according to Australian Standard 3600 have been implemented along with costing information. A series of tests where conducted to investigate the effect of different parameters of the particle swarm algorithm and some refinement of these parameters was conducted. The value penalty coefficients had a significant effect on the results, causing non-convergence when very large penalty coefficients where used, and convergence on non-viable results when very small penalty coefficients where used.

Design Procedure For Vertical Drains Considering A Linear Variation Of Lateral Permeability Within The Smear Zone, Cholachat Rujikiatkamjorn, Buddhima Indraratna

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

A system of vertical drains with surcharge preloading is an effective method for promoting radial drainage and accelerated soil consolidation. This study presents a procedure for the design of vertical drains that significantly extends the previous technique proposed by the authors to include: (i) a linear reduction of lateral permeability in the smear zone, (ii) the effect of overlapping smear zones in a closely spaced drain network, and (iii) the gain in undrained shear strength due to consolidation. Design examples are provided for both single stage and multi-stage embankment construction demonstrating the convenient use of the proposed solutions in practical …

Design And Development Of A 3-Phase Saturated Core High Temperature Superconducting Fault Current Limiter, Jeffrey W. Moscrop, Frank Darmann

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

The occurrence of fault currents and system sensitivity to fault currents are both increasing in modern power systems. Along with extensive damage to network hardware, considerable consumer losses (due to network unavailability) can result from fault current events. One device that is designed to reduce the impact of fault currents and increase network availability is the fault current limiter (FCL). This paper describes the design and development of a 3-phase saturated core high temperature superconducting (HTS) FCL. This particular type of FCL exhibits negligible power losses during the un-faulted state and also provides instantaneous reaction and recovery during fault events. …

A Method To Design Transmission Resonances Through Subwavelength Apertures Based On Designed Surface Plasmons, Jinsong Liu, Lan Ding, Kejia Wang, Jianquan Yao

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

A plasmonic metamaterial is proposed for which an array of subwavelength apertures is pierced into a metallic foil whose one flat surface has been made with periodic rectangle holes of finite depth. Designed surface plasmons sustained by the holes are explored when the size and spacing of the holes are much smaller than those of the apertures. The transmission property of electromagnetic waves through the metamaterials is analyzed. Results show that the designed surface plasmons characterized by the holes could support the transmission resonances of the incident wave passing through the subwavelength apertures, and that the peak transmission wavelengths could …

Private Queries And Trajectory Anonymization: A Dual Perspective On Location Privacy, Gabriel Ghinita

Cyber Center Publications

The emergence of mobile devices with Internet connectivity (e.g., Wi-Fi) and global positioning capabilities (e.g., GPS) have triggered the widespread development of location-based applications. For instance, users are able to ask queries about points of interest in their proximity. Furthermore, users can act as mobile sensors to monitor traffic flow, or levels of air pollution. However, such applications require users to disclose their locations, which raises serious privacy concerns. With knowledge of user locations, a malicious attacker can infer sensitive information, such as alternative lifestyles or political affiliations. Preserving location privacy is an essential requirement towards the successful deployment of …

Mechanistic-Empirical Modeling In Network-Level Pavement Management, Scott Schram, Magdy Abdelrahman

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Researchers and practitioners have long recognized the advantages of mechanistic modeling. As agencies implement the Guide for Mechanistic-Empirical Design of New and Rehabilitated Pavement Structures [referred to as the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG)] in the local project-level pavement management system (PMS), its potential as a planning tool in network-level analyses remains unrecognized. A unique, large-scale application of MEPDG is presented. The Nebraska Department of Roads uses a decision tree that systematically screens and identifies candidates for entry into a multiyear optimization program. The process uses linear deterioration rates that have been shown to provide an R² value as …

Cross-Disciplinary Approaches For Developing Serious Games In Higher Education: Frameworks For Food Safety And Environmental Health Education, Pauline Rooney, K.C. O'Rourke, Greg Burke, Brian Mac Namee, Claudia Igbrude

Conference papers

While some educators have adopted commercial off the-shelf games for use in the classroom, such games may not always meet the individual requirements of lecturers whose courses are tied to specific learning utcomes. An alternative is to capitalise on in-house expertise in Higher Education and create serious games through cross-disciplinary team projects. This paper outlines such a project within one Higher Education institution. It describes synergies created across disciplines as a result of the collaboration on game design and implementation. It looks at tensions generated between the pedagogical requirements (of lecturers), entertainment objectives (of games designers) and technical excellence (sought …

Motivation While Designing In Engineering And Technology Education Impacted By Academic Preparation, Nathan Mentzer, Kurt Becker

Publications

The purpose of this study was to determine if high school students’ academic preparation was correlated with change in motivation during an engineering design challenge. The research was conducted in a high school classroom in which elements of engineering design were taught in a technology education context to eleventh-grade student from diverse academic backgrounds (measured by grade point average [GPA]). Participant motivation was assessed by the California Measure of Mental Motivation (CM3). The CM3 measures student motivation to apply critical thinking skills and reasoning to solve problems in five subscales: mental focus, learning orientation, creative problem solving, cognitive integrity, and …