Engineering Commons^™

Universal Play Frame Vi, Justin Bazant, Cullen Crackel, Anthony Franceschi

Mechanical Engineering

This design report details the design process utilized by Adaptive Exercise Designs (AED) in creating the sixth design of the Universal Play Frame (UPF). The UPF is an adaptive frame which supports a variety of devices that allows athletes in wheelchairs with limited range of motion to participate in physical activity. The past five frame designs do not meet the needs of the Friday Club due to complications with function and time constraints. To ensure all of Fridays Club's needs were met, the problem was better defined by converting the customer requirements into engineering specifications. The design process our team …

Automating The Data Reduction Process For More Efficient Flight Tests And Reducing The Time From Days To Hours, Joseph Kenneth Young

Masters Theses

The University of Tennessee Space Institute’s (UTSI) active airborne science program often requires extensive modification to its fleet of aircraft in order to meet mission and customer requirements. These modifications can alter the flight characteristics of the aircraft. In order to determine if the aircraft is safe to fly after modification and to find any new flight characteristics resulting from the modifications, the flight test engineer (FTE) must plan and conduct limited flight testing on the aircraft and evaluate the resulting data to ensure safety of flight. The more efficient the data reduction and analysis process the quicker the aircraft …

Exploring The Human Interactivity With A Robot To Obtain The Fundamental Properties Of Materials, William L. Christian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research studies the way in which humans and robots interact with each other. When two humans are working together through a set of robotic devices, do they tend to work together or fight with each other more? In which Cartesian direction do they have the most difficulty? Does fighting drastically affect the performance of the team? Finally, what measures can be taken to promote better cooperation between humans and robots to ultimately allow humans to work just as comfortably with a robotic partner as with a human partner? This research answers these questions and provides an analysis of human-robot …

Root Cause Analysis Applied To Transition To Production, Troy Pierson

Culminating Projects in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

This study examines problems that arise during transition to production of a complex system. It focuses on a single component of the system as a representative of the whole to illustrate how three common production concerns can be addressed: (a) late delivery of the first production part, (b) the ongoing production of non-conforming parts, and ( c) predicting/preventing future interruptions of continuous production. Focusing on the Analysis process of the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology, this study centers on a structured approach to problem solving by applying root cause analysis techniques to identify key causation factors. Results of this study indicate …

Observer Incorporated Neoclassical Controller Design: A Discrete Perspective, Winston Alexander Baker

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Control theory has generally been divided into two categories, modern control and classical control. Modern control uses state feedback to alter the pole locations of a given system. Classical control uses pre-compensation to alter the zeroes of the system and uses output feedback to adjust the poles to bring stability to the system. The drawback is that the application of classical control techniques can be a lengthy, complicated and iterative design process and in the end, classical control techniques still do not give information about the state of the system. Neoclassical control combines classical control techniques with the state feedback …

Implementation Of Physiologic Pressure Conditions In A Blood Vessel Mimic Bioreactor System, Kevin Mark Okarski

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

Implementation of Physiologic Pressure Conditions in a Blood Vessel Mimic Bioreactor System

Kevin Mark Okarski

Tissue engineering has traditionally been pursued as a therapeutic science intended for restoring or replacing diseased or damaged biologic tissues or organs. Cal Poly’s Blood Vessel Mimic Laboratory is developing a novel application of tissue engineering as a tool for the preclinical evaluation of intravascular devices. The blood vessel mimic (BVM) system has been previously used to assess the tissue response to deployed stents, but under non-physiologic conditions. Since then, efforts have been made to improve the vessel and bioreactor’s ability to emulate in …

An Algorithm And Methodology For Static Response Based Damage Detection In Structural Systems, Augusto Terlaje

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

A damage detection algorithm and procedure is presented in this dissertation that utilizes static response data and Optimality Criterion optimization. Static displacement measurements are used as constraints in the damage detection algorithm that identifies potential areas of damage in structural systems. The research aims to improve upon the master's level research performed by the author. First, the robustness of the algorithm is improved by use of a least squares approximation for determining the Lagrange multipliers that are necessary for optimization. Second, an active parameter selection subroutine is used to improve the accuracy of damage detection in the presence of experimental …