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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

A Study To Develop An Electronics Chassis Compound Cylinder Pressure Vessel Using Finite Element Modeling, Gordon Randall Straley Dec 2016

A Study To Develop An Electronics Chassis Compound Cylinder Pressure Vessel Using Finite Element Modeling, Gordon Randall Straley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis develops a process to design and analyze a two-layer compound cylinder pressure vessel utilizing an inner insert to house electronic circuit card assemblies. The process begins with sizing and analysis of a compound cylinder based on analytical formulas and progresses in complexity to a 2-Dimensional plane stress finite element model of the chassis assembly and ends with a computationally expensive 3-Dimensional finite element analysis of the pressure vessel. Comparing the results from the compound cylinder to the electronics chassis, it is observed that the inner insert geometry has a strong influence on the interfacial pressure at the upper …


Numerical Study Of Erosion Of The Internal Wall Of Sales Gas Piping By Black Powder Particles, Ahmed Saud Al-Haidari Dec 2016

Numerical Study Of Erosion Of The Internal Wall Of Sales Gas Piping By Black Powder Particles, Ahmed Saud Al-Haidari

Theses and Dissertations

Micro particles, primarily from iron, can wreak havoc on a Sales Gas System. For example, the transport of particles with the gas flow can cause erosion damage to the piping system, lead to the release of toxic gasses, and interrupt the operation. The objective of the current work is to examine the erosion rate (ER) in an existing Sales Gas Piping System by simulating different black powder particles sizes and considering variable operation conditions. An elbow-shaped pipe spool is used to determine the area of maximum destruction. It will help the designer, engineer and operation personnel to predict the ER …


Multi-Axial Fiber Optic Reference Strain Sensor For Flexible Dynamics Of Structures, Gabriel Lapilli Dec 2016

Multi-Axial Fiber Optic Reference Strain Sensor For Flexible Dynamics Of Structures, Gabriel Lapilli

Theses and Dissertations

Launch vehicles are in an ever-decreasing weight trend, with bodies becoming more slender to reduce aerodynamic loading. Mass and stiffness tend to be opposing concepts when designing launch vehicles: a stiffer structure means it is usually heavier. Lower stiffness on launch vehicles may produce excessive vibrations during flight, reducing the performance, operating characteristics and safety margins of the vehicle. It also impacts flight dynamics: as the vehicle flies, the orientation of its thrusters and actuators are impacted by the vibrations, creating potential instabilities in the control schemes. This is currently accounted for by using single-point inertial measurements and feeding the …


Real Time Implementation Of An Inertial Measurement Unit Based On Fiber-Bragg Sensor Array Using Legendre Polynomial, Taher Saifee Parekh Dec 2016

Real Time Implementation Of An Inertial Measurement Unit Based On Fiber-Bragg Sensor Array Using Legendre Polynomial, Taher Saifee Parekh

Theses and Dissertations

Missiles and launch vehicle are trending towards becoming more slender in shape to reduce aerodynamic drag. Bending vibrations of the rocket body occur when a flying object with a large slenderness performs pitch or yaw command. The onboard Inertia Measurement Unit (IMU) measures the attitude and the angular velocities of the deflected body as well as the rigid body motion and in turn feeds these signals back to the control loop. Feedback of the vibrating information degrades the control system stability and in the worst case makes the system unstable. These effects become more significant when the slenderness ratio of …


Design Of A Rotating Brush Underwater Grooming Device With A Focus On Brush Optimization, Motor Control And Design For Reliability, Mark Harrison Nanney Dec 2016

Design Of A Rotating Brush Underwater Grooming Device With A Focus On Brush Optimization, Motor Control And Design For Reliability, Mark Harrison Nanney

Theses and Dissertations

The design and control of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) to groom or clean the underwater surface of ship hulls is becoming an important aspect of the maintenance of vessels to the United States Navy. The biological growth below the waterline of the vessels can be the cause for drag penalties near 21% causing up to 32% increase in shaft power at 15 knots (Schultz, 2007). Research conducted by the Center for Corrosion and Biofouling Control at Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) indicated that weekly grooming can prevent high profile biological growth (Hearin, et al., 2015). The design of a rotating …


An Improved Fuel Spray Breakup Model For Advanced Internal Combustion Engine Configurations, Chitra Sadanandan Dec 2016

An Improved Fuel Spray Breakup Model For Advanced Internal Combustion Engine Configurations, Chitra Sadanandan

Theses and Dissertations

Lack of oil resources and increasing effects of global warming have emphasized and led to stricter regulation standards. To meet the current demands, the engines need to be highly efficient in terms of fuel efficiency and performance. One of the fundamental ways to achieve this goal is by studying the fuel atomization and the combustion process. However, there are several challenges involved in studying the process of atomization and combustion only through experimental approaches as they involve numerous parameters. A suitable supplement or alternative to the experimental approach is the numerical approach. Advances in high performance computing, have led to …


The Design Of An Articulating Five-Headed In-Water Grooming Tool To Maintain Ships Free Of Fouling, Caglar Erdogan Dec 2016

The Design Of An Articulating Five-Headed In-Water Grooming Tool To Maintain Ships Free Of Fouling, Caglar Erdogan

Theses and Dissertations

Biofouling is a major concern to ship owners. Biofouling increases hull roughness, increasing the frictional resistance and fuel consumption while decreasing maximum speed. Finding a way to maintain hulls free from fouling has, therefore, become a research challenge for scientists and engineers. Grooming has been proposed as a novel method for controlling fouling (Tribou and Swain 2010). It refers to the regular proactive light cleaning to maintain the hull free of fouling with minimal impact to ship coatings. The purpose of this thesis is to design, build, and deploy a compliant multiheaded grooming tool which utilized five polypropylene vertically rotating …


A Robot Platform For Intelligent Ground Vehicle Research, Jihang Li Nov 2016

A Robot Platform For Intelligent Ground Vehicle Research, Jihang Li

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a mobile platform developed for further research on the Intellegent Ground Vehicle project which began as a capstone project but without achieving full autonomy. The scope of the current project is to develop Robot Operating System (ROS) based driver libraries to the electronic system and provide application program interfaces (APIs) for higher abstraction level libraries. Prior work had provided a mechanical system and several sensors for the robot. The chassis of the vehicle is fabricated with aluminum tubings and enclosed with aluminum boards to protect internal electronics from environmental conditions. A three-wheel differential drive architecture is used …


On Phase Change Material Heat Exchangers: A Computational And Experimental Investigation, Christian Omar Rodriguez Dieppa Oct 2016

On Phase Change Material Heat Exchangers: A Computational And Experimental Investigation, Christian Omar Rodriguez Dieppa

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of ground- and airborne-based high energy laser (HEL) weapon systems has created a need for high-rate thermal energy storage (TES) devices that meet demanding size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements for integration into the HEL thermal management system (TMS). Current and near-term HEL weapon systems produce thermal loads on the order of 30-300 kW when emitting, and approximately 5-10% of the peak load when in a non-emitting standby state. Emission to standby duty cycles of 10-50% are common, and therefore, sizing the TMS for real-time rejection of the peak thermal load is not practical. Accordingly, TES components can …


A Measuring System For Simultaneous Current, Wave And Ice Action On Offshore Structures, Yuxi Zhang Sep 2016

A Measuring System For Simultaneous Current, Wave And Ice Action On Offshore Structures, Yuxi Zhang

Link Foundation Ocean Engineering and Instrumentation Fellowship Reports

The design, fabrication and installation of a n Ice Force Measuring System (IFMS) were completed with partial support from the Department of Energy sponsored project entitled Measurement and Analysis of Extreme Wave and Ice Actions in the Great Lakes for Offshore Wind Platform Design in the fall of 2013 for ope rations during the winter of 2013 2014. The instrumentation was deployed in Lake Superior on a Keweenaw Peninsula lighthouse, where a large scale laboratory for cold regions engineering experimentation is naturally formed. A data acquisition system capture d readings from strain gauges encased in the IFMS plate and ice …


Interactive Training Of Teleoperated Robotic System For Real-Time Mriguided Steerable Needle Intervention, Gang Li Sep 2016

Interactive Training Of Teleoperated Robotic System For Real-Time Mriguided Steerable Needle Intervention, Gang Li

Link Foundation Modeling, Simulation and Training Fellowship Reports

Needle-based interventions, also known as percutaneous interventions, are common approaches for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures including tissue biopsy, delivery of therapeutic agents and tumor ablation. Needle steering, controlling the rotation of needle while inserting, is a clinical technique to produce a curved path to avoid anatomical obstacles (e.g. vasculature and bones) or compensate for placement errors. But, it requires delicate skills and long-term training to accurately steer the needle, due to difficult control of the needle path and lack of intraoperative image feedback. The objective of the proposed project is to develop a clinician-controlled teleoperated robotic system to train and …


Quantification Of Frictional Drag Due To Biofouling On In-Service Ships, John Travis Hunsucker Sep 2016

Quantification Of Frictional Drag Due To Biofouling On In-Service Ships, John Travis Hunsucker

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to improve the quantification of frictional drag due to biofouling on in-service ships by advancing the knowledge and methodology used to study the interactions between fouling communities and the surrounding environment. This research examined the influence of hydrodynamic stress on the development and frictional drag of fouling communities that developed on a fouling release coating; investigated the reliability of using ship performance monitoring to detect changes in the hull and propeller condition; and evaluated the feasibility of developing a field deployable instrument capable of measuring the local frictional resistance on a ship hull in …


The Controlled Human Gyroscope, Randy Claude Arjunsingh Jul 2016

The Controlled Human Gyroscope, Randy Claude Arjunsingh

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis was to design an adaptive rotational motion simulator capable of replicating the attitudes of spacecrafts and aircrafts, while avoiding gimbal lock. Flight motion simulators are currently used for flight training and research, but there are many limitations to these existing systems. This thesis presents a low-cost design for a rotational motion platform titled, ‘The Controlled Human Gyroscope’. It uses a 4-axis system instead of the conventional 3-axis system to avoid gimbal lock and prevent the unnecessary motion of the user. The Human Gyroscope features unlimited rotation about the roll, pitch and yaw axes regardless of …


Numerical Modeling Of Soy Biodiesel To Maximize Engine Power And Efficiency While Minimizing Pollutant Emissions, Ehsan Tootoonchi Jul 2016

Numerical Modeling Of Soy Biodiesel To Maximize Engine Power And Efficiency While Minimizing Pollutant Emissions, Ehsan Tootoonchi

Theses and Dissertations

Biodiesel is a renewable fuel that can help to reduce dependence on foreign petroleum and to help control the negative environmental effects of combustion engines. This work develops a numerical model for soy biodiesel combustion in diesel engine applications. A comprehensive breakup model for diesel and biodiesel combustion calculations using the KIVA- 3V is presented. The primary breakup model calculates the outcome of the initial breakup stage using flow conditions, nozzle geometry, and liquid fuel characteristics, and assigns the Sauter Mean Radius (SMR) values to injecting droplets. The Kelvin-Helmholtz/Rayleigh-Taylor(KH-RT) model acts as the secondary model to break up injected particles. …


Numerical Simulation Of Tip Clearance Impact On A Pumpjet Propulsor, Lin Lu, Guang Pan, Jing Wei, Yipeng Pan May 2016

Numerical Simulation Of Tip Clearance Impact On A Pumpjet Propulsor, Lin Lu, Guang Pan, Jing Wei, Yipeng Pan

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Numerical simulation based on the Reynolds Averaged NaviereStokes (RANS) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method had been carried out with the commercial code ANSYS CFX. The structured grid and SST keu turbulence model had been adopted. The impact of noncondensable gas (NCG) on cavitation performance had been introduced into the Schnerr and Sauer cavitation model. The numerical investigation of cavitating flow of marine propeller E779A was carried out with different advance ratios and cavitation numbers to verify the numerical simulation method. Tip clearance effects on the performance of pumpjet propulsor had been investigated. Results showed that the structure and characteristics of …


A Method To Enhance The Heat Transfer Mechanism In Metal Particle Porous Beds With Applicability To Paramagnetic Materials For Hydrogen Storage, Shahin Shafiee May 2016

A Method To Enhance The Heat Transfer Mechanism In Metal Particle Porous Beds With Applicability To Paramagnetic Materials For Hydrogen Storage, Shahin Shafiee

Theses and Dissertations

This research introduces a heat transfer enhancement method for porous beds of either ferromagnetic and paramagnetic materials. Throughout this work, it is shown that applying magnetic fields, not only enhances the heat transfer rate in particle beds but also improves hydrogenation properties of lanthanum nickel. The first section of the work is focused on heat transfer in iron oxide beds under magnetism. This stage studies effect of different magnetic field configurations and intensities on conduction improvement. The second phase of the work, studies the effect of utilizing magnetic fields on hydriding properties of a selected metal hydride. Experimentation has proven …


Impacts Of Bias Correction Of Wind Forecasts On Hydrodynamic And Wave Model Predictions, Robert J. Weaver, Peyman Taeb, Bryan P. Holman, Steven M. Lazarus, Michael E. Splitt, Atousa Saberi, Jeff Colvin Jan 2016

Impacts Of Bias Correction Of Wind Forecasts On Hydrodynamic And Wave Model Predictions, Robert J. Weaver, Peyman Taeb, Bryan P. Holman, Steven M. Lazarus, Michael E. Splitt, Atousa Saberi, Jeff Colvin

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

High-resolution hydrodynamic models are forced by surface wind output from operational met. models. Current suite of operational met. models do not have the spatial resolution needed to resolve the fine scale processes associated with complex estuarine wind-driven circulation nor a detailed land-water mask. Goal: improve forecast wind forcing in most efficient manner as possible


Cfd Prediction And Simulation Of A Pumpjet Propulsor, Lin Lu, Guang Pan, Prasanta K. Sahoo Jan 2016

Cfd Prediction And Simulation Of A Pumpjet Propulsor, Lin Lu, Guang Pan, Prasanta K. Sahoo

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

In this study an attempt has been made to study the hydrodynamic performance of pumpjet propulsor. Numerical investigation based on the Reynolds Averaged NaviereStokes (RANS) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method has been carried out. The structured grid and SST keu turbulence model have been applied. The numerical simulations of open water performance of marine propeller E779A are carried out with different advance ratios to verify the numerical simulation method. Results show that the thrust and the torque are in good agreements with experimental data. The grid independent inspection is applied to verify accuracy of numerical simulation grid. The numerical predictions …


Optimal Configuration And Tuning Of Wave Energy Converter Arrays, Emma Edwards Jan 2016

Optimal Configuration And Tuning Of Wave Energy Converter Arrays, Emma Edwards

Link Foundation Ocean Engineering and Instrumentation Fellowship Reports

Power from ocean waves is becoming an increasingly attractive option as a source of renewable energy. Ocean waves are more reliable and predictable than sun and wind, and have a higher energy density [1]. There are locations where solar and wind energy would not be viable, due to the large amount of space they take up, either on land (solar) or above ground (wind). In addition, wave energy devices are less of a visual deterrent than wind turbines, and wave energy is particularly attractive for areas with a lot of coast line. Wave energy is still in its infancy, though, …


A Shipboard Instrument For Underway Estimates Of Marine N2 Fixation, Weiyi Tang Jan 2016

A Shipboard Instrument For Underway Estimates Of Marine N2 Fixation, Weiyi Tang

Link Foundation Ocean Engineering and Instrumentation Fellowship Reports

Marine N2 fixation converts nitrogen gas into ammonia and accounts for the largest external nitrogen input to the oceans1. Since large portions of the global oceans are nitrogen deficient, marine N2 fixation can relieve the nitrogen limitation, thereby increasing the growth of phytoplankton and stimulating biological uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide2,3,4. However, the magnitude and distribution of marine N2 fixation are poorly constrained5. In addition, the environmental controls on marine N2 fixation remain elusive6. This situation is in part attributable to the limited number of observations and poor coverage of marine N2 fixation measurements. Current observations rely on discrete sampling …