Engineering Commons^™

Solar Car Suspension System, Alex Power, Adam O'Camb

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Portable And Automatic Biosensing Instrument For Detection Of Foodborne Pathogenic Bacteria In Food Samples, Zhuo Zhao

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Foodborne diseases are a growing public health problem. In recent years, many rapid detection methods have been reported, but most of them are still in lab research and not practical for use in the field. In this study, a portable and automatic biosensing instrument was designed and constructed for separation and detection of target pathogens in food samples using nanobead-based magnetic separation and quantum dots (QDs)-labeled fluorescence measurement. The instrument consisted of a laptop with LabVIEW software, a data acquisition card (DAQ), a fluorescent detector, micro-pumps, stepper motors, and 3D printed tube holders. First, a sample in a syringe was …

Fuel Type Estimation Using Fuel System Parameters, Shambhavi Balasubramanian

Open Access Theses

A number of factors are responsible for an increased interest in alternative fuels for transportation and other uses. Among the most widely available alternative fuels are biodiesel and vegetable oil, both of which can be used to power a diesel engine. Biodiesel has higher density, viscosity, surface tension, sound velocity, and bulk modulus of elasticity than regular diesel fuel. This affects the fuelling, injection timing, and fuel spray and consequently the emission characteristics.

Estimation of fuel type is critical to the performance of the engine. Knowing the fuel type allows the engine controller to determine the proper fuel quantity and …

Hierarchical Hybrid Modelling, Reza Hesan, Erik Pruyt

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental systems are complex systems. They are composed of many heterogeneous agents interacting in nonlinear ways within environment. Consequently, capturing the dynamics and understanding these systems are often similarly complex. To understand complex systems, hierarchy theory proposes to decompose these systems to levels (vertical structures) and subsystems (horizontal structures). Hierarchical perspectives could help in understanding complex environmental systems. However, existing modeling platforms lack of an appropriate abstraction which supports hierarchical structuring of systems. Consequently, the application of hierarchy theory has been limited to observational purposes. In this paper, we present a hierarchical simulation platform and a software package developed to …

Mims: Mobile Interruption Management System, Mohammad Kayes Kaykobad

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Mobile devices are increasing in an astronomical rate throughout the world. While it is bringing a lot of comfort to the users it is not coming without any hazards. Now a user is susceptible to mobile call interruptions wherever he is, whether he is in the middle of a very important discussion or in a very important task like performing a complicated emergency operation in a hospital. As a result researchers have been studying to find ways to minimize cost of mobile interruptions. In this thesis we have proposed a mobile interruption management system in which callers have been grouped …

On-Farm Integrated High-Solids Processing System For Biomass, Sue E. Nokes, Bert C. Lynn, Stephen E. Rankin, Barbara L. Knutson, Michael D. Montross, Michael D. Flythe

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Patents

A method for on-farm processing a biomass feedstock into a useful industrial chemicals includes the steps of (a) delignifying the biomass feedstock to produce a delignified biomass, (b) subjecting the deliguified biomass to cellulase production, (c) subjecting the deliguified biomass with attached cellulase to simultaneous cellulolytic and solventogenic reactions to produce useful industrial chemicals (d) collecting and separating the useful industrial chemical from the fermentation broth and (e) collecting the fermentation residues.

Putter Measurement System, Bryan A.L. Hofferd, Yuzo Makitani, Jacob Phillips, Eric Stubben

Mechanical Engineering

This project is provided and funded by Callaway Golf Company for the Mechanical Engineering Department as a capstone project, also known as the Senior Project series: ME 428, 429, and 430. The title of the project proposal is "Putter Measurement System" in which our team must design, build, and test a system that meets the proposed objectives as stated by Callaway Golf. The need arises from the current systems’ inability to provide detailed and consistent measurements without tedious setup and calibration.

Integration Of Sel Relays To Provide Motor, Transmission Line, And Transformer Protection, Christopher Ewing, Bryce Keefer

Electrical Engineering

The objective of this project is to familiarize the performers with the principles of operation of the Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) protective relays in both normal and fault conditions. The SEL-587, SEL-311L and SEL-710 microprocessor-based relays are used to provide protection for a system composed of transformers, simulated transmission lines and a 3-phase induction motor. Each of these relays provides protection by sending a trip signal to local breakers upon sensing a fault condition. The SEL-587 provides overcurrent and differential protection for a 3-phase transformer, while the SEL-311L provides differential and distance protection for a transmission line, and negative sequence. …

Automatic Water Pump Controller, Alam D. Salguero, Kyle Russell Marquez Weeks

Electrical Engineering

In countries including Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, a city water authority supplies the clean water and pumps it into large ground-level storage tanks. A resident’s water pump then pumps the water to a water tank on top of his/her house. When the water level in the ground-level storage tank becomes too low, the pump siphons air and shuts down, requiring a resident to manually prime the water pump to get it running again. Residents struggle to monitor the water level of the tanks effectively and keep the pump running properly. To remedy the issue, the Automatic Water Pump …

Tabletop Die Cast System, Brad C. Barringer

All Undergraduate Projects

The project was to design, manufacture, and test a tabletop die cast system to be used as lab equipment in MET 257 – Casting Processes. The motivation for this project was the MET 257 – Casting Processes instructor’s desire to physically demonstrate the die casting process, but they were unable to find a system that would meet all of their requirements. They required a system design that was small, portable, would fit in the foundries limited space, had an open concept to allow students to see what was occurring during the pour, and compatibility with the foundries current equipment. The …

Implementation Of New System For Oxygen Generation And Carbon Dioxide Removal, Angelo Peter Karavolos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research effort develops an integrated system for CO2 removal and O2 production. A unique material, dodeca-tungsto-phosphoric acid (H3PO4W12O3; henceforth referred to as DTPA) is mixed with tetra-ethyl-ortho-silicate Si(OC2H5)4 or TEOS. This mixture exhibits unique properties of heat absorption and high electrical conductivity. In the system described herein, the DTPA resides within a cross linked arrangement of TEOS. The DTPA furnishes a source of O2, while the TEOS furnishes structural support for the large DTPA crystals. In addition, the large amount of H2O within the crystal also adsorbs CO2. It can also be cross-linked with other polymers such as polycarbonate, …

Solar Photovoltaic System Control Topology Investigation For Power Source Mismatch, Lynette O'Callaghan

Conference papers

An investigation into solar photovoltaic (PV) system control topology selection, when partial shade is anticipated in the solar array, is presented. As available area is maximised in Building Integrated PV (BIPV) systems, shading is an inevitable consequence. The presence of partial shading in a PV array leads to multiple power peaks in the power-voltage curve, due to bypass diode sections being triggered, and an increase in module mismatch losses in the array. A building energy design software, Integrated Environmental Solutions, is used to determine the shadowed area on PV modules throughout the year, incorporating the PV system location and geometrical …

Effect Of Grain Size On Springback And System Energy In Micro V-Bending With Phosphor Bronze Foil, Zhi Fang, Zhengyi Jiang, Xiaogang Wang, Cunlong Zhou, Xianming Zhao, Xiaoming Zhang, Di Wu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

In this paper, the effect of grain size on springback in the micro V-bending process of phosphor bronze foil (face-centered cubic structure) is investigated. Grain size effect is expressed by the ratio of material thickness (T) to average grain size (D), and these T/D values are divided into three groups: larger than 1, less than 1, and approximately equal to 1. It has been found that springback angles were the lowest when T/D ≈ 1. Electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD) measurement results show that the twinning boundaries change with the ratios of T/D before and after bending. When T/D > 1, the …

A Magnetically Actuated Drug Delivery System For Robotic Endoscopic Capsules, Fredy Munoz, Gursel Alici, Weihua Li

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

There is an increasing need to incorporate an actively controlled drug delivery system (DDS) into the next generation of capsule endoscopy in order to treat diseases in the gastrointestinal tract in a noninvasive way. Despite a number of attempts to magnetically actuate drug delivery mechanisms embedded in endoscopic capsules, longer operating distances and further miniaturization of on-board components are still drawbacks of such systems. In this paper, we propose an innovative magnetic system that consists of an array of magnets, which activates a DDS, based on an overly miniaturized slider-crank mechanism. We use analytical models to compare the magnetic fields …

A Review Of Topologies Of Three-Port Dc-Dc Converters For The Integration Of Renewable Energy And Energy Storage System, Neng Zhang, Danny Sutanto, Kashem M. Muttaqi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

The application of renewable energy such as solar photovoltaic (PV), wind and fuel cells is becoming increasingly popular because of the environmental awareness and advances in technology coupled with decreasing manufacturing cost. Power electronic converters are usually used to convert the power from the renewable sources to match the load demand and grid requirement to improve the dynamic and steady-state characteristics of these green generation systems, to provide the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control, and to integrate the energy storage system to solve the challenge of the intermittent nature of the renewable energy and the unpredictability of the load …

Driver Alerting System Using Range Estimation Of Electric Vehicles In Real Time Under Dynamically Varying Environmental Conditions, Vincent R. Tannahill, Kashem M. Muttaqi, Danny Sutanto

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

As the technology supporting electric vehicles (EVs) is rapidly progressing and the cost of EV components is reducing, EVs are becoming more feasible for use in Australia and in many countries around the world. However, the public perception of EVs and their perceived limitations result in a slow uptake of the technology, partially because of the uncertainty regarding the ability of an EV to meet the driving needs of the general population. Range anxiety is a particular concern with drivers having fear of being stranded by a depleted EV battery. This study explores means of reducing range anxiety by taking …

Development And Performance Evaluation Of A Liquid Desiccant Air Conditioning System With Hybrid Electrodialysis And Thermal Regeneration, Yi Guo, Zhenjun Ma, Ali Hussein Al-Jubainawi, Paul Cooper, Long D. Nghiem

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Liquid desiccant air conditioning (LDAC) systems have gained increasing attention due to the improved energy performance and reduced environmental impacts. This paper presents an LDAC system using electrodialysis (ED) as well as low grade heat generated from a hybrid photovoltaic thermal and evacuated tube (PVT-ET) collector for liquid desiccant regeneration. As ED regenerator is a key component in the proposed system, a modified mathematical model is used to simulate the mass transfer of the ED stack. The performance of the model was validated using the experimental data generated based on a lab-scale experimental setup. It is shown that the model …

Towards An Automated Robotic Arc-Welding-Based Additive Manufacturing System From Cad To Finished Part, Donghong Ding, Chen Shen, Zengxi Stephen Pan, Dominic Cuiuri, Hui Jun Li, Nathan P. Larkin, Stephen Van Duin

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Arc welding has been widely explored for additive manufacturing of large metal components over the last three decades due to its lower capital cost, an unlimited build envelope, and higher deposition rates. Although significant improvements have been made, an arc welding process has yet to be incorporated in a commercially available additive manufacturing system. The next step in exploiting "true" arc-welding-based additive manufacturing is to develop the automation software required to produce CAD-to-part capability. This study focuses on developing a fully automated system using robotic gas metal arc welding to additively manufacture metal components. The system contains several modules, including …

Two-Factor Data Security Protection Mechanism For Cloud Storage System, Joseph K. Liu, Kaitai Liang, Willy Susilo, Jianghua Liu, Yang Xiang

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

In this paper, we propose a two-factor data security protection mechanism with factor revocability for cloud storage system. Our system allows a sender to send an encrypted message to a receiver through a cloud storage server. The sender only needs to know the identity of the receiver but no other information (such as its public key or its certificate). The receiver needs to possess two things in order to decrypt the ciphertext. The first thing is his/her secret key stored in the computer. The second thing is a unique personal security device which connects to the computer. It is impossible …

Exploring Structure And Role Of Engineering Asset Management System In Production Organizations, Khaled O. El-Akruti, Richard Dwight, Tieling Zhang

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Little has been done in literature on the structure of Engineering Asset Management System (EAMS) and its relationship to production and organizational strategy. In this paper, the position of an EAMS within an organizational structure and its strategic role within a production organizations strategy has been explored. It is argued that the structure and mechanism of EAMS play a key role in directing the production process and linking to the organizational strategy: the absence or inadequacies of asset-related activities cause insufficient production performance that negatively impacts the strategic achievement. Production Actions are mapped with reference to the activities of the …

A Semantic Web Vision For An Intelligent Community Transport Service Brokering System, S K. Lau, Reza R. Zamani, Willy Susilo

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Advances in semantic web research in recent years offer an opportunity for heterogeneous objects to exchange data and information in an interoperable way to make data and services machine-accessible and machine-processable. This paper describes a semantic web vision for an intelligent community transport service brokering system. The use of ontological approach to develop a semantic web brokering system opens up the data set for agent-based planning in reservation and scheduling. As ontologies are the building blocks of the semantic web and small simple ontologies are often constructed individually by different users, ontology integration approach is proposed to achieve data interoperability …

A New Algorithm For Protecting Aggregate Business Microdata Via A Remote System, Yue Ma, Yan-Xia Lin, James O. Chipperfield, John Newman, Victoria Leaver

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Releasing business microdata is a challenging problem for many statistical agencies. Businesses with distinct continuous characteristics such as extremely high income could easily be identified while these businesses are normally included in surveys representing the population. In order to provide data users with useful statistics while maintaining confidentiality, some statistical agencies have developed online based tools to allow users to specify and request tables created from microdata. These tools only release perturbed cell values generated from automatic output perturbation algorithms in order to protect each underlying observation against various attacks, such as differencing attacks. An example of the perturbation algorithms …

A Traffic Monitoring System For A Mixed Traffic Flow Via Road Estimation And Analysis, Nguyen Viet Hung, Le Chung Tran, Nguyen Hoang Dung, Thang Manh Hoang, Nguyen Tien Dzung

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

A Traffic Monitoring System (TMS) is the most important element in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), especially in a developing country like Vietnam with a mixed traffic flow of vehicles including motocycles and cars. A traffic flow varies in different daytime, therefore the adoption of the TMS for an adaptive control of the traffic light timing is very essential. The proposed TMS system uses one CCD camera mounted to view from the rear of moving vehicles appearing in a distance from a viewed span of the camera to the stopline of the cross-roads, which is denoted by L and statistically …

Stability Control Of Force-Reflected Nonlinear Multilateral Teleoperation System Under Time-Varying Delays, Da Sun, Fazel Naghdy, Haiping Du

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

A novel control algorithm based on the modified wave-variable controllers is proposed to achieve accurate position synchronization and reasonable force tracking of the nonlinear single-master-multiple-slave teleoperation system and simultaneously guarantee overall system's stability in the presence of large time-varying delays. The system stability in different scenarios of human and environment situations has been analyzed. The proposed method is validated through experimental work based on the 3-DOF trilateral teleoperation system consisting of three different manipulators. The experimental results clearly demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm to achieve high transparency and robust stability in nonlinear single-master-multiple-slave teleoperation system in the presence …

Optimization Of A Ceiling Ventilation System With Integrated Photovoltaic Thermal Collectors And Phase Change Materials, Zhenjun Ma, Wenye Lin, Mohammed I. Sohel

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper presents the performance evaluation and design optimization of a ceiling ventilation system with integrated solar photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collectors and phase change materials (PCMs) by using a hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization and Hooke-Jeeves Pattern search (PSO-HJ) algorithm. In this novel ceiling ventilation system, the PVT collectors are used to generate electricity and provide the low-grade heating energy for buildings by using the winter daytime solar radiation, while the PCM is integrated into the building ceiling as part of the ceiling insulation and at the same time, as a centralized thermal energy storage unit to temporally store the low-grade …

Size Optimization Of A Magnetic System For Drug Delivery With Capsule Robots, Fredy Munoz, Gursel Alici, Weihua Li, Metin Sitti

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

In this paper, we present a methodology for the size optimization of an external magnetic system made of arc-shaped permanent magnets (ASMs). This magnetic system is able to remotely actuate a drug-release module embedded in a prototype of a capsule robot. The optimization of the magnetic system is carried out by using an accurate analytical model that is valid for any arbitrary dimensions of the ASMs. By using this analytical model, we perform parametric studies and conduct a statistical analysis [analysis of variance (ANOVA)] to investigate efficient ways to distribute the volume of the ASMs so that the dimensions and …

A Novel Fuzzy Sliding-Mode Control For Discrete-Time Uncertain System, T H. Yan, B Wu, B He, Weihua Li, R B. Wang

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

This paper considers the sliding-mode control problem for discrete-time uncertain systems. It begins by presenting a discrete variable speed reaching law and a discrete-time sliding-mode controller (DSMC) designed using the proposed reaching law, followed by an analysis of their stability and dynamic performance. A sliding-mode controller with simple fuzzy logic is then proposed to further strengthen the dynamic performance of the proposed sliding-mode controller. Finally, the presented DSMC and the DSMC with fuzzy control for adjusting the parameters in this paper are compared with one of the previous proposed classic DSMC systems. The results of this simulation show that the …

Caregivers Time Utilization Before And After The Introduction Of An Electronic Nursing Documentation System In A Residential Aged Care Facility, Esther Naliaka Munyisia, Ping Yu, David M. Hailey

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

No abstract provided.

Modeling Of Reliability And Performance Assessment Of A Dissimilar Redundancy Actuation System With Failure Monitoring, Wang Shaoping, Cui Xiaoyu, Shi Jian, Mileta M. Tomovic, Jiao Zongxia

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Actuation system is a vital system in an aircraft, providing the force necessary to move flight control surfaces. The system has a significant influence on the overall aircraft performance and its safety. In order to further increase already high reliability and safety, Airbus has implemented a dissimilar redundancy actuation system (DRAS) in its aircraft. The DRAS consists of a hydraulic actuation system (HAS) and an electro-hydrostatic actuation system (EHAS), in which the HAS utilizes a hydraulic source (HS) to move the control surface and the EHAS utilizes an electrical supply (ES) to provide the motion force. This paper focuses on …

Machine Vision Identification Of Airport Runways With Visible And Infrared Videos, Andrew J. Moore, Matthew Schubert, Chester Dolph, Glenn Woodell

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A widely used machine vision pipeline based on the Speeded-Up Robust Features feature detector was applied to the problem of identifying a runway from a universe of known runways, which was constructed using video records of 19 straight-in glidepath approaches to nine runways. The recordings studied included visible, short-wave infrared, and long-wave infrared videos in clear conditions, rain, and fog. Both daytime and nighttime runway approaches were used. High detection specificity (identification of the runway approached and rejection of the other runways in the universe) was observed in all conditions (greater than 90% Bayesian posterior probability). In the visible band, …