Engineering Commons^™

Retaining Wall System With Soldier Pile And Composite Resin Infused Lagging Elements, Shane Phillip Moore

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Retaining walls are used as an alternative to installing drainage and soil reinforcement, depending on site conditions. This report discusses the design of a retaining wall with steel soldier piles and lagging elements for rocky slopes. The design consists of six different options, three options with a span of eight feet and three options with a span of ten feet between soldier piles. The three options for both spans are the same concept but designed for different load conditions. These options include: timber with glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP) wraps, reinforced concrete with GFRP wraps, and an FRP Prodeck system …

Review Of Water Allocation Models For West Virginia, Madison Lee Alexis Thompson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Modeling river basins started gaining in popularity and usage in the western part of the United States in large part due to its extreme droughts. Planning is necessary to sustain the population, industries, and recreational water use year-round. Water allocation modeling is a tool used to aid in the issues that come from managing water resources. This work considers the continuous models that synthesized the hydrologic processes that occur and provides a simulation of past, current, or future conditions.

West Virginia, located on the eastern side of the United States, does not have an extreme drought problem as seen in …

Genet-Cnv: Boolean Implication Networks For Modeling Genome-Wide Co-Occurrence Of Dna Copy Number Variations, Salvi Singh

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the world. Lung cancer can be categorized as non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC). NSCLC makes up about 80% to 85% of lung cancer cases diagnosed, whereas SCLC is responsible for 10% to 15% of the cases. It remains a challenge for physicians to identify patients who shall benefit from chemotherapy. In such a scenario, identifying genes that can facilitate therapeutic target discoveries and better understanding disease mechanisms and their regulation in different stages of lung cancer, remains an important topic of research.

In this …

Design And Implementation Of An Instantaneous Fuel Mass Flow Measurement System For Use In Verification Of Locomotive Emissions, Adam Wayne James

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Located in Altoona, PA, the Juniata Thoroughbred Emissions Research lab has provided emissions testing and research for several locomotive companies such as CSX, Electro Motive Diesel (EMD), and General Electric (GE). The emissions laboratory measures locomotive emissions through partial flow dilution (PFD) sampling for particulate matter (PM) using a Sierra Instruments BG3 and measures raw gaseous emissions using a MEXA 7100D gaseous emission analyzer. Fuel consumption is measured on a gravimetric basis and is used in verification of proportional sampling of exhaust flow. There were two research goals for this study which were (1) verify that the emissions measurement system …

Intelligent Transportation Systems, Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Powertrain Control, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Model Predictive Control, Hadi Kazemi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Information obtainable from Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) provides the possibility of improving the safety and efficiency of vehicles at different levels. In particular, such information has the potential to be utilized for prediction of driving conditions and traffic flow, which allows us to improve the performance of the control systems in different vehicular applications, such as Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) powertrain control and Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC). In the first part of this work, we study the design of an MPC controller for a Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) system, which is an automated application that provides the drivers …

Immunity-Based Framework For Autonomous Flight In Gps-Challenged Environment, Mohanad Al Nuaimi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In this research, the artificial immune system (AIS) paradigm is used for the development of a conceptual framework for autonomous flight when vehicle position and velocity are not available from direct sources such as the global navigation satellite systems or external landmarks and systems. The AIS is expected to provide corrections of velocity and position estimations that are only based on the outputs of onboard inertial measurement units (IMU). The AIS comprises sets of artificial memory cells that simulate the function of memory T- and B-cells in the biological immune system of vertebrates. The innate immune system uses information about …

Leveraging Writing And Photography Styles For Drug Trafficker Identification In Darknet Markets, Wei Song

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Due to its anonymity, there has been a dramatic growth of underground drug markets hosted in the darknet (e.g., Dream Market and Valhalla). To combat drug trafficking (a.k.a. illicit drug trading) in the cyberspace, there is an urgent need for automatic analysis of participants in darknet markets. However, one of the key challenges is that drug traffickers (i.e., vendors) may maintain multiple accounts across different markets or within the same market.

To address this issue, in this thesis, we propose and develop an intelligent system named uStyle-uID leveraging both writing and photography styles for drug trafficker identification at the first …

Bending Response Of Timber Mortise And Tenon Joints Reinforced With Filler-Modules And Frp Gussets, Andrew Robert Pacifico

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In 2013, the California Bay Area (CBA) passed a set of ordinances to ensure that their 10,000 plus timber soft-story buildings were prepared for seismic events, through nondestructive evaluation methods. Many property owners are searching for an affordable retrofitting system that will also meet CBA’s new laws focusing on installations by the mandated deadlines in 2020. Over the past three to four decades, Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites have found their way into the civil infrastructure sector for rehabilitation. The objective of this study is to evaluate the bending behavior retrofitted mortise and tenon timber joints reinforced with engineered wood …

Minimizing Trihalomethane Formation Through Source Water Monitoring And Optimizing Treatment Practices, Nashid Mirza

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Trihalomethanes, a family of halogenated disinfection byproducts, are prevalent in finished drinking water. According to USEPA’s Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules (DBPRs), the regulatory standard of the total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) is 80 μg/L, and water treatment plant operators are required to closely monitor TTHMs in the finished water on a quarterly basis. Although total organic carbon (TOC) has been identified as a precursor for the TTHMs, knowledge gaps still exist in how specific water and treatment related factors (e.g., intake water quality, seasonal variation, contact time, and treatment train) affect TTHMs formation. Focusing on water treatment plants in southwestern Pennsylvania, …

Conceptual Design Of Male Uavs, Vincent Spada

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The conceptual design process of aircraft involves the creation of a product, in this case UAVS (unmanned aerial vehicles), using the most effective means possible across multiple subdisciplines of Aerospace Engineering. This paper will outline a unique methodology that involves calculating certain design variables such as wing loading, power loading, aspect ratio and cruise altitude in the conceptual design phase for MALE (medium altitude long endurance) UAVs. Aircraft characteristics from MALE UAVs such as the MQ-9 predator and MQ-1 reaper will used for a comparative aircraft study as “jumping off” points in order to carry out the initial calculations. An …

Kidney Ailment Prediction Under Data Imbalance, Ranaa Mahveen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is the leading cause for kidney failure. It is a global health problem affecting approximately 10% of the world population and about 15% of US adults. Chronic Kidney Diseases do not generally show any disease specific symptoms in early stages thus it is hard to detect and prevent such diseases. Early detection and classification are the key factors in managing Chronic Kidney Diseases.

In this thesis, we propose a new machine learning technique for Kidney Ailment Prediction. We focus on two key issues in machine learning, especially in its application to disease prediction. One is related …

Impact Of Natural Fracture Induced Elastic Anisotropy On Completion And Hydraulic Fracturing Designs, Emre Can Dundar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Shale has been usually recognized as a transverse isotropic (TI) medium in conventional geomechanical log interpretation due to its laminated nature. However, when natural fractures (NFs) exist in the rock body, additional elastic anisotropy can be introduced, converting Shale to an orthorhombic (OB) medium. Previous study illustrates that treating the naturally fractured shale rock as a TI medium by ignoring the NF-induced anisotropy can cause the erroneous estimation of the geomechanical properties (i.e. Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, brittleness index, and etc.) and in-situ stress. In this paper, the study is extended to quantify the impact of NF-induced elastic anisotropy on …

Evaluating Design Criteria For High Hazard Dams In A Changing Climate, Aaron Read Sutton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

With changes in climate, there is the potential for future flooding events to vary in frequency and magnitude. These changes may stress the 432 high hazard dames in West Virginia. The 100-year flowrate is an important design criterion for emergency spillways of high hazard dams. Emergency spillways are designed to be reached only by 100-year flow and above. This work quantified how changes in the 100-year flowrate may affect emergency spillway activation. Peakflow data from the Central Appalachian Ecoregion in WV, taken from 24 USGS gages, were used to analyze changes in the 100-year flowrate.

Flow frequency analysis revealed that …

Structural Behavior Of Steel Plate Embedded Hybrid Gfrp Shapes, Piyush R. Soti

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The civil infrastructure industry has been dominated by traditional materials such as steel, timber, and concrete. Although these materials offer great advantages, they have major durability issues in terms of corrosion, decaying, and cracking. Traditional material-based structures deteriorate frequently and require regular-interval repairs with huge expenditures. To resolve these maintenance and durability issues associated with traditional materials, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have gained some popularity in the past few decades because of their superior mechanical properties and durability. Carbon-FRPs (CFRPs) and glass-FRP (GFRPs) are the most commonly used FRPs in the market. However, in civil engineering applications, CFRPs are …

Optimizing The Production And Injection Wells Flow Rates In Geothermal Field Using Artificial Intelligence, Muhammet Salih Ariturk

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In a geothermal field, power plants are designed for long-term electricity generation. Therefore, it is crucial to predict the future production and injection flow rates of the wells to determine the capacity of a power plant. In the designing of such power plants, calculations and estimations are based on the current future production, and injection flow rates and pressures in the geothermal field. Prediction of future production and injection flow rates also assist in building surface facilities with cost-efficient power plants. The most common problem in a power plant in geothermal fields is the inability to accurately estimate future expected …

Shear Stress Estimates In The Approach And Bridge Section By Using Various Formula, Jun Seon Lee

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Shear stress is the resistance force on top of the contact surface caused by moving flow and is one of the important variable in fluid mechanics. Thus, a lot of researches have been conducted to predict accurate value of shear stress. However, calculating shear stress with existing equations has several limitations because only gradually varied flow and/or uniform flow was considered in their studies. Therefore, direct applying those methods into complex flow type, such as around a bridge, to predict shear stress is questionable.

Thus, laboratory experiments were carried out in a laboratory flume to attack the objective of this …

Pharmaceutical Scheduling Using Simulated Annealing And Steepest Descent Method, Bryant Jamison Spencer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In the pharmaceutical manufacturing world, a deadline could be the difference between losing a multimillion-dollar contract or extending it. This, among many other reasons, is why good scheduling methods are vital. This problem report addresses Flexible Flowshop (FF) scheduling using Simulated Annealing (SA) in conjunction with the Steepest Descent heuristic (SD).

FF is a generalized version of the flowshop problem, where each product goes through S number of stages, where each stage has M number of machines. As opposed to a normal flowshop problem, all ‘jobs’ do not have to flow in the same sequence from stage to stage. The …

A Framework For Energy Optimization Of Small, Two-Stroke, Natural Gas Engines For Combined Heat And Power Applications, Mahdi Darzi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This research was focused on the development of a framework for the energy optimization a natural gas engine for small combined heat and power (CHP) applications operating with low-pressure natural gas (NG) available at homes. The required targets of the ARPA-E GENSETS program for 1 kW electric power generation and previous GENSETS simulation at West Virginia University, suggested a design space for the engine which is currently dominated by simple two-stroke designs. Hence this research focused on screening, modeling, and experimentally evaluation of cost-effective technologies to achieve a system design that maximized thermal efficiency and utilization factor, while reducing emissions. …

Computational Design Of Staged Pressurized Oxy-Coal Combustion, Gideon Ozioma Udochukwu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Staged pressurized oxy-coal combustion (SPOC) is nowadays a promising technology to be used for low-cost, low-emission, high-efficiency power generation. The objective of this thesis is to compliment the experiments ongoing at the Washington University, St. Louis (WUSTL) by means of numerical simulations, thereby providing better understanding of the fluid flow, turbulence, combustion characteristics, particle dynamics and heat transfer. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is injected alongside the coal, for its carriage. A small amount of methane (CH4) is also injected alongside the coal to maintain a steady flame. The simulations are performed for a 3D geometry with the following energy source distribution: …

New Method Of Manufacturing Carbon Foam, Matthew D. Artimez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Carbon foam is a product that has some unique features. Carbon foam is a light weight material that has a high crush strength. It is electrically conductive, but because it is composed of air space between the tendrils, it is not a thermal conductor. Since it contains no volatile content, it is noncombustible. All these features allow carbon foam to have many modern applications. Currently, there are only three methods of producing carbon foam, and all three are not cost- efficient enough to meet the demand of potential new markets.

In this thesis, a new procedure of producing carbon foam …

Towards A Framework For Smart Manufacturing Adoption In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Sameer Mittal

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Smart Manufacturing (SM) paradigm adoption can scale production with demand without compromising on the time for order fulfillment. A smart manufacturing system (SMS) is vertically and horizontally connected, and thus it can minimize the chances of miscommunication. Employees in an SME are aware of the operational requirements and their responsibilities. The machine schedules are prepared based on the tasks a machine must perform. Predictive maintenance reduces the downtime of machines. Design software optimizes the product design. Production feasibility is checked with the help of simulation. The concepts of product life cycle management are considered for waste reduction. Employee safety, and …

Short Beam Shear Strength Evaluations Of Gfrp Composites: Correlations Through Accelerated And Natural Aging, William Todd Barker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) composites have been materials of interest in replacing or reinforcing steel, wood, and concrete, but lack of understanding of degradation under physical and chemical aging is a main concern. Through many years of research, the understanding of aging or durability of GFRPs has improved. To be able to evaluate aging related degradation rates, an accelerated aging methodology under varying environments is introduced. Accelerated aging is a concept used to age composites in a lab controlled environment under varying pH conditions (2 to 13) and temperatures (~ -20° to +160°F). Once acceleratedly aged testing is completed, Arrhenius …

Confirmation Of Data-Driven Reservoir Modeling Using Numerical Reservoir Simulation, Al Hasan Mohamed Al Haifi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Data driven reservoir modeling, also known as Top-Down Model (TDM), is an alternative to the traditional numerical reservoir simulation technique. Data driven reservoir modeling is a new technology that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to build full-field reservoir models using field measurements (data - facts) instead of mathematical formulations that represent our current understanding of the physics of the fluid flow through porous media. TDM combines all field measurements into a comprehensive reservoir model to predict the production from each well in a field with multiple wells.

There are many opinions, speculations and criticism about not using the physics-based …

Field Performance And Rating Evaluation Of A Modular Press-Brake-Formed Steel Tub Girder With A Steel Sandwich Plate Deck, Nicole Marie Hegele Underwood

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The Short Span Steel Bridge Alliance (SSSBA) is a group of bridge and culvert industry leaders (including steel manufacturers, fabricators, service centers, coaters, researchers, and representatives of related associations and government organizations) who have joined together to provide educational information on the design and construction of short span steel bridges in installations up to 140 feet in length. The SSSBA technical working group has developed a shallow press-brake-formed tub girder, a trapezoidal cold bent girder, to address the demand in the short span steel bridge market for rapid infrastructure replacement solutions.

Following extensive experimental testing and design work at West …

Numerical Modeling Of Hydraulic Fracture Propagation And Comparison With Microseismic Data At A Field Site, Carter Lawrence Hulcher

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

A hydraulic fracturing site in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA was selected to be a research site for the Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory (MSEEL) project which was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The overall objective of the MSEEL research project is to evaluate and improve technologies to enhance shale gas recovery with minimal impacts on the environment. The field site has two previously drilled wells and two newly drilled wells for extracting natural gas. A separate exploratory well (or “science well”) was also drilled and includes a geophone array to extract important seismic/microseismic event information, which …

Low Power Voltage Reference Cells For Sensing Applications, Kody Ray Tucker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Two low-power voltage reference cells for a system on-chip design are presented in this report. Both cells utilize a combination of standard transistors to produce an output voltage near 1 volt. Choosing the appropriate design procedures can aid in minimizing the temperature coefficient (TC) of the output reference voltage coming out of the cell. One circuit, covered first, is currently being fabricated on a standard 0.5 µm chip complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process, while the other is still in the designing stage. The first one has a TC of 86 ppm/◦C with a reference voltage of 1.10 V while …

Low-Power Reconfigurable Sensing Circuitry For The Internet-Of-Things Paradigm, Alexander Dilello

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

With ubiquitous wireless communication via Wi-Fi and nascent 5th Generation mobile communications, more devices -- both smart and traditionally "dumb" -- will be interconnected than ever before. This burgeoning trend is referred to as the Internet-of-Things. These new sensing opportunities place a larger burden on the underlying circuitry that must operate on finite battery power and/or within energy-constrained environments. New developments of low-power reconfigurable analog sensing platforms like field-programmable analog arrays (FPAAs) present an attractive sensing solution by processing data in the analog domain while staying flexible in design. This work addresses some of the contemporary challenges of low-power wireless …

The Impact Of Permeability Heterogeneity On Liquid Recovery From Gas Condensate Reservoir, Bashayer Alsanea

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In gas condensate reservoirs, when reservoir pressure drops below dew point pressure as production takes place at the surface, hydrocarbon liquids begin to form. The volume of the liquid formed in the reservoir increases as the reservoir pressure declines below dew point pressure. In most gas condensate reservoirs, the liquid saturation in the formation does not reach to the critical level for liquid flow to occur. Therefore, the liquid formed as result of the pressure decline becomes trapped in the formation. The formation of the liquid in the reservoir causes the produced gas composition to change continuously leading to lower …

Lignocellulosic Biomass Derived Activated Carbon For Energy Storage And Adsorption, Changle Jiang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Lignocellulosic biomass has been converted to hierarchical porous carbon materials which possess macro-, meso- and micro-pores. The natural structure of porous lignocellulosic structure was preserved during activation with further developed porosity by the activation. The activated carbon can be well applied to electrochemical double layer capacitor for transportation storage of ions as well as adsorbent materials for metal ion removal from wastewater.

The first chapter of this dissertation presents an introduction of biomass derived carbon and its applications. In the second chapter, both direct and indirect activation methods using carbon dioxide were adopted in this study. The results show that …

Design And Implementation Of Overcurrent Protection Relays Test Bench, Khalid Daud Khattak

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The electrical power simulator in Engineering Sciences Building (ESB) at WVU was dismantled in July 2018. The simulator was used as a teaching tool for EE students to conduct lab experiments. The power simulator employed electromechanical and microprocessor protection relays, manual isolation and industrial circuit breakers, switches, variable autotransformer (VARIAC), voltmeters and ammeters. During the dismantling, a lot of equipment was retrieved for future possible use. This led to the idea of designing and implementing a simple circuit on a test bench that can be used as a lab equipment to demonstrate the operation of overcurrent protection relays. It was …