Mechanics of Materials Commons^™

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Sulfonated Styrene Grafted Sebs/Abs Made By Additive Manufacturing For Ion Exchange Applications, Avianna Elaine Gallegos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

An interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) for cation exchange applications was synthesized from a blend of styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene (SEBS) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which was 3D printed, grafted with crosslinked polystyrene (PS), and sulfonated. A method for styrene grafting was applied to reduce the damage to polymer phases caused by the sulfonation reaction. Styrene and divinylbenzene monomers were introduced to the IPN and induced with heat treatment to polymerize in situ. The graft copolymerization reaction was enhanced with varying quantities of benzoyl peroxide as a chemical initiator. The samples were subsequently sulfonated with chlorosulfonic acid in dichloroethane and functionalized for ion …

Preventing Transmission Of Covid 19 In Hvac Duct Systems: Implementations Of Hvac System Design Upgrade, Jacob S. Lopez, Adama Barro

Publications and Research

The recent pandemic outbreak has triggered a global alarm to increase efforts on finding the best methods to mitigate contagious viral pathogens. This project is a continuation of our mission to study engineering guidelines needed to implement upgrades to HVAC Systems in order to deter airborne pathogens such as the covid-19 virus. In our previous projects we researched how covid-19 can possibly flow through the ambient air inside of restaurants, office spaces, and locomotive train cabins. As we continued our research, we were able to find some solutions that will be best used to deactivate and prevent the virus from …

A Novel Self-Healing System: Towards A Sustainable Porous Asphalt, Shi Xu, Xueyan Liu, Amir Tabakovic, Erik Schlangen

Articles

Self-healing asphalt, aimed to produce a sustainable asphalt pavement using green technology, has been studied in the past two decades. Technologies including encapsulated rejuvenator and induction heating have been proposed, demonstrated in the laboratory, and gradually evaluated in field application. This paper looks into the synergy effect of the above two technologies, where induction heating serves as the asphalt damage repair mechanism, requiring just 2 min heating time and encapsulated rejuvenator will replenish (rejuvenate) aged asphalt binder and reinstate bitumen’s healing ability. Moreover, the increased temperature from induction heating could in turn accelerate the diffusion process of rejuvenator into aged …

Synthesis Of Crumpled Graphene And Titanium Dioxide Based–Nanomaterials And The Application To Carbon Dioxide Photoreduction, Yao Nie

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

With the rapid development of the economy, increasing combustion of fossils fuels has caused an increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) level, and has led to global climate change. As a mitigation approach, CO2 capture and conversion (CCC) can not only capture CO2, but also convert it to useable products, such as hydrocarbon fuels. Photocatalytic reduction is an attractive CCC option that directly harnesses inexpensive and abundant solar energy. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a widely used semiconductor for photocatalysis, and graphene nanosheets are a promising material for use in fabricating graphene-TiO2 hybridized photocatalysts. To realize the application of these …

Integrated Solar Technologies With Outdoor Pedestrian Bridge Superstructure Decking, Richard K. Racz

Masters Theses

Solar technology has been a major topic in sustainable design for many years. In the last five years, however, the solar technology industry has seen a rapid growth in installations and technological advances in cell design. Combined with a rapidly declining overall system cost, the idea of introducing solar technology into a wider range of applications is becoming a focus for engineers and scientists around the world. So many variables which alter solar energy production, such as the sun and surrounding environment, determine whether a solar design is beneficial. This thesis presents a bridge deck surface integrated with solar cells …

Novel Engineered Nanomaterials For Water Remediation And Gas Adsorption: Graphene Oxide And Carbon Nanotubes Decorated With Metal-Organic Frameworks And Magnetic Nanoparticles, Vahid Jabbari

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the current study, a series of novel magnetic and non-magnetic hybrid nanocomposites based on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) of M3(BTC)2 (M: Ni, Cu, Zn, and Cd), graphene oxide (GrO), and carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were developed via a green, simple and versatile solvothermal method at which GrO and CNT were used as platform to grow the MOFs and Fe3O4 MNPs over them. The as-synthesized nanocomposites were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, IR, Raman, TGA, and N2 adsorption/desorption isotherms. Morphological analysis confirmed successful growth of nano-size Fe3O4 MNPs and M3(BTC)2 MOFs over GrO and CNT platforms. …

Surface Gas Permeability Of Porous Building Materials: Measurement, Analysis And Applications, David Klein Weibust Grover

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In many events affecting our civil infrastructure, such as contamination or weathering, it is likely that only the surfaces of the affected building materials will be available for non-destructive measurements. In this work, we describe and analyze surface gas permeability measurements on a variety of natural and engineered building materials using two types of relatively new, non-destructive surface permeameters. It is shown that the surface gas permeability measurements correlate well with each other and could provide rapid estimates of macroscopic gas permeability and degradation of materials due to weathering. It is hypothesized that surface permeability can be used to predict …

Compression Testing And Failure Modes Of Steel-Concrete Composite (Sc) Structures For Nuclear Containment, Patrick Michael Wanamaker, Amit H. Varma

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Although being able to provide much cleaner power than burning coal and other fossil fuels, nuclear power plants are still a tough sell to the general public due to their history of being spontaneously dangerous. The containment structures surrounding these nuclear plants, however, can play a huge role in reducing the risks associated with them. Relatively new designs for these containment assemblies, known as SC (steel-concrete composite) structures, aim to increase the strength and durability of the containment facilities while keeping costs down. By varying the spacing between shear studs, the ratio of concrete to steel, and the ratio of …

Experimental Study On The Fabrication Of Advanced Materials For Energy Applications Using High Energy Mechanical Milling, Ashvin Kumar Narayana Swamy

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The reaction of aluminum (Al) powder with water has the potential for on demand hydrogen generation. Conventional Al powders, however, react with water slowly due to a highly protective oxide layer on the particle surface. Current methods for Al activation involve harmful and expensive materials. The nano-scale Al powders also remain very expensive and have problems such as a large amount of oxide on the surface. The use of aluminum in an energy generation cycle is also hindered by the fact that, although Al is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, its recovery from ore consumes a lot …

Controlled Environment Broiler Houses In Western Australia, D F. Hessels

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

The three main features which contribute to the better returns from controlled environment broiler housing are higher density, better conversion and a reduction in labour.

The higher initial cost of housing and higher running costs are more than covered by these three advantages.