Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Energy Resources Use Metrics, Rahul Y. Nehete

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

Energy resources use has been considered as a key component of sustainable development. Data related to global, regional, state, sector, industry and process demonstrate that a significant reduction of energy resources for a given production rate in manufacturing processes requires an introduction of transformational technologies at the process level, propagating the impact to higher scales, leading not just to a gradual improvement of traditional technologies but to more sustainable development.

The study offers two approaches to the formulation of the limits of energy use in the context of sustainable development. The first is to construct a map of key selected …

Flow Visualization Of Buoyant Instability In A Cross-Flow: An Implication For Flame Spread Over Forest Fuel Beds, Nikolay Gustenyov

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

This thesis reports small-scale laboratory experiments designed to visualize the flow over a heated plate. A low-speed wind tunnel was built, and a heating plate was flush mounted on the wind tunnel floor to provide a uniform heat flux over its surface. A paper thin cloth soaked with commercially available Vaseline was placed on top of the heating plate to produce thick smoke streaks that were carried downstream by a horizontal airflow. Both LED light and a laser sheet of approximately 30-degrees open angle were separately used to illuminate this flow, the latter advanced downstream with 1-cm interval from the …

Kinetics Of Molten Metal Capillary Flow In Non-Reactive And Reactive Systems, Hai Fu

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

Wetting and spreading of liquid systems on solid substrates under transient conditions, driven by surface tension and viscous forces along with the interface interactions (e.g., a substrate dissolution or diffusion and/or chemical reaction) is a complex problem, still waiting to be fully understood. In this study we have performed an extensive experimental investigation of liquid aluminum alloy spreading over aluminum substrate along with corroboration with theoretical modeling, performed in separate but coordinate study. Wetting and spreading to be considered take place during a transient formation of the free liquid surface in both sessile drop and wedge-tee mating surfaces’ configurations. The …

Comparisons Of Ablator Experimental Performance To Response Modeling And Effects Of Water Phase Transition In Porous Tps Materials, David L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

The Mars Science Laboratory Entry Descent and Landing Instrumentation (MEDLI) project performed extensive arc jet tests for development, qualification, and calibration of instrumented heat shield plugs. These plugs each contained several thermocouples for recording near-surface and in-depth temperature response of the Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) heat shield. The arc jet test results are entered into a comprehensive database so that broad trends across the test series can be compared. One method of analysis is to compare with ablator material response calculations and solve the in-depth heat conduction equations. Using the near-surface thermocouple measurements as a boundary condition in numerical …