Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

2d Temperature Map Acquisition Using Hyperspectral Imaging System (Hsis), Anthony Kim

Masters Theses

Imaging techniques are close to our lives and are used for various applications. In the engineering field, one of the dominant techniques is hyperspectral imaging. It is a necessary tool that combines spectroscopy and digital photography and provides additional information on what is imaged by the imaging system. Hyperspectral imaging has been applied to various fields including remote sensing, cultural relic conservation, food microbiology, forensic science, biomedicine, etc.

In particular, work was done to apply hyperspectral imaging to measure the temperature and emissivity of an object. Due to its ability to measure temperature and emissivity without being in contact with …

Fungi In Flux | Designing Regenerative Materials And Products With Mycelium, Arvind Bhallamudi

Masters Theses

As the world grapples with the escalating crisis of climate threats and environmental degradation, this research delves into the synergistic potential of design and biology, developing safe and sustainable materials for applications in prototyping, furniture and interior design. Harnessing the power of a unique organism - fungi, the study proposes an accessible, efficient, and resilient material resource system. It utilizes local waste streams and mycelium (the vegetative part of fungi) to grow functional structures. An experimental and small-scale protocol is modeled by testing bio-fabrication and bio-printing methods. The composites' performance qualities and characteristics are evaluated through mechanical testing and a …

Controlled Switching In Kalman Filtering And Iterative Learning Controls, He Li

Masters Theses

“Switching is not an uncommon phenomenon in practical systems and processes, for examples, power switches opening and closing, transmissions lifting from low gear to high gear, and air planes crossing different layers in air. Switching can be a disaster to a system since frequent switching between two asymptotically stable subsystems may result in unstable dynamics. On the contrary, switching can be a benefit to a system since controlled switching is sometimes imposed by the designers to achieve desired performance. This encourages the study of system dynamics and performance when undesired switching occurs or controlled switching is imposed. In this research, …

Numerical Modeling Of Capillary-Driven Flow In Open Microchannels: An Implication Of Optimized Wicking Fabric Design, Mehrad Gholizadeh Ansari

Masters Theses

"The use of microfluidics to transfer fluids without applying any exterior energy source is a promising technology in different fields of science and engineering due to their compactness, simplicity and cost-effective design. In geotechnical engineering, to increase the soil's strength, hydrophilic wicking fibers as type of microfluidics have been employed to transport and drain water out of soil spontaneously by taking advantage of natural capillary force without using any pumps or other auxiliary devices. The objective of this study is to understand the scientific mechanisms of the capability for wicking fiber to drain both gravity and capillary water out of …

Multiscale Approaches Toward Advanced Lithium-Ion Battery: From Nano To Meso Scale, Susmita Sarkar

Masters Theses

“Battery performance and its degradation are determined by various aspects such as the transport of ions and electrons through heterogeneous internal structures composed of constituent particles, kinetic reactions at the interfaces, and a corresponding interplay between mechanical, chemical, and thermal responses. Further, modern battery materials require a variety of engineering processes such as coating, doping and mixing. As a result, in order to fully understand the behavior of the battery material and improve battery performance, it is necessary to understand and control the individual particle behavior and then connect it to the electrode. This study elucidated the physical phenomena associated …

Smart Augmented Reality Instructional System For Mechanical Assembly, Ze-Hao Lai

Masters Theses

"Quality and efficiency are pivotal indicators of a manufacturing company. Many companies are suffering from shortage of experienced workers across the production line to perform complex assembly tasks such as assembly of an aircraft engine. This could lead to a significant financial loss. In order to further reduce time and error in an assembly, a smart system consisting of multi-modal Augmented Reality (AR) instructions with the support of a deep learning network for tool detection is introduced. The multi-modal smart AR is designed to provide on-site information including various visual renderings with a fine-tuned Region-based Convolutional Neural Network, which is …

Development, Analysis, And Optimization Of A Swirl-Promoting Mean Flow Solution For Solid Rocket Motors, Andrew Steven Fist

Masters Theses

This work demonstrates and analyses a new flow candidate for describing the internal gaseous motion in simulated rocket motors. The fundamental features of this solution include the conservation of key system properties also incorporated in the classic Taylor-Culick (TC) system (i.e. inviscid, axisymmetric, steady and rotational properties), while allowing for the development of a swirling velocity component. The work compares the new solution to the development and formulation of the classic TC system, ultimately identifying that both the new and classic solutions are special cases of the Bragg-Hawthorne equation. Following this development, the text then explores the development of energy-optimized …

Improving Ventricular Catheter Design Through Computational Fluid Dynamics, Sofy Hefets Weisenberg

Masters Theses

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunts are fully implantable medical devices that are used to treat patients suffering from conditions characterized by elevated intracranial pressure, such as hydrocephalus. In cases of shunt failure or malfunction, patients are often required to endure one or more revision surgeries to replace all or part of the shunt. One of the primary causes of CSF shunt failure is obstruction of the ventricular catheter, a component of the shunt system implanted directly into the brain's ventricular system. This work aims to improve the design of ventricular catheters in order to reduce the incidence of catheter obstruction and …

Composite Model Representation For Computer Aided Design Of Functionally Gradient Materials, Fangquan Wang

Masters Theses

"Functionally Gradient Materials (FGMs) feature smooth transition from one material to another within a single object. FGMs modeling is considered to be one of the new challenges in Computer Aided Design (CAD) area. To overcome this challenge, this thesis presents a composite approach to model FGMs. The input in STL format can be meshed and voxelized in FGMs modeling system. The material composition in each voxel can be generated from multiple different types of control features. And LTI filters including Gaussian Filter and Average Filter are applied to blur default material features in order to generate FGMs inside models. The …

Numerical Analysis Of Flexural Slip During Viscoelastic Buckle Folding, Davi Rodrigues Damasceno

Masters Theses

"Flexural slip is considered to be an important folding mechanism contributing in the development of different folds such as chevron, and kink-band buckle folds. Various filed studies have provided a general conceptual and qualitative understanding of flexural slip. However, quantitative evidence of the importance of the flexural slip mechanism during fold evolution is sparse, as the actual amount of surface parallel displacement, and timing, is difficult to measure accurately, due to the lack of suitable strain markers.

In this study 2D finite element analysis is used to overcome these disadvantages and to simulate flexural slip during viscoelastic buckle folding. Variations …

A Linear Matrix Inequality-Based Approach For The Computation Of Actuator Bandwidth Limits In Adaptive Control, Daniel Robert Wagner

Masters Theses

"Linear matrix inequalities and convex optimization techniques have become popular tools to solve nontrivial problems in the field of adaptive control. Specifically, the stability of adaptive control laws in the presence of actuator dynamics remains as an important open control problem. In this thesis, we present a linear matrix inequalities-based hedging approach and evaluate it for model reference adaptive control of an uncertain dynamical system in the presence of actuator dynamics. The ideal reference dynamics are modified such that the hedging approach allows the correct adaptation without being hindered by the presence of actuator dynamics. The hedging approach is first …

Phase Dynamics Of Locset Control Methodology, Brendan Neschke

Masters Theses

Single-mode fiber amplifiers produce diffraction-limited beams very efficiently. Maximum beam intensity requires that an array of these amplifiers have their beams coherently combined at the target. Optical path differences and noise adversely affect beam quality. An existing closed loop phase control methodology, called the locking of optical coherence by single-detector electronic-frequency tagging (LOCSET), corrects phase errors in real time by electronically detecting path length differences and sending signals to lithium niobate phase adjusters. Broadening the line-width using “jitter” of the input signal can increase the output power of an individual amplifier by suppressing nonlinearity. The system dynamics of LOCSET are …

Generation And Validation Of Optimal Topologies For Solid Freeform Fabrication, Purnajyoti Bhaumik

Masters Theses

"The study of fabricating topologically optimized parts is presented hereafter. The mapping of topology optimization results for Standard Tessellation Language (STL) writing would enable the solid freeform fabrication of lightweight mechanisms. Aerospace leaders such as NASA, Boeing, Airbus, European Aeronautic Defense And Space Company (EADS), and GE Aero invest in topology optimization research for the production of lightweight materials. Certain concepts such as microstructural homogenization, discretization, and mapping are reviewed and presented in the context of topology optimization. Future biomedical applications of solid freeform fabrication such as organ printing stand to save millions of lives through the robust development of …

Design And Model Of The Frame For Hagrid (Hybrid Array Of Gamma Ray Detectors), Santiago Munoz

Masters Theses

Transfer reactions in inverse kinematics have provided critical information in the study of exotic nuclei. However, transfer reactions with charged particles suffer from poor resolution. The measurement of gamma-rays offers several advantages: they provide not only good resolution in measurements but also other information about the nuclei like lifetimes of unstable states. The combination of these two methods would be the ideal situation to gather information about nuclear structure.

HAGRiD, which stands for The Hybrid Array of Gamma Ray Detectors, is a LaBr3(Ce) [lanthanum bromide crystal with a cerium activator] scintillation array to measure gamma rays from transfer reactions and …

Validation Of Weak Form Thermal Analysis Algorithms Supporting Thermal Signature Generation, Elton Lewis Freeman

Masters Theses

Extremization of a weak form for the continuum energy conservation principle differential equation naturally implements fluid convection and radiation as flux Robin boundary conditions associated with unsteady heat transfer. Combining a spatial semi-discretization via finite element trial space basis functions with time-accurate integration generates a totally node-based algebraic statement for computing. Closure for gray body radiation is a newly derived node-based radiosity formulation generating piecewise discontinuous solutions, while that for natural-forced-mixed convection heat transfer is extracted from the literature. Algorithm performance, mathematically predicted by asymptotic convergence theory, is subsequently validated with data obtained in 24 hour diurnal field experiments for …

Elastic And Magnetic Properties Of Tb6fe(Sb,Bi)2 Using Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy., David Michael Mccarthy

Masters Theses

Tb6FeSb2 and Tb6FeBi2 are novel rare earth compounds with little prior research. These compounds show high and variable curie temperatures for rare-earth compounds. This has lead to a literature review which includes the discussion of: elasticity, resonance, and magnetism. This review is used to discuss the theory and methodology which can relate these various properties to each other. Furthermore, synthesis, x-ray analysis, and RUS sample preparation of Tb6FeSb2 and Tb6FeBi2 were completed.

Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS) elastic studies were taken for Tb6FeSb2 and Tb6FeBi2 as a function temperature from 5-300K, in various magnetic fields ranging from 0-9T. Tb6FeSb2’s and Tb6FeBi2’s …

Theoretical Thermodynamic Properties Of Low Temperature Fluids, Zul Azhar Zahid Jamal

Masters Theses

The thermodynamic functions for low temperature fluids are computed using parametric integral equations and perturbation theory. Parametric integral equation N is applied to a low temperature Lennard-Jones gas. It is found that there is no significant improvement over the better known parametric integral equation C. The two parameter integral equation T is applied to a low temperature square-well potential and is found to be unsatisfactory at reduced temperatures of T*= 1.4 and 1.6, but quite accurate at T* = 2.2. The equation T results for T* = 2.2 are used as the reference system in perturbation theory computations. Tables of …

Development Of An Integrated Program Of Water Reuse In A Pulp And Paper Mill, Zafar M. Chaudhri

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.