Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Application Of Surface Treatments To Improve Fuel Efficiency Of Internal Combustion Engines, Amirabbas Akbarzadeh

LSU Master's Theses

To improve the tribological performance of contacting surfaces, different surface modification methods can be employed. Surface texturing and surface coating are examples of viable techniques developed for this purpose. Surface texturing involves creating micropatterns on the contacting surfaces while surface coating requires depositing a thin layer of a suitable material on the surface(s) to improve the component’s friction and wear characteristics. The performance of textured surfaces is affected by the geometric characteristic of textures.When dealing with surface coating parameters, the parameters of interests are the type of coating materials and their thicknesses.

The current study aims to experimentally study the …

Optimization Of The Hot Embossing Parameters And Sintering Characterization For Alumina/Berea Sandstone Sintering, Justin F. Robbins

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to investigate the process of hot embossing on alumina based ceramics as a cost-efficient procedure for manufacturing microfluidic testing components. Alumina ceramics were used as an exploratory phase for the final objective of the project, manufacturing of Berea sandstone based ceramic samples. Previous research has shown potential in using hot embossing on Alumina based ceramics; however, complications with extrusion and micro-structure quality were observed. For this reason, the research performed aimed to produce Berea Sandstone based components by first improving upon the embossing quality of alumina ceramics.

The thesis first investigates changes in the …

Novel Design Of Nanostructured Material For Advanced Energy Conversion And Storage Devices, Wangwang Xu

LSU Master's Theses

Nowadays, the fast-increasing energy demand for efficient, sustainable and environmentally-friendly energy storage devices remains a significant and challenging issue. Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) have been widely used as commercial energy devices in portable electronics and also shown great promise in upcoming large scale applications due to their advantages of environmental safety, efficiency in energy delivering and light weight. However, due to their limited capacity, energy densities and cycle ability, LIBs still need further improvement to expand their applications to a larger field, especially electric vehicle (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), in which energy storage devices with large capacity and …

Heat And Mass Transfer In A Cylindrical Heat Pipe With Idealized Porous Lining, Pramesh Regmi

LSU Master's Theses

Many devices use heat pipes for cooling. They can be of different cross-sectional shapes and can range from 15 m long to 10 mm. In this work, the heat and mass transfer in a cylindrical heat pipe is modelled. The heat pipe is lined with a wick next to the wall. The wick consists of straight capillaries that run the whole length of the pipe and radially aligned capillaries that span the width of the wick. The capillaries are filled with a partially wetting liquid, and the center of the pipe is filled with its vapor. The radial capillaries are …

Development Of Laboratory Scale Conical Spouted Bed Reactors, James Blake Gegenheimer

LSU Master's Theses

Conical spouted beds (CSBs) are a form of a fluidized bed that is characteristic of its spouting behaviors. The conical spouted bed has a small inlet that diverges through a conical section towards a larger fixed-diameter column which is filled with static spouting media. By injecting a fluid at a sufficient velocity, a small spout will form in which the spouting media will become entrained by the fluid particles and carried to the top of the system where it will circulate back into the system. It has been shown that CSB reactors have the potential for increasing the heat circulation …

Novel Design And Synthesis Of Nanostructured Electrode Materials For Advanced Lithium Ion Batteries, Zhiqiang Xie

LSU Master's Theses

Nowadays, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been widely used as energy storage devices for portable electronic devices. The increasing demand for their emerging applications in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) requires us to develop LIBs with higher energy density and power density. However, both the commercial cathode material (LiCoO2) and anode material (graphite) exhibit low specific capacity and poor rate capability, which severely hinder the practical application of lithium-ion batteries for transportation. This thesis mainly includes four research works on novel design and synthesis of nanostructured electrode materials for advanced lithium-ion batteries. To improve the electrochemical performances …