Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Thermally (Un-) Stratified Wind Plants: Stochastic And Data-Driven Reduced Order Descriptions/Modeling, Naseem Kamil Ali

Dissertations and Theses

Wind energy is one of the significant sources of renewable energy, yet a number of challenges preclude optimal operation of wind plants. Research is warranted in order to minimize the power losses and improve the productivity of wind plants. Here, a framework combining turbulence theory and data mining techniques is built to elucidate physics and mechanisms driving the energy extraction of the wind plants under a number of atmospheric/operating conditions. The performance of wind turbines is subjected to adverse effects caused by wake interactions. Therefore, it is crucial to understand wake-to-wake interactions as well as wake-to-atmospheric boundary layer interactions. Experimental …

Ozone-Surface Exchange And Transport And Transformation Near Ventilation Air Supply, Pradeep Ramasubramanian

Dissertations and Theses

Ozone in indoor environments can pose a health risk to human occupants; around half of exposure to this pollutant occurs inside buildings. One approach to reducing indoor O₃ levels is to mitigate O₃ as it enters a building via outdoor air ventilation supply. Often, mechanical systems that introduce outdoor air into buildings are placed on building rooftops. At the urban scale, greenery has been shown to reduce levels of some harmful pollutants, including ozone and cities like Portland, OR, are mandating green roofs be built on large commercial buildings to increase urban green surfaces. We investigate if rooftop …

Chemo-Thermo Cure Of Viscoelastic Materials For Semiconductor Packaging Applications, Anjali Pradeep Kumar

Dissertations and Theses

Viscoelastic polymer materials are being actively considered as a novel material for semiconductor packaging applications as a result of their ability to develop strong adhesive bonds at lower temperatures. Viscoelastic thermoset materials are impacted by the stresses generated during the curing process, which is also accompanied by a dissipation of thermal energy. There is a need to develop a generic modeling formulation that is applicable to any material of interest in order to enable the study of different bonding materials and develop optimized curing cycles. This study reports a numerical formulation to evaluate the stress generated and energy dissipated during …

Reliability Of Solder Joints In Embedded Packages Using Finite Element Methods, Valeri Aisha Yunusa

Dissertations and Theses

Solder joints serve as both mechanical and electrical connections between elements in a package. They are subjected to shear strains generated as a result of the different behaviors of the elements in the package (tension and compression) due to the differences in coefficients of thermal expansion during service conditions.

Some of the causes of solder joint failures are due to the following:

Vibration: small rapid displacements of parts of the assembly. This is not necessarily an issue with electronic components but larger parts like automobiles.

Humidity: the package being exposed to water or ionic species can undergo corrosion if an …

Emulating Balance Control Observed In Human Test Subjects With A Neural Network, Wade William Hilts

Dissertations and Theses

Human balance control is a complex feedback system that must be adaptable and robust in an infinitely varying external environment. It is probable that there are many concurrent control loops occurring in the central nervous system that achieve stability for a variety of postural perturbations. Though many engineering models of human balance control have been tested, no models of how these controllers might operate within the nervous system have yet been developed. We have focused on building a model of a proprioceptive feedback loop with simulated neurons. The proprioceptive referenced portion of human balance control has been successfully modeled by …

Biomimetic Design And Construction Of A Bipedal Walking Robot, Alexander Gabriel Steele

Dissertations and Theses

Human balance and locomotion control is highly complex and not well understood. To understand how the nervous system controls balance and locomotion works, we test how the body responds to controlled perturbations, the results are analyzed, and control models are developed. However, to recreate this system of control there is a need for a robot with human-like kinematics. Unfortunately, such a robotic testbed does not exist despite the numerous applications such a design would have in mobile robotics, healthcare, and prosthetics.

This thesis presents a robotic testbed model of human lower legs. By using MRI and CT scans, I designed …

Wind Energy And Wind-Energy-Inspired Turbulent Wakes: Modulation Of Structures, Mechanisms And Flow Regimes, Elizabeth H. Camp

Dissertations and Theses

The interaction of turbulent wakes with one another and with the adjacent fluid directly impacts the generation of electricity in wind turbine arrays. Computational modeling is well suited to the repeated iterations of data generation that may be required to inform understanding of the function of wind farms as well as to develop control schemes for plant function. In order to perform such computational studies, a simplified model of the turbine must be implemented. One of the most computationally efficient parametrizations of the blade utilizes a stationary disk which has a prescribed drag and produces a wake. However, since accurate …

Design Optimization For A Cnc Machine, Alin Resiga

Dissertations and Theses

Minimizing cost and optimization of nonlinear problems are important for industries in order to be competitive. The need of optimization strategies provides significant benefits for companies when providing quotes for products. Accurate and easily attained estimates allow for less waste, tighter tolerances, and better productivity. The Nelder-Mead Simplex method with exterior penalty functions was employed to solve optimum machining parameters. Two case studies were presented for optimizing cost and time for a multiple tools scenario. In this study, the optimum machining parameters for milling operations were investigated. Cutting speed and feed rate are considered as the most impactful design variables …

Relationship Between Anisotropy And Dispersive Stress In Wind Plants With Variable Spacing, Tamara S. Dib

Dissertations and Theses

Large eddy simulations are considered for wind plants with varied spanwise and streamwise spacing. Data from five different configurations of staggered and aligned LES wind turbine arrays with a neutrally stratified atmospheric boundary layer are employed for analysis. Fields are analyzed by evaluating the anisotropy stress invariants based on the Reynolds shear stresses and dispersive stress tensor. The relationship between quantities are drawn as a function of the wind plant packing. Reynolds stresses and dispersive stresses are investigated alongside a domain altered version of the second and third scalar invariants, ξ, η, as well as the combination of the …

Stress Analysis Of Embedded Devices Under Thermal Cycling, Sadhana Radhakrishnan

Dissertations and Theses

Embedded active and passive devices has been increasingly used by in order to integrate more functions inside the same or smaller size device and to meet the need for better electrical performance of the component assemblies.

Solder joints have been used in the electronic industry as both structural and electrical interconnections between electronic packages and printed circuit boards (PCB). When solder joints are under thermal cyclic loading, mismatch in coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) between the printed circuit boards and the solder balls creates thermal strains and stresses on the joints, which may finally result in cracking. Consequently, the mechanical …

Developing A 3d In Vitro Model By Microfluidics, Hung-Ta Chien

Dissertations and Theses

In vitro tissue models play an important role in providing a platform that mimics the realistic tissue microenvironment for stimulating and characterizing the cellular behavior. In particular, the hydrogel-based 3D in vitro models allow the cells to grow and interact with their surroundings in all directions, thus better mimicking in vivo than their 2D counterparts. The objective of this thesis is to establish a 3D in vitro model that mimics the anatomical and functional complexity of the realistic cancer microenvironment for conveniently studying the transport coupling in porous tissue structures. We pack uniform-sized PEGDA-GelMA microgels in a microfluidic chip to …

Smart Prismatic Louver Technology For Enhanced Daylighting And Management Of Thermal Loads In Green Buildings, Michael Alva

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract

Two significant design strategies for mitigating building energy consumption are daylight redirection and solar energy harvesting. Good daylighting implementation enhances the amount of useful natural light within a space, thereby offsetting the need for electric lighting. Solar energy harvesting systems can mitigate energy costs from mechanical systems by managing incoming thermal loads or capturing solar energy that can be used to supplement thermal systems in the building. While there are many available façade-based technologies that can perform daylighting or solar thermal energy harvesting, there remains a limitation in available systems that can perform both simultaneously. The proposed Liquid Filled …