Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Implications Of Electric Vehicles On Gasoline Tax Revenues, Florida Solar Energy Center, Kevin Schleith

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This report summarizes the results of research conducted to determine if current and near future EV sales will have an impact on gasoline (gas) tax revenues as part of the Federal Highway Trust Fund (HTF). Gasoline taxes account for $31.1 billion or about 87% of the HTF. The project results were accomplished through a review of existing industry and government reports that detail fuel tax revenues and through analysis of EV sales from 2010 to 2015.

Direct Numerical Simulation Of Cylindrical Particle-Laden Gravity Currents, ‪Nadim Zgheib, Thomas Bonometti, S. Balachandar

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present results from direct numerical simulations (DNS) of cylindrical particle-laden gravity currents. We consider the case of a full depth release with monodisperse particles at a dilute concentration where particle–particle interactions may be neglected. The disperse phase is treated as a continuum and a two-fluid formulation is adopted. We present results from two simulations at Reynolds numbers of 3450 and 10,000. Our results are in good agreement with previously reported experiments and theoretical models. At early times in the simulations, we observe a set of rolled up vortices that advance at varying speeds. These Kelvin–Helmholtz (K–H) vortex tubes are …

Mechanical Engineering News, Georgia Southern University

Mechanical Engineering News (2013-2023)

• Georgia Southern Research Focus Prompts R2 Carnegie Designation

Mapping Chemical Selection Pathways For Designing Multicomponent Alloys: An Informatics Framework For Materials Design, Srinkant Srinivasan, Scott R. Broderick, Ruifeng Zhang, Amrita Mishra, Susan B. Sinnott, Surendra Saxena, James M. Lebeau, Krishna Rajan

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering

A data driven methodology is developed for tracking the collective influence of the multiple attributes of alloying elements on both thermodynamic and mechanical properties of metal alloys. Cobalt-based superalloys are used as a template to demonstrate the approach. By mapping the high dimensional nature of the systematics of elemental data embedded in the periodic table into the form of a network graph, one can guide targeted first principles calculations that identify the influence of specific elements on phase stability, crystal structure and elastic properties. This provides a fundamentally new means to rapidly identify new stable alloy chemistries with enhanced high …

Turning An Organic Semiconductor Into A Low-Resistance Material By Ion Implantation, Beatrice Fraboni, Alessandra Scidà, Piero Cosseddu, Yongqiang Wang, Michael Nastasi, Silvia Milita, Annalisa Bonfiglio

Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research: Publications

We report on the effects of low energy ion implantation on thin films of pentacene, carried out to investigate the efficacy of this process in the fabrication of organic electronic devices. Two different ions, Ne and N, have been implanted and compared, to assess the effects of different reactivity within the hydrocarbon matrix. Strong modification of the electrical conductivity, stable in time, is observed following ion implantation. This effect is significantly larger for N implants (up to six orders of magnitude), which are shown to introduce stable charged species within the hydrocarbon matrix, not only damage as is the case …

A General-Purpose Multiphase/Multispecies Model To Predict The Spread, Percutaneous Hazard, And Contact Dynamics For Nonporous And Porous Substrates And Membranes, Homayun K. Navaz, Ali R. Zand, Amir Gat, Theresa S. Atkinson

Mechanical Engineering Publications

A computational model to solve the coupled transport equations with chemical reaction and phase change for a liquid sessile droplet or the contact and spread of a sessile droplet between two approaching porous or non-porous surfaces, is developed. The model is general therefore it can be applied to toxic chemicals (contact hazard), drug delivery through porous organs and membranes, combustion processes within porous material, and liquid movements in the ground. The equation of motion and the spread of the incompressible liquid available on the primary surface for transfer into the contacting surface while reacting with other chemicals (or water) and/or …

Electronic Musical Instrument To Generate Musical Tones To Imitate A Stringed Instrument, Mizuki Nakagawa, Ikuo Tanaka, Shun Takai

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Provided are an electronic musical instrument, computer storage device, and method for generating tone. A sound source in an electronic musical instrument generates a first tone at a first pitch in response to a first tone generation instruction received by an input device of the electronic musical instrument. A second tone generation instruction is received to generate a second tone at a second pitch while generating the first tone at the sound source. A determination is made of a pitch difference of the first and the second pitches. The sound source is controlled to generate the second tone and to …

Modeling And Simulation Of Micro Electrical Discharge Machining Process, Bai Shao

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Micro parts and systems are playing crucial roles in the area of semiconductor, biomedical device, micro fluid devices, automotive, aerospace and so forth. Micro manufacturing is one of the most important technologies in realizing miniaturization. Compared to other micro manufacturing methods, micro-EDM is drawing lots of attention due to its ability to machine complex 3D parts regardless of the hardness of the workpiece material.

Micro-EDM is the cumulative result of numerous single discharges; therefore, it is crucial to understand the single discharge material removal process in micro-EDM. However, due to the stochastic nature and complex process mechanism, micro-EDM, including its …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Fall 2015, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Comparative Estimates Of Anthropogenic Heat Emission In Relation To Surface Energy Balance Of A Subtropical Urban Neighborhood, Changhyoun Park, Gunnar W. Schade, Nicholas D. Werner, David J. Sailor, Cheolhee Kim

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Long-term eddy covariance measurements have been conducted in a subtropical urban area, an older neighborhood north of downtown Houston. The measured net radiation (Q*), sensible heat flux (H) and latent heat flux (LE) showed typical seasonal diurnal variations in urban areas: highest in summer; lowest in winter. From an analysis of a subset of the first two years of measurements, we find that approximately 42% of Q* is converted into H, and 22% into LE during daytime. The local anthropogenic heat emissions were estimated conventionally using the long-term residual method and the heat emission inventory approach. We also …

Could Application Of Column-Grid-Array (Cga) Technology Result In Inelastic-Strain-Free State-Of-Stress In Solder Material?, Ephraim Suhir, Reza Ghaffarian, Johann Nicolics

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Physically meaningful and easy-to-use analytical stress model is developed for a short cylinder (beam) clamped at the ends and subjected to bending caused by the ends offset. The offset is due, in its turn, to an external lateral force that has to be determined from the known offset. It is envisioned that such a beam can adequately represent the state of stress in a column-grid-array (CGA) solder joint interconnection experiencing thermal loading due to the thermal expansion/contraction mismatch of the IC package and the printed circuit board (PCB). The CGA designs are characterized by considerably higher stand-off heights than ball-grid-array …

Predicted Stresses In A Ball-Grid-Array (Bga)/Column-Grid-Array (Cga) Assembly With A Low Modulus Solder At Its Ends, Ephraim Suhir, Reza Ghaffarian

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A simple, easy-to-use and physically meaningful predictive model is suggested for the assessment of thermal stresses in a ball-grid-array or a column-grid-array with a low modulus solder material at the peripheral portions of the assembly. It is shown that the application of such a design can lead to a considerable relief in the interfacial stresses, even to an extent that inelastic strains in the solder joints could be avoided. If this happens, the fatigue strength of the bond and of the assembly as a whole will be improved dramatically: low-cycle fatigue conditions will be replaced by the elastic fatigue condition, …

A Proposed Integrated Data Collection, Analysis And Sharing Platform For Impact Evaluation, Andreas Kipt, Waylon Brunette, Jordon Kellerstrass, Matthew Podolsky, Javier Rosa, Mitchell Sundt, Daniel Wilson, Gaetano Borriello, Eric Brewer, Evan A. Thomas

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Global poverty reduction efforts value monitoring and evaluation, but often struggle to translate lessons learned from one intervention into practical application in another intervention. Commonly, data is not easily or often shared between interventions and summary data collected as part of an impact evaluation is often not available until after the intervention is complete. Equally limiting, the workflows that lead to research results are rarely published in a reproducible, reusable, and easy-to-understand fashion for others. Information and communication technologies widely used in commercial and government pro- grams are growing in relevance for international global development professionals and offer a potential …

Biomechanical Performances Of Networked Polyethylene Glycol Diacrylate: Effect Of Photoinitiator Concentration, Temperature, And Incubation Time, Morshed Khandaker, Albert Orock, Stefano Tarantini, Jeremiah White, Ozlem Yasar

Publications and Research

Nutrient conduit networks can be introduced within the Polyethylene Glycol Diacrylate (PEGDA) tissue construct to enable cells to survive in the scaffold. Nutrient conduit networks can be created on PEGDA by macrochannel to nanochannel fabrication techniques. Such networks can influence the mechanical and cell activities of PEGDA scaffold. There is no study conducted to evaluate the effect of nutrient conduit networks on the maximum tensile stress and cell activities of the tissue scaffold.The study aimed to explore the influence of the network architecture on the maximum tensile stress of PEGDA scaffold and compared with the nonnetworked PEGDA scaffold. Our study …

Comments On “The Principal Axes Decomposition Of Spatial Stiffness Matrices”, Shuguang Huang, Joseph M. Schimmels

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

A significant amount of research has been directed toward developing a more intuitive appreciation of spatial elastic behavior. Results of these analyses have been described in terms of behavior decompositions and in terms of behavior centers. In a recent paper entitled “The Principal Axes Decomposition of Spatial Stiffness Matrices” by Chen et al. (IEEE Trans. Robot., vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 191-207), a decomposition of spatial stiffness was presented, and centers of stiffness and compliance were identified. The results presented in the paper have substantial overlap with previously published results and redefine previously used terms. The objective of this communication …

Microstructure Alone Induced Wetting Transition From Hydrophilic To Hydrophobic On Silicon And Graphene, Henry L. Ems

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the present work, transition from hydrophilic to hydrophobic wetting states for an intrinsically hydrophilic surface (contact angle less than 45 degrees) using only surface microstructuring is presented. The surface microstructures are re-entrant microcavities (inverted trapezoidal microstructures) which promote air entrapment below the water droplet causing a Cassie wetting state as opposed to a Wenzel state where the surface is completely wetted. The microstructures were fabricated on a Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) wafer through steps of deposition, photolithography, etching, and bonding. Contact angle measurements demonstrated the ability of the microfabricated surfaces to sustain large contact angles above 100°, in comparison to a …

Effect Of Nano-Oxide Particle Size On Radiation Resistance Of Ironechromium Alloys, Weizong Xu, Lulu Li, James A. Valdez, Mostafa Saber, Yuntian Zhu, Carl C. Koch, Ronald O. Scattergood

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Radiation resistance of Fe-14Cr alloys under 200 keV He irradiation at 500 ­*C was systematically investigated with varying sizes of nano oxide Zr, Hf and Cr particles. It is found that these nano oxide particles acted as effective sites for He bubble formation. By statistically analyzing 700-1500 He bubbles at the depth of about 150-700 nm from a series of HRTEM images for each sample, we established the variation of average He bubble size, He bubble density, and swelling percentage along the depth, and found them to be consistent with the He concentration profile calculated from the SIRM program. Oxide …

Software-And Hardware-In-The-Loop Verification Of Flight Dynamics Model And Flight Control Simulation Of A Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Calvin Coopmans, Michal Podhradsk, Nathan V. Hoffer

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Unmanned aerial system (UAS) use is ever-increasing. In this paper, it is shown that even with low-cost hardware and open-source software, simple numerical testing practices (software- and hardware-in-the-loop) can prove the accuracy and usefulness of an aeronautical flight model, as well as provide valuable pre-flight testing of many situations typically only encountered in flight: high winds, hardware failure, etc. Software and hardware simulation results are compared with actual flight testing results to show that these modeling and testing techniques are accurate and provide a useful testing platform for a small unmanned aerial vehicle. Source code used in simulation is open …

Imaging Thermal Conductivity With Nanoscale Resolution Using A Scanning Spin Probe, Abdelghani Laraoui, Halley Aycock-Rizzo, Yang Gao, Xi Lu, Elisa Riedo, Carlos A. Meriles

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

The ability to probe nanoscale heat flow in a material is often limited by lack of spatial resolution. Here, we use a diamond-nanocrystal-hosted nitrogen-vacancy centre attached to the apex of a silicon thermal tip as a local temperature sensor. We apply an electrical current to heat up the tip and rely on the nitrogen vacancy to monitor the thermal changes the tip experiences as it is brought into contact with surfaces of varying thermal conductivity. By combining atomic force and confocal microscopy, we image phantom microstructures with nanoscale resolution, and attain excellent agreement between the thermal conductivity and topographic maps. …

Wideband Fluorescence-Based Thermometry By Neural Network Recognition: Photothermal Application With 10 Ns Time Resolution, Liwang Liu, Kuo Zhong, Troy Munro, Salvador Alvarado, Renaud Cote, Sebastiaan Creten, Eduard Fron, Heng Ban, Mark Van Der Auweraer, N. B. Roozen, Osamu Matsuda, Christ Glorieux

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Neural network recognition of features of the fluorescence spectrum of a thermosensitive probe is exploited in order to achieve fluorescence-based thermometry with an accuracy of 200 mK with 100 MHz bandwidth, and with high robustness against fluctuations of the probe laser intensity used. The concept is implemented on a rhodamine B dyed mixture of copper chloride and glycerol, and the temperature dependent fluorescence is investigated in the temperature range between 234 K and 311 K. The spatial dependence of the calibrated amplitude and phase of photothermally induced temperature oscillations along the axis of the excitation laser are determined at different …

Development Of A Two-Fluid Drag Law For Clustered Particles Using Direct Numerical Simulation And Validation Through Experiments, Ahmadreza Abbasi Baharanchi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focused on development and utilization of numerical and experimental approaches to improve the CFD modeling of fluidization flow of cohesive micron size particles. The specific objectives of this research were: (1) Developing a cluster prediction mechanism applicable to Two-Fluid Modeling (TFM) of gas-solid systems (2) Developing more accurate drag models for Two-Fluid Modeling (TFM) of gas-solid fluidization flow with the presence of cohesive interparticle forces (3) using the developed model to explore the improvement of accuracy of TFM in simulation of fluidization flow of cohesive powders (4) Understanding the causes and influential factor which led to improvements and …

Size-Controlled Large-Diameter And Few-Walled Carbon Nanotube Catalysts For Oxygen Reduction, Xianliang Wang, Qing Li, Hengyu Pan, Ye Lin, Yujie Ke, Haiyang Sheng, Mark T. Swihart, Gang Wu

Faculty Publications

We demonstrate a new strategy for tuning the size of large-diameter and few-walled nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (N-CNTs) from 50 to 150 nm by varying the transition metal (TM = Fe, Co, Ni or Mn) used to catalyze graphitization of dicyandiamide. Fe yielded the largest tubes, followed by Co and Ni, while Mn produced a clot-like carbon morphology. We show that morphology is correlated with electrocatalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). A clear trend of Fe > Co > Ni > Mn for the ORR catalytic activity was observed, in both alkaline media and more demanding acidic media. The Fe-derived N-CNTs exhibited …

Cultural Change Through Bim: Driving Lean Transformation In Education, Avril Behan, Malachy Mathews, Kevin Furlong, Ciara Ahern, Una Beagon, Peter Brennan, Colin Conway, Lee Corcoran, Pierce Fahy, Alan Hore, Barry Mcauley, Trevor Woods

Conference papers

This paper presents a case study of how the adoption of BIM-based practices in the AECO industry is being reflected by cultural change in higher education in Ireland. The silo-mentality that has dominated the AECO sector for more than a century has, despite numerous reorganisations, been replicated in the structures of educational institutions, including in Dublin Institute of Technology since the inception of its founding colleges in the late 1800s. Most AECO programmes must include content that is external to the programme’s specific discipline. Through the School structures of the Institute, delivery of such content is known as "service teaching" …

A Novel Hip Implant Using 3d Woven Composite Material – Design And Analysis, Hari Kishore Adluru

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present research focuses on analyzing the possibility of implementing three dimensional woven composite (3DWC) materials in hip implants. The integration of 3DWCs in hip implants has the possibility to both extend the life-time and improve patient outcomes; by spatially varying mechanical properties to meet both biological needs as well as required mechanical loading. In this study, the bulk material properties of 3DWCs were varied based on woven composite architecture and determined using physics based models, which reflect the realistic geometries of fibers in compaction and preform. The multi-digital chain method combined with Extended Finite Elemental Analysis (XFEA) are adopted …

An Experimental Investigation Of Microalgal Dewatering Efficiency Of Belt Filter System, Anjali Sandip, Val H. Smith, Terry N. Faddis

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

The objective of this study was to investigate the microalgal dewatering efficiency of a belt filter system for feed concentrations below 10 g dry wt./L. A prototype belt filtration system designed for 50 g dry wt./L microalgal feed concentration was used for this investigation. The highest concentration of microalgal suspension available for testing on the prototype belt filtration system was 6 g dry wt./L obtained from biomass settling tanks at the Lawrence, Kansas domestic wastewater treatment plant. For preparation of feed suspension with concentrations below 10 g dry wt./L, microalgal cultivation was followed by flocculation. A mixed laboratory culture of …

Biomechanical Investigation Of Elite Place-Kicking, Chase M. Pfeifer

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Many studies aim to understand the fundamentals of kicking commonly displayed by soccer players [4,6,10,16,17,18,24,25,28,29,30,34,36,38,40]. Of those studies, most are limited to a two-dimensional (2D) analysis using high-speed cameras for position tracking or utilizing electromyography to observe the activity of select muscles [4,6,18,25,29,36]. The few studies that investigate kicking using a three-dimensional (3D) model are limited in their position tracking capabilities and focus mainly on joint flexion potentials and foot speed.

This dissertation is a comprehensive biomechanical analysis (kinematic and EMG) of the field-goal place-kicking techniques of four elite kickers in American football. Data were compared and contrasted with ball …

Cultural Change Through Bim: Driving Lean Transformation In Education, Avril Behan, Malachy Mathews, Kevin Furlong, Ciara Ahern, Una Beagon, Peter Brennan, Colin Conway, Lee Corcoran, Pierce Fahy, Alan Hore, Barry Mcauley, Trevor Woods

Conference papers

This paper presents a case study of how the adoption of BIM-based practices in the AECO industry is being reflected by cultural change in higher education in Ireland. The silo-mentality that has dominated the AECO sector for more than a century has, despite numerous reorganisations, been replicated in the structures of educational institutions, including in Technological University Dublin since the inception of its founding colleges in the late 1800s. Most AECO programmes must include content that is external to the programme’s specific discipline. Through the School structures of the Institute, delivery of such content is known as "service teaching" and …

An Immersed Boundary Geometric Preprocessor For Arbitrarily Complex Terrain And Geometry, Inanc Senocak, Micah Sandusky, Rey Deleon, Derek Wade, Kyle Felzien, Marianna Budnikova

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

There is a growing interest to apply the immersed boundary method to compute wind fields over arbitrarily complex terrain. The computer implementation of an immersed boundary module into an existing flow solver can be accomplished with minor modifications to the rest of the computer program. However, a versatile preprocessor is needed at the first place to extract the essential geometric information pertinent to the immersion of an arbitrarily complex terrain inside a 3D Cartesian mesh. Errors in the geometric information can negatively impact the correct implementation of the immersed boundary method as part of the solution algorithm. Additionally, the distance …

Semi-Annual Program Progress Performance Report For University Transportation Systems, Pppr#4, October 2015, Florida Solar Energy Center, David Block

FSEC Energy Research Center®

A summary of the major activities reported in the following pages is as follows. In the research area, the collection and analysis of data from the Nissan funded DC fast charger at FSEC (Project #3), the development of a student and faculty battery laboratory at Tuskegee University (Project #8), the opening of a new University of Hawaii battery test lab (Project #9), a computer model to optimize electrical costs for Tallahassee StarMetro buses (Project #14), and the installation and beginning of data collection from the FSEC wireless charging laboratory (Project #15). Detailed industry interactions for the period included Nissan, NovaCharge, …

Novel Ternary Magnesium-Tin Alloys By Microalloying, Sadegh Behdad

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research was to explore the possibility of developing novel Magnesium-Tin alloys with improved mechanical properties by micro-alloying. Magnesium is the lightest of all structural metals. It can be machined faster and with almost half the power required for aluminum. There is a limitless supply of magnesium in sea water and it can also be recycled at 5% of initial energy requirements. These properties make magnesium an ideal green alternative to replace metals and polymers in automotive, aerospace, biomedical and defense sectors. The potential weight reduction in the US automotive market alone, leads to 100 billion gallons …