Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Fall 2007, 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 to focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects …

Reliability Of Concrete Masonry Unit Walls Subjected To Explosive Loads, Christopher D. Eamon

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research Publications

This study discuses the development of a procedure that can be used to assess the reliability of concrete masonry unit infill walls subjected to personnel-delivered blast loads. Consideration is given to maintain reasonable computational effort for both the structural analysis and reliability models. Blast load and wall resistance models are developed based on experimental and analytical data, and resistance is evaluated with a large strain, large displacement transient dynamic finite element analysis. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to identify significant random variables and a reliability analysis conducted with a feasible level of computational effort. Reliability indices are estimated for two …

Civil And Mechanical Engineering Students Learning Mechanics In A Multidisciplinary Engineering Foundation Spiral, Jean Nocito-Gobel, Gregory Broderick, Samuel Bogan Daniels, Michael Collura, Richard Stanley

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

This paper describes how mechanical and civil engineering students are introduced to and develop an understanding of mechanics concepts through a sequence of integrated courses as part of a new curriculum taken during the freshman and sophomore years. The Multi- Disciplinary Engineering Foundation Spiral is a four-semester sequence of engineering courses, matched closely with the development of students’ mathematical sophistication and analytical capabilities and integrated with course work in the sciences. Students develop a conceptual understanding of engineering basics in this series of courses, which stress practical applications of these principles. Mechanics concepts are introduced in a pair of first …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2007, 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 to focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects …

Observations Of Structural Damage Caused By Hurricane Katrina On The Mississippi Gulf Coast, Christopher D. Eamon, Patrick Fitzpatrick, Dennis D. Truax

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research Publications

The loads associated with Hurricane Katrina led to the destruction or severe damage of approximately 130,000 homes and over 200 deaths in the state of Mississippi. This paper discusses the results of a field inspection of structural damage along the state’s Gulf Coast area caused by this hurricane. It was found that reinforced concrete, steel frame, and heavy timber structures generally performed well, with minimal structural damage. Precast concrete, light frame wood, and bridge structures generally performed poorly. Non-structural components of all building types, in particular facades and interior partitions subjected to storm surge, were typically destroyed. For various structures, …

Thermal Effectiveness Characteristics Of Low Approach Indirect Evaporative Cooling Systems In Buildings, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Articles

Meteorological enthalpy analysis of temperate and maritime climates above latitude 45°N suggests that the water-side evaporative cooling technique has considerable unrealised potential with contemporary “high temperature” building cooling systems—such as chilled ceilings and displacement ventilation. As low approach conditions are the key to exploiting the cooling potential of the ambient air, thermal performance at such conditions needs to be investigated. To address the research issues, an industrial scale test rig, based on a low approach open cooling tower and plate heat exchanger and designed to maximise evaporative cooling potential, has been constructed. The thermal effectiveness of such systems (as a …