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 …

High Temperature Heat Exchanger Project: Quarterly Progress Report July 1, 2007 Through September 30, 2007, Anthony Hechanova

Publications (NSTD)

• Ceramatec Sulfuric Acid Decomposer. The numerical model of a SiC ceramic coupon with two layers of microchannels was developed. Calculations of the factor of safety and probability of failure for the case of a straight channel were performed. Results for a pressure of 7.5 MPa were performed. The thermal and mechanical stress analyses of the Ceramatec HTHX and decomposer were completed.

• Bayonet Heat Exchanger. The thermal and mechanical stress analyses of the bayonet type HTHX and decomposer (Sandia design) were completed. Temperature profiles obtained from thermocouples measured from the Sandia experiments have been applied to the whole packed …

Effect Of Surface Roughness On Rate-Dependent Slip In Simple Fluids, Nikolai V. Priezjev

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the influence of molecular-scale surface roughness on the slip behavior in thin liquid films. The slip length increases almost linearly with the shear rate for atomically smooth rigid walls and incommensurate structures of the liquid/solid interface. The thermal fluctuations of the wall atoms lead to an effective surface roughness, which makes the slip length weakly dependent on the shear rate. With increasing the elastic stiffness of the wall, the surface roughness smoothes out and the strong rate dependence is restored again. Both periodically and randomly corrugated rigid surfaces reduce the slip length and …

Unlv Research Foundation High Temperature Heat Exchanger Development: 9/08, Anthony Hechanova

Publications (NSTD)

Barriers addressed:

Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative R&D Plan – Material performance and component design and testing for the intermediate heat exchanger and high-temperature thermochemical water splitting (H₂SO₄ decomposition and HI decomposition). Improved materials for High Temperature Electrolysis.

Experimental Investigation Of Effect Of Environment Temperature On Freeze-Form Extrusion Fabrication, Xiyue Zhao, Michael S. Mason, Tieshu Huang, Ming-Chuan Leu, Robert G. Landers, Greg Hilmas, Samuel J. Easley, Michael W. Hayes

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Freeze-form Extrusion Fabrication (FEF) is an additive manufacturing technique that extrudes ceramic loaded aqueous pastes layer by layer below the paste freezing temperature for component fabrication. A computer controlled 3-D gantry system has been developed for the FEF process. The system includes a temperature control subsystem that allows for fabrication of components below the paste freezing temperature. The low temperature environment allows for larger component fabrication. Comparisons in terms of layer thickness, self-sustaining ability, and system response were performed between 0⁰C and -20⁰C for alumina sample fabrications. The minimum deposition angles without use of support material have been determined for …

Modeling And Simulation Of A Laser Deposition Process, Frank W. Liou, Zhiqiang Fan, Heng Pan, Kevin P. Slattery, Mary Kinsella, Joseph William Newkirk, Hsin-Nan Chou

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A laser deposition process involves the supply of metallic powders into a laser-heated spot where the powder is melted and forms a melt puddle which quickly solidifies into a bead. In order to design an effective system, the laser beam, the powder beam, and their interactions need to be fully understood. In this paper, the laser-material interaction within the melt pool is reported using a multi-scale model: A macroscopic model to model mass, heat, and momentum transfer. Experiments were also conducted to validate the simulation model.

Aqueous-Based Extrusion Fabrication Of Ceramics On Demand, Michael S. Mason, Tieshu Huang, Robert G. Landers, Ming-Chuan Leu, Greg Hilmas, Michael W. Hayes

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Aqueous-Based Extrusion Fabrication is an additive manufacturing technique that extrudes ceramic slurries of high solids loading layer by layer for part fabrication. The material reservoir in a previously developed system has been modified to allow for starting and stopping of extrusion process on demand. Design pros and cons are examined and a comparison between two material reservoir designs is made. Tests were conducted to determine the optimal deposition parameters for starting and stopping of the extrudate on demand. The collected test data is used to create a process model that describes the relationship between ram velocity and material extrusion rate. …

Numerical Simulation Of The Evolution Of Solidification Microstructure In Laser Deposition, Zhiqiang Fan, Todd E. Sparks, Frank W. Liou, Anand Jambunathan, Yaxin Bao, Jianzhong Ruan, Joseph William Newkirk

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A predictive model is developed to simulate the evolution of the solidification microstructure during the laser deposition process. The microstructure model is coupled with a comprehensive macroscopic thermodynamic model. This model simulates dendritic grain structures and morphological evolution in solidification. Based on the cellular automata approach, this microstructure model takes into account the heterogeneous nucleation both within the melt pool and at the substrate/melt interface, the growth kinetics, and preferential growth directions of dendrites. Both diffusion and convection effects are included. This model enables prediction and visualization of grain structures during and after the deposition process. This model is applied …

High Temperature Heat Exchanger Project: Quarterly Progress Report April 1, 2007 Through June 30, 2007, Anthony Hechanova

Publications (NSTD)

• Ceramatec Sulfuric Acid Decomposer. Modeling with different reacting flow channel configurations (ribbed-surface channels, hexagonal channels, and diamond-shaped channels) was performed. The probability of failure for the one channel geometry with different reacting flow channel configurations was calculated to be zero in the three principal directions for all of the cases.

• Bayonet Heat Exchanger. The Matlab code for calculating the probability of failure using a two-dimensional axisymmetric model of the bayonet decomposer was developed. The probability of failure was calculated for the inner and outer SiC walls, and the intermediate quartz wall of the decomposer and found to be …

Radio Frequency Mems Switch Contact Metal Selection, Ronald A. Coutu Jr., Paul E. Kladitis, Robert L. Crane, Kevin D. Leedy

AFIT Patents

A method for selecting metal alloys as the electric contact materials for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) metal contact switches. This method includes a review of alloy experience, consideration of equilibrium binary alloy phase diagrams, obtaining thin film material properties and, based on a suitable model, predicting contact electrical resistance performance. After determination of a candidate alloy material, MEMS switches are conceptualized, fabricated and tested to validate the alloy selection methodology. Minimum average contact resistance values of 1.17 and 1.87 ohms are achieved for micro-switches with gold (Au) and gold-platinum (Au-(6.3 at %)Pt) alloy contacts. In addition, `hot-switched` life cycle test results …

Rate-Dependent Slip Boundary Conditions For Simple Fluids, Nikolai V. Priezjev

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

The dynamic behavior of the slip length in a fluid flow confined between atomically smooth surfaces is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. At weak wall-fluid interactions, the slip length increases nonlinearly with the shear rate provided that the liquid/solid interface forms incommensurable structures. A gradual transition to the linear rate-dependence is observed upon increasing the wall-fluid interaction. We found that the slip length can be well described by a function of a single variable that in turn depends on the in-plane structure factor, contact density and temperature of the first fluid layer near the solid wall. Extensive simulations show that …

High Temperature Heat Exchanger Project: Quarterly Progress Report January 1, 2007 Through March 31, 2007, Anthony Hechanova

Publications (NSTD)

• The variation of sulfur dioxide production (throughput) of the baseline design of the Ceramatec sulfuric acid decomposer with total mass flow rate of reacting flow has been calculated. According to the calculations, the sulfur dioxide production increases as the total mass flow rate of reacting flow increases regardless of the fact that decomposition percentage of sulfuric trioxide decreases. A parametric study of the baseline design of the Ceramatec sulfuric acid decomposer was performed.

• The thermal performance using various channel geometries for the decomposer was studied. The baseline design (straight channels) has 89.5% thermal efficiency while the thermal efficiency …

High Temperature Heat Exchanger Project: Quarterly Progress Report October 1, 2006 Through December 31, 2006, Anthony Hechanova

Publications (NSTD)

Modifications to the single-channel models of the Ceramatec heat exchanger and decomposer concept for hexagonal flow channels under two values of layer-overlapping (50% and 100%) and for diamond-shaped flow channels were completed.

The finite element calculations of the “Ball on Three Ball Test” for ceramic material for the purpose of selecting the appropriate specimen thickness for future experimental testing was performed for plate thicknesses ranging from 2 to 8 mm.

A finite element model of the “Ball on Three Ball Test” was also studied for discs having micro-channels.

Influence Of Van Der Waals Forces On Increasing The Strength And Toughness In Dynamic Fracture Of Nanofibre Networks: A Peridynamic Approach, Florin Bobaru Ph.D.

Department of Engineering Mechanics: Faculty Publications

The peridynamic method is used here to analyse the effect of van der Waals forces on the mechanical behaviour and strength and toughness properties of three-dimensional nanofibre networks under imposed stretch deformation. The peridynamic formulation allows for a natural inclusion of long-range forces (such as van der Waals forces) by considering all interactions as ‘long-range’. We use van der Waals interactions only between different fibres and do not need to model individual atoms. Fracture is introduced at the microstructural (peridynamic bond) level for the microelastic type bonds, while van der Waals bonds can reform at any time. We conduct statistical …

Fracture Toughness Of Ceramic Moulds For Investment Casting With Ice Patterns, Qingbin Liu, Ming-Chuan Leu, Von Richards

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Ice patterns can be used to make ceramic investment moulds for metal castings. Owing to the characteristics of ice, the ceramic mould must be made at subzero temperatures and consequently, requires a different formulation than shells built at room temperature. Success of this process depends greatly on the fracture toughness of mould materials. The present paper describes the experimental results of fracture toughness of mould materials processed from different compositions. The Taguchi method was used to reduce the trial runs. The parameters considered included the ratio of fibre containing fused silica and aluminosilicate powders, the volume of binder and the …

Iii Finishing, Lapping, Honing And Polishing: Processes, Characterisation And Novel Techniques-Experimental Research On Ultra-Smooth Surface Polishing Based On Two-Dimensional Vibration Of Liquid, Zhong Ning Guo, X. Z. Huang, Z. G. Huang, Z. Q. Yu, T. M. Yue, Wing Bun Lee

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.