Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Management Optimization Of Energy Consumption Reduction For Residential Hot Water, Francesco Cataldi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to create an automatic water management system capable of optimizing the usage of warm water stored in two water tanks to reduce the monthly energy consumption of the instant water heater installed in a residential house. This system is called Water Mixing System (WMS). The two heat sources considered are: PV-T system and heat rejected by the air condition system. The PV-T system is a new technology that allows transformation of the sun radiation into both electricity and warm water, increasing the efficiency of the panel compared to either a common photovoltaic panel or …

Sound Data Collection And Transmission Noise Reduction, Bradley Cockrel

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The WKU Engineering Department Senior Student Team, The Synchronizers, has been contracted to modify a MTD transmission’s sound characteristics. This project entails developing a sound data acquisition apparatus and method, developing a sound test stand which will fully load the transmission and load characteristics, and suggesting modes of sound modification. The Sound Data Acquisition method entails using a specialized microphone calibrated to operate on IOS devices to measure Sound Intensity. The sound intensity will be found over a collective area, in order to evaluate to the sound power generated. The sound test stand will consist of a system designed to …

Rsl Rover, Patrick Barone, Giovanni Briggs, Aaron Burns, Hesham Naja, Zoe Demertzis

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The goal of this project was to design and implement an unmanned vehicle that can assess the air quality and general state of a post-fire environment. To do this, we equipped Santa Clara University's Polaris 6x6 Ranger with appropriate sensors and cameras to determine how safe the environment is for humans to enter. We also used GPS and laser scans to generate a 3D map that operators can use to define certain zones as particularly dangerous. Finally, we incorporated partially-autonomous sensing capabilities that will allow the operator to easily drive the vehicle. The result was a rugged, advanced, and intuitive …

Pcb Prototyping, Kasey Chun, Dylan Hack, Ilja Medan, Michael Rudolf, Ryan Sidley

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

In today’s world, Printed Circuit Boards, also known as PCBs, are part of our daily lives. However, it is currently difficult for students in university classes or hobbyists to quickly produce custom made PCBs since no system exists where every step in the production process is on one platform. There are four main steps that go into manufacturing a PCB once it is fully designed which are: milling, solder dispensing, component placement, and a reflow process. The goal will be to create various toolheads and place them onto a single platform allowing the user to perform the aforementioned production processes. …

Gazelle: A Human Powered Vehicle, William Fluharty, Brian Rice, Amulya Rao, Werner Nistler

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

This thesis details the year-long Senior Design process in which our goal was to create a human powered vehicle that could be a short-distance replacement for cars. Our team designed our vehicle to be entered in the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Competition in April of 2016. Our vehicle featured a seat that could be adjusted for users of different heights, making it more comfortable to ride. This report will describe the process and design choices that were made throughout the year in order to create a vehicle. Our frame was welded using Chavez Welding, and the welding created some complications …

Safer: Search And Find Emergency Rover, Zachary Agustin, Charles Lewis, Elizabeth Mcmahon, Cameron Pierce, Pranav Pradhan, Michael Tamshen

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

When disaster strikes and causes a structure to collapse, it poses a unique challenge to search and rescue teams as they assess the situation and search for survivors. Currently there are very few tools that can be used by these teams to aid them in gathering important information about the situation that allow members to stay at a safe distance. SAFER, Search and Find Emergency Rover, is an unmanned, remotely operated vehicle that can provide early reconnaissance to search and rescue teams so they may have more information to prepare themselves for the dangers that lay inside the wreckage. Over …

Glows Co Automated Chemical Etching Machine For Fiber Optic Cable, Mishan Golshan, Peter Laird, Thomas Ostrander, Marty Winkler, Peter Savoy

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

This report summarizes the conceptualization and development of an automated machine designed for a fiber optic cable stripping process used by Lumentum LLC. This process is currently manually operated by Lumentum’s technicians and involves unavoidable handling of corrosive chemicals. To increase technician safety, the process will be automated to reduce chemical - operator interactions. Improving safety conditions for technicians is the primary motivation for automating this process. Automation will also decrease process variation and increase product quality. GLOWS CO was tasked with creating this automated solution, leading to the design of the Automatic Chemical Etching Machine (or A-CHEM) for the …

Gravity Charger, Luke Lindsay, Will Gonder, George Montgomery

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

According to a 2014 World Health Organization research initiative based on data collected from 14 global developing countries, “Only 28% of health facilities and 34% of hospitals had what could be called “reliable” access to electricity (without prolonged interruptions in one week)” [1]. Healthcare quality suffers because of this lack of reliable electricity. We propose that a gravity powered generator would stand as a reliable power source for small medical devices under any conditions at any location at any time of day. Our research examines how a gravity powered electric generator could best empower medical facilities in developing countries to …

Torque Auditing Test Fixture For Hansen Medical’S Remote Catheter Manipulator Robot, Matt Mckay, Charles Reins, Scott Schneider

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Current manufacturing test systems for motor control of Hansen's line of surgical robots are labor intensive, have room for operator error and do not supply sufficient information. Based upon an expected increase in production, the objective of this project was to replace their test protocol with a modular test fixture that improves test time, is intuitive to use, and enhances the user experience. We developed a modular design that works for both the Sensei and Magellan robots, and can be reconfigured easily for use on future robots. Using a control system and GUI made in LabVIEW, a magnetic particle as …

Project Space: Solar Panel Automated Cleaning Environment, Matt Burke, Ryan Greenough, Daniel Jensen, Elliot Voss

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The goal of Project SPACE is to create an automated solar panel cleaner that will address the adverse impact of soiling on commercial photovoltaic cells. Specifically, we hoped to create a device that increases the maximum power output of a soiled panel by 10% (recovering the amount of power lost) while still costing under $500 and operating for up to 7.0 years. A successful design should operate without the use of water. This will help solar panel arrays achieve a production output closer to their maximum potential and save companies on costs associated energy generation.

The current apparatus utilizes a …

Marv: Marine Autonomous Research Vessel, Drew Azevedo, Sam Beltram, Gregorio Delvecchio, Ben Hopner

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Conducting hydrologic research in remote areas is currently performed manually, making it a labor intensive and inaccurate solution. Due to the size, weight, and cost of automated solutions on the market today, a need has arisen for a low cost, highly portable, autonomous solution. Working closely with Santa Clara University’s Robotics Systems Lab (RSL), our team has developed a low cost, highly portable autonomous marine research vessel named MARV (Marine Autonomous Research Vessel). It is an autonomous surface platform where scientists outfit the vessel with their own data acquisition equipment. The mechanical chassis is collapsible for modes of remote transportation …

Smart Control For Home Water Heater Saving, Joe Singer, Michael Simmons, Scott Jansen

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Existing gas or electric water heaters can become inefficient through the overheating of water and through parasitic heat loss. These inefficiencies are able to be solved by monitoring when a home uses hot water. AquAdapt is a smart sensor which is capable of attaching to any existing residential gas or electric water heater. By constantly monitoring the temperature change of a home water heater, the first law of thermodynamics can be used to relate temperature change to the amount of hot water leaving the water heater. Utilizing this information, a schedule can be generated to optimize the heating of home …

Heat Pipe Design For Absorption Chiller Refrigerators Powered By Cookstoves, Paola Flores, Eduardo Melendez

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

We developed an inexpensive refrigeration system that will operate off-grid through the use of reclaimed heat from cookstoves. The refrigerator will serve as a reliable storage unit that will maintain vaccines at a proper temperature range. This report focuses on the various components that make up our Cool Stove project. The overall system and subsystems are laid out and explained. We also address the reason why we believe this project will be beneficial to individuals in developing countries. In addition, we provide detail on the work that we have accomplished and on the results that we have achieved. We created …

Cook Stove Powered Refrigeration: Cool Stove 2, Robert Bernal

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Lack of refrigeration contributes to the death of over 3.7 million children and the loss of 200 tonnes of food every year in developing countries. While 1.21 billion people in developing countries do not have access to electricity to operate traditional refrigerators, 38% of individuals within developing countries use biomass fuel to cook. The scope of my project was to produce a viable solution for refrigeration for these individuals in developing countries through the use of thermosyphons that utilize reclaimed thermal energy from cook stoves to power absorption chillers. Over the span of my project I was able to confirm …

Microfluidic E. Coli Detection, Kyle Pietrzyk, Scott Fukuoka, Andres Maldonado-Liu, Andy Ly

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

In both developed and developing countries, there is a need for a fast diagnostic system to detect pathogens within a fluid sample. In developing a microfluidic platform, which utilizes a microfluidic chip and an optical detection method, doors may be opened for new methods of determining pathogen concentration in fluid. Most biological reactions are not instantaneous. A flow-controlling mechanism with no power requirement may be implemented in the microfluidic platform. As a proof-of-concept, our device uses a microfluidic chip, smartphone, and microlens to detect E. coli concentrations in water. The detection method is based on the latex agglutination assay which …

Metals Additive Manufacturing Powder Aging Characterization, Thomas Russell Lovejoy, Nicholas Karl Muetterties, David Takeo Otsu

Mechanical Engineering

The metallic additive manufacturing process known as selective laser melting requires highly spherical, normally distributed powder with diameters in the range of 10 to 50 microns. Previous observations have shown a degradation in powder quality over time, resulting in unwanted characteristics in the final printed parts. 21-6-9 stainless steel powder was used to fabricate test parts, with leftover powder recycled back into the machine. Powder samples and test specimens were characterized to observe changes across build cycles. Few changes were observed in the physical and mechanical properties of the specimens, however, there were indications of chemical changes across cycles. Potential …

Ultra Light Split Board Bindings, Jared Van Putten

All Undergraduate Projects

A split board binding is used to link two halves of a theoretically cut in half snow board together and fasten an alpine touring boot used for both skiing and mountaineering in place. The binding is removable so that one can alpine tour uphill on skins and be assembled at the top so that the rider can link both halves of the board together and bind their alpine touring ski boot into place to the split board. The binding system is required to be ultra light for Alpine Touring purposes and still be strong enough to withstand the rigors of …

Experimental Investigation Of Turbulent Flow Induced By New-Generation Wind Fences With Multi-Scale Fractal Structure, Sarah M. Mcclure

ETD Archive

Understanding and controlling atmospheric boundary-layer flows with engineered structures, such as porous wind fences or windbreaks, has been of great interest to the fluid mechanics and wind engineering community. Previous studies found that the regular mono-scale grid fence of 50% porosity and a bottom gap of 10% of the fence height are considered to be optimal over a flat surface. Significant differences in turbulent flow structure have recently been noted behind multi-scale fractal wind fences, even with the same porosity. In this study, wind-tunnel tests on the turbulent flow and the turbulence kinetic energy transport of 1D and 2D multi-scale …

A Simulation And Experimental Study Of Active Disturbance Rejection For Industrial Pressure Control, Xiaoxu Li

ETD Archive

The quality of control loop is very important in hydraulic machineries, where pressure must be accurately regulated in the presence of various disturbances. Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control has dominated the industry for a long time and it is by far the most popular general purpose controller for pressure control. The purpose of this study is to conduct a simulation and experimental study comparing PID with an emerging new technology, namely active disturbance rejection control (ADRC). For the purpose of this study, an experimental testbed similar to those used in industry settings is used; its mathematic model is derived and used in …

Characterization Of Performance Of A 3d Printed Stirling Engine Through Analysis And Test, Julie Vodhanel

ETD Archive

This thesis involves the fusion of two technologies, Stirling engines and additive
manufacturing. The project began by building a Stirling engine primarily out of 3D printed parts. Methods to measure the power output were designed and built with a combination of 3D printed and off the shelf parts. The Stirling engine was tested to see if there was a correlation to analysis results, and a regenerator was installed to determine the effect on performance for this relatively low temperature engine. Finally, variations in test operation and the use of heat sinks were used to find a combination that will allow …

Hybrid Particle Image Velocimetry With The Combination Of Cross-Correlation And Optical Flow Method, Mark Bradley Johnson

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) has been of relevant discussions lately as the equipment used to obtain temporally and spatially resolved flow fields have advanced rapidly. Despite these advancements, the accuracy of evaluating these images have yet to exceed expectations. Current techniques typically utilize one method, either correlation based (frequently) or optical flow (non-frequently), and both are vulnerable to specific conditions incorporated in the PIV images. Only through the combination of two methods, cross correlation and optical flow, can a technique benefit from the strengths of each method while concealing the flaws each individual method contains. The Hybrid Particle Image Velocimetry …