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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering
Pedal 4 Purification, Cory Yamagata, Coleton Rodd, Jonathan Keyes, Matthew Lograsso
Pedal 4 Purification, Cory Yamagata, Coleton Rodd, Jonathan Keyes, Matthew Lograsso
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The lack of access to clean drinking water remains one of the largest issues still facing humanity. The Pedal 4 Purification is a product that addresses this need by utilizing pre-existing bicycle infrastructure and local freshwater sources to allow people to purify their own drinking water on a daily basis. Attachable to any standard bicycle, the Pedal 4 Purification product consists of pump, purification, cart and adjustable kickstand subsystems that allow the operator to pump, purify and transport 40L of potable water. Pedaling at the reasonable rate of 60 rpm will provide the optimal flow rate of 1.54L/min through the …
Adjustable Medical Assistance Bed, Michelle Callson, Andrew Chen, Deborah Flores, Devin Meadows
Adjustable Medical Assistance Bed, Michelle Callson, Andrew Chen, Deborah Flores, Devin Meadows
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The objective of this project is to design and manufacture a bed that provides increased safety and convenience to patients needing physical assistance and their caregivers, specifically catering to special needs patients. The bed is designed to have variable height between 0” and 30” from the bottom of the mattress to the ground, allowing the patient to get into bed with minimal physical assistance from the caregiver. The design process for this product was organized in three subsystems: lifting mechanism, escape prevention, and frame. The lifting mechanism is designed to accommodate the bed’s variable height, as well as support the …
Design Of An Urban Garden Aquaponics System, Riley Albright-Borden, James Wang, Sydney Thompson
Design Of An Urban Garden Aquaponics System, Riley Albright-Borden, James Wang, Sydney Thompson
Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses
The project objective is to create a durable, off-the-grid, large-scale aquaponics system consisting of over 90 sq. ft of growing space, a 650-gallon fishpond, and four types of sensors to transmit water quality data to the internet for remote water quality monitoring. The end goal of the project is to supplement produce grown in the garden to further increase fresh, nutritional options available in meals cooked and distributed by Loaves and Fishes Family Kitchen to combat food insecurity in San Jose. This report presents the need for a system, details the various subsystems, and the rationale for the designs. It …
Power-Assist Wheelchair Attachment, Catherine Van Blommestein, Ryan Boyce, Rosemary Cole, Matthew Marks
Power-Assist Wheelchair Attachment, Catherine Van Blommestein, Ryan Boyce, Rosemary Cole, Matthew Marks
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
This senior design project sought to combine the best characteristics of manual and power wheelchairs by creating a battery-powered attachment to propel a manual wheelchair. The primary customer needs were determined to be affordability, portability, and travel on uneven surfaces. After the initial prototype, using a hub motor proved unsuccessful, so a second design was developed that consisted of a gear reduction motor and drive wheel connected to the back of the wheelchair by a trailing arm that could be easily attached/detached from the frame. The prototype of the second design succeeded in meeting most of the project goals related …
Environment Chamber For Shape-Memory Alloy Testing, Luis Acevedo, Joseph Bodo, Nicholas Fernandes
Environment Chamber For Shape-Memory Alloy Testing, Luis Acevedo, Joseph Bodo, Nicholas Fernandes
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The purpose of this project is to design, test, and build a temperature-controlled environment chamber to enable tensile testing of shape memory alloy (SMA) wire specimens at a temperatures ranging from 80-200°C. The most important design specifications were a maximum exterior wall temperature of 40°C and a maximum temperature variation along the specimen length of ±5°C, with end users' ease- of-use considered. Hand calculations and iterative finite element analysis (FEA) simulations in SolidWorks were used to verify design choices before proceeding with sourcing parts and materials, and assembly. Real-world implementation of the system showed a heat-up time of roughly 25 …
Automatic Romaine Heart Harvester, Jonathan Borst, Chuck Culberson, Andrew Torrance
Automatic Romaine Heart Harvester, Jonathan Borst, Chuck Culberson, Andrew Torrance
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The Romaine Robotics Senior Design Team developed a romaine lettuce heart trimming system in partnership with a Salinas farm to address a growing labor shortage in the agricultural industry that is resulting in crops rotting in the field before they could be harvested. An automated trimmer can alleviate the most time consuming step in the cut-trim-bag harvesting process, increasing the yields of robotic cutters or the speed of existing laborer teams. Leveraging the Partner Farm’s existing trimmer architecture, which consists of a laborer loading lettuce into sprungloaded grippers that are rotated through vision and cutting systems by an indexer, the …
The Seedling Sanctuary: Automated Cold Frame For Gardner Elementary, Fiona Bell, Christopher Carpio, Alex Kosaka
The Seedling Sanctuary: Automated Cold Frame For Gardner Elementary, Fiona Bell, Christopher Carpio, Alex Kosaka
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The purpose of this report is to provide the details of the Seedling Sanctuary, a mechanical engineering senior design project. The project in question is an automated cold frame designed specifically for Gardner Academy, a local elementary school in San Jose. A cold frame is a miniature greenhouse that opens like a chest and is made from clear plastic. Automated ventilation and watering systems create a microclimate within this greenhouse structure to create the ideal growing conditions for seeds. The main purposes of the cold frame are to lengthen the growing season, be maintenance free, and enhance garden education. From …
Swarm-Based Techniques For Adaptive Navigation Primitives, Nathan Metzger
Swarm-Based Techniques For Adaptive Navigation Primitives, Nathan Metzger
Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses
Adaptive Navigation (AN) has, in the past, been successfully accomplished by using mobile multi-robot systems (MMS) in highly structured formations known as clusters. Such multi-robot adaptive navigation (MAN) allows for real-time reaction to sensor readings and navigation to a goal location not known a priori. This thesis successfully reproduces MAN cluster techniques via swarm control techniques, a less computationally expensive but less formalized control technique for MMS, which achieves robot control through a combination of primitive robot behaviors. While powerful for large numbers of robots, swarm robotics often relies on “emergent” swarm behaviors resulting from robot-level behaviors, rather than top-down …
Dmx Controlled Scenic Automation, Hannah Sisney, Tiernan O’Rourke, J. V. Ating
Dmx Controlled Scenic Automation, Hannah Sisney, Tiernan O’Rourke, J. V. Ating
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
SwiftScene DMX Control is a safe, simple, and low-cost solution to automated scenery marketed to educational level and low-income theaters. The module is an 18” x 18” electrical enclosure that attaches to the underside of a stage platform and is fully controlled wirelessly via a light board. This is a scaled down prototype meant as a proof of concept and product viability. It is capable of rotational motion and limited linear motion. This prototype meets expectations of traveling at 1 ft/s with acceleration and deceleration at 0.5 ft/s2, but speed and acceleration can be varied based on desired …
Bicitaxi, Alesis Gonsalves, Sean Flanagan, Tianhao Jiang, Brenden Stone
Bicitaxi, Alesis Gonsalves, Sean Flanagan, Tianhao Jiang, Brenden Stone
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the progress made concerning the development of a solution aimed at the transportation issues faced by residents of Puebla, Mexico, and specifically the community of Colonia Puebla. Colonia Puebla is a low-income community on the outskirts of Puebla. The overall goal is to develop and prototype a product that will alleviate some of the pressure due to the lack of accessibility of transportation and then field test said product in the target community. Ideally, the product would be able to stimulate a micro-economy to provide a source of income …
Heater Control For Thermionic Power Generation, Charlie Markusen, Patrick Kearney, Jaydon Zimmerman
Heater Control For Thermionic Power Generation, Charlie Markusen, Patrick Kearney, Jaydon Zimmerman
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The purpose of this report is to detail the conceptualization, analysis, budget, manufacturing, and assembly the heater for a thermionic energy converter for portable energy generation. This proof of concept will be created to provide a full thermionic energy converter with a reliable and satisfactory heater than can be used in future systems. The report highlights the feasibility and realities in the design and fabrication of the system.
Human-Centered Electric Prosthetic (Help) Hand, Jamie Ferris, Shiyin Lim, Michael Mehta, Evan Misuraca
Human-Centered Electric Prosthetic (Help) Hand, Jamie Ferris, Shiyin Lim, Michael Mehta, Evan Misuraca
Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses
Through a partnership with Indian non-profit Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti, we designed a functional, robust, and and low cost electrically powered prosthetic hand that communicates with unilateral, transradial, urban Indian amputees through a biointerface. The device uses compliant tendon actuation, a small linear servo, and a wearable garment outfitted with flex sensors to produce a device that, once placed inside a prosthetic glove, is anthropomorphic in both look and feel. The prosthesis was developed such that future groups can design for manufacturing and distribution in India.
Weighsted, Vince Heyman, Tatianna Schluep, Timothy Jaworski
Weighsted, Vince Heyman, Tatianna Schluep, Timothy Jaworski
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The purpose of this design thesis is to outline and describe the design project; WeighstEd. WeighstEd, is a data collection, storage, and analysis system for food waste to help Santa Clara University’s Sustainability Center reach a quantifiable food waste reduction goal of 10% by 2020 by using data to make informed cafeteria changes. The report will outline the entire engineering design process from ideation to manufacture including analysis techniques and benchmark testing. This report will serve as a written documentation of three mechanical engineers Senior Design Project completed at Santa Clara University. WeighstEd will be implemented at on campus events …
Generation And Analysis Of Stop-Hole Geometries For Crack-Like Structures In Auxetic Materials, Max De Jesús Barillas Velásquez
Generation And Analysis Of Stop-Hole Geometries For Crack-Like Structures In Auxetic Materials, Max De Jesús Barillas Velásquez
Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses
In this investigation, the main interest was studying low porosity auxetic metamaterials generated out of linearly elastic materials, meaning bodies made out of linearly elastic materials (e.g., metals) that, due to alternating patterns of elongated voids perforated on them, exhibit a negative effective Poisson ratio (property commonly called auxeticity). This kind of metamaterials, often obtained by a pattern of elongated ellipsis, generally face the issue of presenting high stress concentration when loaded. The objective of this study is to solve this problem by adding rounded shapes (stop-holes) at the end of elongated grooves, as a replacement for the previously mentioned …
Development Of Image Analysis Technique For Quantification Of Recrystalization, Bersabe Morales
Development Of Image Analysis Technique For Quantification Of Recrystalization, Bersabe Morales
Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses
Development of metallic components with desired properties for the new generation of applications requires precise design of grain structure. One of the most effective techniques for manipulating grain structure is by controlling the recrystallization process. Although recrystallization has been studied for many years, its proper and fast quantification is still a challenge. This work develops a new image analysis technique for quantification of recrystallization, as an alternative to intensive and expensive electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis. The image analysis program run on an optical micrograph, detect recrystallized regions and report: fraction recrystallized, average grain size and distribution. To examine the …