Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Semiconductor Nanomaterial Development For Photovoltaic And Thermoelectric Applications, Liangliang Chen

Open Access Dissertations

Today's world is frequently going through fossil energy shortage and environmental consequences brought by the over-emission of greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels. Therefore, it is urgent now more than ever to discover or develop clean and sustainable power generation approaches. Among various approaches, photovoltaics and thermoelectrics have been more and more attentive both in academia and industry. Photovoltaic power generators can significantly decrease carbon dioxide emission by directly converting sunlight into electricity, and thermoelectric power generators can increase energy use efficiency by recycling waste heat into electricity. This research seeks to gain a better understanding of the mechanism that …

Mechanisms Of Microstructure Formation Under The Influence Of Ultrasonic Vibrations, Milan Rakita

Open Access Dissertations

Positive effects of ultrasound on crystallization have been known for almost 90 years. Application of ultrasound has been very successful in many industries, most notably in chemistry, creating a new branch of science - sonochemistry. However, ultrasonication has not found wide commercial application in the solidification processing. The reason for that is the complexity of underlying phenomena and the lack of predicting models which correlate processing parameters with the properties of a product. The purpose of this study is to give some contribution toward better understanding of mechanisms that lead to changes in the solidifying microstructure. It has been found …

A Novel Fluid Structure Interaction And Thermal Model To Predict The Cylinder Block / Valve Plate Interface Performance In Swash Plate Type Axial Piston Machines, Marco Zecchi

Open Access Dissertations

The cylinder block / valve plate interface represents one of the most critical design element in the rotating kit of axial piston machines. The thin film of lubricant between cylinder block and valve plate has to fulfill simultaneously a bearing and a sealing function under dynamic load conditions; on the other hand, it represents an important source of power losses due to viscous friction and leakage flow.

An accurate prediction of the time changing characteristics of the interface, in terms of fluid film thickness, dynamic pressure field, load carrying ability and energy dissipation is necessary to generate more efficient and …

Near-Field Pressure Distributions To Enhance Sound Transmission Into Multi-Layer Materials, Andrew Martin Jessop

Open Access Dissertations

The large impedance difference between air and most solids prevents significant energy transfer from incident acoustic waves across the air-material interface. Refraction also plays a role in preventing acoustic transmission, as the wave speed difference between air and solid materials results in an increase of the resulting propagation angles, creating near-field pressure distributions in the solid material. By utilizing evanescent pressure distributions, which decay normal to the usual direction of propagation and are represented as plane waves propagating with complex angles, energy propagation through the interface can be increased in the subsonic region of wave propagation: i.e., where waves typically …

Fault Detection And Diagnosis For Air Conditioners And Heat Pumps Based On Virtual Sensors, Woohyun Kim

Open Access Dissertations

The primary goal of this research is to develop and demonstrate an integrated, on-line performance monitoring and diagnostic system with low cost sensors for air conditioning and heat pump equipment. Automated fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) has the potential for improving energy efficiency along with reducing service costs and comfort complaints. To achieve this goal, virtual sensors with low cost measurements and simple models were developed to estimate quantities that would be expensive and or difficult to measure directly.

A virtual refrigerant charge sensor (VRC) was extended with three approaches for determining refrigerant charge for equipment having variable-speed compressors and …

Scalable Autonomous Operations Of Unmanned Assets, Sunghun Jung

Open Access Dissertations

Although there have been great theoretical advances in the region of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) autonomy, applications of those theories into real world are still hesitated due to unexpected disturbances. Most of UAVs which are currently used are mainly, strictly speaking, Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPA) since most works related with the flight control, sensor data analysis, and decision makings are done by human operators. To increase the degree of autonomy, many researches are focused on developing Unmanned Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (UAAV) which can takeoff, fly to the interested area by avoiding unexpected obstacles, perform various missions with decision makings, come …

Identification And Quantification Of Nonlinear Behavior In A Disbonded Aluminum Honeycomb Panel Using Single Degree-Of-Freedom Models, Eric Richard Dittman

Open Access Dissertations

There is not a complete understanding of how damage mechanisms in composite materials react to nondestructive testing inputs. A deeper understanding of composite damage mechanisms and their responses to external vibratory excitation is sought using nonlinear modeling of damping and stiffness characteristics related to the damage. Different types of damping and stiffness single degree-of-freedom models are presented with analysis of their behavior at specific harmonics of the primary resonance of the system. After an understanding of the approximate behaviors of the models is obtained, experimental tests on a damaged specimen are conducted. An aluminum honeycomb sandwich panel is damaged by …