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Energy

Energy Systems

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Cal Poly Wind Power: Wind Turbine Prototype, Sophie A. Spencer, Maggie Nevrly, Michael Reyna, Loi Q. Nguyen Jun 2021

Cal Poly Wind Power: Wind Turbine Prototype, Sophie A. Spencer, Maggie Nevrly, Michael Reyna, Loi Q. Nguyen

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Wind Power (CPWP) club is competing in the Collegiate Wind Competition (CWC) hosted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The CWC is hosted annually by NREL to increase the number of skilled workers prepared to work in the wind energy industry. Our senior project team is one of several design teams contributing to the CPWP prototype turbine design including the pitching mechanism, blade design, generator, and shaft. The scope of this project is to design the yaw mechanism, tower, and nacelle. The goal is to create components that function well with other planned components and are …


Sustainable Energy Storage, Jacob S. Grillo, Alyse C. Coonce, Jack R. Linchey, Nick P. Schnorr Jun 2021

Sustainable Energy Storage, Jacob S. Grillo, Alyse C. Coonce, Jack R. Linchey, Nick P. Schnorr

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Review document covers the work we, students at California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo, have performed in collaboration with Mr. Harish Bhutani and Dr. Mohammad Noori. The project’s intent is to create an energy storage system for off-grid and developing region applications using alternative technologies to lithium-ion battery storage. We plan to manufacture and assemble a scale model of the energy storage system to prove effectiveness and practicality. This system will store enough energy to power basic appliances and essential devices for a house or community. The chosen design direction will be a flywheel, as …


Smud Solar Regatta, Logan Garby, Nam Le, Jacob Singer, Alejandro Carrera, Laura Casas Mar 2021

Smud Solar Regatta, Logan Garby, Nam Le, Jacob Singer, Alejandro Carrera, Laura Casas

Mechanical Engineering

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) hosts the Solar Regatta every year in Rancho Seco, CA, a competition which consists of teams building a solar powered boat to compete in three races: the sprint race, endurance race, and slalom race. The Cal Poly Solar Regatta team was informed mid-project by SMUD that the competition has been canceled once again for spring 2021, but the team decided to move forward with the construction of the boat. The previous Cal Poly team from 2019/2020 designed the hull and propulsion system of the boat. The 2020/2021 team worked with the previous team in …


Analysis And Optimization Of The Scheffler Solar Concentrator, Simone Alberti Dec 2014

Analysis And Optimization Of The Scheffler Solar Concentrator, Simone Alberti

Master's Theses

The Scheffler reflector is a new solar concentrator design which maintains a fixed focus while only having a single axis tracking mechanism. This design makes the construction and operation of high temperature solar concentrators accessible to developing nations. In this project, I wrote computer simulation codes to better understand the dynamics and the effect of deformation or deviations from ideal conditions in order to define necessary manufacturing and operational tolerances. These tools and knowledge drove the prototyping of new reflector concepts by myself and other students on my team. A fiberglass prototype was able to drive the cost of a …


Pump Sequencing Optimization, John S. Allan, Kyle J. Nekimken, Spencer B. Weills Dec 2009

Pump Sequencing Optimization, John S. Allan, Kyle J. Nekimken, Spencer B. Weills

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this document is to demonstrate the design, production, and testing of optimum pump sequencing logic for variable frequency drive (VFD) pumps in commercial heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The product will be developed by Pump Efficiency Solutions (PES), which is a group of Cal Poly students working on their senior project. The product is being developed for Trane, an industry leader in large scale HVAC systems. MATLAB™, Microsoft Excel, Pump System Improvement Modeling Tool™ (PSIM), and fluid mechanics hand calculations were used during software development. Next, we converted the program into Trane’s graphical programming language …


Harvesting Human Exercise Power At The Cal Poly Rec Center: Exercise Bike Power Generator Ii, Jared Rounsevell, Claire M. Shubert, Matthew Snitowsky, Andrew Wong Jan 2009

Harvesting Human Exercise Power At The Cal Poly Rec Center: Exercise Bike Power Generator Ii, Jared Rounsevell, Claire M. Shubert, Matthew Snitowsky, Andrew Wong

Mechanical Engineering

The overall goal of this project is to create a workable system to harvest the power generated on exercise bikes at the Cal Poly Rec Center so that the electricity produced can eventually be sent to the power grid. Our part of the project will focus on the mechanical harvesting of this power with the goal of using the product to run the Morningstar ProStar 12V 30 amp charge controller available from the 2007 project. Eventually, the power produced could be fed to the grid in the appropriate form. The finished result of this project should be marketable to exercise …