Other Engineering Commons^™

The Synthesis And Optimization Of Sulfide And Halide Solid Electrolytes For All Solid-State Batteries, Teerth Brahmbhatt

Doctoral Dissertations

Countries and organizations around the world have established ambitious targets to transition away from fossil fuel-based energy sources and devices. The transition is focused on cleaning up power generation by converting coal, natural gas, and oil-based power generation to renewables and nuclear energy. Decarbonizing other sectors of energy use, transportation for example, will require broader electrification. To drive this move away from fossil fuel powered transportation will require portable energy storage devices. Conventional lithium-ion batteries are a popular candidate to lead this shift. However, these batteries often rely on flammable liquid electrolytes and carbon anodes that suffer from low energy …

Smart Warehousing Implementaion And Education Of Supply Chain Management Leaders, David Quintanilla

Doctoral Dissertations

Paper #1 Overview

Businesses have to adapt to new challenges and technologies in the marketplace which influence warehousing. In order to support this growth, Industry 4.0 technologies have been implemented along the value chain to optimize their organizations and production processes; however, there are still gaps for warehousing research for Industry 4.0. We present four pillars¾location strategy, infrastructure/design, data management, and advanced planning and control¾ as a framework for businesses to use for their adaptation into smart warehousing. In particular, this framework will guide companies in their logistics journey into Industry 4.0. Industry experts and senior logistics professionals were interviewed …

A Hydropower Facility As An Energy Water Signal Processor, Asha Shibu

Doctoral Dissertations

In recent times, various efforts have been made to address the challenge of adequately representing hydropower systems in modeling frameworks, accounting for the lack of data to represent the multiple constraints in hydropower operation. This research is a pilot data-driven methodology for characterizing, classifying, and comparing the water-to-energy and energy-to-water signal transformations that hydropower facilities as signal processors accomplish. In this study, a Box Jenkins transfer function/noise model is used to identify the relationship between reservoir inflows and outflows. For examining the feasibility of this methodology, 5-minute fleet data for five storage and five run-of-river facilities was provided by the …

Forecasting Nigeria's Electricity Demand And Energy Efficiency Potential Under Climate Uncertainty, Olawale Olabisi

Doctoral Dissertations

The increasing population and socio-economic growth of Nigeria, coupled with the current, unmet electricity demand, requires the need for power supply facilities expansion. Of all Nigeria’s electricity consumption by sector, the residential sector is the largest and growing at a very fast rate. To meet this growing demand, an accurate estimation of the demand into the future that will guide policy makers to adequately plan for the expansion of electricity supply and distribution, and energy efficiency standards and labeling must be made. To achieve this, a residential electricity demand forecast model that can correctly predict future demand and guide the …

Characterization Techniques And Cation Exchange Membrane For Non-Aqueous Redox Flow Battery, Kun Lou

Doctoral Dissertations

The motivation of this work comes from one of the major problems of emerging non-aqueous flow battery (NAFB) that a separator or membrane which facilitates conductivity and blocks redox species crossover does not exist. Although many aspects of principles can be mirrored from mature fuel cell and aqueous flow battery, it is found that some well-defined membrane properties in aqueous systems such as swelling, transport and interactions are different in non-aqueous solvents to some extent. However, the approach of this work does follow the way perfluorosulfonate ion exchange membrane (PFSA) facilitated development of fuel cell and aqueous flow battery in …

Study On Agricultural Tractor Operator Safety In Rollover Accidents, Farzaneh Khorsandi Kouhanestani

Doctoral Dissertations

Agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries in the US. Tractor accidents are the major cause of death in agriculture, producing about one half of the fatal accidents. Tractor overturn is the most common cause of death in tractor accidents. Three projects related to tractor operator safety in rollover accident were defined.

The aim of first project is to develop a Finite Element (FE) model to predict the Roll-Over Protective Structure (ROPS) performance under the standard SAE J2194 (SAE, 2009) static test. The developed model was validated by comparing the model results with experimental test results. The developed model …

Value Of Flow Measurement Accuracy In Hydropower Plants With Short Converging Intakes, Mark Herbert Christian

Doctoral Dissertations

This report documents research undertaken to determine the value of flow measurement accuracy in hydropower plants with short converging intakes. The motivation was to provide a suite of tools and best practices to streamline flow measurement sensor modeling in any type of hydropower plant. The Lower Granite Lock and Dam hydroplant was leveraged in development of the analysis tool. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of Lower Granite Unit 4 provided necessary information about the hydraulic structures distribution through the unit. Two different CFD models were created. The first was done using the as-built plans; the second was created through modifications …

High Reliability Organizational Suggestions To Reduce The Risk Of Hospital-Associated Infections, Sandra Catrice Affare

Doctoral Dissertations

Over 1.7 million hospital-associated infections (HAIs), resulting in 99,000 deaths, occur each year in the United States. HAIs are defined as infections that occur within 48 hours of hospital admission without evidence of the infection being present or incubating at the time of admission. HAIs are a major concern to the medical community due to the potential loss of life and high costs. Healthcare providers should be accountable for reducing the rates of HAIs and society needs to hold them accountable for the safe implementation and outcomes of the services they provide.

A high-reliability organization (HRO) is commonly described as …

Developing An Optimal Model For Infant Home Visitation, Isaac Atuahene

Doctoral Dissertations

The United States, Great Britain, Denmark, Canada and many other countries have accepted home visitation (HV) as a promising strategy for interventions for infants after births and for their mothers. Prior HV studies have focused on theoretical foundations, evaluations of programs, cost/benefit analysis and cost estimation by using hospital/payer/insurance data to prove its effectiveness and high cost. As governments and private organizations continue to fund HVs, it is an opportune time to develop and formulate operations research (OR) models of HV coverage, quality and cost so they might be used in program implementation as done for adult home healthcare (HHC) …

Determination Of Area Of Fire Origin Through Examination Of Structural Failure And Deformation, Andrew Thomas Tinsley

Doctoral Dissertations

The effects of fire on steel have long been noted and studied. However, a scientific connection between the area of origin for a fire and the amount of steel deformation observed at the scene has never been established. The development and implementation of this type of analysis has the potential to decrease investigation times significantly as the types of structures to which this method would be applicable are typically large, expansive structures. In order to investigate the relationship between structural steel deformations and a fire’s origin, a series of six tests were performed in a smaller size portal frame steel …

Fuel Economy And Greenhouse Gas Reduction Potentials Of Advanced Combustion Modes In Light-Duty Vehicles: A Well-To-Wheel Analysis Using Vehicle Systems Simulations With Experimental Engine Data, Scott James Curran

Doctoral Dissertations

Vehicle fuel efficiency and emissions regulations are driving a radical shift in the need for high efficiency powertrains along with control of criteria air pollutants and greenhouse gases. High efficiency powertrains including vehicle electrification, engine downsizing, and advanced combustion concepts all seek to accomplish these goals. Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) concepts have been proposed have not been able to demonstrate the controllability to operate over a sufficient engine speed and load range to make it practical for implementation in production vehicles. In-cylinder blending of gasoline and diesel to achieve reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) has been shown to reduce …

Design And Development Of Seed Hydration Analyzing Device And Its Utilization In Studying Cereal And Legume Hydration, Vinay Kumar Mannam

Doctoral Dissertations

Cereals and legumes are important sources of vegetable-based human nutrition. Together they account for 48.6 % of protein and 8.7 % carbohydrate consumption around the world. During preparation, majority of these agricultural staples are re-hydrated to aid in their digestibility, palatability and the bio-availability of the nutrients.

Study of hydration kinetics of cereals and legumes is an important and valuable necessity for industry and academia to understand and gain insights into seed hydration characteristics. An automatic seed hydration analyzing system is developed as a solution for lack of instruments with broad capabilities to study variety of seed properties. The device …

Moldable Items Packing Optimization, Sima Maleki

Doctoral Dissertations

This research has led to the development of two mathematical models to optimize the problem of packing a hybrid mix of rigid and moldable items within a three-dimensional volume. These two developed packing models characterize moldable items from two perspectives: (1) when limited discrete configurations represent the moldable items and (2) when all continuous configurations are available to the model. This optimization scheme is a component of a lean effort that attempts to reduce the lead-time associated with the implementation of dynamic product modifications that imply packing changes.

To test the developed models, they are applied to the dynamic packing …

Manufacturing System And Supply Chain Analyses Related To Product Complexity And Sequenced Parts Delivery, Hui Sun

Doctoral Dissertations

Mixed model assembly has been widely used in many industries. It is applied in order to effectively deal with increasing product complexity. Sequencing and resequencing on a mixed-model assembly line is also complicated by high product complexity. To improve the performance of a mixed-model assembly system and the supply chain, one can develop efficient sequencing rules to address sequencing problems, and manage product complexity to reduce its negative impact on the production system. This research addresses aspects of sequence alteration and restoration on a mixed-model assembly line for the purpose of improving the performance of a manufacturing system and its …

Crystallization Of Polyamide 66 Copolymers At High Supercoolings, Xiaoping Guan

Doctoral Dissertations

Crystallization kinetics and morphologies of a series of random copolymers of PA 66 (or Nylon 66) have been investigated at high supercoolings. Optical microscopy with rapid cooling apparatus was employed to observe spherulitic morphologies and measure growth rates. Final spherulitic morphologies of PA 66 and copolymers could be changed with increasing supercoolings from impinged spherulites to isolated spherulites with decreasing size until total amorphous.

Spherulite growth results indicated that the rates of crystallization of PA 66 copolymers were reduced with increasing content of comonomer, and crystallization was moved to lower temperatures. The melting temperature, crystallinity, crystal structure and lamellar thickness …

Automated Fault Detection In An Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactor: Comparisons Of Biogas Production And Physicochemical Quantities, Alexandra Maria Almeida Carvalho Pinto

Doctoral Dissertations

A system capable of rapidly detecting toxic loads entering high-rate anaerobic reactors would greatly enhance their reliability, and could thereby increase their commercial acceptance. A high-rate anaerobic wastewater treatment process, called the failure-causing load detector (FCLD), consisting of a small (4-liter) upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor having a short (10-min) hydraulic retention time (HRT), was used as a biosensor to rapidly detect potential problems with the influent wastewater. Sensors were used to monitor biogas production in the reactor, as well as pH, conductivity, and turbidity in the effluent from the reactor. The FCLD system was tested using the following …

Mathematical Modeling And Experimental Study Of Dynamics And Structure Development During High Speed Melt Spinning Of Nylon-6, Jayendra H. Bheda

Doctoral Dissertations

A mathematical model was developed to describe the high speed melt spinning behavior of nylon-6. This model is based on the equations of continuity, momentum and energy. These equations are combined with a Newtonian model for rheology to describe the process dynamics and models for the development of birefringence, molecular orientation and crystallization kinetics to describe the structure formation during high speed melt spinning of nylon-6. Physical property relationships from the literature are input and used together with the processing conditions to calculate velocity, diameter, temperature, stress, birefringence and crystallinity profiles along the spinline.

Online experimental techniques were used to …