Engineering Commons^™

Potential Water Treatment Residual Used For Eutrophication Prevention: Varying Bake Time And Wet-Dry Release Experiments, Noor Fahoum

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

A challenge faced today in water ways is the excessive growth of algae due to eutrophication. These harmful algal blooms create problems for the environment and safety concerns for the use of water for drinking purposes. An increase in limiting nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are one of the factors that contribute to eutrophication. This is a concern for the Akron Water Treatment plant where preventative measures are being taken to avoid the potential formation of harmful algal blooms and the cyanotoxins they may release in the water. Through various studies, water treatment residuals (WTR) have been found to ...

Refrigeration & Pressure Circuits For The Test Apparatus On Triaxial Properties Of Polymer Foams At Arctic Temperatures, Nathaniel Ackerman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of this project is to modify the previous testing apparatus used by Dr. M. Hoo Fatt for exploration of Crushing Behavior of Polymer Foams in Sandwich Structures Operating in Arctic Regions commissioned by the Office of Naval Research and performed under the University of Akron’s Mechanical Engineering testing facilities. To do this, it is required to design a system capable of operating at a constant temperature during a testing cycle, reaching down to -60⁰C. This apparatus must also be compatible with prior equipment, facilities, persons, samples, and media.

Primarily, a copper-tube refrigeration coil design was considered to ...

3d Bionic Arm, Anny Baez Silfa

Publications and Research

Previous work had been done on what was an adaptation of a robotic arm for Roboqueen, which is a persistent research project of the Department of Computer Engineering Technology. This robotic arm consisted of removing the cardboard hands from the Roboqueen and being replaced by 3D printed fingers and wrists to add functionality that did not exist before. Servo motors connected to Arduinos hidden in the forearm will be used to move the fingers and pick up and hold objects in the hand. Currently, the Finger Myoware is an update of the robotic arm in order to understand how prosthetic ...

Enterprise Environment Modeling For Penetration Testing On The Openstack Virtualization Platform, Vincent Karovič Jr., Jakub Bartaloš, Vincent Karovič, Michal Greguš

Journal of Global Business Insights

The article presents the design of a model environment for penetration testing of an organization using virtualization. The need for this model was based on the constantly increasing requirements for the security of information systems, both in legal terms and in accordance with international security standards. The model was created based on a specific team from the unnamed company. The virtual working environment offered the same functions as the physical environment. The virtual working environment was created in OpenStack and tested with a Linux distribution Kali Linux. We demonstrated that the virtual environment is functional and its security testable. Virtualizing ...

Online Parameter Estimation Under Non-Persistent Excitations For High-Rate Dynamic Systems, Jin Yan, Simon Laflamme, Jonathan Hong, Jacob Dodson

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

High-rate dynamic systems are defined as systems experiencing dynamic events of typical amplitudes higher than 100 g_n for a duration of less than 100 ms. They are characterized by 1) large uncertainties on the external loads; 2) high levels of nonstationarity and heavy disturbance; and 3) generation of unmodeled dynamics from changes in mechanical configuration. To fully enable these systems, feedback capabilities must be developed. This includes computationally fast software and low latency hardware. This paper presents a pure time-based online parameter estimation algorithm for high-rate dynamic systems with real-time applicability. The algorithm is based on a model reference ...

Understanding Students’ Global Interdependence In Science Instruction, Walter S. Smith

Journal of Global Education and Research

Multiple American educational organizations such as the National Education Association, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the Council of Chief State School Officers have advocated for globalizing the K-12 curriculum. The National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) in a position statement on international education and the Next Generation Science Standards have produced goals and standards for internationalizing the science curriculum by addressing topics such as climate change, environment, and disease that cross borders. In contrast to those pronouncements on the curriculum, this article views global science education through an instructional lens that focuses on a students’ global interdependence in science ...

Purification Of I-129 From Spent Pwr Fuel, Sydney B. Whitaker, Kaitlyn Pierson, Kaylie Richard, Samantha Cahill

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Antibody-Drug Nanoparticle Induces Synergistic Treatment Efficacies In Her2 Positive Breast Cancer Cells, Muhammad Raisul Abedin, Kaitlyne Powers, Rachel Aiardo, Dibbya Barua, Sutapa Barua

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Chemotherapeutic drugs suffer from non-specific binding, undesired toxicity, and poor blood circulation which contribute to poor therapeutic efficacy. In this study, antibody–drug nanoparticles (ADNs) are engineered by synthesizing pure anti-cancer drug nanorods (NRs) in the core of nanoparticles with a therapeutic monoclonal antibody, Trastuzumab on the surface of NRs for specific targeting and synergistic treatments of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positive breast cancer cells. ADNs were designed by first synthesizing ~ 95 nm diameter × ~ 500 nm long paclitaxel (PTX) NRs using the nanoprecipitation method. The surface of PTXNRs was functionalized at 2′ OH nucleophilic site using carbonyldiimidazole ...

Reliability-Informed Life Cycle Warranty Cost And Life Cycle Analysis Of Newly Manufactured And Remanufactured Units, Meng Li, Venkat P. Nemani, Jinqiang Liu, Michael A. Lee, Navaid Ahmed, Gül E. Okudan Kremer, Chao Hu

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering Publications

Standard life cycle techniques such as life cycle warranty cost (LCWC) analysis and life cycle analysis (LCA) are used to respectively quantify the relative economical and environmental advantages of remanufactured goods while simultaneously identifying avenues for improvement. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on life cycle studies by incorporating reliability into LCWC analysis and LCA with the goal of improving long-term/multiple life cycle decision making. We develop a branched power-law model to incorporate the physical degradation mechanisms leading to reduced reuse rates of system parts over multiple life cycles. We then follow a standard LCA protocol to ...

Array-Based Guided Wave Source Location Using Dispersion Compensation, Andrew Downs, Ronald A. Roberts, Jiming Song

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

An important advantage of guided waves is their ability to propagate large distances and yield more information about flaws than bulk waves. Unfortunately, the multi-modal, dispersive nature of guided waves makes them difficult to use for locating flaws. In this work, we present a method and experimental data for removing the deleterious effects of multi-mode dispersion allowing for source localization at frequencies comparable to those of bulk waves. Time domain signals are obtained using a novel 64-element phased array and processed to extract wave number and frequency spectra. By an application of Auld’s electro-mechanical reciprocity relation, mode contributions are ...

Physiological Processes, Chirag B. Raval

Open Educational Resources

Physiological Processes is designed to introduce fundamental concepts of physiology to biomedical engineering learners. Areas covered include: neural, muscular, cardiovascular, respiratory and renal system function; bioelectrical signals, capillary-level transport, organ-level exchange. Whenever possible, analysis will be quantitative in order to fulfill the course goals and to build the foundation for the subsequent biomedical engineering curriculum. This course is for Biomedical Engineering majors only.

Analysis Of Flexural Capacity Of A Novel Straight-Side U-Shaped Steel-Encased Concrete Composite Beam, Qiwu Yan, Zheng Zhang, Jin Yan, Simon Laflamme

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

This paper proposes a novel straight-side U-shaped steel-encased concrete composite beam (SUSCCB). The SUSCCB is constituted by encasing the top sections of the U-shaped steel plates directly into the concrete flange, with the composite action generated through perfobond connections consisting of reinforcement bars transversely passing through perforations in the encased top sections of the steel plates. It is engineered to overcome the shortcomings of the existing varus or valgus U-shaped steel-encased concrete composite beams (USCCB), for which the installation of shear connectors can be complex and costly to achieve because of the numerous required welds. The main objective of this ...

Predicting The Spatiotemporal Exposure Of Aquatic Species To Intrusions Of Fire Retardant In Streams With Limited Data, Chris R. Rehmann, P. Ryan Jackson, Holly J. Puglis

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

Because fire retardant can enter streams and harm aquatic species including endangered fish, agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) must estimate the downstream extent of toxic effects every time fire retardant enters streams (denoted as an “intrusion”). A challenge in estimating the length of stream affected by the intrusion and the exposure time of species in the affected reach is the lack of data typically available on the stream's geometry and flow characteristics. Previously, the USFS estimated the affected reach length assuming instantaneous mixing of the retardant over the reach; however, this approach neglects key river ...

Motivation Dynamics For Autonomous Composition Of Navigation Tasks, Paul B. Reverdy, Vasileios Vasilopoulos, Daniel E. Koditschek

Departmental Papers (ESE)

We physically demonstrate a reactive sensorimotor architecture for mobile robots whose behaviors are generated by motivation dynamics. Motivation dynamics uses a continuous dynamical system to reactively compose low-level control vector fields using valuation functions which capture the potentially competing influences of external stimuli relative to the system's own internal state. We show that motivation dynamics 1) naturally accommodates external stimuli through standard signal processing tools, and 2) can effectively encode a repetitive higher-level task by composing several low-level controllers to achieve a limit cycle in which the robot repeatedly navigates towards two alternatively valuable goal locations in a commensurately ...

Development And Application Of A Decision Framework To Support Improved River Basin Water Management, Leah Meeks

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water management decisions made at local levels may have effects throughout an entire river basin. Water managers need better ways to help identify which decisions have broader implications and to quantify those effects to inform decision making. This dissertation presents a framework providing a basin-wide approach to water management using three studies. The first study developed a software tool to quantify how local changes within a water resources network affect the entire network. A case study was conducted on the Lower Bear River in Utah. The second study quantified the basin-wide effects of reducing return flows from irrigation areas to ...

Exploring Analytical Issues Associated With Oxidation Kinetics In Drinking Water, Shadi Haji Eghrari

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two different section that pertain to two different subjects.

Section One (Haloamines): Disinfection with ozone and chlorine is critical in protecting the public and animals from pathogens in pools. Disinfection results in in the formation of haloamines from the unintended reactions of human and animal inputs and bromide/chloride with oxidants and disinfectants which cause health problems.

The purpose of this research was to examine the occurrence of haloamines during the chlorination of saltwaters. In this study, the effect of bromide concentration was observed to exert a significant effect on the stability of Haloamines, and with no ...

Alternative Doppler Extraction For Indoor Communication Signals, Thomas L. Bradshaw

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Radar is a common detection system for detecting the speed and velocity of moving objects. Radar is performed by transmitting a radio signal in the direction of a moving object and then processing the received reflected radio waves. The radar system processes the received signal to extract the Doppler frequency of the reflected waves, which reveals information about the velocity of the object. In traditional radar, the system uses one antenna for both the transmitter and the receiver.

In passive bistatic radar, the transmit antenna and receiver antenna are separated. In addition, the radar system has no control over the ...

Navigation Performance Of Line/Plane Intersection Lidar Model In Conjunction With Opportunistic Feature Tracker, Michael R. Hansen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With NASA awarding numerous contracts to build commercial lunar payload spacecraft and human lunar landers, the need for high precision navigation has increased. Traditional inertial navigation alone is not sufficient to autonomously land a vehicle on hazardous lunar terrain. Terrain relative navigation (TRN) systems have been explored in previous research that exploit camera observations of known landmarks. Such approaches require the flight electronics to correctly match features of the observed landmarks to an onboard database, in the drastically varying lighting conditions of moon. This paper explores the performance of a TRN system that does not rely on apriori landmark identification ...

Concrete Maturity Method Applied To Rapid-Setting Calcium-Sulfoaluminate (Csa) Concretes For Pavement Repair Under Different Ambient Temperatures, Ryan Nicholas Langford

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With more and more people using roadways the need for fast and efficient repair work is becoming increasingly important. Lane closures impede traffic flow and result in congestion. To further limit the amount of time lane closures are needed for repair work, calcium sulfoaluminate (CSA) cement concrete has become an increasing popular construction material for its ability to reach adequate strength requirements within four hours. Because of this accelerated repair time, advanced testing methods are needed to verify that the replaced concrete does indeed meet or exceed the minimum compressive strength requirements.

The maturity method is one test used to ...

Deformation Of An Airfoil-Shaped Brain Surrogate Under Shock Wave Loading, Ling Zhang, William J. Jackson, Sarah A. Bentil

Mechanical Engineering Publications

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), during military operations, has increased the incidence of blast-induced traumatic brain injuries (bTBI). The shock wave is created following detonation of the IED. This shock wave propagates through the atmosphere and may cause bTBI. As a result, bTBI research has gained increased attention since this injury's mechanism is not thoroughly understood. To develop better protection and treatment against bTBI, further studies of soft material (e.g. brain and brain surrogate) deformation due to shock wave exposure are essential. However, the dynamic mechanical behavior of soft materials, subjected to high strain rates from shock wave exposure ...