Computational Engineering Commons^™

Building Predictive Chemistry Models, Christopher Browne, Nicolas Onofrio, Alejandro Strachan

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Density Functional Theory (DFT) simulations allow for sophisticated modeling of chemical interactions, but the extreme computational cost makes it inviable for large scale applications. Molecular dynamics models, specifically ReaxFF, can model much larger simulations with greater speed, but with lesser accuracy. The accuracy of ReaxFF can be improved by comparing predictions of both methods and tuning ReaxFF’s parameters. Molecular capabilities of ReaxFF were gauged by simulating copper complexes in water over a 200 ps range, and comparing energy predictions against ReaxFF. To gauge solid state capabilities, volumetric strain was applied to simulated copper bulk and the strain response functions used …

Simulation Of Bio-Inspired Porous Battery Electrodes, Raju Gupta, R. Edwin Garcia, Rui Tu

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Advancement of technology has led to the increase in use of electronic devices. However, longer life of the rechargeable battery used in electronic devices is one of the biggest issue and demand in the world of electronic devices at present. Battery's performance is affected by the orientation, arrangement, shape and size, and porosity of the materials out of which battery electrodes are made. The goal of this project is to develop a set of numerical libraries that allow developing material micro structures that will allow increasing the performance of rechargeable batteries. We focused on the development of an algorithm that …

Foss Big Data Storage Solution, Gary L. Jaffe

STAR Program Research Presentations

Utilizing the AERO Institute as an IT test bed or “sandbox”, a small-agile development team will design, build, and test a data management storage system to support post processing of archived and in-flight data collected with the Piccolo flight control system and Compact Fiber Optic Sensing System (C-FOSS). Both systems are integrated on the APV3 aircraft, a small remote-operated vehicle. Due to the amount of data collected from C-FOSS, a system will be designed to sort and organize large data sets. An open-source database will be explored as a viable solution to manage large data loads and provide multi-cluster system …

Coel: A Web-Based Chemistry Simulation Framework, Peter Banda, Drew Blount, Christof Teuscher

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The chemical reaction network (CRN) is a widely used formalism to describe macroscopic behavior of chemical systems. Available tools for CRN modelling and simulation require local access, installation, and often involve local file storage, which is susceptible to loss, lacks searchable structure, and does not support concurrency. Furthermore, simulations are often single-threaded, and user interfaces are non-trivial to use. Therefore there are significant hurdles to conducting efficient and collaborative chemical research. In this paper, we introduce a new enterprise chemistry simulation framework, COEL, which addresses these issues. COEL is the first web-based framework of its kind. A visually pleasing and …

Understanding The Paradigm Shift To Computational Social Science In The Presence Of Big Data, Ray M. Chang, Robert J. Kauffman, Young Ok Kwon

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The era of big data has created new opportunities for researchers to achieve high relevance and impact amid changes and transformations in how we study social science phenomena. With the emergence of new data collection technologies, advanced data mining and analytics support, there seems to be fundamental changes that are occurring with the research questions we can ask, and the research methods we can apply. The contexts include social networks and blogs, political discourse, corporate announcements, digital journalism, mobile telephony, home entertainment, online gaming, financial services, online shopping, social advertising, and social commerce. The changing costs of data collection and …

Looped: Ios Application, Barbara Alejandra Wong, Lia Zadoyan

Computer Engineering

Looped is a crowd-sourced music-making iOS application. It is designed to bring friends together through creating melodies by looping mp3 samples. A user will choose a sound from the Looped sound database, loop that sound however he or she chooses, and then post it to their friends. The next user can then pick another sound, and loop that sound on top of the previously posted loop, creating an overlay of sound samples. The sound database is comprised of mp3’s provided by the creators of Patatap. Patatap is a simple online interface for playing sounds with your computer keyboard.

Thermal Numerical Analysis Of Vertical Heat Extraction Systems In Landfills, Michael Thomas Onnen

Master's Theses

An investigation was conducted to determine the response of landfills to the operation of a vertical ground source heat pump (i.e., heat extraction system, HES). Elevated landfill temperatures, reported various researchers, impact the engineering performance of landfill systems. A numerical model was developed to analyze the influence of vertical HES operation on landfills as a function of climate and operational conditions.

A 1-D model of the vertical profile of a landfill was developed to approximate fluid temperatures in the HES. A 2-D model was then analyzed over a 40 year time period using the approximate fluid temperatures to determine the …

Autonomous Competitor, Josh B. Porter

Computer Engineering

A description of a fully autonomous, golf ball rolling, RoboRodentia 2014 competitor made with stepper motors, photodiodes, a servo and an Ardunio Uno.

The I: A Client-Based Point-And-Click Puzzle Game, Aldo Lewis

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Given mobile devices’ weak computational power, game programmers must learn to create games with simple graphics that are engaging and easy to play. Though seldom created for phones and tablets, puzzle games are a perfect fit. In recent years, the genre has gained a following and even won some acclaim. Games like Myst, The Seventh Guest and Portal all engage gamers with challenging puzzles and then reward them with story components upon task fulfillment. Few such games have been created for mobile devices, in part due to the difficulty of developing for devices with different operating systems. Android, WebIOS and …

Real-Time Hybrid Simulation With Online Model Updating, Adam Mueller

Masters Theses

Hybrid simulations have shown great potential for economic and reliable assessment of structural seismic performance through a combination of physically tested components, called the experimental substructure, and numerically simulated components, called the numerical substructure. Current hybrid simulation practices often use a fixed numerical model without considering the possible availability of a more accurate model obtained during hybrid simulation through an online model updating technique. To address this limitation and improve the reliability of numerical models in hybrid simulations, this study describes the implementation of an online model updating method in real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS). The Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) was …

Surface Reconstruction Using Differential Invariant Signatures, Sophors Khut

Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Honors Projects

This thesis addresses the problem of reassembling a broken surface. Three di- mensional curve matching is used to determine shared edges of broken pieces. In practice, these pieces may have different orientation and position in space, so edges cannot be directly compared. Instead, a differential invariant signature is used to make the comparison. A similarity score between edge signatures determines if two pieces share an edge. The Procrustes algorithm is applied to find the translations and rotations that best fit shared edges. The method is implemented in Matlab, and tested on a broken spherical surface.

Calculation And Experimental Verification Of Longitudinal Spatial Hole Burning In High-Power Semiconductor Lasers, Ting Hao

Graduate Theses - Physics and Optical Engineering

Longitudinal spatial hole burning (LSHB) is believed to be one of the limiting factors in scaling the output power of high-power semiconductor lasers. In this work, a self-consistent simulation of LSHB was performed to investigate the non-uniform longitudinal photon density distribution, carrier density distribution, and gain distribution in a high-power semiconductor laser. The calculation is based on a modification to the semiconductor laser rate equations and solved using a finite difference approach, with Newton’s method employed to numerically solve the differential equations. The impact of LSHB on output power was analyzed with different parameters, including injection current, cavity length, and …

Emitter Localization And Compressed Sensing: A Low Cost Design Using Coarse Direction Finding Antennas, Andrew Raymond Wagner

Graduate Theses - Engineering Management

Research has been conducted to determine the location of uncooperative radio-frequency (RF) emitters, using low cost sensors employing broadband, low directivity antennas. Comparably lowered accuracy and longer response time may be appropriate trade-offs for size, weight, and power (SWAP). These sensors can then be deployed on numerous testbeds, and algorithms may take advantage of the reconfigurable, distributive network of sensors to precisely determine the location. To conduct this research, a network of three reconfigurable sensors, equipped for emitting and receiving RF signals, was designed based on Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP™) technology. This thesis details the experiments conducted and the …

Separation Bubbles And Vortex Formation In Cavity Flows, Kartheek Ravulapati

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This research is a computational fluid dynamic study of the formation of vortices and separation bubbles in a square cavity as well as in a cylindrical cavity. Whereas there has been previous research work on the problem of a free stream over different types of cavities, like open and closed cavities or lid driven cavities, this research on an inlet induced flow inside a square cavity lead to unusual and interesting basic fluid dynamical phenomena. The flow in a square cavity and in a cylindrical cavity is simulated over a range of Reynolds numbers and the appearance of separation bubbles …

Reducing Ambiguities In Customer Requirements Through Historical Rule-Based Knowledge In A Small Organization, Silvia Brum Preston

Dissertations

During the elicitation process the requirements for a software application are obtained from the customer. Customers often do not know how to clearly express the requirements of the application to be built, causing requirements to be ambiguous. Many studies have been found to cover different characteristics of the requirements elicitation process including methods for reducing ambiguities in requirements. The methods and findings of these studies were found to be too general when it comes to the specific domain of the requirements and knowledge about the requirements. In addition, some studies did not take into consideration the level of expertise of …

Simulation Modeling And Analysis Of Customs-Regulated Container Terminal Operations With Multimodal Transportation, Mariam A. Kotachi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

World trade has been increasing dramatically in the past two decades and, as a result, container exchange has grown significantly. Consequently and to meet this increase, several container terminals are expanding and many new ones are being established. A port with one or more container terminals is considered a complex system in which many entities interact to accomplish seamless handling of containers inbound and outbound. The level of complexity is drastically heightened for container terminals containing multimodal transportation systems as they typically involve ships, rail, and trucks arriving to one or more terminals delivering containers of different sizes to several …

Cal Poly Library Of Pyroprints: Quality Control Analysis And Web Development, Chase Ricketts

Computer Science and Software Engineering

No abstract provided.

Is Vehicle Characterization In Accordance With Standard Test Procedures A Necessary Prerequisite For Validating Computer Models Of A Test Vehicle?, Michael Hall

Masters

Vehicle characterization is the process by which a particular vehicle’s inherent dynamic behavior is classified by measuring its response to certain command inputs under standard test conditions. Such information is required when comparing its performance to that of other vehicles in response to the same test event and it is also used to authenticate computer models of the test vehicle. The aim of this research was to determine whether vehicle characterization is possible using data from non- standard tests and to judge whether such data can also be used for the purpose of validating a computer model of the test …

Engineering Collaborations In Medical Modeling And Simulation, Frederic D. Mckenzie, Salim Chemlal, Tom Hubbard, Robert E. Kelly, Roderick C. Borgie, David A. Besachio, Michel Audette

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Fifty years ago computer science was just beginning to see common acceptance as a growing discipline and very few universities had a computer science department although other departments were utilizing computers and software to enhance their methodologies. We believe modeling and simulation (M&S) is on a similar path. Many other disciplines utilize M&S to enhance their methodologies but we also believe that M&S fundamentals can be essential in making better decisions by utilizing the appropriate model for the problem at hand, expanding the solution space through simulation, and understanding it through visualization and proper analyses. After our students learn these …

Introduction To Special Issue Of Journal Of Defense Modeling And Simulation: Novel Approaches To Defense And Military Modeling And Simulation, Scott D. Snyder, James M. Taylor Jr.

Peter Kiewit Institute: Faculty Publications

Developing solutions to complex problems in government and industry is a daunting task that often requires tremendous investment in time and resources to solve. Modeling and simulation (M&S) has incredible potential to streamline development and cut costs by conducting virtual experiments that give insight into performance under various test conditions. As many program managers in the federal acquisition process can attest, realistic testing of live equipment in an operational environment can be some of the most expensive parts of a development program. M&S can provide insight into mission success of yetto- bedesigned systems without the need to actually build and …