Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Laser Thomson Scattering Measurements Of Electron Temperature And Density In A Hall-Effect Plasma, Robert L. Washeleski

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Hall-effect thrusters (HETs) are compact electric propulsion devices with high specific impulse used for a variety of space propulsion applications. HET technology is well developed but the electron properties in the discharge are not completely understood, mainly due to the difficulty involved in performing accurate measurements in the discharge. Measurements of electron temperature and density have been performed using electrostatic probes, but presence of the probes can significantly disrupt thruster operation, and thus alter the electron temperature and density. While fast-probe studies have expanded understanding of HET discharges, a non-invasive method of measuring the electron temperature and density in the …

Impact Of E22 On Two-Stroke And Four-Stroke Snowmobiles, James Corey Weber

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

A push to reduce dependency on foreign energy and increase the use of renewable energy has many gas stations pumping ethanol blended fuels. Recreational engines typically have less complex fuel management systems than that of the automotive sector. This prevents the engine from being able to adapt to different ethanol concentrations. Using ethanol blended fuels in recreational engines raises several consumer concerns. Engine performance and emissions are both affected by ethanol blended fuels.

This research focused on assessing the impact of E22 on two-stroke and four-stroke snowmobiles. Three snowmobiles were used for this study. A 2009 Arctic Cat Z1 Turbo …

Assessments And Computational Simulations In Support Of A Time-Varying Mass Flow Rate Measurement Technique For Pulsatile Gas Flow, Andrew Rice

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis covers the correction, and verification, development, and implementation of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for an orifice plate meter. Past results were corrected and further expanded on with compressibility effects of acoustic waves being taken into account. One dynamic pressure difference transducer measures the time-varying differential pressure across the orifice meter. A dynamic absolute pressure measurement is also taken at the inlet of the orifice meter, along with a suitable temperature measurement of the mean flow gas. Together these three measurements allow for an incompressible CFD simulation (using a well-tested and robust model) for the cross-section independent …

Exhaust Emissions Of Low Level Blend Alcohol Fuels From Two-Stroke And Four-Stroke Marine Engines, James Michael Sevik

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard mandates that by 2022, 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels must be produced on a yearly basis. Ethanol production is capped at 15 billion gallons, meaning 21 billion gallons must come from different alternative fuel sources. A viable alternative to reach the remainder of this mandate is iso-butanol. Unlike ethanol, iso-butanol does not phase separate when mixed with water, meaning it can be transported using traditional pipeline methods. Iso-butanol also has a lower oxygen content by mass, meaning it can displace more petroleum while maintaining the same oxygen concentration in the fuel blend.

This research …

Translation Studies On An Annular Field Reversed Configuration Device For Space Propulsion, Carrie Suzanne Hill

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This research investigated annular field reversed configuration (AFRC)devices for high power electric propulsion by demonstrating the acceleration of these plasmoids using an experimental prototype and measuring the plasmoid's velocity, impulse, and energy efficiency.

The AFRC plasmoid translation experiment was design and constructed with the aid of a dynamic circuit model. Two versions of the experiment were built, using underdamped RLC circuits at 10 kHz and 20 kHz. Input energies were varied from 100 J/pulse to 1000 J/pulse for the 10 kHz bank and 100 J/pulse for the 20 kHz bank. The plasmoids were formed in static gas fill of …

Analysis Of A Novel Waste Heat Recovery Mechanism For An I.C. Engine, Jasdeep S. Condle

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Typical internal combustion engines lose about 75% of the fuel energy through the engine coolant, exhaust and surface radiation. Most of the heat generated comes from converting the chemical energy in the fuel to mechanical energy and in turn thermal energy is produced. In general, the thermal energy is unutilized and thus wasted. This report describes the analysis of a novel waste heat recovery (WHR) system that operates on a Rankine cycle. This novel WHR system consists of a second piston within the existing piston to reduce losses associated with compression and exhaust strokes in a four-cycle engine. The wasted …

Performance And Emissions Testing Of A Small Two Stroke Engine Using Mid-Level Ethanol Blends, Ananth Padmanabha Rao Vemuri

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

With the introduction of the mid-level ethanol blend gasoline fuel for commercial sale, the compatibility of different off-road engines is needed. This report details the test study of using one mid-level ethanol fuel in a two stroke hand held gasoline engine used to power line trimmers. The study sponsored by E3 is to test the effectiveness of an aftermarket spark plug from E3 Spark Plug when using a mid-level ethanol blend gasoline. A 15% ethanol by volume (E15) is the test mid-level ethanol used and the 10% ethanol by volume (E10) was used as the baseline fuel.

The testing comprises …

Section 7: Design & Manufacturing, Asme Ectc Coordinating Committee

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the ASME Early Career Technical Conference, November 4-5, 2011. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

pp. 251-276

Open-Architecture Composite Tube Design And Manufacture, David Branscomb, Austin Gurley, David Beal, Royall Broughton

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the ASME Early Career Technical Conference, November 4-5, 2011. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

Section 7: Design & Manufacturing; pp. 270-276

Computational Investigation Of A Hinge-Connected Hovering Plate, Zachary Robert Gaston

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

A simplified conceptual flapping wing MAV design, capable of hover, is formed from the works of both biologists and engineers, studying the behavior of flying insects and the aerodynamics of flapping flight. With this new model, hovering hinged plates are used to study the effects of passive deflection on aerodynamic performance using two-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) at low Reynolds numbers (Re). The hinge is modeled as a torsional spring at the leading edge, where prescribed motion is applied. The influence of forced-to-natural frequency ratio (hinge stiffness) and stroke-to-chord ratio (leading edge kinematics) are studied, to explore the effects that …

Evaluating Net-Zero Energy Houses From The U.S. Department Of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011, Jordan P. Wallpe, William J. Hutzel, Gregory Lasker, Clark Cory

School of Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The Solar Decathlon is a two year, international project where university students compete to design, build, and test energy-efficient, net-zero homes. By definition, net-zero energy houses annually produce as much electricity as they consume. The 2011 Solar Decathlon, held in Washington D.C., had 19 university teams from around the world.

Unfortunately, many past Solar Decathlon houses have traditionally been very costly. However, the 2011 Solar Decathlon was the first competition to have an affordability contest. The affordability contest required each home to be valued under an estimated builder’s cost of $250,000, forcing the teams to select economically feasible solutions for …

Resolving Structure And Mechanical Properties At The Nanoscale Of Viruses With Frequency Modulation Atomic Force Microscopy, David Martinez-Martin, Carolina Carrasco, Mercedes Hernando-Pérez, P. J. De Pablo, Júlio Gómez-Herrero, Rebeca Pérez, Mauricio Garcia Mateu, José López Carrascosa, Daniel Roy Kiracofe, John C. Melcher, Arvind Raman

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Structural Biology (SB) techniques are particularly successful in solving virus structures. Taking advantage of the symmetries, a heavy averaging on the data of a large number of specimens, results in an accurate determination of the structure of the sample. However, these techniques do not provide true single molecule information of viruses in physiological conditions. To answer many fundamental questions about the quickly expanding physical virology it is important to develop techniques with the capability to reach nanometer scale resolution on both structure and physical properties of individual molecules in physiological conditions. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) fulfills these requirements providing images …

Intricate Dynamics And Hydrodynamic Frictional Losses Of The Piston-Ring Assembly In Internal Combustion Engines, Mohannad Hakeem

Wayne State University Dissertations

Frictional losses in internal combustion engines approximately account for 10% of the expended fuel energy. Moreover, forty percent of these losses are attributed to the reciprocating motion of the piston-assembly. Besides the adverse effect of friction on fuel economy, the intricate dynamics of the piston-assembly tend to significantly influence the thermal efficiency through blow-by, the engine durability through wear, and the engine noise through piston-slap. Moreover, 40 to 80% of the lubricant oil consumption has been attributed to the ring-pack dynamics.

In this dissertation, a reliable tool has been developed using MATLAB/SIMULINK and embedded C-S Functions that predicts the intricate …

Spray Characterization Of Flex-Fuel Gasoline Di Injectors And Spray Interaction With Charge Motion In A Variable Valve Actuation Engine, Atsushi Matsumoto

Wayne State University Dissertations

The objective of this study is to understand the characteristics of GDI sprays and behavior of in-cylinder charge motion in a GDI engine which is equipped with variable valve actuation. High speed spray visualization in a spray chamber was conducted for a study of spray development. By Schlieren visualization technique, the effect of different conditions including ambient conditions (temperature, pressure) and injection conditions (fuel type, fuel temperature, nozzle design) on spray formation was discussed in both qualitative and quantitative methods. High-speed visualization of the in-cylinder charge motion was carried out as well using an optical accessible engine. The testing was …

Linear And Non-Linear Deformations Of A Wind Turbine Blade Considering Warping And All Aeroelastic Load Couplings, Fouad Mohammad Mohammad

Wayne State University Dissertations

The structural dynamics behavior of the blade of a horizontal axis wind turbine that reacts to the different components of the aerodynamic loading were studied by many researchers using different approaches and assumptions. In the present research, the author considered all the extensional, torsional and flexural loadings acting on the blade with their couplings, variable airfoil cross sections with warping effects, shear deflection, rotary inertia and with or without blade's pretwist for both the linear small deformation case and the nonlinear large deformation case. To the best knowledge of the author the simultaneous inclusion of all these factors has not …

Multi-Fuel Operation Of Modern Engines; On Board Fuel Identification, Florin Mocanu

Wayne State University Dissertations

Modern engines require enhancement of electronic controls to achieve better fuel economy, higher power density and satisfactory emissions levels while operating safely.

Military vehicles should be capable to run safely and efficiently on any fuel available in the field, therefore on-board fuel identification and adaptation of engine controls to the type of fuel becomes extremely important. In these conditions, the use of an inexpensive, nonintrusive sensor is highly desirable.

The development of a technique based on the measurement of the instantaneous crankshaft speed and engine dynamics could be a convenient solution.

Several such methods have been elaborated at the Center …

Optical Investigation Of Ethanol And N-Heptane Dual-Fuel Partially Premixed Combution In S Reciprocating Engine, Radu Catalin Florea

Wayne State University Dissertations

The details of the dual-fuel combustion of n-heptane and ethanol were investigated in an optically accessible engine representative of light-duty applications. Experimental work involved the application of optical diagnostics such as high-speed imaging of combustion chemiluminescence and soot radiation, spectral measurements and laser induced fluorescence. At the same time, the experimental conditions have been replicated using numerical simulation of chemically reactive in-cylinder flow.

The numerical simulation results, which showed good agreement with the experimental data across several validation approaches, provided an improved understanding of the mechanism responsible for the control of the rate of combustion for dual-fuel operation. The comparison …

The Effect Of Biodiesel Blends On A Multi-Cylinder Engine And The Impact On Aftertreatment, Amy Peterson

Wayne State University Dissertations

Recently, topics including global warming, increased environmental awareness, recycling, and organically produced meat and vegetables have been prevalent in the media and research arenas. The rapidly increasing cost for fossil fuels and the pursuit of environmental conservation has brought about the interest in a renewable and clean burning fuel, specifically biodiesel. Biodiesel, or vegetable oil ester as it was originally referred to, has been improving and progressing since the early 1900's. Fortunately, significant advancement in the understanding of raw vegetable oil as a fuel as well as converting it to ethyl or methyl esters, now known as biodiesel, has been …

Characterizing The Acoustic Properties Of The Jet Lab At The National Center For Physical Acoustics, Joshua Anderson Lieblong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Aerodynamic noise has been a problem since the first use of the jet engine for military aircraft in World War II. For further uses of the jet engine to be possible, problems due to jet noise must be researched and addressed. Anechoic chambers were proposed as a testing facility for research in aerodynamic noise because of their supposed free-field characteristics. The international standard ISO 3745-1977 was introduced to determine whether the facilities could be considered anechoic, semi-anechoic, or neither. An experiment was designed to determine at what frequencies the National Center for Physical Acoustics' Jet Lab Facility is non-anechoic, semi-anechoic, …

Test 2035: John Deere 6210r, Nebraska Tractor Test Lab

Nebraska Tractor Tests

ABOUT THE TEST REPORT AND USE OF THE DATA The test data contained in this report are a tabulation of the results of a series of tests. Due to the restricted format of these pages, only a limited amount of data and not all of the tractor specifications are included. The full OECD report contains usually about 30 pages of data and specifications. The test data were obtained for each tractor under similar conditions and therefore, provide a means of comparison of performance based on a limited set of reported data. EXPLANATION OF THE TEST PROCEDURES Purpose The purpose of …