Digital Commons Network^™

The Tierni Resistance Training System, Michael J. Hansen, Abigail M. Youngblood, Gabriel M. Johnson

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of the Tierni Resistance Training System project was to design and construct functional workout apparel that has built-in resistance. For this product, the key customer requirements we set out to address were most importantly material comfort and functionality, followed by stylishness, lack of latex, safety for injured and uninjured users, and washer safety. To meet these customer requirements, we started by researching current resistance training technology, and used the findings as a springboard for our own design development. After initial brainstorming, engineering specifications were generated based on the customer requirements. These specifications revolved around the thermal insulation, pressure, …

Multiphase Buck Converter Implementing Gallium Nitride Semiconductors, Kadin P. Stephens

Electrical Engineering

Efficiency and power loss contributions are two of the main concerns in power systems. This project exerts the use of wide bandgap semiconductors, namely Gallium Nitride (GaN), and their benefit within a Cisco Systems point-of-load converter. This project provides tools to assist researchers and practicing engineers in performing further characterization, and implementation, of GaN devices. Silicon-based Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect (MOSFETs) transistors have prevailed in power conversion applications for decades and are now considered an industry standard. Presently, the utilization of wide bandgap semiconductors is an emerging, competitive technology, as they offer many major advantages over the traditional silicon …

Solar Soiling Mitigation, Claire Desmith

Electrical Engineering

This senior project aims to mitigate performance losses that occur in Photovoltaic (PV) systems due to soiling of the panels. Soiling is the natural occurrence of debris accumulation on panels, depending on local climate conditions. Soiling loss refers to efficiency lost due to dirt and dust accumulation on the panels. The debris reduces system output by shading on a smaller scale. In addition to uniform soiling, corner soiling is observed in framed modules as debris collects in the corners of the modules. While solutions currently exist to clean modules to mitigate soiling losses, these solutions are often expensive and time …

A Mobile Application For Optimally Matching Real Estate Clients, Yu Karen Asai, Steven Andrew Luu

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Real estate agents are often tasked with finding their clients’ ideal properties. This can be difficult because multiple clients may have varying preferences, such as number of bedrooms, square footage, or price. Furthermore, different clients may weight their individual preferences differently. Existing applications do not consider multiple clients’ satisfaction, nor do they allow clients to weigh their preferences, potentially leading to less-than-ideal matchings between clients and properties.

In this project, we design and implement an iOS application whereby real estate agents can match multiple clients with individually weighted preferences to properties scraped from web listings. We model this client-property matching …

Project G.H.O.S.T., Matthew Morell, Austin Conrad, Zackeris Gordon, Conan Estes

Mechanical Engineering

Project G.H.O.S.T aimed to produce a model transmission with a control system for high performance/racing electric vehicles to utilize the full capability of the electric motor at higher speed applications. Current electric vehicles have a large amount of torque and use a fixed gear ratio that compromises between both high and low speeds with performance peaking around 65 miles per hour. A typical electric motor used in this application has approximately 1800 ft-lbs of torque up to 5,000 rpm. Past approximately 5,000 rpm, the torque rapidly drops off and so does the overall vehicle performance. Though transmissions exist that could …

Enduro Campers, Ryan J. Shomsky, Alexander W. Horst, Kevin S. Pickering, Jackson L. Aplanalp, Luke Arana, Will Firestone

Mechanical Engineering

The Enduro Campers senior project team (Formerly known as Lobo Campers senior project team) was recruited by Mr. Leif Stein to assist in the design, manufacturing, and testing of the materials and components of his company’s expedition box camper. The two main focuses of the project, divided into two sub-teams, were on the testing and manufacturing process of the materials used in the camper, and on the design and analysis of the camper’s access door, step box, and other subsystems.

The focus of the materials analysis and manufacturing team was based around the design parameter to use composite sandwich panels …

Final Design Report Cal Poly Wind Power - Balancing System, Caleb Seth Cross, Ethan Andrew Czuppa

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Wind Power club is anticipating joining the annual Collegiate Wind Competition in the year 2021. This competition hosts schools from all around the country, who meet and compete against each other by testing the wind turbines they have made throughout the academic school year. Tasks included in the competition test the wind turbine’s efficiency, power generation, overall design, and stability in extreme conditions.

Cal Poly is planning to implement a formal balancing system to support their 2021 wind turbine. Our senior project team undertook mitigating mass imbalance in the wind turbine; mass imbalance occurs when the center …

A Method For Visualizing The Structural Complexity Of Organizational Architectures, Jacob Michael B. King

Master's Theses

To achieve a high level of performance and efficiency, contemporary aerospace systems must become increasingly complex. While complexity management traditionally focuses on a product’s components and their interconnectedness, organizational representation in complexity analysis is just as essential. This thesis addresses this organizational aspect of complexity through an Organizational Complexity Metric (OCM) to aid complexity management. The OCM augments Sinha’s structural complexity metric for product architectures into a metric that can be applied to organizations. Utilizing nested numerical design structure matrices (DSMs), a compact visual representation of organizational complexity was developed. Within the nested numerical DSM are existing organizational datasets used …

Studying The Efficacy Of An Injectable 3-Dimensional Fibrin Extracellular Matrix To Characterize The Effects Of Antitumor Agents On Sw620 Cells In A Microfluidic Device, Thèo Anastos

Master's Theses

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in the United States and there is currently a lot of research going into new antitumor agents to kill the cancer. One method for replicating the tumor response to a drug in vivo is by creating an in vitro drug testing model to replicate the in vivo condition. This research project was conducted to determine the efficacy of testing tumor cultures in a microfluidic device as a way to provide accurate drug responses in vitro instead of using in vivo subjects in clinical trials. A total of four experiments were conducted with …

Electro-Muscle-To-Muscle Transfer, Hailey Quinn Casino, Jake Keola Javier, Samuel Joseph Borda, Charlotte Amalie Anderson

Biomedical Engineering

The Electro Muscle to Muscle Transfer (EMMT) system will entail designing, manufacturing, and providing a wearable device that stimulates paralyzed muscles in the hand by sampling and amplifying muscles from the forearm. With further development, the system may be capable of using different muscle inputs other than the forearm muscles along with different stimulated muscle outputs other than the hand. The system functions as a rehabilitative device for spinal cord injuries, irreparable nerve loss and/or damage, and improper neuromuscular function. It is not for total treatment nor for curing of the disabilities listed above but to alleviate the side effects …

Case Study: Infection Control On The Arroyo Grande Community Hospital Emergency Room Expansion And Remodel Project, Daniel E. Romero

Construction Management

California hospital and healthcare projects typically involve California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Department (OSHPD) which is governed by the state of California and the Fire Marshal. Along with OHSPD as the governing organization, healthcare and hospital projects often must incorporate infection control practices. The Arroyo Grande Community Hospital Emergency Room Expansions and Remodel project incorporated infectious control practices. Qualitative research was conducted through semi-structured interviews of the project management team along with primary and secondary sources. The tools and practices used on this project included negative air machines, temporary walls with sound barriers, zip walls with fire rated …

Development Of A Hybrid Particle Continuum Solver, Anthony J. Gay

Master's Theses

When simulating complex flows, there are some physical situations that exhibit large fluctuations in particle density such as: planetary reentry, ablation due to arcing, rocket exhaust plumes, etc. When simulating these events, a high level of physical accuracy can be achieved with kinetic methods otherwise known as particle methods. However, this high level of physical accuracy requires large amounts of computation time. If the simulated flow is in collisional equilibrium, then less computationally intensive continuum methods, otherwise known as fluid methods, can be utilized. Hybrid Particle-Continuum (HPC) codes attempt to blend particle and fluid solutions in order to reduce computation …

Early Wildfire Detection With Line Sensors, Virginia Yan

Master's Theses

Over the last few years, wildfires have become more devastating to communities as the fires are inevitably destructive to many homes, businesses, and ecosystems. Frequent wildfires also pose a significant threat to power grids and nearby residents as they can damage transmission lines and other electrical equipment, which in turn can cause major power shutdowns. Especially in western U.S., severe drought conditions and weather variability cause residents to become more vulnerable to wildfire disasters as their safety is threatened. We are incompetent to control the wildfires effectively despite existing advanced technologies. Hence, an algorithm based on energy conservation and heat …

Development Of A Robust Methodology To Obtain And Assess Myogenic Precursor Cells For Their Use In Regenerative Therapies, Ricardo Lasa

Master's Theses

Peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD) is characterized by buildup of atherosclerotic plaque in peripheral arteries that leads to an occlusion that can interrupt the supply of blood to the peripheral tissue, causing downstream tissue ischemia/hypoxia. PAOD is estimated to affect over 200 million patients worldwide. Current surgical revascularization treatments can be effective in about half of the patient population, leading to a significant number of patients with no treatment options beyond pharmacological intervention and lifestyle modification. The decrease in blood flow downstream of the occlusion leads to increased blood pressure gradient in the microvasculature, specifically in vessels that connect arterial …

Brain Tumor Detection And Classification From Mri Images, Anjaneya Teja Sarma Kalvakolanu

Master's Theses

A brain tumor is detected and classified by biopsy that is conducted after the brain surgery. Advancement in technology and machine learning techniques could help radiologists in the diagnosis of tumors without any invasive measures. We utilized a deep learning-based approach to detect and classify the tumor into Meningioma, Glioma, Pituitary tumors. We used registration and segmentation-based skull stripping mechanism to remove the skull from the MRI images and the grab cut method to verify whether the skull stripped MRI masks retained the features of the tumor for accurate classification. In this research, we proposed a transfer learning based approach …

Ram Air-Turbine Of Minimum Drag, Raymond Akagi

Master's Theses

The primary motivation for this work was to predict the conditions that would yield minimum drag for a small Ram-Air Turbine used to provide a specified power requirement for a small flight test instrument called the Boundary Layer Data System. Actuator Disk Theory was used to provide an analytical model for this work.

Classic Actuator Disk Theory (CADT) or Froude’s Momentum Theory was initially established for quasi-one-dimensional flows and inviscid fluids to predict the power output, drag, and efficiency of energy-extracting devices as a function of wake and freestream velocities using the laws of Conservations of Mass, Momentum, and Energy. …

Condition Monitoring And Fault Detection Of Blade Damage In Small Wind Turbines Using Time-Series And Frequency Analyses, Luke H. Costello

Master's Theses

Condition monitoring systems are critical for autonomous detection of damage when operating remote wind turbines. These systems continually monitor the turbine’s operating parameters and detect damage before the turbine fails. Although common in utility-scale turbines, these systems are mostly undeveloped in distributed, small-scale turbines due to their high cost and need for specialized equipment. The Cal Poly Wind Power Research Center is developing a low-cost, modular solution known as the LifeLine system. The previous version contained monitoring equipment, but lacked decision-making capabilities.

The present work builds on the LifeLine by developing software-based detection of blade damage. Detection is done by …

The Effects Of Wort Oxygenation Scenarios On Fermentation Performance, Volatile Flavor Compound Development, And Flavor Stability In High Gravity Brewing, Ben Jabson

Master's Theses

High gravity (HG) brewing has become the most used strategy for maximizing fermenter productivity in commercial brewing. While HG brewing has many benefits, the additional stress placed on the yeast due to the higher concentration of fermentable sugars in the wort can negatively impact fermentation performance and flavor compound formation. A proper dissolved oxygen (DO) level is vital to guarantee adequate yeast performance during HG fermentations. Dissolved oxygen is vital to yeast viability throughout the fermentation process, as yeast requires oxygen to synthesize vital cell membrane components needed for continued anaerobic growth and cell division. Previous research has demonstrated the …

Development Of An Infrared Thermography System To Measure Boundary Layer Transition In A Low Speed Wind Tunnel Testing Environment, Damien Horton

Master's Theses

The use of infrared thermography for boundary layer detection was evaluated for use in the Cal Poly Low Speed Wind Tunnel (LSWT) and recommendations for the successful use of this technique were developed. In cooperation with Joby Aviation, an infinite wing model was designed, manufactured and tested for use in the LSWT. The wing was designed around a custom airfoil profile specific for this project, where the nearly-flat pressure gradient at a zero pitch angle would delay the chordwise onset of boundary layer transition. Steady-state, RANS numerical simulations predicted the onset of transition to occur at 0.75 x/c for the …

Adaptive Laboratory Evolution Of Scenedesmus Obliquus For Increased Carbohydrate Content And Biomass Productivity, Nahel Ali

Master's Theses

The economics of microalgal bioproduct commercialization would benefit from increased accumulation of energy storage compounds, such as carbohydrates and lipids, and increased biomass productivity. This thesis explores two adaptive laboratory evolution strategies for improving Scenedesmus obliquus: single UV-mutagenesis and low light cultivation at a high dilution rate to produce cultigens with greater carbohydrate content and iterative UV-mutagenesis and selection under outdoor conditions in a raceway pond at a high dilution rate to increase biomass productivity.

Two cultigens were generated with the goal of increased carbohydrate content: K5 and K7. Both were mutagenized for 5 seconds and cultivated in 50-mL …

Machine Learning Approaches To Historic Music Restoration, Quinn Coleman

Master's Theses

In 1889, a representative of Thomas Edison recorded Johannes Brahms playing a piano arrangement of his piece titled “Hungarian Dance No. 1”. This recording acts as a window into how musical masters played in the 19th century. Yet, due to years of damage on the original recording medium of a wax cylinder, it was un-listenable by the time it was digitized into WAV format. This thesis presents machine learning approaches to an audio restoration system for historic music, which aims to convert this poor-quality Brahms piano recording into a higher quality one. Digital signal processing is paired with two machine …

The Effect Of Focused Ultrasound On Altering The Diameter Class Of Nerve Fibers Contributing To A Compound Evoked Potential, Analyzed Using A Perturbative Decomposition Technique., Megan Wurden

Master's Theses

Peripheral neuropathies are disorders that involve the damage of peripheral nerve fibers, affecting the ability of different parts of the body to communicate. A differentiating factor in diagnosis between various clinical conditions can be which size class of nerve fibers are affected. A nerve conduction velocity test can be used to assess the viability of the nerve but is a single-parameter test and gives no information about the population characteristics of the remaining active fibers. A method developed and previously reported by Szlavik (2016) utilizes a mathematical perturbed decomposition to determine the normalized frequency of each size class of fiber …

Gyroscopic Human Balance Device, Randy Lam Hau, Spencer Ross, Yael Farkash

Biomedical Engineering

This project’s sponsor, Charlie Guitierrez, has decades of experience building assistive walking devices for the wheelchair bound population. During his work, he noticed that many of his clients retained some ability to balance themselves and so theorized that they would be able to walk independently if given some form of assistance. This assistance could potentially be in the form of a wearable gyroscope. Gyroscopes are commonly used to stabilize objects subjected to instability, such as bicycles, motorcycles, and ships. Thus, a wearable gyroscope would assist its user in maintaining overall stability by imparting reactive torques and forces if the user …

Hypoxic Incubation Chamber, Makenzie Jones, Andrea Skattenborg, Henry Elsner

Biomedical Engineering

In developing a model to test anti-tumor drugs, Dr. Christopher Heylman’s lab requires the ability to culture cells in a hypoxic environment. The purpose of this project was to make this possible. Funding for this project comes from the Biomedical Engineering Department, the Hannah-Forbes Fund, and Dr. Heylman’s lab. The chamber must be able to reach a user-defined oxygen concentration and hold that concentration for 48 hours while creating an environment conducive to cell culture. Importantly, the chamber must also be sterilizable and cleanable for repeated use. While several products exist to create hypoxic environments for cell culture, they are …

Best Practices For Bridge Crane Implementation And Installation: A Case Study, Sterling D. Treloar

Construction Management

Overhead Cranes, which are more commonly referred to as bridge cranes, provide a substantial amount of flexibility with respect to the user’s ability to move material and heavy equipment throughout a factory or manufacturing facility. Oftentimes, the client is not aware of the benefits of implementing bridge cranes rather than using mobile gantry cranes. The client may not be aware of the benefits of bridge crane installation occurring at the beginning of a project or in fact, including it in the initial design of the project, rather than considering it in the middle of the project. This case study will …

Field Welding Repair Of Heavy Equipment, Phil Akahori

Construction Management

Welding repairs of heavy equipment in the field can vary in levels of success. This can be due to the high strength steels used in the manufacture of heavy equipment implements that require special metallurgical considerations. Repair difficulties can be further compounded by the limitations of tooling typically found on a construction site and schedule commitments. Overloading or excessive impacts can cause damage to the bucket teeth of an excavator or bulldozer rippers. A shop could perform a proper repair but that increases cost and takes precious time. A successful repair of these items done out in the field can …

Subcontractor Claim Management And Dispute Resolution Methods In The State Of California Versus The Province Of British Columbia: A Case Study, Harrison A D Grant

Construction Management

In the construction industry, discordance between what is expected versus what is delivered often arises. This disparity is commonly handled using informal negotiation. However, if negotiations fail, then claims and disputes often emerge. Issues involving scope of work, change orders, schedule, and payment can lead to conflicts. Companies try to employ the best alternative dispute resolution method to settle subcontractor claims and disputes without the need for litigation. Speaking with construction professionals in California and British Columbia, a difference in opinion exists as to which method is considered most effective when dealing with subcontractor claims and disputes. In California, the …

Schedule Efficiency Associated With The Tilt-Up Construction Method: A Case Study, Jake A. Barron

Construction Management

Tilt-up is an efficient method of project delivery that is best suited for large, flat projects such as commercial warehouses and distribution centers. The hypothesis is that this method of casting wall panels on site, and then tilting them upright, allows for certain unique activity sequences which could provide faster project completion. In order to prove this theory, analysis of two tilt-up projects completed within a mile of each other by the same contractor, and assessment of their schedules, will provide insight into the specific tasks that allow for better delivery speed. This methodology paired with interviews of team members, …

Possible Use For Recycled Disposable Face Masks In Concrete, Lauren Douglas

Construction Management

Disposable face masks are one of many single use products that are detrimental to the environment. The construction industry has been introducing new ways to incorporate recycled products into their materials. This paper addresses one possible way to use more environmentally friendly materials in the construction industry. 16 concrete cylinders were prepared using 4x8 forms. The mix was manipulated to test the impact of incorporating varying levels of disposable shredded face masks. Compressive strength and workability were measured in these cylinders. Eight cylinders were prepared for the control batch. Four cylinders were prepared using 10 oz. of shredded face masks …

The Structure Function Relationship Of Disordered Networks Using Young's Modulus And Floppy Modes, Melinda Grace Tajnai

Physics

Disordered networks may have the ability to store information that can be retrieved using a Young’s modulus measurement. The effect of the number of floppy modes a network has on the value of this Young’s modulus measurement is unknown. This experiment uses 28 networks consisting of 3D printed edges in a sliding frame to determine how the Young’s modulus of a network is related to the number of floppy modes.