Digital Commons Network^™

High Temperature Sensor Based On Fabry-Perot Interferometer In Ceramic Coaxial Cable, Kenneth Paul Smith Jr.

Masters Theses

"In this thesis, the application of a coaxial cable Fabry-Perot interferometer (CCFPI) as a high temperature sensor is analyzed. Coaxial cable sensors provide the advantages of fiber optic sensors, such as the ability to be embedded and multiplexed, while overcoming the limitations created by the fragility of fibers. The fabrication process of the CCFPI, using a computer controlled drill system to create holes in the cable is discussed. By analyzing the amplitudes of the created reflections, the diameter of the holes is optimized. A new fabrication process, in which holes are drilled 180⁰ apart from each other to create a …

Effects Of Machining Parameters And Cooling Strategies On Cutting Forces And Surface Integrity In High-Speed Slot End-Milling Of Titanium Alloy, Emenike Chukwuma

Masters Theses

“Paper 1 presents the results of the investigations of the effects of cooling strategies [Emulsion cooling, Minimum Quantity Lubrication (MQL) and Liquid Nitrogen (LN₂)] and machining parameters (feed rate and spindle speed) on cutting force components, cutting temperature and tool wear during slot end-milling of titanium Ti-6Al-4V workpiece. All machining experiments were conducted using four-flute 0.5 inch diameter uncoated solid carbide end-mill on Cincinnati Milacron, Sabre 750 vertical machining center equipped with Acramatic 2100 controller. Cutting force components were acquired and tool wear was indirectly measured from maximum cutting force variation per slot from the first pass to …

Feature Extraction Through K-Means Segmentation For Melanoma Detection, Snigdha Priya Bommadevara

Masters Theses

"Malignant melanoma is responsible for 75% of the deaths caused due to skin cancer annually. However, melanoma detection can be possible through feature extraction and pattern classification, which can lower the risk, if the melanoma is detected at an early stage. Clustering is one of the most useful tools used to differentiate features that can contribute to melanoma. This research work uses the k-means clustering algorithm for implementation of color segmentation. However, k-means clustering requires a predefined value of k, i.e., the number of clusters must be specified at the beginning of the run. This research uses a predefined value …

Development Of Marker-Based Human Motion Capture Systems For Assembly Simulation And Ergonomic Analysis, Sajeev C. Puthenveetil

Masters Theses

"In aerospace industry, the assembly operator is often exposed to potential ergonomic injuries due to awkward postures while working in confined spaces. Manually generating worker postures in simulation software for ergonomic analysis is cumbersome. This research focuses on the use of marker-based optical motion capture technology to generate human motion simulations in real-time for ergonomic analysis. To address the challenges involved in capturing human motions in a real work environment, an assembly operation was simulated in a four-walled Computer Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) which provides an immersive 3D environment to the worker performing the assembly operation. Multiple cameras were set-up …

A Conforming Method For Regional Marginal Loss Surplus Allocation, Xiaolong Wang

Masters Theses

"The marginal transmission loss model is used in electricity markets across the United States to measure a resource's marginal contribution to system loss. This model prices loss into the locational marginal price as a marginal loss component. Marginal loss pricing will render a net revenue surplus within an energy balanced system. This marginal loss surplus (MLS) is typically allocated back to scheduling coordinators in proportion to the measured demand on a system-wide basis. However, when the system experiences heterogeneous loss across different regions, the system-wide allocation method fails to recognize the regional differences in actual loss costs. As a result, …

Distribution And Occurrence Of Escherichia Coli In Water And Sediments At Grand Glaize Beach In Lake Of The Ozarks State Park, Jordan Lee Wilson

Masters Theses

"Public swimming beaches at the Lake of the Ozarks State Park (LOSP) are popular vacationing spots for many Missourians; however, on several occasions Escherichia coli (E. coli) concentrations have exceeded standards set by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR). Exceedances lead to beach closures which not only represent a potential public health threat but are also detrimental to the local economy and the public's perception of the lake's general water quality. In a collaborative effort between Missouri S&T, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the MDNR, an in-depth, two-summer study was conducted which included collection of …

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis And Computer Simulation Of Polyurea Aerogels, Victoria Ann Prokopf

Masters Theses

"Historically, the use of aerogels has been limited due to their poor mechanical properties. However, polyurea aerogels have proven to be mechanically strong under quasi-static conditions. Polyurea aerogels can be created by filling molds of the desired shape with a liquid solution that then creates a solid gel filled with liquid. The liquid can be removed from the gel by supercritical drying. This thesis outlines dynamic testing as well as simulation for polyurea aerogels.

Testing has been conducted in dynamic tension and bending for densities of polyurea aerogels ranging from 0.12 g/cm³ to 0.31 g/cm³. In most …

Monitoring Micropile Foundations Of Bridge During Construction, Devin Tavis Dixon

Masters Theses

"Information regarding the load transfer of micropiles during in-service construction has virtually never been monitored or documented. The primary objective of this research project was to monitor the load transfer versus the depth of production micropiles during construction. The micropiles being studied were used to support Bridge No. 2 of the Foothills Parkway in eastern Tennessee during construction. Two of the piers (1 & 2) were instrumented for the purpose of this study. Vibrating wire strain gages (VWSG) were installed on select micropiles within pile groups of twenty (20) micropiles. Seven vibrating wire strain gages were installed on each micropile …

Systems And Image Database Resources For Uav Search And Rescue Applications, David Christopher Macke Jr.

Masters Theses

"Aerial search and rescue applications using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can incorporate image processing technologies to locate targets faster and with a higher degree of accuracy. The task of developing such systems involves the development of both hardware and software components. Examples of both hardware and software approaches in the design process for an aerial imaging system are shown for small UAV applications. This project contains resources to help facilitate the incorporation of UAV applications into educational ventures and design projects. A power supply design is done for a lightweight imaging system and a large database of aerial images is …

Part I: Increased Leaching Of Arsenic, Selenium, Molybdenum, And Vanadium From High Calcium Coal Ash Containing Trona Reaction Products. Part Ii: Using Agricultural Byproduct Rice Hull As Biosorbent To Remove And Recover Metal Ions In Water, Yongbo Dan

Masters Theses

"Part I. The trona is being injected to control SO_x emission from coal-fired power plants. The results showed that trona ash leached significantly more As, Se, Mo, and V than the control fly ash did, especially under the natural pH condition. In addition, trona ash had a significantly greater soluble fraction than the control ash. Further investigation indicated that greater amounts of the studied anionic elements in the trona ash were associated with the soluble, trona reaction products. Moreover, the insoluble fraction of the trona ash lost its capability to adsorb these elements under the natural pH condition. The …

Balanced Cross Section Of The Northeast Of Adiyaman, Turkey, Mustafa Tuncer

Masters Theses

"Deformation during closure of an ocean basin and continent-continent collision in southeast Anatolia Turkey during the Late Cretaceous to Middle Miocene was investigated by construction of a geologic map, structural cross-section and retrodeformed palinspastically restored cross-section. The area of study is a N-S transect across the Bitlis Suture Zone of Northeast of Adiyaman. The study area is situated in the southeast Anatolian orogenic belt which includes, from south to north, the Arabian platform, the zone of Imbrication, and the zone of Nappes. A geologic map of this region was prepared in order to construct balanced and restored cross sections from …

Effects Of Initial Conditions On Rayleigh-Taylor Instability Using Elastic-Plastic Materials, Pamela Susan Roach

Masters Theses

"When an elastic-plastic solid is accelerated by a fluid of lower density, Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) is observed, and the instability is mitigated by the material's mechanical strength, initial conditions, and the acceleration that drives the instability. Such instances of RTI are observed in supernovas, explosive welding, and inertial confinement fusion. In contrast to Newtonian fluids, experimental study of RTI in accelerated solids is traditionally hindered by difficulty to measure material properties and exceedingly small time scales. An understanding of the role initial conditions and material properties have on the growth of RTI will lead to better control of the instability. …

Fluidic Sensor Devices Utilizing Dry Film Resist As Main Structural Materials, Sijia Gong

Masters Theses

"In this thesis, two types of fluidic sensor devices are demonstrated. The first device utilizes a dry film resist (DFR) as the main structural material of fluidic device utilizing the photolithography process. The second one involves a simple, low-cost sensor platform composed of ubiquitous materials such as polymer tubing and metal wires. Both devices are prepared to measure the dissolved oxygen content, as a model target analyte, based on the oxygen quenching reaction of a ruthenium complex fluorophore as the reporting agent. Characterization of sensors is conducted based on the fluorescence lifetime measurement. The first type of sensor is constructed …

Uterine Cervical Cancer Histology Image Feature Extraction And Classification, Cheng Lu

Masters Theses

"Cervical cancer, the second most common cancer affecting women worldwide and the most common in developing countries can be cured in almost all patients, if detected early and treated. However, cervical cancer incidence and mortality remain high in resource-poor regions, where early detection systems often cannot be maintained because of inherent complexity. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has collected a vast amount of visual information, 100,000 cervigrams (35 mm color slides), screening thousands of women by this technique. In addition to the cervigrams, large digitized histology images are being archived.

In this research, a framework for automatic recognition and classification …

A Friction Prediction Model For Small Si Engines, Avinash Singh

Masters Theses

"A substantial portion of the input fuel energy in an SI engine is lost towards overcoming the frictional forces from various rubbing parts. These frictional losses are very significant in small engines and these losses can be reduced by incorporating some design changes. A semi-empirical friction prediction model was studied and modified with the help of the experimental results for small SI engines. This model is dependent upon engine geometry and speed. The model divides the frictional work into different sub-assemblies of the engine and these sub-assemblies are in turn divided to determine the friction associated with individual components. A …

Analysis Of Model Uncertainty In Hydraulic Modeling: The Bstem Application To The Osage River, Annabell Leigh Ulary

Masters Theses

"Uncertainty is inevitable when creating any kind of model. A model can be used in the most accurate way possible, if the uncertainties are understood. This study determines the level of uncertainty in the Bank Stability and Toe Erosion Model (BSTEM) of the Osage River downstream of Bagnell Dam between Lake Ozark, MO and Jefferson City, MO. The statistical analysis of the BSTEM model was performed using the aid of SAS statistical computer modeling software. There were 4 different analysis values used to determine the best fit model for all dependent variables. These values include the F-test, the coefficient of …

Robust Methods For Construction Of Global Potential Energy Surfaces, Phalgun Lolur

Masters Theses

"This thesis is about the development of robust methods for construction of global potential energy surfaces to study the spectroscopy and dynamics of molecular systems. A potential energy surface represents the electronic energy of a molecule as a function of its geometry. This is central to how chemists view molecular systems in terms of motion across a rich energy landscape where barriers separate wells corresponding to different stable structures. The range of molecular distortions defines the potential energy surface. Computing the potential energy surface of a molecule has become a fundamental operation in modern theoretical chemistry studies. The Born-Oppenheimer approximation …

Transmission Shaft Design For Hydrokinetic Turbine With Reliability Consideration, Goutham Pusapati

Masters Theses

"Hydrokinetic energy, a relatively new kind of renewable energy, can be generated from flowing water in rivers or oceans. Hydrokinetic turbines (HKTs) are a major system for hydrokinetic energy, and the reliability of the HKTs is critical for both their lifecycle cost and safety. The objective of this work is to apply advanced methodologies of reliability analysis and reliability-based design to the transmission shaft design for a horizontal-axis, non-submerged HKT. The deterministic shaft design is performed first by considering failure modes of strength and deflection using distortion energy, maximum shear and deflection theories. Then the reliability analysis of the shaft …

A Modification Of Freeze-Core Technology For Collecting Granular Fluvial Sediment Samples, David Charles Smith

Masters Theses

"The presence of coarse grained sediment can potentially reduce the effectiveness of conventional sampling methods in recovering fluvial sediments. A modification to freeze-core technology was used to collect fine grained sediments for the purpose of characterizing the extent of heavy metal contamination in fluvial deposits that contain significant amounts of coarse-grained material such as cobbles and boulders. This material greatly reduces the effectiveness of conventional sampling methods. This method uses 2.5-cm and 2.9-cm diameter by 30-cm long finned samplers that were mechanically- and hand-driven into the ground. The sediment is frozen to the outside of the sampler by injecting liquid …

Green Roof Water Quality Impacts And Physicochemical Stability, Grace Ella Harper

Masters Theses

"Green roofs can provide environmental benefits and conserve energy; this research evaluated green roof stormwater management, nutrient loading, and erosion prevention for two green roof media. During a pilot study, the runoff quantity and composition from green roof material was evaluated continuously under field conditions for two different media, both tested under planted and unplanted conditions. Water quantity results show over a 40% reduction in runoff from just the growing media and over 60% reduction in runoff with established plants in green roof media over the eight month study. Previous studies have reported a "first flush" of excess nutrients but …

A New Approach To Nuclear Safeguard Enhancement Through Radionuclide Profiling, Aaron Dawon Peterson

Masters Theses

"The United States has led the effort to promote peaceful use of nuclear power amongst states actively utilizing it as well as those looking to deploy the technology in the near future. With the attraction being demonstrated by various countries towards nuclear power comes the concern that a nation may have military aspirations for the use of nuclear energy. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has established nuclear safeguard protocols and procedures to mitigate nuclear proliferation. The work herein proposed a strategy to further enhance existing safeguard protocols by considering safeguard in nuclear fuel design. The strategy involved the use …

Search-Based Model Summarization, Lokesh Krishna Ravichandran

Masters Theses

"Large systems are complex and consist of numerous components and interactions between the components. Hence managing such large systems is a cumbersome and time consuming task. Large systems are usually described at the model level. But the large number of components in such models makes it difficult to modify. As a consequence, developers need a solution to rapidly detect which model components to revise. Effective solution is to generate a model summary. Although existing techniques are powerful enough to provide good summaries based on lexical information (relevant terms), they do not make use of structural information (component structure) well. In …

Hybridizing And Applying Computational Intelligence Techniques, Jeffery Scott Shelburg

Masters Theses

"As computers are increasingly relied upon to perform tasks of increasing complexity affecting many aspects of society, it is imperative that the underlying computational methods performing the tasks have high performance in terms of effectiveness and scalability. A common solution employed to perform such complex tasks are computational intelligence (CI) techniques. CI techniques use approaches influenced by nature to solve problems in which traditional modeling approaches fail due to impracticality, intractability, or mathematical ill-posedness. While CI techniques can perform considerably better than traditional modeling approaches when solving complex problems, the scalability performance of a given CI technique alone is not …

Secure Design Defects Detection And Correction, Wenquan Wang

Masters Theses

"Bad design and software defects often make source codes hard to understand and lead to maintenance difficulties. In order to detect and fix such defects, researchers have systematically investigated these issues and designed different effective algorithms to tackle the problems. However, most of these methods need source codes/models for defect detection and correction. Commercial companies, like banks, may not be willing to provide their source models due to data security. Therefore, it is a huge challenge to detect software detects by a consulting company as well as to keep source models confidential. This thesis analyze security issues in existing approaches …

Design And Analysis Of An Open-Ended Waveguide Probe For Material Characterization, Matthew Alan Kempin

Masters Theses

"Nondestructive evaluation of stratified (layered) composite structures at microwave and millimeter wave frequencies is of great interest in many applications where simultaneous determination of the complex dielectric properties and thicknesses of multiple layers is desired. Open-ended rectangular waveguide probes are effective tools for this purpose. The technique requires a full-wave electromagnetic model that accurately calculates the complex reflection coefficient as a function of frequency and material properties. Subsequently, this information is used in conjunction with the measured complex reflection coefficient to evaluate the sought for material properties. This thesis presents simulated and measured data to investigate the influence that measurement …

Communication Protocols For Integrated Fiber Optic Sensor Interrogator, Tameem Ahmed Khan

Masters Theses

"Fiber optic sensors have gained rapid recognition in sensing environmental factors such as strain, stress, acoustics, pressure, temperature among emerging other sensing applications. Major advantages of fiber based systems are small size, light weight, multiplex-ability of sensors on a single fiber, and immunity to Radio Frequency (RF) interference. However, single most major disadvantage of such technology is that traditionally the interrogation systems are typically bulky and heavy lab only equipment. Embed-ability of sensors into different structures and environments requires that the whole systems (sensors + interrogator) be small, modular and portable. This thesis presents such a custom Fiber optic Sensor …

Harmonic Compensation In A Grid Using Doubly Fed Induction Generators, Omkar Amol Ghatpande

Masters Theses

"Ideally, electric utilities are expected to deliver a sinusoidal voltage with a constant rated frequency, while customers are expected to draw a sinusoidal current with unity power factor. The recent widespread use of harmonic producing equipment in industrial applications, especially non-linear loads, has increased the distortion of electric currents and voltages in transmission and distribution systems. This thesis proposes a method of using multiple reference frame theory for measuring and mitigating harmonic currents of nonlinear loads using a doubly fed induction generator. The most significant low-order harmonics to be compensated are calculated using a multiple reference frame harmonic observer. This …

Wetting And Drying Cycles And The Fungal Communities On Leaf Litter In Streams, Kele Qwinn Thrailkill

Masters Theses

"Leaf litter is a major source of energy for streams in deciduous forests. Fungi play a critical role by converting the leaves into nutritional material for the rest of the food web. The breakdown of leaf litter and associated biota, including invertebrates and fungi, have been proposed as measures of stream health in systems affected by anthropogenic activity. Rates of leaf breakdown can be depressed in streams affected by acidity, metals, organic contaminants, and other stressors. Climate change may lead to alterations in stream hydrology such that streams experience more frequent floods as well as drying episodes. Fungal communities can …

Insufficient Ct Data Reconstruction Based On Directional Total Variation (Dtv) Regularized Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization (Mlem) Method, Fahima Fahmida Islam

Masters Theses

"Sparse tomography is an efficient technique which saves time as well as minimizes cost. However, due to few angular data it implies the image reconstruction problem as ill-posed. In the ill posed problem, even with exact data constraints, the inversion cannot be uniquely performed. Therefore, selection of suitable method to optimize the reconstruction problems plays an important role in sparse data CT. Use of regularization function is a well-known method to control the artifacts in limited angle data acquisition. In this work, we propose directional total variation regularized ordered subset (OS) type image reconstruction method for neutron limited data CT. …

Tensile Failure During Structural Development Of Single-Layer Buckle Folds, Xiaolong Liu

Masters Theses

"Folds and fold trains of sedimentary strata are among the most common structural traps systems for hydrocarbon reservoirs. The existence of tensile fractures associated to buckle folding is associated to the distribution of extensional strain in the outer arc of the fold hinges. This study investigates the conditions under which tensile stresses develop due to buckling in a realistic in situ stress scenario. By applying a 2D finite element modeling approach, the influence of realistic mechanical stratigraphy (including strain rate, overburden depth, competence contrasts, viscosity, and permeability) on the development of single-layer buckle folds with Newtonian viscous rheology is studied. …