Digital Commons Network^™

Measurement Of Total Hydrocarbon Emissions With Mems Using A Portable Fid And A Novel Exhaust Flow Meter, Jared Gregory Knight

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The objective of this study was to evaluate tools for in-field, on-board engine emissions measurements, namely, a Signal Model 3030PM hydrocarbon analyzer and McCrometer's V-Cone flow meter. The Signal Model 3030PM analyzer uses a heated flame ionizing detection scheme to measure hydrocarbons. The V-Cone is an obstructive, differential pressure flow meter that reshapes the flow profile, therefore conditioning the flow.;The Signal Model 3030PM analyzer was found to perform as well or better than the HC analyzers currently used in the FTP test cell. Besides the portability feature, the Signal Model 3030PM demonstrated better response, being able to capture the high …

Zinc Pot Bearing Material Wear Rate As A Function Of Contact Pressure And Velocity, James M. Snider Ii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

There are currently over 50 galvanizing lines in operation in the United States producing approximately 50 million tons per year of galvanized sheet. Frequently zinc-pot hardware fails which causes production delay, resulting in an economic loss. It takes approximately 3 hours to change the zinc-pot bearings at a downtime cost of {dollar}400/h.;To predict the performance of the submerged bearings, a large number of variables must be considered. These variables include pot chemistry, temperature, line speed and line tension. With these variables it is possible to develop a design guide for sheet mill operators to determine the most cost-effective selection of …

Opportunities And Occupations In Animal And Veterinary Sciences Based On The Current Careers Of West Virginia University Alumni, Stacey Michelle Hawkins

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the career opportunities for graduates completing a Bachelor of Science degree in Animal and Veterinary Sciences at West Virginia University as measured by the first and current careers of alumni. The target population consisted of all alumni that graduated between the years 1991 and 2001. Over 61.6% of the West Virginia University Animal and Veterinary Science graduates were satisfied with both their first career selection as well as their current career. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree two-thirds of the graduates decided to pursue a post-graduate degree. Professional careers, …

Mode-I Fatigue Fracture Of Interface For Fiber -Reinforced Polymer Composite Bonded To Wood, Junhui Jia

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

For applications in civil infrastructure rehabilitation and new construction, wood is being reinforced with externally bonded laminates and fabrics of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. The potential benefits of external reinforcement with bonded FRP composites have been demonstrated through several studies, and the field implementation of this technology has been successfully proven in numerous projects. However, there is a concern with the long-term performance of the interface bond, since an inadequate bond strength and integrity can render the reinforcement ineffective and lead to premature failure of the structure. The performance of FRP-wood bonded interfaces under static and environmental loads have been …

Flight Testing Of A Remotely Piloted Vehicle For Aircraft Parameter Estimation Purposes, Brad A. Seanor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The contribution of this research effort was to show that a reliable RPV could be built, tested, and successfully used for flight testing and parameter estimation purposes, in an academic setting. This was a fundamental step towards the creation of an automated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). This research project was divided into four phases. Phase one involved the construction, development, and initial flight of a Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV), the West Virginia University (WVU) Boeing 777 (B777) aircraft. This phase included the creation of an onboard instrumentation system to provide aircraft flight data. The objective of the second phase was …

Numerical Modeling Of Air Blast Effects On Hybrid Structures, Matthew J. Fox

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Blast resistant structures are gaining increased need in today's society. This research addresses adding composite reinforcement to existing concrete structures to decrease blast damage. An upgraded material model for concrete is presented. This model, used in LS-DYNA3D, incorporates tensile damage, which allows the concrete to degrade as it is loaded. The concrete model is tested using existing unreinforced and reinforced concrete beam tests. Some beams were plain, others were externally reinforced with composites, bonded to the exterior of the beams. There is a very good correlation between the predicted and existing data. The concrete model was then used to predict …

Application Evaluation Of A Prototype Backscatter Imaging Ldv System (Bils), Preetanshu Pandey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study focuses on the application evaluation of a prototype backscatter imaging LDV system (BILS). This non-intrusive instrument has the ability to record particle images and two-dimensional velocity data simultaneously. A series of validation tests were conducted to verify the operation of the system. These included comparing the velocity of a wire, attached to a rotating disc, with known angular frequency (measured by digistrobe), with that measured by the instrument. The results were found to be in good agreement. The imaging part of BILS was calibrated using a target with known dimensions.;The terminal velocities and particle sizes of near-spherical, Nu-pareil …

Evaluation Of Strut-And-Tie Modeling For Bridge Pier Applications, Thomas Nicholas Ii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Strut-and-tie modeling is an analysis and design tool for reinforced concrete elements which assumes that internal stresses are transferred through a truss type mechanism. The tensile ties and compressive struts serve as truss members connected by nodal zones. The internal truss idealized by the strut-and-tie model implicitly accounts for the distribution of both flexure and shear.;In 1998, the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Specifications (1998) incorporated the strut-and-tie modeling procedure for the analysis and design of deep reinforced concrete members where sectional design approaches are not valid. In most instances, hammerhead piers can be defined as deep reinforced concrete members and therefore, …

Off-Line Thai Handwriting Recognition In Legal Amount, Watchara Chatwiriya

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Thai handwriting in legal amounts is a challenging problem and a new field in the area of handwriting recognition research. The focus of this thesis is to implement Thai handwriting recognition system. A preliminary data set of Thai handwriting in legal amounts is designed. The samples in the data set are characters and words of the Thai legal amounts and a set of legal amounts phrases collected from a number of native Thai volunteers. At the preprocessing and recognition process, techniques are introduced to improve the characters recognition rates. The characters are divided into two smaller subgroups by their writing …

Formation And Dissociation Reaction Rates And Relevant Kinetic Behavior Of Propane Gas Hydrate (Pgh), Feng Song

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The formation and dissociation reaction rates and their kinetic behavior of propane gas hydrate (PGH) within the well-defined sediment particle's packing structures were experimentally investigated in this work by using a multi-phase heterogeneous reaction system, consisting of propane gas (g), water (l), PGH (s) and sediment particles (glass beads) (s). This work was carried out under the formation conditions of P = 0.427 MPa and T = 273.5 K, and under the dissociation conditions of P ≤ 0.168 MPa and T = 273.5 K.;A new designed, isothermal, and packed bed batch reactor was used for the kinetic analysis of the …

Web Presence, Website Marketing Plan And Technology Integration A Project For Lone Tree Creek, Lee Friesen

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

This project illustrates the processes involved in creating a website marketing plan, developing a small-scale website that can be easily maintained by a user with little training in technology. The focus of this project is to create a solid web presence on a very limited budget. The first stages of the project involve research of the company and competitors. Next the move to design of the website and database system. During the entire process the marketing plan is being developed. The result of this project is http://www.lonetreecreek.com and a viable marketing plan to enable Lone Tree Creek to expand the …

N-Tier Architecture For A Life Insurance Company, Robert Srstka

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Survey Of Aviation Maintenance Technical Manuals, Phase 3 Report: Final Report And Recommendations, Alex Chaparro, Loren S. Groff

Publications

This report contains the results from the final phase of a three-phase research effort. Phase 1 of this research effort surveyed the procedures used by five aircraft manufacturers to develop maintenance documentation. Several potential human factors issues were identified in the processes used by these manufacturers to develop their maintenance manuals. The issues included the reactive rather than proactive use of user evaluations, the limited use of user input and procedure validation, no systematic attempts to track errors, and the lack of standards for measuring document quality. In Phase 2, a written survey was used to solicit information about user …

Alignment, Mechanical And Thermo-Physical Characterization Of Nanofiber-Reinforced Polyethylene, Veronica M. Diaz-Serrato

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Alignment of vapor grown carbon nano-reinforced polyethylene composites was performed using conventional extrusion processing methods. The alignment of the nanofibers within polyethylene, PE; the matrix, produced a material with anisotropic behavior. Mechanical and thermo-physical properties of the nanocomposite were studied. Enhancements in mechanical properties were investigated for pure PE, misaligned, and aligned specimens for stress versus strain, maximum load, and Young's modulus as high as 185, 273, and 80%, respectively. In fact, toughness was considerably high for the 10 rpm specimen when compared to other samples of different windup speeds. Thermo-physical studies were performed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and …

Switching Decisions For Diversity Antennas Using Autoregressive Techniques, Sebastian Mani Puthenpurayil

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Decision-making on switching for diversity antennas has been given considerable attention in recent times in mobile radio communications. Due to multipath propagation of radio waves the signals undergo a phenomenon known as fading and there will be considerable reduction in the average signal strength. By having multiple antennas in the receiver or transmitter the signal strength can be improved by switching back and forth to the antenna that has the maximum signal strength. In this thesis we have used linear prediction method for making decisions on which antenna gives the maximum signal strength. Linear prediction is applied on a single …

Aerodynamic Drag Reduction Of A Racing Motorcycle Through Vortex Generation, Gerald M. Angle Ii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The aerodynamic drag of a racing-class motorcycle can be accomplished through either an overall redesign of the surfaces or through some type of flow control mechanism. Due to limitations on the size of the exterior shape the flow control techniques are more practical. Small metal vanes, known as vortex generators were used in this research to mix higher energy freestream air with the lower energy boundary layer, delaying boundary layer growth and separation. In testing performed in the West Virginia University Closed Loop Wind Tunnel a maximum reduction of 118 drag counts (10.1%) was measured. Due to an abnormally high …

Automation Of The Superpave Mix Design Process For The West Virginia Division Of Highways, Martin Felix Padula

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

During the fifty years between 1940 and 1990, the nation's bituminous roadways were predominantly designed using either the Marshall or Hveem method. The Superior Performing Asphalt Pavements (Superpave)(TM) method was later developed to address the issues of increased traffic volumes and heavier loads on the nation's roadways. This new mix design process relies on volumetric calculations and graphs, which are cumbersome to perform by hand. There is no current public domain Superpave software package available which is independent of any commercial laboratory product and available to an asphalt mix designer. A component of this research project consisted of creating a …

Early Component-Based Reliability Assessment Using Uml Based Software Models, William Black Smith V

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the last decade, software has grown in complexity and size, while development timelines have diminished. As a result, component-based software engineering is becoming routine. Component-based software reliability assessment combines the architecture of the system with the reliability of the components to obtain the system reliability. This allows developers to produce a reliable system and testers to focus on the vulnerable areas.;This thesis discusses a tool developed to implement the methodology previously created for early reliability assessment of component-based systems. The tool, Early Component-based Reliability Assessment (ECRA), uses Rational Rose Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams to predict the reliability of …

Auger Timing Effects On Performance Of A Combine Unloading System, Todd Philip Cole

Open Access Master's Theses (through 2010)

Performance effects were measured on a combine unloading system using three different auger timing settings.Performance measures included maximum startup torque, mean operating torque, standard deviation of the operating torque, flow rate of grain through the system, and mechanical damage to the grain.The performance effects were measured with the system unloading corn and soybeans.

The data were statistically analyzed to check for interactions between the grains and differences between the timings.Using an alpha value of 0.1 it was found that timing 1 for both grains had a 3% (<2.4 L/s) higher flow rate over timings 2 and 3.Timings 1 and 2 for both grains had higher maximum startup torque, about 10% (60 N·m) more torque required than timing 3.In soybeans, timings 2 and 3 also had the smallest standard deviation in operating torque, about 30% (20 N·m) less than timing 1.We were unable to detect any differences in mechanical damage to corn or soybeans as a result of unloading auger timing.These findings suggest that timing 3, with the cross augers lagging 90° behind the vertical unloading auger, may require less maximum startup torque and less variation in torque for the cross augers to effectively fill the loosely filled space left after the vertical auger lifts the grain without extra torque effects of having the augers push against each other as they do in timing 1.

Advisor: Michael F. Kocher

Ashworthius Patriciapilittae N. Sp. (Trichostrongyloidea: Haemonchinae), An Abosomal Nematode In Odocoileus Virginianus From Costa Rica, And A New Record For The Species Of The Genus In The Western Hemisphere, Eric P. Hoberg, Arthur Abrams, Ramon A. Carreno, J. Ralph Lichtenfels

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Faculty Publications

A species of Ashworthius is reported for the first time in the Western Hemisphere, and A. patriciapilittae n. sp. is described on the basis of specimens in white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus from Costa Rica. Among 8 known species, A. patriciapilittae is morphologically similar to A. tuyenquangi in red muntjac Muntjacus muntjak from northern Vietnam. The synlophe in A. patriciapilittae is composed of 26 ridges in the cervical zone and is continuous to the caudal extremity in males and females. Males are characterized by a complex dorsal ray and narrow trifurcate spicules (351-356 mm long) lacking an ‘‘eyelet,’’ with dissimilar ventral …

Legal Environment For Technology Transfer In Taiwan, Kung-Chung Liu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In an effort to become an industrialized country, Taiwan, the Republic of China (ROC) has relied heavily on technology transfers and investment from abroad. The Taiwanese government adopted a heavy-handed policy of regulating investments made by foreigners and overseas Chinese in 1954. These policies include the Foreigner Investment Act (FIA) and the Overseas Chinese Investment Act (OCIA), which require all foreigners and overseas Chinese to obtain the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) approval prior to making any investments.1 Such investments may also be in the form of patents, trademarks, copyright, know-how, and other intellectual property (IP).2 In 1962, the Technology …

Bs News

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Its News December 2002, Information & Technology Services

RIT Digital Archives

Computer Network Security Awareness: A Global Issue That Touches RIT||Balancing Intellectual Freedom, Privacy and Security||Virtual Private Network Installed For Online System Safety||Information Security- Top Down, Bottom Up, And Inside-Out||The Cost of Safeguarding A Network: An Individual And Organizational Effort||You've Been Hacked!||Spam: It's Not Just For Breakfast Anymore||What Is Spam To You, Might Not Be Spam To Me||Veni, Vidi, Viri (I Came, I Saw, I Infected)||Priveleges and Responsibilities Defined In The Computer Code Of Conduct||Law Officials Involved in Some Computer Crime Cases||What Is The Least That I Can Do To Secure My Computer?||Passwords and Patches: Updating and Protecting Your Computer||MacCareful

Mathematics & Statistics Newsletter December 2002, Rit Department Of Mathematics And Statistics

RIT Digital Archives

No abstract provided.

Resource Annotation Framework In A Georeferenced And Geospatial Digital Library, Zehua Liu, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

G-Portal is a georeferenced and geospatial digital library that aims to identify, classify and organize geospatial and georeferenced resources on the web and to provide digital library services for these resources. Annotation service is supported in G-Portal to enable users to contribute content to the digital library. In this paper, we present a resource annotation framework for georeferenced and geospatial digital libraries and discuss its application in G-Portal. The framework is fiexible for managing annotations of heterogeneous web resources. It allows users to contribute not only the annotation content but also the schema of the annotations. Meanwhile, other digital library …

Load-Sensitive Transmission Power Control In Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks, Seung Jong Park, Raghupathy Sivakumar

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Transmission power control in ad-hoc networks has hitherto been used only for achieving connectivity of networks. It has been implicitly assumed that the optimal throughput performance in ad-hoc networks can be achieved when using the minimum transmission power required to keep the network connected. However, in this paper we argue that such an assumption remains valid only under high node densities, which is not the characteristic of typical ad-hoc networks. Using both throughput and throughput per unit energy as the optimization criteria, we demonstrate that the optimal transmission power depends on several network characteristics such as the number of stations, …

Missouri S&T Magazine Winter 2002, Missouri S&T Marketing And Communications Department, Miner Alumni Association

Missouri S&T Magazine

No abstract provided.

Sensorless Super-High-Speed Switched Reluctance Generators, Chris S. Edrington, Babek Fahimi, Ray B. Sepe

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Operating at super high speeds emerges as a need in various sectors of industry including military, automotive and home appliances. Generation of electric power at such speeds has the inherent advantage of compactness and elimination of speed adaptation means. Switched Reluctance (SR) drives favor high-speed operation due to their inherent ruggedness and robust structure. In addition, they represent a very long constant power region allowing an efficient operation in a compact form. Moreover, SRM drives can tolerate structural and thermal conditions imposed by the application. Finally, they are inherently fault tolerant due to their modular configuration. To take steps towards …

Deception Detection: Study Of Information Manipulation Through Electronic Identity Theft-Email Forgery In The U.S. Military, Roy V. Rockwell

Theses and Dissertations

This research describes the results of a field experiment which examines the effects of warnings on system trust and individual awareness in government computer systems through the use of email forgery. The experiment consisted of forging a trusted government email account and trying to get government computer users to reply to a forged email address. The results revealed that warning individuals about possible email forgery did not increase their awareness or reduce their level of system thrust in the email system nor did it increase their ability to detect email forgery. The results did determine that government computer users are …

Semantic Exploration Of Lecture Videos, Edward Altman, Yu Chen, Wai Chong Low

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

E-Learning is rapidly changing the way that universities and corporations offer education and training. In recent years, the acquisition and distribution of rich media content has been largely automated, However, existing applications are functionally and visually static and remain organized around the delivery media, rather than the knowledge representation and learning tasks of the student. The innovative approach of this system is the extraction of semantically meaningful structures in the lecture combined with text analysis to support task based queries. In this demonstration we will show this combination of pedagogical and content descriptions leads to novel forms of visualization and …