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Effect Of Flow-Acoustic Resonant Interactions On Aerodynamic Response Of Transitional Airfoils, Joseph Hayden

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

A high-accuracy numerical study is conducted to examine the impact of flow-acoustic resonant interactions on the aerodynamic response of symmetric and cambered airfoils in the realistic transitional flow regimes with Rec=140,000 and M=0.0465 as well as the low Reynolds number flow regime with Rec=10,000 and M=0.2. The symmetric NACA-0012 and the cambered SD7003 airfoils are investigated at various angles of attack that have been found previously to include both the tone and no-tone producing regimes, with specific focus on the aerodynamic lift response. Additional simulations are conducted with a low-intensity synthetic turbulence introduced upstream of the airfoils in order to …

Windshield Defrost And Deice Using Carbon Nanotube Composite, Santhosh Kumar Loganathan

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are well known for their high thermal and electrical conductivities and can offer a great advantage by converting the applied electrical energy into instant heat with minimum energy loss. The goal of this research is to develop a very thin CNT layer sandwiched between two layers of glass substrate in order to generate instant heat through electrodes. The thin CNT layer is fabricated using the CNTRENETM solution, which is a mixture of single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) (~75%), double-walled nanotubes (DWNTs), and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs) with an average CNT length of ~0.4 - 0.6 μm. The thin layer is …

A Detailed Uncertainty Analysis Of Heat Transfer Experiments Using Temperature Sensitive Paint, Anish Prasad

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Heat transfer experiments for different cooling techniques for a gas turbine blade are performed and the data are collected via temperature sensitive paint, ammeter, thermocouple and manometer measurement techniques. These data are subjected to uncertainty analysis and the major contributing parameter in the uncertainty is found. A tool to identify the major contributing parameter is devised to reduce the uncertainty in the experiment. Further the effect of temperature difference (surface temperature to bulk temperature) is studied to determine the impact on uncertainty and to determine its importance. The analysis between various implementations of the student’s t distribution are conducted to …

Smart Rock Technology For Real-Time Monitoring Of Bridge Scour And Riprap Effectiveness -- Design Guidelines And Visualization Tools, Genda Chen, Yan Tang, Yizheng Chen, Zhaochao Li, Chuanrui Guo, Liang Fan, Yi Bao, Xiuyan Hu, Matthew Klegseth

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This study aims to further develop and demonstrate the recently-proposed smart rock technology for scour depth and protection effectiveness monitoring. A smart rock is one or two stacked magnets encased in a concrete sphere with a specially-designed rotational mechanism. Design guidelines, rotational mechanisms, remote measurement tools and localization algorithms of smart rocks were developed and validated at three bridge sites. The effect of steel reinforcement in bridge piers/deck on the orientation of gravity-controlled magnets was negligible. The localization accuracy with a single smart rock met a general requirement of less than 0.5 m in engineering applications. The spherical smart rock …

The Role Of Leed Certification In Consumer Major Purchase Decisions: A Case Study Of The Chattanooga Volkswagen Manufacturing Facility, Amy E. Katcher-Dunne

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program serves as a benchmark for ‘green’ construction in the U.S. Although considerable research has investigated the marketability of LEED-certified buildings, no direct attention has been given to assessing if the benefits of LEED certification filter down to the profitability of products manufactured in those buildings. To investigate this potential influence, I conducted a large-scale survey of regional owners of the Volkswagen Passat, which is manufactured in the world's first automobile plant to achieve LEED Platinum status. Results suggest that manufacturing facility LEED certification does not influence product purchasing decisions regardless …

The East Texan, 2016-12-01, Texas A&M University-Commerce

All Issues

A color copy of The East Texan, a student newspaper published at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Nondestructive Evaluation Of Steel Bridges: Methods And Applications, Theodore Hopwood Ii, Christopher Goff, Jared Fairchild, Sudhir Palle

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods can be used to assess in-service steel bridges for problematic conditions caused by factors such as design, manufacturing, fabrication, and the service effects of traffic and corrosion. This report discusses typical NDE test methods used on bridges, including penetrant testing, magnetic particle testing, eddy current testing, ultrasonic testing (including phased array testing), radiography, and acoustic emission testing. NDE operations such as flaw location, characterization, and sizing are covered as well. Results of a national survey of departments of transportation’s (DOTs) use of NDE are presented. A simple procedure for using NDE to address DOT bridge concerns …

Reliable Hardware Architectures For Cyrtographic Block Ciphers Led And Hight, Srivatsan Subramanian

Theses

Cryptographic architectures provide different security properties to sensitive usage models. However, unless reliability of architectures is guaranteed, such security properties can be undermined through natural or malicious faults. In this thesis, two underlying block ciphers which can be used in authenticated encryption algorithms are considered, i.e., LED and HIGHT block ciphers. The former is of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) type and has been considered areaefficient, while the latter constitutes a Feistel network structure and is suitable for low-complexity and low-power embedded security applications. In this thesis, we propose efficient error detection architectures including variants of recomputing with encoded operands …

A Validation Study Of Gearing And Musculoskeletal Performance In Simple Biological Systems Through Theoretical And Experimental Methods, Jenna Marie Hopkins

Theses

Musculoskeletal (MSK) systems have long been compared to simple mechanical machines. This not only allows for ease of understanding locomotion, but ease of modeling a biological system during complex motion. More specifically, simple lever systems are most commonly employed to approximate mechanical performance of complex biological systems. Every simple lever system can be characterized by its mechanical advantage, also known as gearing. Through this concept, the performance of a biological system can be modeled for comparability of theoretical concepts to actual MSK systems. In this thesis, a numerical model of a simple lever system, analogous to a locust leg and …

Intelligent Lighting System For Health, Qunxi Huang

Theses

Lighting affects not only the way people seeing things, but also the way they feel. This thesis project surveys people’s health problems and needs related to environmental lighting changes, and aims to explore a product design solution to these problems. The outcomes of the project are a residential lighting system called INSIGHT, a mobile app interface and a key product as an example of a smart lighting system. INSIGHT helps users to control, interact with and program their home lighting in an easy way to meet their own daily needs as well as improve their visual health and emotional health. …

Not A Prediction Of The Future: Believable Sci-Fi Character Design Based On Present Day Technology, Kun Dong

Theses

In recent years, many character designs made for movies and video games have been carried out using complex computer-based processes. User-friendly software has made it easier to produce high computation artwork and multiple texture maps.

With higher graphic performance provided by rapidly improving hardware, the continuing demand for innovation poses new requirements for the entertainment industry.

Science fiction (sci-fi) in video games and movies has limitless capabilities, and can be created to achieve a wide variety of visual goals.

One important argument presented in this thesis is that science fiction stories, unlike the related genre of fantasy, have historically intended …

Possible Past Hybridization Among Desmognathus Ochrophaeus In Canadice Lake: An Ecological Survey Exploring Desmognathine Salamanders And The Competitive Exclusion Hypothesis In The Western Finger Lakes Of New York State, Aisha L. Gadson

Theses

Dusky Salamanders are a varied group of sister taxa found in Northeastern North America. Two species, Desmognathus fuscus and Desmognathus ochrophaeus, have geographically overlapping ranges. In addition, they are very morphologically similar, share many niche requirements, and are found in extremely similar or even the same salamander communities. These shared traits have been posited to arise from the influence of niche conservatism during their species’ evolutions. Also, despite their physical similarities they are historically found not to hybridize on a large scale, nor have ever had a full population merge recorded. Therefore, it appears that the community ecology of these …

Hierarchical Decomposition Of Large Deep Networks, Sumanth Chennupati

Theses

Teaching computers how to recognize people and objects from visual cues in images and videos is an interesting challenge. The computer vision and pattern recognition communities have already demonstrated the ability of intelligent algorithms to detect and classify objects in difficult conditions such as pose, occlusions and image fidelity. Recent deep learning approaches in the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC) are built using very large and deep convolution neural network architectures. In 2015, such architectures outperformed human performance (94.9% human vs 95.06% machine) for top-5 validation accuracies on the ImageNet dataset, and earlier this year deep learning approaches …

Xenon Flash Lamp Annealing For Low Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon Tfts, Karthik Bhadrachalam

Theses

In recent years, many technologies have come forward to address the display industry’s increasing demand for improved TFT performance over a-Si:H. Low Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon (LTPS) is one such material which has been extensively researched due to its high mobility and high TFT current drive. Flash Lamp Annealing (FLA) is a technique which is potentially capable of forming LTPS on large glass substrates, thus reducing cost and increasing throughput compared to raster-scan Excimer Laser Annealing (ELA) which is inherently slow and relatively complex. Polycrystalline silicon with grain size of 10’s of microns has been shown using this technique. NMOS and …

Shallow Etch Recipe Design Using Doe For Silicon Waveguides, Ankur Lamoria

Theses

Integrated Photonics has revolutionized the semiconductor industry. Silicon waveguides are now compatible with CMOS transistors on the same wafer and these circuits are known as optical integrated circuits. This thesis is a small part of the integrated photonics project, which has an objective of fabrication and characterization of silicon photonic devices at RIT.

The objective of this project was to make a new shallow etch recipe with etch rate of 100 nm/min with STS etcher tool for silicon waveguide fabrication. This shallow etch recipe will be used to develop a waveguide demonstration platform for education in integrated photonics fabrication at …

Face To Face Communicating Area Design, Yuhan Wei

Theses

More and more people are using digital technology and social media in their daily lives. As a result, it seems like there is a lack of emotional interaction with each other. For example, more people prefer to stay at home and just connect with the outside world through the Internet and their digital devices. Even when they have dinner with others, they often focus on their smartphones and seldom talk with each other. Unfortunately, these scenarios indicate that many people can only communicate electronically, which is very common nowadays.

This project is focused on creating a way of communicating that …

Sustainable Management Of Lithium-Ion Batteries After Use In Electric Vehicles, Kirti Richa

Theses

In recent years, many forecasts have predicted a large scale adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), which would predominantly be powered by lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), owing to their high energy and power density and long cycle life. While use of EVs could reduce dependence on fossil based transportation fuels, there is a need to understand the end-of-life (EOL) implications of retired EV LIBs entering the waste stream in future in the battery-driven vehicle regime. To proactively address impending waste management issues and inform related policy, this dissertation explored the sustainable management of LIBs after use in EVs and the challenges and …

Icosatree Data Partitioning Of Massive Geospatial Point Clouds With User-Selectable Entities And Surface Modeling, Stephen Walter Ranger

Theses

Massive point cloud data sets are currently being created and studied in academia, the private sector, and the military. Many previous attempts at rendering point clouds have allowed the user to visualize the data in a three-dimensional way but did not allow them to interact with the data and would require all data to be in memory at runtime. Recently, a few systems have emerged that deal with real-time rendering of massive point clouds with on-the-fly level of detail modification that handles out-of-core processing but these systems have their own limitations. With the size and scale of massive point cloud …

Tensor Decomposition Of Multi-Channel Wearable Sensors For Parkinson’S Disease Assessment, Vignesh Ramji

Theses

The cure for Parkinson’s disease is considered as one of the greatest challenges in chronic neurological disorder therapy, motivating efforts to provide information to guide therapy adjustments. This disease affects the patients day to day tasks which may vary from drinking water to a more complex task like folding laundry. Postural instability and rigidity of motion can be defined as some of the main symptoms for Parkinson’s disease.

In order to better understand and analyze the patients suffering from this disease, the patients were asked to maintain records in a diary of times when they felt an unusual behavior while …

Thesis Inquiry & Process: Something About Reality, Blayke Mackenzie Morrow

Theses

This thesis documents the employment of a system of Process and Inquiry as it serves as a structural foundation for an investigation of the manner in which Reality is represented in visual portraiture. Through a vigorous exploration of the concept of Reality and its singular nature, it is hypothesized that intrinsically unique experiences could potentially be communicated through the perceptive abilities of the emotional quotient. The effects of media, timing, complexity, abstraction, and authenticity are examined for their effect on the apparent clarity of concepts transmitted in this manner. The inquiry ultimately manifests in the daily creation of self-portraiture, as …

The Uncanny Valley The Effect Of Removing Blendshapes From Facial Animation, Ameya Lonkar

Theses

Ever since its introduction in 1970 by the roboticist Dr. Mori, the uncanny valley has become an integral part of facial animation. While most of the work on the uncanny valley is focused on finding a way to surpass the uncanny valley and how certain things could be designed to increase or decrease the uncanniness of an animation, this paper investigates how removing certain blendshapes from the facial animation changes our perception about the eeriness of that animation. The goal is to identify the “necessary” blendshapes which bring about a significant change the perceived uncanniness of the animation. For achieving …

A Study Of Sintered Copper Porous Surfaces For Pool Boiling Enhancement, Felix Liu

Theses

Miniaturization in microelectronics demands effective thermal management from high energy density devices. While current cooling solutions employ single-phase heat transfer, they are often limited by high fluid temperature differences and pressure drops. Alternatively, two-phase cooling schemes offers attractive solutions to dissipate high heat fluxes at small temperature differences. Specifically, pool boiling has the potential to dissipate high heat fluxes without using pumps and other complex header configurations.

Two performance criterion that govern the heat transfer in pool boiling systems are the (i) Critical Heat Flux (CHF), and the (ii) Heat Transfer Coefficient. The CHF is the upper limit in nucleate …

Developing A Measurement System To Assess Line Profile Retention In 3d Printing, Heng Li

Theses

Manufacturing three-dimensional (3D) objects with methods adapted from conventional digital printing have propelled the development of additive manufacturing. In this process, the printing devices directly deposit or fuse materials to form 3D solid objects in a layer-by-layer fashion, thereby creating the additive approach of fabrication.

As additive manufacturing (AM) has been increasingly adopted for rapid prototyping and part manufacturing, the need to determine the part quality which results from the processes becomes crucial (Monzón, Ortega, Martínez, & Ortega, 2015). There is a lack of quantifiable measurement systems to define a printer’s ability to resolve systematic and geometric features and dimensionalities …

Heart Valve Mathematical Models, Paula Kolar

Theses

Nearly 100,000 heart valve replacements or repairs are performed in the US every year. Mathematical models of heart valves are used to improve artificial valve design and to guide surgeons performing valve-repairing surgeries. Models can be used to define the geometry of a valve, predict blood flow dynamics, or demonstrate operating mechanisms of the valve. In this thesis we reviewed features that are typically considered when developing a model of a heart valve. The main modeling methods include representing a heart valve using lumped parameters, finite elements, or isogeometric elements. Examples of a lumped-parameter model and isogeometric analysis are explored. …

E-Government In Amarah: Challenges And Recommendations For Future Implementation, Reem Jabbar Abdulbaqi

Theses

The growth and changes in the 21st century in the sectors of economics, politics, and technology mean that governments must provide all the services that can serve the demands of their citizens. One way for governments to facilitate this is by implementing e-government. E-government migrates services previously implemented by government employees to internet connected systems accessible by citizens from wherever they are at whatever time they are needed. This system can connect citizens to the government ministries via rule-based systems. Amarah, a city in the south of Iraq, started to integrate electronic systems into the facilities of the city in …

Effect Of Transmission Line Measurement (Tlm) Geometry On Specific Contact Resistivity Determination, Sidhant Grover

Theses

Ohmic metal semiconductor contacts are indispensable part of a semiconductor device. These are characterized by their specific contact resistivity (ρ_c) in expressed in Ohm-cm^2, defined as the inverse slope of current density versus voltage curve at origin. Engineering and measurement of specific contact resistivity (ρ_c) is becoming of increasing importance in the semiconductor industry. Devices ranging from integrated circuits to solar cells use contact resistivity as a measure of device performance. Novel methods such as contact silicidation, doped-metal contacts, dipole inserted contacts etc. are continually being developed to reduce specific contact resistivity and improve device performance. The Transmission Line Measurement …

Observing Behavior Of Fluid Flow Through Carbon Nanotube Arrays, Anna T. Jensen

Theses

This work establishes a platform technique for visualizing fluid transport through Anoidisc Alumina Oxide (AAO) membranes, which can be applied to Carbon Nanotube (CNT) arrays, and allow for the testing of the effects of other parameters on flow. Arrays of CNTs have shown significant promise for delivering biomolecules into cells with high efficiency while maintaining cell viability. In these applications, biomolecules flow through CNT arrays manufactured in our lab using Template-Based Chemical Vapor Deposition. By culturing cells on the opposite side of the array, they can be used to transfect biomolecules into cells. In this research, it was discovered that …

Actuation Of An Inertia-Coupled Rimless Wheel Model Across Level Ground, Seth Caleb Weeks

Theses

The inertia-coupled rimless wheel model is a passive dynamic walking device which is theoretically capable of achieving highly efficient motion with no energy losses. Under non-ideal circumstances, energy losses due to air drag require the use of actuation to maintain stable motions. The Actuated Inertia-coupled Rimless Wheel Across Flat Terrain (AIRWAFT) model provides actuation to an inertia-coupled rimless wheel model across level ground to compensate for energy losses by applying hip-torque between the frame and inertia wheel via a motor. Two methods of defining the open-loop actuation are presented. Position control defines the relative position of the drum relative to …

Computational Analysis In Vivo P53 Binding Sites In The Context Of Chromatin And Repeat Regions, Feifei Bao

Theses

The p53 tumor suppressor protein is involved in multiple central cellular processes and human cancer occurrences. A research effort is proposed to collect the majority of p53 ChIP fragments up to now and reveal the binding pattern of p53 binding sites. It demonstrates that the normal and cancer cell lines have significantly different chromatin organizations around P53 binding sites. Based on the high occurrences, the core binding sites can be collected to analyze gene expression configurations. Depending on the accessibility of p53 sites and epigenetic marks in the chromatin context, p53 binds to its target sites in repetitive regions. Finally, …

Relationship Between Velocity Of Contraction And Force Applied On Air Muscles, Aniruddha Sudhir Phatak

Theses

Air muscles are simple pneumatic devices that have high potential to be used as robotic manipulators, as they have a behavior similar to biological motors or muscles. Hence, they have a wide range of potential applications in areas such as robotics, bio-robotics, biomechanics, and artificial limb replacements. In addition to the similarity to biological muscle, air muscles have the advantages of good power-to-weight ratio, being compliant, and low cost. This thesis primarily quantifies the relationship between velocity of contraction of air muscles and the force applied on it, which is a key characteristic of biological skeletal muscle. First, an experimental …