Digital Commons Network^™

Second-Life Battery Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy Modeling And Application To A Residential System, Busra Ovali

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study presents the modeling of a used hybrid electric vehicle battery (also called second life battery), and its design and simulation for a standalone residential photovoltaic system. For this purpose, the battery was tested through capacity and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy tests (EIS). These tests were done with variable temperatures (0ºC, 15ºC and 30ºC), and results were used to fit an equivalent impedance circuit. This model was used to incorporate a second life battery to a PV system, which was simulated by using daily irradiance and load data for Tucson (AZ) under most various month (May).

A 3d Biomimetic Scaffold Using Electrospinning For Tissue Engineering Applications, Samerender Nagam Hanumantharao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Electrospinning holds great promise for designing functional 3D biomimetic scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. The technique allows for the reproducible fabrication of 3D scaffolds with control over the porosity and thickness. In this work, a novel method for the synthesis of a 3D electroactive scaffold using electrospinning from polycaprolactone (PCL), Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) and Polyaniline (PANI) is reported. Additional scaffolds involving different morphologies of PCL, PCL-PVDF and PCL-PANI-PVDF were also fabricated and evaluated. The scaffolds were characterized using electron microscopy to visualize the morphologies. Infrared spectroscopy was used to confirm the presence of polymers and their respective phases in the …

Low-Cost Open-Source Gmaw-Based Metal 3-D Printing: Monitoring, Slicer, Optimization, And Applications, Yuenyong Nilsiam

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Low-cost and open-source gas metal arc welding (GMAW)-based 3-D printing has been demonstrated yet the electrical design and software was not developed enough to enable wide-spread adoption. This thesis provides three novel technical improvements based on the application of mechatronic and software theory that when combined demonstrate the ability for distributed digital manufacturing at the small and medium enterprise scale of steel and aluminum parts. First, low cost metal inert gas welders contain no power monitoring needed to tune GMAW 3-D printers. To obtain this data about power and energy usage during the printing, an integrated monitoring system was developed …

Research And Development Of Industrial Integrated Robotic Workcell And Robotrun Software For Academic Curriculum, Siddharth Y. Parmar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Robotic automation is consuming the laborious tasks performed by workers all over industry. The increasing demand for trained robotic engineers to implement and maintain industrial robots has led to the development of various courses in academia. Michigan Tech is a FANUC Authorized Certified Education Training Center for industrial robot training. This report discusses the research and development of an integrated robotic workcell consisting of three Fanuc robots, Allen Bradley programmable logic controller (PLC), Mini-Mover belt conveyor and Fanuc iR-vision system. The workcell allows students to explore an environment similar to industry and intended to be used for laboratory hands-on activities …

Improving Planning: Quantitative Evaluation Of The Premortem Technique In Field And Laboratory Settings, Madeline Peabody

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis compares different plan evaluation techniques in a series of experiments. The Premortem plan evaluation method can help people reduce overconfidence and generate more reasons a plan might not succeed. This research evaluates the extension of the Premortem to shorter planning time periods, evaluates the effectiveness with team generated and executed plans, and compares the use of this technique among individuals and teams. In Experiment 1, 52 Army Cadets operating in teams completed six time-constrained field exercises that required planning, half using the Premortem and half using a standard Military plan evaluation process. When teams used the Premortem they …

Feature And Decision Level Fusion Using Multiple Kernel Learning And Fuzzy Integrals, Anthony Pinar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The work collected in this dissertation addresses the problem of data fusion. In other words, this is the problem of making decisions (also known as the problem of classification in the machine learning and statistics communities) when data from multiple sources are available, or when decisions/confidence levels from a panel of decision-makers are accessible. This problem has become increasingly important in recent years, especially with the ever-increasing popularity of autonomous systems outfitted with suites of sensors and the dawn of the ``age of big data.'' While data fusion is a very broad topic, the work in this dissertation considers …

Students’ Understanding Of Finger Lakes Geology Using A Field Study, Jonathan D. Pragle

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Finger Lakes area has some of the most unique geologic features in New York State including much evidence of the impact that glaciers have had on this environment. The area is rich in Devonian and Silurian era fossils, drumlins, U-shaped valleys, and glacial erratics. With all of this evidence it is easy to imagine a class of students outside in the environment examining these structures and developing conclusions about their origin. However, students in the Finger Lakes area are generally taught about the geology of the area using traditional techniques utilizing technology and diagrams in the classroom. In this …

Minimizing Run Time Of Finite Element Analyses: Applications In Conformable Cng Tank Modeling, Paul M. Roehm

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

REL Inc. has proposed a CNG tank that deviates from typical cylindrical storage methods. The goal of REL working with Michigan Tech is to minimize mass and meet NGV2 safety standards for pressure and drop testing for this tank.

The model has undulated outer surfaces and Schwarz P-surface internal geometry. To accurately mesh this, a small element size is necessary; this creates a model with millions of elements. In explicit analyses, this requires a large amount of computational resources to run.

This report focuses on methods to reduce model run time without reducing accuracy. Methods covered include creating symmetric building …

Comparison Of Ambient Noise Methods To Find Surface - Wave Dispersion Curves At Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala, Simone Puel

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The application of ambient noise analysis to active volcanic systems represents a recent technique to model seismic structure without distinct sources. All the existing methods are based on the fact that surface waves are dispersive and most of them require a large number of available days and inter-station distances larger than 2-3 wavelengths. We apply multiple techniques to seismic data recorded during a temporary deployment of 19 seismic stations in January 2015 at Pacaya volcano, Guatemala, a dataset with some distinct differences from those typically used for ambient noise analysis. Despite having less than a week of data and relatively …

An Optimal Energy Management Strategy For Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Amir Rezaei

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) are used to overcome the short-range and long charging time problems of purely electric vehicles. HEVs have at least two power sources. Therefore, the Energy Management (EM) strategy for dividing the driver requested power between the available power sources plays an important role in achieving good HEV performance.

This work, proposes a novel real-time EM strategy for HEVs which is named ECMS-CESO. ECMS-CESO is based on the Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) and is designed to Catch Energy Saving Opportunities (CESO) while operating the vehicle. ECMS-CESO is an instantaneous optimal controller, i. e., it does not …

Numerical Simulation Of Viscoelastic Multiphase Flows Using An Improved Two-Phase Flow Solver, Olabanji Shonibare

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The production of uniformly-sized droplets has numerous applications in various fields including the biotechnology and chemical industries. For example, in the separation of mixtures based on their relative absorbency, an optimal arrangement of monodispersed droplets in columns is desired for an effective separation. However, very few numerical studies on the formation of viscoelastic droplets via cross-flow shear are available, none of which have considered the case when the flow of the continuous phase is Couette. In this work, a new solver capable of automatic mesh refinement is developed for the OpenFOAM CFD toolbox to solve viscoelastic two-phase flow problems. The …

Advanced Uses For Carbon Nanotubes: A Spherical Sound Source And Hot-Films As Microphones, Micaela M. Thiery

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Super-aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) thin-film is used to create thermophones. The thermal properties of CNT film allow it to rapidly heat and cool when supplied AC power producing temperature and pressure gradients and, therefore, audible sound. The advantages of CNT thermophones include eliminating all moving components of traditional speakers and reducing the weight of the speaker itself by using CNT film, which is nearly weightless. Additionally, the flexibility of CNT film provides the unique opportunity to construct loudspeakers of various sizes and geometries. In this work, a spherical CNT thermophone is designed, manufactured, and tested for directivity with the overall …

Computational Ultrasound Elastography: A Feasibility Study, Yu Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Ultrasound Elastography (UE) is an emerging set of imaging modalities used to assess the biomechanical properties of soft tissues. UE has been applied to numerous clinical applications. Particularly, results from clinical trials of UE in breast lesion differentiation and staging liver fibrosis indicated that there was a lack of confidence in UE measurements or image interpretation. Confidence on UE measurements interpretation is critically important for improving the clinical utility of UE. The primary objective of my thesis is to develop a computational simulation platform based on open-source software packages including Field II, VTK, FEBio and Tetgen. The proposed virtual simulation …

Analysis Of Aleks Mathematics Placement Test Data, Teresa Woods

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In Fall 2014, Michigan Technological University (MTU) began using an online mathematics placement test provided by ALEKS Corporation. This study answers three questions that accompanied this implementation: (1) Do the cut scores being used for Precalculus and Calculus I result in the expected pass rates for those courses?, (2) Does the path by which a student becomes eligible for Calculus I – via a single placement test attempt, via multiple placement test attempts, or by beginning in Precalculus at MTU – influence their likelihood of success in Calculus I?, and (3) Does a mathematical background weak in any particular curriculum …

Characterization Of Ecological Water Stress In The U.S. Great Lakes Region Using A Geospatial Modeling Approach, Sara Alian

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Anthropocentric water resources management affects aquatic habitats by changing streamflow regime. Understanding the impacts of water withdrawal from different sources and consumption by various economic sectors at different spatial and temporal scales is key to characterizing ecologically harmful streamflow disturbances. To this end, we developed a generic, integrative framework to characterize catchment scale water stress at annual and monthly time scales. The framework accounts for spatially cumulative consumptive and non-consumptive use impacts and associated changes in flow due to depletion and return flow along the stream network. Application of the framework to the U.S. Great Lakes Region indicates that a …

Accuracy Assessment Of 3d Point Clouds Generated By Photogrammetry From Different Distances, Zhongming An

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Photogrammetry is playing more important role in many industries today, and thanks to Structure-from-Motion, 3D point clouds and 3D meshes can be produced and be used as a resource for surveying and documentation.

In this project, the accuracies of Structure-from-Motion generated point clouds from pictures taken from different distances are assessed to determine if the distance has a significant impact on the accuracy and what kind of pattern the accuracies will show if there is any. Due to space limit, an improvised turntable was used in order to mimic the condition where camera moves around the object. Multiple images were …

From Female Engineering Co-Op To Cyborg Engineer: Purposeful Participation Within The Binaries Of A Community Of Practice, Kirsti M. Arko

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In order to fill the current employment gaps in STEM, specifically engineering, initiatives have shifted towards increasing the number of women and minorities, who are both significantly underrepresented. (National Science Board, 2016) If cooperative education is to participate in this, we must first ensure the unique qualities of the women’s co-op experience are adequately understood for practitioners to assist in setting the women up for success and best meeting their needs. Cooperative education research on female co-ops is limited, thus missing out on an opportunity to assist in these national initiatives. This dissertation provides a study on female engineering co-op …

Electro-Optic Contact Poling Of Polymer Waveguide Devices And Thin Films, Michael Briseno

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Optical communication is a high speed, large bandwidth, low cost, and power efficient method of transferring data over short-haul and long-haul channels. Optical communication requires devices (optical modulators) that utilize the originating electrical signal information to modulate a corresponding optical signal. State of the art optical modulators can be used for communicating signals at modulation frequencies up to 100 GHz and faster. Polymer modulators are used over lithium niobate due to the large potential electro-optic coefficient, which has been shown to be as high as 226 pm/V in thin films.

Organic electro-optic polymers used in thin film modulators contain nonlinear …

A Landscape Of Water And Waste: Heritage Legacies And Environmental Change In The Mesabi Iron Range, John Baeten

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation explores the intersection between mining technology, industrial heritage, and environmental history, using iron mining in the Mesabi Range of the Lake Superior Iron District as its core case study. What impact did technological shifts in iron mining and ore processing have on the environment of the Lake Superior basin? How did the environmental changes wrought from low-grade iron ore mining and processing, such as the expansion of open-pits and the production of tailings, affect different communities in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range? And finally, how have the environmental legacies of iron mining been remembered and memorialized, or ignored and forgotten?

Development Of A High-Fidelity Model And Kalman Filter Based State Estimator For Simulation And Control Of Nox Reduction Performance Of A Scr Catalyst On A Dpf, Venkata Rajesh Chundru

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Reduction of emissions and improving the fuel consumption are two prime research areas in Diesel engine development. The present after-treatment systems being used for emissions control include diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) for NO, HC and CO oxidation along with catalyzed particulate filters for PM (particulate matter) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) for controlling NOx emissions. Recently an after-treatment system called SCR catalyst on a DPF capable of simultaneously reducing both NOx and PM emissions has been developed in order to reduce the overall size of the after-treatment system.

The goal of this proposed research is to create a state estimator …

Simulation Of Human Ankle Trajectory During Stance Phase Of Gait, Leslie Castelino

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A simulation was developed which mimics the human gait characteristics based on the input of an individual’s gait trajectory. This simulation also estimates the impedance of the human ankle based on the ground reaction forces measured by the force plate. This simulation will accept alterations of the following parameters: total body weight, weight of the shank, weight of the foot, trajectories of the shank and foot of the individual and orientation of the force plate, which would generate a new gait trajectory for the ankle during the stance phase of gait. The goal of this simulation was to validate the …

Heterogeneous Multi-Sensor Fusion For 2d And 3d Pose Estimation, Hanieh Deilamsalehy

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Sensor fusion is a process in which data from different sensors is combined to acquire an output that cannot be obtained from individual sensors. This dissertation first considers a 2D image level real world problem from rail industry and proposes a novel solution using sensor fusion, then proceeds further to the more complicated 3D problem of multi sensor fusion for UAV pose estimation.

One of the most important safety-related tasks in the rail industry is an early detection of defective rolling stock components. Railway wheels and wheel bearings are two components prone to damage due to their interactions with the …

Performance Of Hard Disk Drives In High Noise Environments, Trinoy Dutta

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Digital information stored in rotational media, such as Hard Disk Drives (HDD) needs to be reliable and readily accessible. Various studies have been performed on the modal analysis of HDDs and the noise emitted during operation. Analysis performed by Siemens Corporation, IBM and Tyco Fire Protection Products show that HDDs are sensitive to noise. This report initially focusses on identifying the critical frequency ranges and the levels of noise where the performance of the drives reduces. A series of tests have been performed using pink noise at one-third octave frequency bands at sound pressure levels ranging from 80 dB to …

Simulation Study On Effect Of Gas Charging And Egr In A Dual-Fuel Engine, Satyavenkata Naga Sai Sharath Gorthy

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Natural gas combined with diesel as micro pilot has the capabilities of achieving lower NOx and soot emissions. Optimization of the combustion process in engines with natural gas and diesel micro-pilot is essential to achieve higher efficiencies and loads. Gas charging (intake air boosting) and EGR are two technologies which when implemented in the natural gas-diesel engines, provide the opportunity to achieve higher efficiencies and loads and low emissions. Simulation study is one of the approaches to investigate the extent and effects of gas charging and EGR on the performance of the engine. With the rapid improvements over the past …

Gamma/Hadron Separation For The Hawc Observatory, Michael J. Gerhardt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory is a gamma-ray observatory sensitive to gamma rays from 100 GeV to 100 TeV with an instantaneous field of view of ~2 sr. It is located on the Sierra Negra plateau in Mexico at an elevation of 4,100 m and began full operation in March 2015. The purpose of the detector is to study relativistic particles that are produced by interstellar and intergalactic objects such as: pulsars, supernova remnants, molecular clouds, black holes and more. To achieve optimal angular resolution, energy reconstruction and cosmic ray background suppression for the extensive air showers detected by …

Development Of Gene-Based Microsatellite Markers In Acer Saccharum Marsh., Monica Harmon

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh) is an important ecological and economic resource. Despite its significance, there are few molecular genetic resources available to date. This study used previously developed EST libraries generated for sugar maple and other hardwood species to develop and characterize EST-SSRs in sugar maple and test their transferability to other Acer species. Out of 58 markers tested, 22 showed amplification in the expected size range. From these, 16 polymorphic markers were selected to test transferability and 13 of these showed amplification in at least one other Acer species.

Development Of Bioinformatics Tools And Algorithms For Identifying Pathway Regulators, Inferring Gene Regulatory Relationships And Visualizing Gene Expression Data, Chathura J. Gunasekara

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In the era of genetics and genomics, the advent of big data is transforming the field of biology into a data-intensive discipline. Novel computational algorithms and software tools are in demand to address the data analysis challenges in this growing field. This dissertation comprises the development of a novel algorithm, web-based data analysis tools, and a data visualization platform. Triple Gene Mutual Interaction (TGMI) algorithm, presented in Chapter 2 is an innovative approach to identify key regulatory transcription factors (TFs) that govern a particular biological pathway or a process through interaction among three genes in a triple gene block, which …

Human Centered Design Of An Open-Drum, Treadle Thresher For Quinoa Farmers In The Andes Of Northern Peru, Robert A. Hayes

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Growing international demand for quinoa in recent years has led to increased production throughout its South American range, including the Peruvian Andes. Small-scale farmers, who are among the poorest Peruvians, are increasingly growing quinoa for both food security and economic benefit; however, manual harvesting activities, such as threshing, are labor-intensive and time-consuming. This report documents the design, construction and operation of prototype quinoa thresher in a rural village in Northern Peru. In addition, an overview of the history and evolutionary approach to design for the developing world is presented. From this overview, a series of criteria is considered for the …

Controlling Properties Of Agglomerates For Chemical Processes, Joseph A. Halt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Iron ore pellets are hard spheres made from powdered ore and binders. Pellets are used to make iron, mainly in blast furnaces. Around the time that the pelletizing process was developed, starch was proposed as a binder because it’s viscous, adheres well to iron oxides, does not contaminate pellets and is relatively cheap. In practice, however, starch leads to weak pellets with rough surfaces – these increase the amount of dust generated within process equipment and during pellet shipping and handling. Thus, even though the usual binder (bentonite clay) contaminates pellets, pelletizers prefer it to starch or other organics.

This …

A Host Board Design For An Experiment System Of Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks, He Huang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Evaluation of theoretical innovation in field experiments plays an important role for research in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs). During the experiments, the problems of power consumption, costs, and assembly of underwater nodes concern researchers all the time. This project develops a host board for an UWSNs field experiment system. This host board solves the above problems by deploying power management module, utilizing cheap and low power consumption chips (Raspberry Pi and MSP430), and rationalizing layout.

The main functions of the host board include battery monitoring, on-board DC converters, remotely power supply control, data ports bridge, and pluggable module for …