Engineering Commons^™

Implementation Of A Pre-Assessment Module To Improve The Initial Player Experience Using Previous Gaming Information, Rafael David Segistan Canizales

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The gaming industry has become one of the largest and most profitable industries today. According to market research, the industry revenues will pass $200 Billion and are expected to reach another $20 Billion in 2024. With the industry growing rapidly, players have become more demanding, expecting better content and quality. This means that game studios need new and innovative ways to make their games more enjoyable. One technique used to improve the player experience is DDA (Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment). It leverages the current player state to perform different adjustments during the game to tune the difficulty delivered to the player …

Autonomous 3d Urban And Complex Terrain Geometry Generation And Micro-Climate Modelling Using Cfd And Deep Learning, Tewodros F. Alemayehu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Sustainable building design requires a clear understanding and realistic modelling of the complex interaction between climate and built environment to create safe and comfortable outdoor and indoor spaces. This necessitates unprecedented urban climate modelling at high temporal and spatial resolution. The interaction between complex urban geometries and the microclimate is characterized by complex transport mechanisms. The challenge to generate geometric and physics boundary conditions in an automated manner is hindering the progress of computational methods in urban design. Thus, the challenge of modelling realistic and pragmatic numerical urban micro-climate for wind engineering, environmental, and building energy simulation applications should address …

A Computational Framework For Aerodynamic And Aeroelastic Modeling Of Wind Loads On Tall Buildings, Abiy Fantaye Melaku

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Driven by the burgeoning growth of computing power over the last few decades, the capability of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate turbulent flows of practical interest has progressed rapidly. In the past, a notable research effort has been dedicated to applying CFD for modeling wind loads on structures, particularly for tall buildings. However, the current state of CFD for wind load evaluation of tall buildings using Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) has several critical challenges, including the treatment of atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) flow conditions, turbulence modeling of separated flows around buildings, and simulation of wind-structure interaction for dynamically sensitive buildings. …

Generative Learning In Smart Grid, Samer M. El Kababji

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

If a smart grid is to be described in one word, that word would be ’connectivity’. While electricity production and consumption still depend on a limited number of physical connections, exchanging data is growing enormously. Customers, utilities, sensors, and markets are all different sources of data that are exchanged in a ubiquitous digital setup. To deal with data complexity, many researchers recently focused on machine learning (ML) applications in smart grids. Much of the success in ML is attributed to discriminative learning where models define boundaries to categorize data. Generative learning, however, reveals how data is generated by learning the …

Effects Of City Growth On Tall Building Cladding Fatigue, Hang You

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As city develops there will be changes in the aerodynamic characteristics due to varying building surrounding and topology. For example, the city growth around a tall building can cause an increase in wind load due to venturi or wake effects or decrease due to sheltering effects depending on the type of surrounding. The densification of cities will also increase the turbulence level due to wake effects. In the present study, the implication of these changes on the aerodynamic forces on cladding connections is investigated. With increased fluctuations in the wind loads, the cladding connections will also experience stress fluctuations, which …

Machine Learning Prediction Of Mechanical And Durability Properties Of Recycled Aggregates Concrete, Itzel Rosalia Nunez Vargas

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Whilst recycled aggregate (RA) can alleviate the environmental footprint of concrete production and the landfilling of colossal amounts of demolition waste, there need for robust predictive tools for its effects on mechanical and durability properties. In this thesis, state-of-the-art machine learning (ML) models were deployed to predict properties of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC). A systematic review was performed to analyze pertinent ML techniques previously applied in the concrete technology field. Accordingly, three different ML methods were selected to determine the compressive strength of RAC and perform mixture proportioning optimization. Furthermore, a gradient boosting regression tree was used to study the …

Classification, Localization, And Quantification Of Structural Damage In Concrete Structures Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Majdi Flah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Applications of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) have recently become of great interest owing to their superior ability to detect damage in engineering structures. ML algorithms used in this domain are classified into two major subfields: vibration-based and image-based SHM. Traditional condition survey techniques based on visual inspection have been the most widely used for monitoring concrete structures in service. Inspectors visually evaluate defects based on experience and engineering judgment. However, this process is subjective, time-consuming, and hampered by difficult access to numerous parts of complex structures. Accordingly, the present study proposes a nearly automated inspection …

Edge-Cloud Iot Data Analytics: Intelligence At The Edge With Deep Learning, Ananda Mohon M. Ghosh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Rapid growth in numbers of connected devices, including sensors, mobile, wearable, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices, is creating an explosion of data that are moving across the network. To carry out machine learning (ML), IoT data are typically transferred to the cloud or another centralized system for storage and processing; however, this causes latencies and increases network traffic. Edge computing has the potential to remedy those issues by moving computation closer to the network edge and data sources. On the other hand, edge computing is limited in terms of computational power and thus is not well suited for …

Incipient Deformation Of Small Volumes Of Fcc Metals, Mahdi Bagheripoor

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In the area of mechanics of materials, the classic theories cannot describe the material behaviour as the volume of deformation or sample size is small enough to be compared with the size scales of the imperfections of the crystal. So, there has been a great deal of interest in investigating the plasticity of micron and nano-sized materials, in the last 20 years. As a Ph.D. research project, the deformation mechanism at small scales of fcc metals is studied based on dislocations behaviour. The effect of main parameters that haven’t been studied in detail, including, crystal orientation, pre-existing faults, grain boundaries, …

Numerical And Semi-Analytical Estimation Of Convective Heat Transfer Coefficient For Buildings In An Urban-Like Setting, Anwar Demsis Awol

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Urban building arrangements such as packing density, orientation and size are known to influence the microclimate surrounding each building. Studies on the impact of urban microclimatic changes on convective heat transfer coefficient (CHTC) from a stock of buildings, however, have been rare in surveyed literature. The present study focuses on numerical and analytical investigation of CHTC from building-like models with homogeneous set of equal and unequal planar and frontal densities. Consequently, the study discusses the CHTC response in relation to broader changes in the urban surface form. Part of the process involves the development of a simplified one-dimensional semi-analytical CHTC …

Leveraging Cloud-Based Nfv And Sdn Platform Towards Quality-Driven Next-Generation Mobile Networks, Hassan Hawilo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Network virtualization has become a key approach for Network Service Providers (NSPs) to mitigate the challenge of the continually increasing demands for network services. Tightly coupled with their software components, legacy network devices are difficult to upgrade or modify to meet the dynamically changing end-user needs. To virtualize their infrastructure and mitigate those challenges, NSPs have started to adopt Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). To this end, this thesis addresses the challenges faced on the road of transforming the legacy networking infrastructure to a more dynamic and agile virtualized environment to meet the rapidly increasing demand …

Adaptation Of A Deep Learning Algorithm For Traffic Sign Detection, Jose Luis Masache Narvaez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Traffic signs detection is becoming increasingly important as various approaches for automation using computer vision are becoming widely used in the industry. Typical applications include autonomous driving systems, mapping and cataloging traffic signs by municipalities. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown state of the art performances in classification tasks, and as a result, object detection algorithms based on CNNs have become popular in computer vision tasks. Two-stage detection algorithms like region proposal methods (R-CNN and Faster R-CNN) have better performance in terms of localization and recognition accuracy. However, these methods require high computational power for training and inference that make …

Advances In Design Methodology In Swelling Shale Rock In Southern Ontario, Thomas R.A. Lardner

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As infrastructure requirements increase in southern Ontario, excavations within swelling rock formations will become more frequent and larger. The objective of this study is to advance design capability for structures in swelling rock through three aspects: i) developing a practical swelling model for design engineers, ii) investigate two crushable/compressible materials for the mitigation of swelling rock effects, and iii) observe and analyze the behaviour of swelling rock to current excavation techniques.

A swelling rock constitutive model has been developed. The swelling parameters include the horizontal and vertical free swell potential, threshold stress, and critical stress as well as a “pseudo-Poisson’s …

Secured Data Masking Framework And Technique For Preserving Privacy In A Business Intelligence Analytics Platform, Osama Ali

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The main concept behind business intelligence (BI) is how to use integrated data across different business systems within an enterprise to make strategic decisions. It is difficult to map internal and external BI’s users to subsets of the enterprise’s data warehouse (DW), resulting that protecting the privacy of this data while maintaining its utility is a challenging task. Today, such DW systems constitute one of the most serious privacy breach threats that an enterprise might face when many internal users of different security levels have access to BI components. This thesis proposes a data masking framework (iMaskU: Identify, Map, Apply, …

Effect Of Material Viscoelasticity On Frequency Tuning Of Dielectric Elastomer Membrane Resonators, Liyang Tian

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Dielectric elastomers (DEs) capable of large voltage-induced deformation show promise for applications such as resonators and oscillators. However, the dynamic performance of such vibrational devices is not only strongly affected by the nonlinear electromechanical coupling and material hyperelasticity, but also significantly by the material viscoelasticity. The material viscoelasticity of DEs originates from the highly mobile polymer chains that constitute the polymer networks of the DE. Moreover, due to the multiple viscous polymer subnetworks, DEs possess multiple relaxation processes. Therefore, in order to predict the dynamic performance of DE-based devices, a theoretical model that accounts for the multiple relaxation processes is …

Resource Brokering In Grid Computing, Adrian T. Bienkowski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Grid Computing has emerged in the academia and evolved towards the bases of what is currently known as Cloud Computing and Internet of Things (IoT). The vast collection of resources that provide the nature for Grid Computing environment is very complex; multiple administrative domains control access and set policies to the shared computing resources. It is a decentralized environment with geographically distributed computing and storage resources, where each computing resource can be modeled as an autonomous computing entity, yet collectively can work together. This is a class of Cooperative Distributed Systems (CDS). We extend this by applying characteristic of open …

Modelling Of Convective Heat Transfer In Porous Media, Jeremy Vu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis details the process taken for the computational modelling of convective heat transfer in porous media. An in-house porous continuum model is modified to improve the prediction of heat transfer which is obtained when forcing fluid through porous blocks heated from one side. The results are compared to those obtained from CFD simulations performed using commercial software. Results indicated that a modification to conductivity the solid phase of the porous material must be included due to the tortuosity, or the complexity of the solid structure. Previously the tortuosity was not considered when calculating the effective solid phase conductivity.The implementation …

Interactive Visualization Of Multimodal Brain Connectivity: Applications In Clinical And Cognitive Neuroscience, Saeed Mahdizadeh Bakhshmand

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become a readily available prognostic and diagnostic method, providing invaluable information for the clinical treatment of neurological diseases. Multimodal neuroimaging allows integration of complementary data from various aspects such as functional and anatomical properties; thus, it has the potential to overcome the limitations of each individual modality. Specifically, functional and diffusion MRI are two non-invasive neuroimaging techniques customized to capture brain activity and microstructural properties, respectively. Data from these two modalities is inherently complex, and interactive visualization can assist with data comprehension.

The current thesis presents the design, development, and validation of visualization and computation …

Numerical Modeling Of Tornado-Like Vortex And Its Interaction With Bluff- Bodies, Zoheb Nasir

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The study the flow structure of tornado-like vortices and their impact over engineering structures is important due to the extent of tornado induced fatalities and damages observed each year in North America and around the world. In the present study, a numerical modeling approach inspired by the WindEEE Dome and the modified version of Ward’s Tornado Simulator has been developed. Using a full-scale numerical simulator, tornadoes of different intensities have been simulated for different swirl ratio values to study flow structures in comparison with previous studies. The effect of topographic features on the tornado-like vortex has been investigated for the …

Automatic Fracture Orientation Extraction From Sfm Point Clouds, Jon Kissi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Geology seeks to understand the history of the Earth and its surface processes through charac- terisation of surface formations and rock units. Chief among the geologists’ tools are rock unit orientation measurements, such as Strike, Dip and Dip Direction. These allow an understanding of both surface and sub-structure on both the local and macro scale.

Although the way these techniques can be used to characterise geology are well understood, the need to collect these measurements by hand adds time and expense to the work of the geologist, precludes spontaneity in field work, and coverage is limited to where the geologist …

Multiscale Wind Modelling For Sustainability And Resilience, Djordje Romanic

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The research presented herein is a mix of meteorological and wind engineering disciplines. In many cases, there is a gap between these two fields and this thesis is an attempt to bridge that gap through multiscale wind modelling approaches. Data and methods used in this study cover a multitude of spatial and temporal scales. Applications are in the fields of sustainability and resilience. This relationship between multiscale wind modelling and sustainability and resilience is investigated examining several case studies of three different developments: urban, rural and coastal.

An urban wind modelling methodology is proposed and applied for a specific development …

Numerical Investigation Of Full Scale Thunderstorm Downbursts: A Parametric Study And Comparison To Meteorological Model, Christopher Oreskovic

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A series of Large Eddy Simulations using an atmospheric meteorological cloud model have been used to investigate the important geometric and thermal parameters that influence a thunderstorm downburst outflow, as it pertains specifically to the idealized cooling source model. A separate set of Large Eddy Simulations make use of the same idealized cooling source model, in a realistic atmospheric base state using real field sounding data, in an attempt to make a quantifiable comparison to a downburst from a full cloud simulation. Randomness has been added to the cooling source forcing function to mimic the thermal variation in a real …

A Model For Complex Heat And Mass Transport Involving Porous Media With Related Applications, Furqan A. Khan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Heat and mass transfer involving porous media is prevalent in, for example, air-conditioning, drying, food storage, and chemical processing. Such applications require non-equilibrium heat and mass (or moisture) transfer modeling inside porous media in conjugate fluid/porous/solid framework. Moreover, modeling of turbulence and turbulent heat and mass transfer becomes essential for many applications. A comprehensive literature review shows a scarcity of models having such capabilities. In this respect, the objectives of the present thesis are to: i) develop a formulation that simulates non-equilibrium heat and mass transfer in conjugate fluid/porous/solid framework, ii) demonstrate the capabilities of the developed formulation by simulating …

Slope Stability Enhancement Of An Upstream Tailings Dam: Laboratory Testing And Numerical Modelling, Yazeed A. Alsharedah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Mine tailings are the byproduct of mining activities, which need to be disposed of once the ore is extracted. They can be disposed of in either dry or wet forms. The latter is most common with the tailings being disposed of in the form of slurry inside retention structures. The retention structure may be a natural, manmade, or built dam, which is the case in most of nowadays mining locations. In this thesis, improving the stability of an upstream tailings dam using soil additives is investigated. The experimental phase of this study involved laboratory tests conducted to characterize mine tailings …

Charging Level And Deposition Of Droplets In Electrostatic Painting, Husam Osman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The process of electrostatic painting has become a very important method of coating in a wide range of industrial applications including those used in the automobile industry. The general principle of spray coating is to deposit liquid droplets or solid powder particles on coated targets having various shapes. The electrostatic coating process consists of three main stages: droplet formation and charging, transportation and deposition. The complication of this process is caused by various factors, such as the physical properties of the material to be used, the appropriate electrical and mechanical conditions and the target surface to be coated, which affects …

Stochastic Stability And Uncertainty Quantification Of Ring-Based Vibratory Gyroscopes, Soroush Arghavan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Effect of stochastic fluctuations in angular velocity on the stability of two DOF ring-type MEMS gyroscopes is investigated. The governing Stochastic Differential Equations are discretized using the higher-order Milstein scheme in order to numerically predict the system response assuming the fluctuations to be white noise. Simulations via Euler scheme as well as a measure of Largest Lyapunov Exponents are employed for validation purposes due to lack of similar analytical or experimental data. The stability investigation predicts that the threshold fluctuation intensity increases nonlinearly with damping ratio. Under typical gyroscope operating conditions, nominal input angular velocity magnitude and mass mismatch appear …

Disinfection And Advanced Oxidation Of Highly Absorbing Fluids By Uv/Vuv Light: Process Modeling And Validation, Ferdinando Crapulli

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of the limitations in treating highly absorbing fluids with ultraviolet photoreactors is the short light penetration into the fluid leading to the following issues: (a) if not engineered properly, ultraviolet photoreactors dealing with highly absorbing fluids are likely to be energy-inefficient due to a non-ideal use of emitted photons and non-uniform dose distribution (b) the quantification of photo-chemical rate constants could be a challenging task due to the severe mixing-limited conditions of the experimental apparatus used during the investigation. As a result, new lab-scale apparatus (alternative to the conventional collimated beam system) and modeling approaches are needed in order …

Wind And Thermal Effects On Ground Mounted Photovoltaic (Pv) Panels, Chowdhury Mohammad Jubayer

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A combination of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations and wind tunnel experiments are carried out to investigate the effects of wind on the aerodynamic loading and heat transfer of a ground mounted stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) panel with tilt angle of 25^o in open country atmospheric boundary layer. Several azimuthal wind directions are considered: Southern 0^o, Southwest 45^o, Northwest 135^o and Northern 180^o. Three dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approaches with an unsteady solver using Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω turbulence closure are employed for the CFD simulations, whereas Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and …

Response Of Transmission Line Conductors Under Downburst Wind, Haitham Aboshosha

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Electricity is transmitted by Transmission Lines (TLs) from the source of production to the distribution system and then to the end consumers. Failure of a TL can lead to significant economic losses and to negative social consequences resulting from the interruption of power. High Intensity Winds (HIW), in the form of downbursts and tornadoes, are believed to be responsible for more than 80% of the weather-related failure of TLs around the world. The studies reported in this thesis are part of an ongoing extensive research program at Western University focusing on the response of TLs under HIW. Previous investigations conducted …

Numerical Simulation Of Liquid-Solid Circulating Fluidized Beds, Abbas Dadashi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Liquid-solid circulating fluidized bed (LSCFB) reactors are obtaining extensive attraction in the extraction process of functional proteins from industrial broth. A typical LSCFB is comprised of a riser, a downcomer, a liquid-solid separator, a top solids-return pipe and a bottom solids-return pipe. In light of the literature review conducted in this research, a detailed modeling of the protein extraction using an LSCFB ion-exchange system requires a microscopic study including hydrodynamic field, mass transfer and kinetics reactions.

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to simulate the hydrodynamics of the two phase flow in an LSCFB riser. The model is …