Engineering Commons^™

Fuel Cells, Frederick J. Munster Jr.

Maine Collection

Fuel Cells

by Frederick J. Munster Jr.

Edited by: Mr. Christopher Carroll

Maine Department of Economic Development, Augusta, Maine, 1998.

Contents: Hydrogen / Hydrogen Safety / Electrolysis / Electrolyzers / History of Fuel Cells / How Fuel Cells Operate / Fuel Cell Types / Fuel Cell Electrochemistry / Power Systems / Fuel Cells in Transportation / Hydrogen Powered Internal Combustion Engines / Home, Garden, Education and Industry / For More Information / Glossary / References

Networking 8-Bit Embedded Controllers, Using The Controller Area Network Method, Brett Wilkinson

Theses : Honours

The initial aim of this project was to create an ethernet (IEEE 802.3) Communications System. The system was to connect Embedded controllers to facilitate the operation of a real time operation. After extensive investigation and scheduled meetings with industry, it became apparent that a superior communication system for this type of task lay in the Controller Area Network (CAN) standard. Communications Networks are extremely susceptible to volatile surroundings. A vital controller network necessitates that its communication network be invulnerable to high noise levels. It is also imperative that critical messages from one controller reach their destination on time. CAN was …

Emission Of Excimer Radiation From Direct Current, High-Pressure Hollow Cathode Discharge, Ahmed El-Habachi, Karl H. Schoenbach

Bioelectrics Publications

A novel, nonequilibrium, high-pressure, direct current discharge, the microhollow cathode discharge, has been found to be an intense source of xenon and argon excimer radiation peaking at wavelengths of 170 and 130 nm, respectively. In argon discharges with a 100 μm diam hollow cathode, the intensity of the excimer radiation increased by a factor of 5 over the pressure range from 100 to 800 mbar. In xenon discharges, the intensity at 170 nm increased by two orders of magnitude when the pressure was raised from 250 mbar to 1 bar. Sustaining voltages were 200 V for argon and 400 V …

Generation Of Intense Excimer Radiation From High-Pressure Hollow Cathode Discharges, Ahmed El-Habachi, Karl H. Schoenbach

Bioelectrics Publications

By reducing the diameter of the cathode opening in a hollow cathode discharge geometry to values on the order of 100 μm, we were able to operate these discharges in noble gases in a direct current mode up to atmospheric pressure. High-pressure discharges in xenon were found to be strong sources of excimer radiation. Highest intensities at a wavelength of 172 nm were obtained at a pressure of 400 Torr. At this pressure, the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) radiant power of a single discharge operating at a forward voltage of 220 V and currents exceeding 2 mA reaches values between 6% …

Attitude Measurement, Mark A. Stedham, Partha P. Banerjee, Seiji Nishifuji, Shogo Tanaka

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In many practical situations, it is important to determine and measure the attitude of a particular vehicle, such as a ship, an airplane, a piece of mechanical equipment such as a, crane lifter, or a spacecraft. For this reason, many attitude sensors have been developed with advanced computer and semiconductor technologies. This section first introduces the various attitude sensors with an explanation of their operating principles and then presents several methodologies for attitude measurement and determination, including ships and crane lifters, aircraft, and spacecraft applications.

Compensation Of Processes With Time Delays, Thomas Heeg, Aidan O'Dwyer

Conference papers

Methods which allow comparisons in the use of PI and PID controller strategies for the control of first order lag plus time delay processes (FOLPD) are worthy of investigation because of the relative lack of work done in this area. In this paper, strategies for comparing performance and robustness for a PI or PID controlled FOLPD process are analysed and designed. The use of different PID controller structures for processes with time delay is also worth considering in detail. Various PID controller structures are compared by means of servo and regulator time responses, Bode plots and Nyquist plots.

The Identification And Control Of Processes With Time Delay, Susan Carr, Aidan O'Dwyer

Conference papers

The identification of the frequency response and process model parameters of systems with time delay using frequency domain techniques is evaluated in this paper. The performance of both Fourier Transform and Power Spectral Density techniques is considered. The benefits of employing modern model based design and delay compensation techniques, based on the identified process data, are assessed.

Functional Radionuclide Imaging Algorithm Based On The Appended Curve Deconvolution Technique And Its Use In The Diagnosis Of Renovascular Hypertension, İrfan Karagöz, Hi̇kmet Bayhan

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this study, a new method called the pixel basis functional radionuclide imaging (PBFRI) algorithm based on the appended curve deconvolution technique, in order to be able to increase the medical diagnostic capability of a conventional gamma camera, is presented together with the clinical results. In the PBFRI method, retention function of each pixel is obtained from the renograms and cardiac curves generated by processing the filtered segments of the kidney and heart, using a special deconvolution method. The deconvolution operation is done by using the Fourier transform technique. High frequency artifacts presented by the Fourier transform are removed by …

Genetic Approach For The Determination Of Object Parameters From X Ray Projections, Tayfun Günel, Sedef Kent

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this study, a new method is presented, based on genetic algorithms for determining object parameters such as radii and/or attenuation coefficients with some assumptions and estimating a cross-sectional image of an object from its projections obtained by X ray illumination. After it was tested for projections degraded by different random noise levels, it was observed that the genetic and fuzzy genetic algorithms improved the signal to noise ratio of the projections. The fuzzy genetic algorithm gave better results than the genetic algorithm.

Emc Applications Of The Emap5 Hybrid Fem/Mom Code, Yun Ji, Todd H. Hubing, Mohammad Wares Ali

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

EMAP5 is a numerical software package designed to model electromagnetic problems. It employs the finite element method (FEM) to analyze three-dimensional volumes, and the method of moments (MOM) to analyze the current distribution on the surface of these volumes. The two methods are coupled through the fields on the dielectric surface. This paper describes the formulation of the EMAP5 code and demonstrates how it can be used to analyze simple printed circuit board configurations

An Interoperability Infrastructure For Developing Multidatabase Systems, Asuman Doğac, Gökhan Özhan, Ebru Kılıç, Fatma Özcan, Sena Nural, Sema Mancuhan, Cevdet Dengi, Pınar Köksal, Uğur Halıcı, Budak Arpınar, Cem Evrendilek, Vahid Sadjadi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

A multidatabase system (MDBS) allows the users to simultaneously access autonomous, heterogeneous databases using a single data model and a query language. This provides for achieving interoperability among heterogeneous, federated DBMSs. In this paper, we describe the interoperability infrastructure of a multidatabase system, namely METU Interoperable DBMS (MIND). The architecture of MIND is based on OMG distributed object management model. It is implemented on top of a CORBA compliant ORB, namely, ObjectBroker. The interface of the generic database object is defined in CORBA IDL and multiple implementations of this interface, one for each component DBMSs, namely, Oracle 7, Sybase, Adabas …

Performance Of Prefiltered Model-Based Frequency Estimators, Mustafa A. Altınkaya, Bülent Sankur, Emin Anarım

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this work, the performance improvement due to prefiltering of inputs in model-based frequency estimators is investigated based on simulation experiments. Initial estimates on the tone frequency locations, which are obtained via DFT peak picking type preanalysis, are used to design a prefilter to remove noise and interference. The simulations indicate that prefiltering can improve the accuracy of Pisarenko and AR frequency estimators and MUSIC and KT frequency estimators with low subspace order significantly. The SNR thresholds of model-based frequency estimators are lowered by prefiltering. Additionally, interesting trade-offs between prefiltering gain and the gain due to subspace noise filtering have …

Analysis Of Images Of Cells With Neurites, Florence Cloppet, Georges Stamon

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

This study is concerned with the segmentation of cytological images and extraction of cellular entities in order to provide quantitative data about the number of cells in culture (statistical tests, morphology, model of evolution, etc). This quantitative supply is useful in biology to evaluate the consequences of the application of active substances on morphological changes and cellular viability. It is related to the conception of a system dedicated to automatic analysis of cell images, in order to evaluate the effects of drugs on the morphology of neuronal cells. We use a cooperative region / contour segmentation, which gives closed polygonal …

Imaging Electrical Current Density Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, B. Murat Eyüpoğlu, Ravinder Reddy, John S. Leigh

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this study, images of nonuniform and uniform electric current density in conductor phantoms, which contain magnetic resonance active nuclei, are produced using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). A standard spin echo pulse sequence is used, with the addition of a bipolar current pulse. The flux density parallel to the main magnetic field, generated by the current pulse, is encoded in the phase of the complex MR image. The spatial distribution of magnetic flux density is extracted from the phase image. Current density is calculated using the magnetic flux density. This fairly recent technique is known as Magnetic Resonance Current Density …

Use Of The Magnetic Field Generated By The Internal Distribution Of Injected Currents For Electrical Impedance Tomography (Mr-Eit), Y. Zi̇ya İder, Özlem Bi̇rgül

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In two dimensional conventional Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), volume conductor is probed by means of injected currents, and peripheral voltage measurements are used as input to the reconstruction algorithm. The current that flows in the 2D object creates magnetic fields that are perpendicular to the plane of imaging. Such magnetic fields can be measured using magnetic resonance tomography. In this study, use of this magnetic field generated by the injected currents, for the purpose of reconstructing the conductivity distribution, is studied. Sensitivity matrix relating the magnetic field to the element conductivities is calculated using the Finite Element Method and Biot-Savart …

Fdtd Evaluation Of The Sar Distribution In A Human Head Near A Mobile Cellular Phone, Selçuk Paker, Levent Sevgi̇

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this study, Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method is used to calculate the Specific Absorbtion Rate (SAR; defined as the power absorbed by unit mass of the tissue) distribution in a human head near a hand-held cellular phone. A three dimensional FDTD algorithm is built in cartesian coordinates. A discrete human head model, derived from a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) image by semi-automatic algorithm, is located within FDTD volume together with a discrete hand-held receiver model. FDTD simulations are carried out for both european GSM (operating at 900MHz) and DECT (operating at 1.8GHz) systems with a quarter-wavelength antenna, mounted on top …

Cardiac Passive Acoustic Localization: Cardiopal, Yildirim Bahadirlar, Hali̇l Özcan Gülçür

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

A novel non-invasive system is proposed as an adjunct diagnostic tool for cardiac disorders, which is based on processing of the heart sounds acquired using a specially designed 2-D passive acoustic array. In addition to the acoustic array, the system consists of a personal computer, specially developed instrumentation and interface hardware and an adaptive array processing scheme. A signal model is constructed in accordance with the basic assumptions made for very near-field low frequency sources. The multiple signal characterization (MUSIC) method together with the model is used for the localization of assumed point sources in the heart. Locations of the …

Thermodynamic Modeling And Analysis Of Human Stress Responses, Satish C. Boregowda

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A novel approach based on the second law of thermodynamics is developed to investigate the psychophysiology and quantify human stress level. Two types of stresses (thermal and mental) are examined. A Unified Stress Response Theory (USRT) is developed under the new proposed field of study called Engineering Psychophysiology. The USRT is used to investigate both thermal and mental stresses from a holistic (human body as a whole) and thermodynamic viewpoint. The original concepts and definitions are established as postulates which form the basis for thermodynamic approach to quantify human stress level. An Objective Thermal Stress Index (OTSI) is developed by …

A Practical Continually Online Trained Artificial Neural Network Controller For A Turbogenerator, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald G. Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper reports on the simulation and practical studies carried out on a single turbogenerator connected to an infinite bus through a short transmission line, with a continually online trained (COT) artificial neural network (ANN) controller to identify the turbogenerator, and another COT ANN to control the turbogenerator. This identifier/controller augments/replaces the automatic voltage regulator and the turbine governor. Results are presented to show that this COT ANN identifier/controller has the potential to allow turbogenerators to operate more closely to their steady-state stability limits and nevertheless “ride through” severe transient disturbances such as three phase faults. This allows greater usage …

An Efficient, Fast Converging Adaptive Filter For Network Echo Cancellation, Steven L. Grant

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper discusses a fast efficient adaptive filtering algorithm for network echo cancellers PNLMS++ (proportionate normalized least mean squares ++). Compared to the conventional normalized least mean squares (NLMS) algorithm, PNLMSI++ converges much more quickly when the echo path is sparse. When the echo path is dispersive, the convergence rate is the same as NLMS. In addition, the new algorithm diverges at the same rate and to the same misalignment level as NLMS during periods of undetected double-talk. PNLMS++ is only 50% more computationally complex than NLMS and requires no additional memory

Designing Power Bus Decoupling For Cmos Devices, S. Radu, Richard E. Dubroff, Todd H. Hubing, Thomas Van Doren

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The adequacy of the DC power bus decoupling for CMOS devices can be determined if the effective board decoupling capacitance, the CMOS load capacitance, the CMOS power dissipation capacitance, the switching time, and the allowable bus noise voltage are known. A simple method is presented for estimating the effective decoupling capacitance. The load and power dissipation capacitance values are shown analytically and experimentally to be closely related to the transient current. The transient current and switching time are used to estimate the transient noise voltage on the power bus

Substroke Matching By Segmenting And Merging For Online Korean Cursive Character Recognition, Chang-Soo Kim, Kang Ryoung Park, Byung Hwan Jun, Jaihie Kim

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Korean character is composed of several alphabets in two-dimensional formation and the total number of Korean characters exceeds eleven thousand. Therefore, the previous approaches to Korean cursive characters pay most of their attention to segmenting a character into alphabets accurately. However, it is difficult because the boundaries of alphabets are not apparent in most cases. We propose an alphabet-based method without assuming accurate alphabet segmentation. In the proposed method, a cursive character is segmented into substrokes by a set of segmenting conditions. Then it is matched with the reference substrokes generated from alphabet models and ligatures by segmenting and …

The General Approximation Theorem, Donald C. Wunsch, Alexander N. Gorban

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A general approximation theorem is proved. It uniformly envelopes both the classical Stone theorem and approximation of functions of several variables by means of superpositions and linear combinations of functions of one variable. This theorem is interpreted as a statement on universal approximating possibilities ("approximating omnipotence") of arbitrary nonlinearity. For the neural networks, our result states that the function of neuron activation must be nonlinear, and nothing else

A Maximum Torque Per Ampere Control Strategy For Induction Motor Drives, O. Wasynczuk, Keith Corzine, S. D. Sudhoff, Jerry L. Tichenor, P. C. Krause, I. G. Hansen, L. M. Taylor

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a new control strategy is proposed which is simple in structure and has the straightforward goal of minimizing the stator current amplitude for a given load torque. It is shown that the resulting induction motor efficiency is reasonably close to optimal and that the approach is insensitive to variations in rotor resistance. Although the torque response is not as fast as in field-oriented (FO) control strategies, the response is reasonably fast. In fact, if the mechanical time constant is large relative to the rotor time constant, which is frequently the case, the sacrifice in dynamic performance is …

An Analog Vlsi Circuit Implementing An Orthogonal Continuous Wavelet Transform, Dongwei Chen, John G. Harris

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We have developed the theory and analog hardware implementation for a Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT). This novel circuit performs an orthogonal decomposition of temporal signals, such as speech, in a frequency range of 10 Hz to 20 kHz. This multiresolution processor expands the Laguerre structure originally developed by Lee (1960).

An Automated State Model Generation Algorithm For Simulation/Analysis Of Power Systems With Power Electronic Components, Steven Pekarek, E. A. Walters, T. L. Skvarenina, O. Wasynczuk

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a recently developed algorithmic method of deriving the state equations of power systems containing power electronic components is described. Therein the system is described by the pertinent branch parameters and the circuit topology; however, unlike circuit-based algorithms, the difference equations are not implemented at the branch level. Instead, the composite system state equations are established. A demonstration of the computer implementation of this algorithm to model a variable-speed, constant-frequency aircraft generation system is described. Because of the large number of states and complexity of the system, particular attention is placed on the development of a model structure …

Determination Of Aircraft Orientation For A Vision-Based System Using Artificial Neural Networks, Sanjeev Agarwal, Subhasis Chaudhuri

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An algorithm for real-time estimation of 3-D orientation of an aircraft, given its monocular, binary image from an arbitrary viewing direction is presented. This being an inverse problem, we attempt to provide an approximate but a fast solution using the artificial neural network technique. A set of spatial moments (scale, translation, and planar rotation invariant) is used as features to characterize different views of the aircraft, which corresponds to the feature space representation of the aircraft. A new neural network topology is suggested in order to solve the resulting functional approximation problem for the input (feature vector)-output (viewing direction) relationship. …

Electrochemical Characterization Of Copper Deposited On Plasma And Thermally Modified Titanium Surfaces, K. S. Teng, J. L. Delplancke, Jiangfan Zhang, T. J. O'Keefe

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Thin oxide films were grown at temperatures from 373 to 1073 K in plasma and in air on commercially pure titanium substrates. It was determined that the color, thickness, composition, phase, and polarization behavior in a copper electrolyte varied with operating conditions: temperature, oxygen partial pressure, and plasma composition. High-temperature and high oxygen partial pressure plasma produced a thick oxide film. The surface film structure transformed from TiO2 (anatase) to TiO2 (rutile) at a temperature of 600 °C. A lower oxide of the form TinO2n-1, such as Ti2O3 (which may be porous) or possibly Ti3O5, was formed on a thermally …

Passive Circuit Modeling Using Ipa510, Hassan Hiwaidi Al-Sheikhly

Dissertations and Theses

Characterizing the high speed interconnect performance of circuit board, integrated circuit packages and multichip module become very important when the clock frequencies in digital and RF systems become larger than 200 MHz. At time scales less than 2 ns distributed approach must be used to measure package parasitics (stray inductance and capacitance) and transmission line effects.

A practical way to measure and model the package parasitics is by utilizing Interconnect Parameter Analyzer (IP A510). The IP A510 uses Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) technique. The TDR technique is based on sending a waveform to a device under test (DUT) and capturing …

An Approach To Exact Modeling Of The Pwm Switch, Anas N. Al-Rabadi

Dissertations and Theses

Large number of small-signal models of de-to-de power converters exists already. These models usually use two techniques. The first is the averaging technique, such as: volt-second and current-second balance, state space averaging, and the averaged modeling approach. The other technique focuses on the exact modeling approach, such as: the application of time varying systems theory to linearize networks. One of the methodologies to apply the above techniques, is to view the three-terminal systems as a two-port network.

The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to develop a new approach, by the application of the two-port network methodology …