Engineering Commons^™

Development Of A Novel Casting Alloy Composed Of Aluminum And Cerium With Other Minor Additions, Zachary Cole Sims

Doctoral Dissertations

Eutectic casting alloys of aluminum and cerium are a recent discovery and early research describes an alloy with great potential to meet the growing demand for a lightweight, economical, high specific strength material for use in high-temperature or extremely corrosive environments. The broad application of aluminum alloys across industry sectors is driven by their collection of balanced properties including economical cost, high specific strength, and flexibility of their production pathways. Additionally, their high corrosion resistance makes them a good choice for structural materials. Despite this, the push to use aluminum alloys in ever more extreme environments with higher temperatures, stresses, …

Adhesion And Deformation Mechanisms Of Polydopamine And Polytetrafluoroethylene: A Multiscale Computational Study, Matthew Brownell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Polydopamine (PDA) has been shown to bond via covalent bonding, van der Waals forces, and hydrogen bonding and is known to adhere strongly to almost any material. The application of PDA between a substrate and a PTFE surface coating has resulted in low friction and a greatly reduced wear rate. Previous research probing the capabilities and limitations of PDA/PTFE films have studied the wear and mechanical properties of the film, but the overall adhesive and deformation mechanisms remain unclear.

In this research, we investigate the tribological properties of PDA and PTFE molecules and composites from the atomic to the microscale …

An Investigation Into The Effects Of Fly Ash On Freeze-Thaw Durability Prediction, Yancy Schrader

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Air is purposefully entrained into concrete primarily to improve resistance to freeze-thaw deterioration while saturated with water. Air entraining admixtures (AEAs) are chemical admixtures designed to entrain air into the concrete to provide adequate resistance to the effects of freezing and thawing. One of the challenges associated with air entrainment in concrete is the interaction of an AEA with supplementary cementitious materials present in the concrete, particularly fly ash. Fly ash is a by-product of the coal fired electrical generation industry, and often contains residual unburned carbon and other components that can increase the AEA demand of a particular concrete …

Leveraging Biomimicry And Additive Manufacturing To Improve Load Transfer In Brittle Materials, Ana Paula Bernardo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the emergence of Additive Manufacturing (i.e., 3D printing) in construction, new strategically designed shapes can be created to improve load transfer through structural members and foundations. Cross-sections can be optimized to carry load using less material, or even using weaker constituent materials, like soils, which are cheap and abundant. The goal of this research is to investigate the benefits of using cellular patterns which leverage biomimicry in civil engineering applications, since nature has perfectly engineered materials and patterns which carry loads with the least amount of material possible. Most of the periodic cellular work to date has focused on …

Modeling The Torque Of Ferrite Nano-Particles As A Ferrofluid Suspended In Liquid To Determine The Electromagnetic Response To Angular Displacement, Jackson Tyler Brennecke

Masters Theses

Inertial sensing is an important part of engineering and technology, especially for determining spatial orientation. Most modern inertial sensing units rely on MicroElectroMechanical systems (MEMS) style gyroscopic sensors to determine angular acceleration. This research investigates a novel gyroscopic sensing technology that uses mechanical precision of magnetic nanoparticles, instead of MEMS, to determine inertial measurements. The only other study on this novel technology proposed a scalar set of equations for relating magnetic field and torque magnitude to the magnitude of angular displacement of the sensor. This research develops the theoretical model into a set of full vector equations, so that the …

Comparison Of Additively Manufactured And Wrought 17-4 Ph Stainless Steels In Ultra Low Cycle Fatigue, Timothy Strasser

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes allow for creation of complex geometries that are otherwise impractical to fabricate with traditional subtractive methods. AM technology has potential to improve the optimization of seismic lateral force resisting components which dissipate seismic energy through large plastic strains; however, the ultra low-cycle fatigue performance of AM metals are not yet well understood. Void formation during the AM fabrication process has potential to affect performance. This study compares the performance of heat-treated and non-heat-treated AM and wrought 17-4PH stainless steel in Ultra Low Cycle Fatigue. To understand ULCF performance differences between the AM and wrought specimens, post …

Me-Em Enewsbrief, October-December 2020, Department Of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics eNewsBrief

No abstract provided.

Developments Of Machine Learning Potentials For Atomistic Simulations, Howard Yanxon

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Atomistic modeling methods such as molecular dynamics play important roles in investigating time-dependent physical and chemical processes at the microscopic level. In the simulations, energy and forces, sometimes including stress tensor, need to be recalculated iteratively as the atomic configuration evolves. Consequently, atomistic simulations crucially depend on the accuracy of the underlying potential energy surface. Modern quantum mechanical modeling based on density functional theory can consistently generate an accurate description of the potential energy surface. In most cases, molecular dynamics simulations based on density functional theory suffer from highly demanding computational costs. On the other hand, atomistic simulations based on …

Experimental And Computational Analysis Of Progressive Failure In Bolted Hybrid Composite Joints, John S. Brewer

Theses and Dissertations

Composite materials are strong, lightweight, and stiff making them desirable in aerospace applications. However, a practical issue arises with composites in that they behave unpredictably in bolted joints, where damage and cracks are often initiated. This research investigated a solution to correcting the problem with composite bolted joints. A novel hybrid composite material was developed, where thin stainless steel foils were placed between and in place of preimpregnated composite plies during the cure cycle to reinforce stress concentrations in bolted joints. This novel composite was compared to control samples experimentally in quasi-static monotonic loading in double shear configuration in 9-ply …

Sustainable Drug Release From Polycaprolactone Coated Chitin‑Lignin Gel Fibrous Scaffolds, Turdimuhammad Abdullah, Kalamegam Gauthaman, Azadeh Mostafavi, Ahmed Alshahrie, Numan Salah, Pierfrancesco Morganti, Angelo Chianese, Ali Tamayol, Adnan Memic

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Non-healing wounds have placed an enormous stress on both patients and healthcare systems worldwide. Severe complications induced by these wounds can lead to limb amputation or even death and urgently require more effective treatments. Electrospun scaffolds have great potential for improving wound healing treatments by providing controlled drug delivery. Previously, we developed fibrous scaffolds from complex carbohydrate polymers [i.e. chitin-lignin (CL) gels]. However, their application was limited by solubility and undesirable burst drug release. Here, a coaxial electrospinning is applied to encapsulate the CL gels with polycaprolactone (PCL). Presence of a PCL shell layer thus provides longer shelf-life for the …

Development Of Reduced Order Models Using Reservoir Simulation And Physics Informed Machine Learning Techniques, Mark V. Behl Jr

LSU Master's Theses

Reservoir simulation is the industry standard for prediction and characterization of processes in the subsurface. However, simulation is computationally expensive and time consuming. This study explores reduced order models (ROMs) as an appropriate alternative. ROMs that use neural networks effectively capture nonlinear dependencies, and only require available operational data as inputs. Neural networks are a black box and difficult to interpret, however. Physics informed neural networks (PINNs) provide a potential solution to these shortcomings, but have not yet been applied extensively in petroleum engineering.

A mature black-oil simulation model from Volve public data release was used to generate training data …

Joint Wind And Ice Effects On Transmission Lines In Mountainous Terrain, Daniel Davalos Arriaga

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Atmospheric icing on mountainous terrain can produce catastrophic damages to transmission lines when incoming particles impinge and accrete on the cable surface of the system. The first challenge in wind-ice loading is determining joint statistics of wind and ice accretion on transmission lines. This study analyzes the weather characteristics for a specific site of study using 15 years of historical data to use as inputs for ice accretion modeling. The joint wind and ice hazard is characterized by simulating 500 years of icing events from the fitted probability distributions of ice accretion and wind on ice velocities. The second challenge …

Effective Hair Styling Compositions And Processes, Yiqi Yang, Helan Xu, Kaili Song

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Faculty Publications

This disclosure relates to hair styling compositions and processes , and more particularly to compositions for disentangling or crosslinking hair that are useful in hair styling processes.

Urine Volume Reduction During Long-Duration Cave Exploration By A Light-Weight And Portable Forward Osmosis System, Sebastian Engelhardt, Katey E. Bender, Jörg Vogel, Stephen E. Duirk, Francisco B. Moore, Hazel A. Barton

International Journal of Speleology

The preservation of caves is a challenge during long-duration cave expeditions where human waste can add significant nitrogen to the cave ecosystem. Since the removal of urine that accumulates during a multi-day caving trip is not always feasible due to weight and volume constraints, a light-weight and portable filtration system that is capable of reducing urine volume would be desirable. In this study we tested the Aquaporin Inside hollow fiber membrane in a forward osmosis (FO) setup to evaluate its capability to reduce urine volume while rejecting nitrogenous compounds using different draw solution chemistries and water recovery rates. As a …

Adsorption And Reconfiguration Of Amphiphiles At Silica-Water Interfaces: Role Of Electrostatic Interactions, Van Der Waals Forces And Hydrogen Bonds, Yao Wu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ability to explore and predict metastable structures of hybrid self-assemblies is of central importance for the next generation of advanced materials with novel properties. As compared to their thermodynamically stable forms, the kinetically stabilized materials show improved functionality potentially over their stable counterparts. The self-assembly processes usually originate from weak intermolecular interactions, involving a dynamic competition between attractive and repulsive interactions. These weak forces, including van der Waals (vdW), electrostatic interaction and the hydrogen bonding (H-bonding), can be tuned by external stimuli, e.g., confinement, temperature and ionization, and consequently driving hybrid materials into different configurations. It is challenging to …

Centrifugal Microfluidic Platform For Solid-Phase-Extraction (Spe) And Fluorescence Detection Applications, Yong Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Solid phase extraction (SPE) is a widely used method to separate and concentrate the target molecules in liquid mixture. Traditional SPE has to be conducted in the laboratory with professional equipment and skilled operators. The microfluidic and 3D printing technology have opened up the opportunity in developing miniaturized automatic instruments. The main contribution of this research is to integrate the SPE process on a novel centrifugal platform. Various valves are applied on the platform to help control the aqueous sample and reagents in the cartridge.

First, a centrifugal microfluidic platform was built for automatically detecting trace oil pollution in water. …

A Modelling Study For Smart Pigging Technique For Pipeline Leak Detection, Caitlyn Judith Thiberville

LSU Master's Theses

Although leak incidents continue, a pipeline remains the most reliable mode of transportation within the oil and gas industry. It becomes even more important today because the projection for new pipelines is expected to increase by 1 billion BOE through 2035. In addition, increasing number and length of subsea tiebacks face new challenges in term of data acquisition, monitoring, analysis, and remedial actions. Passive leak-detection methods commonly used in the industry have been successful with some limitations in that they often cannot detect small leaks and seeps. In addition to a thorough review of related topics, this study investigates how …

Nonlinear Controller For Nonlinear Wave Energy Converters, David G. Wilson, Giorgio Bacelli, Rush D. Robinett Iii, Ossama Abdelkhalik

Michigan Tech Patents

The present invention is directed to a nonlinear controller for nonlinear wave energy converters (WECs). As an example of the invention, a nonlinear dynamic model is developed for a geometrically right-circular cylinder WEC design for the heave-only motion, or a single degree-of-freedom (DOF). The linear stiffness term is replaced by a nonlinear cubic hardening spring term to demonstrate the performance of a nonlinear WEC as compared to an optimized linear WEC. By exploiting the nonlinear physics in the nonlinear controller, equivalent power and energy capture, as well as simplified operational performance is observed for the nonlinear cubic hardening spring controller …

Research Progress Of Sulfur Cathode Catalytic Conversions For Lithium-Sulfur Batteries, Qin-Jun Shao, Jian Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

The electrochemical reduction of sulfur (S) takes place through multistep reactions when S is used as a cathode material. The complete discharge of S to form final product lithium sulfide (Li₂S) is a two-electron reaction. The formation of low-order lithium polysulfides (LiPS) needs to overcome certain energy barriers. And the reduction of Li₂S₂ to Li₂S is the rate-limited step. The reaction kinetic of sulfur cathode is the critical key to determine the electrochemical performance of Li-S batteries, such as specific energy, specific power and low temperature performance, etc. Accelerating the rate-limited step kinetics …

Electrochemical Engineering Of Carbon Nanodots, Lei Bao, Dai-Wen Pang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Carbon nanodots (CNDs), as zero-dimensional carbonaceous fluorescent nanomaterials, are valuable add-ons to the current cohorts of fluorescent nanoparticles. The fine control over the size and the surface is the key to gain designated photophysical properties of CNDs as well as empowers CNDs in many applications. Herein, a series of electrochemical strategies to manipulate the size and the surface of CNDs and to identify the surface structures was presented. Accordingly, the understandings on the originals of photoluminescence as well as the pathways of electrochemiluminescence of CNDs were revealed. These studies demonstrated that electrochemical methods were easy to operate, cost-effective and efficient …

Research Progress Of Key Components In Lithium-Sulfur Batteries, Jia-Jia Chen, Quan-Feng Dong

Journal of Electrochemistry

Due to the much higher theoretical specific capacity and energy density than the ones of traditional lithium ion battery, Li-S batteries have long been at the pinnacle in the realms of high-energy Li-metal batteries. However, the complicated electrochemical reactions on the sulfur cathode and Li anode, induced by the thermodynamic and kinetic behaviors of lithium polysulfides, are the intrinsic bottleneck to realize the full potential of Li-S batteries for practical application. In this review, we firstly discuss the roles, and thermodynamic and kinetic behaviors of polysulfides in the charging and discharging processes of Li-S batteries. Then, the functional design and …

Licoo2 As Sulfur Host To Enhance Cathode Volumetric Capacity For Lithium-Sulfur Battery, Lu Wang, Xue-Ping Gao

Journal of Electrochemistry

Lithium-sulfur battery is one of the most promising secondary battery systems due to its super high theoretical gravimetric and volumetric energy densities (2600 Wh·kg-1 and 2800 Wh·L-1, respectively). However, the practical volumetric capacity of sulfur cathode is still unsatisfied due to the overuse of low-density host materials, such as carbon nanomaterials. Herein, commercial LiCoO₂ with the high tap density of 2.94 g·cm-3 was used as the host material to build high density sulfur-based composite and compact electrode for increasing the volumetric capacity. Obviously, the tap density of the as-prepared S/LiCoO₂ composite was 1.90 g·cm-3, larger than that of …

A Model For The Anodic Carbonization Of Alkaline Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells, Qi-Hao Li, Ying-Ming Wang, Hua-Long Ma, Li Xiao, Gong-Wei Wang, Jun-Tao Lu, Lin Zhuang

Journal of Electrochemistry

The alkaline polymer electrolyte fuel cell (APEFC) has made appreciable progress in recent years but is still suffering performance loss during discharge with air as the oxidant. Several theories have been suggested to interpret the loss. However, efforts are still needed to reach a clear quantitative understanding. Based on the major experimental findings in combination with thermodynamics and kinetics of the reactions involved in the anode, this paper presents a model featuring layered carbonization in the anode and relevant grouped equations. The simulation results generated from the latter are compared with experiments, and possible principles to suppress the performance loss …

Facile Synthesis Of Nitrogen-Doped Graphene-Like Active Carbon Materials For High Performance Lithium-Sulfur Battery, Quan-Hua Meng, Wen-Wen Deng, Chang-Ming Li

Journal of Electrochemistry

Lithium-sulphur (Li-S) battery is regarded as a promising energy storage device because of its high theoretical capacity. However, the low S utilization and short cycling life limit the commercial applications. In this work, nitrogen-doped graphene-like carbon (NGC) materials were synthesized by simply pyrolyzing and carbonizing the mixture of melamine (C₃H₆N₆) and L-cysteine (C₃H₇NO₂S). The graphene-like structure in NGC effectively buffered the volume change of S during the discharge/charge process and improved the cycling stability. Meanwhile, nitrogen-containing functional groups in NGC facilitated the transportation of ions and suppressed the …

Porous-Electrode Theory Of Lithium Ion Battery: Old Paradigm And New Challenge, Xiao-Xiao Wang, Zi-Rui Zhou, Qiang Shan, Zeng-Ming Zhang, Jun Huang, Yu-Wen Liu, Sheng-Li Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

A critical review on the porous electrode theory developed by Newman and his colleagues is presented. We propose several ideas for further development of this theory by analyzing its limitations. The classical Newman theory does not consider ion steric effect in describing ion transport in electrolyte solutions, which can be amended by a newly developed ion-vacancy coupled charge transfer model for ion transport in concentrated solutions. Ion transport in solid particles of active materials is essentially an ion-electron coupled transport process, and its rationality is verified by comparing the calculated and experimental diffusion coefficients of Li + ion in intercalation …

Porous Electrodes In Electrochemical Energy Storage Systems, Wei-Xiao Ji, Gong-Wei Wang, Qiang Wang, Li-Jun Bai, De-Yang Qu

Journal of Electrochemistry

Professor C.S. Cha was among the pioneers who have introduced modern electrochemistry to China. Under his leadership, the electrochemical research group in Wuhan University became one of the global powerhouses in fundamental and applied electrochemical researches. During the past many decades, Professor Cha and his colleagues in the university have educated and trained many students who have become part of the backbone of electrochemistry worldwide. In this review, we demonstrate the solid foundation laid by Professor Cha and his colleagues in Wuhan University, and the advancements made in the area of porous electrodes by the authors. All the authors in …

Progress And Prospects On Multifunctional Coating Separators For Lithium-Sulfur Battery, Zhuang-Zhuang Wei, Nan-Xiang Zhang, Feng Wu, Ren-Jie Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

The development of advanced energy storage systems is crucial to meet the growing demand for electric vehicles, portable devices and renewable energy storage. Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, with their advantages of high specific energy, low cost of raw materials and environmental friendliness, are hotspots in the research field of new high performance batteries. However, there are still many problems which hinder the practical applications of lithium-sulfur batteries, such as the shuttle effect of soluble polysulfide intermediates, the growth of lithium dendrites, and the thermal stability and safety of lithium-sulfur batteries during use. The design of multifunctional coating separator is one of …

Liquid Metal Electrodes For Electrochemical Energy Storage Technologies, Hao-Miao Li, Hao Zhou, Kang-Li Wang, Kai Jiang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Electrochemical energy storage technologies (ESTs) with low cost, long lifespan and high safety are of great importance for efficient integration of renewable energy into the grid. Liquid metal electrodes (LMEs) possessing the merits of high electronic conductivity, easy manufacture and amorphous structure is of great application value in the field of energy storage batteries. During charge-discharge processing, the LMEs could avoid the issues of structural deformation and dendrite growth in solid metal electrodes, which could effectively extend the cycle life of the LME based batteries. Moreover, LME based batteries are easy to be scaled up and less expensive, which are …

Highly Efficient Co2 Utilization Via Molten Salt Co2 Capture And Electrochemical Transformation Technology, Bo-Wen Deng, Hua-Yi Yin, Di-Hua Wang

Journal of Electrochemistry

The molten electrolytes exhibit high CO₂ absorption capacities, wide electrochemical windows and excellent reaction kinetics, which are promising electrolyte candidates for efficient capture and electrochemical conversion of high-flux CO₂ driven by renewable and clean electricity sources. This short review introduces the recent advancements of CO₂ electroreduction achieved by the authors using molten salt CO₂ capture and electrochemical transformation (MSCC-ET) technology, involving CO₂ absorption kinetics, cathodic kinetics, controllable synthesis of carbon products with unique nanostructures, development of inert oxygen evolution anodes and CO₂ conversion efficiency as well as energy efficiency. The challenges and prospects are …

Advances In The Application Of Biomimetic Surface Engineering In The Oil And Gas Industry, Yanbao Guo, Zheng Zhang, Siwei Zhang

Friction

Friction is widespread in almost every field in the oil and gas industry, and it is accompanied by huge energy losses and potential safety hazards. To deal with a series of questions in this regard, biomimetic surfaces have been developed over the past decades to significantly reduce economic losses. Presently, biomimetic surface engineering on different scales has been successfully introduced into related fields of the oil and gas industry, such as drill bits and the inner surfaces of pipes. In this review, we focused on the most recent and promising efforts reported toward the application of a biomimetic surface in …