Engineering Commons^™

A Greedy Multiple-Knapsack Heuristic For Solving Air Mobility Command’S Intratheater Airlift Problem, Nicholas J. Zeisler

Theses and Dissertations

This research develops a methodology using a greedy heuristic to solve Air Mobility Command's intratheater airlift scenario as a multiple knapsack problem. The objective is to maximize throughput in a theater given a vehicle mixture and assignment scheme. The model allows for a heterogeneous, user defined vehicle mix in a theater consisting of up to five bed down locations and up to seven forward operating locations. First, we preprocess routes, eliminating the large number of unattractive route choices in the problem. Then using a greedy heuristic, we select routes and assign them to aircraft located at any or all of …

Simulation Evaluation Of The Combat Value Of A Standoff Precision Airdrop Capability, Michael W. Varner

Theses and Dissertations

This project is a simulation evaluation of the developmental standoff precision airdrop (SOPAD) capability. SOPAD is a new technology under consideration to deliver supplies to forward-deployed units using either a semi-rigid wing or a guided parafoil. These delivery systems allow airdrop of supplies from altitudes of 25,000 feet and distances 25 miles from the delivery point. Using global positioning system guidance, on board navigational computers, and automatic steering mechanisms, the delivery system flies to the target following a designated flight plan. The concept includes delivering supplies to remote and potentially hostile areas without endangering the supply aircraft. In addition, supplies …

A Tabu Search Metaheuristic For The Air Refueling Tanker Assignment Problem, Shay R. Capehart

Theses and Dissertations

In a joint effort between Air Mobility Command (AMC) and the Air Force Institute of Technology, we present a Tanker Assignment Problem (TAP) Tool capable of providing tanker mission plans for deployment scenarios. Due to the complex nature of extracting a mission plan from the Combined Mating and Ranging Planning System (CMARPS), AMC requires a tool to provide similar results in a simpler and less time consuming manner. The tool developed allows AMC to input several receiver groups consisting of various aircraft types and numbers. Each receiver group contains a point of origin and destination, with the option of providing …

Acuta Enews February 2000, Vol.29, No. 2

ACUTA Newsletters

In This Issue

Nominate Now for Board of Directors

ACUTA EVENTS

More Telecom Wish Lists for 2000

DC Update

High Tech Short Takes

Sites to See

Board Report

Welcome New Members

Positions Available

Optimum Design And Machining Parameters Of A Permanent Magnet Brushless Dc Linear Motor As A Cnc Feed Drive, William Tereshkovich

Dissertations

A new heuristic has been developed to determine optimal operating parameters applied to a permanent magnet brushless DC linear motor (PMBDCLM) as a CNC feed drive. An FEA model has been developed utilizing an -electromagnetic postprocessor to provide performance output of a PMBDCLM and DC servomotor. Based on the developed FEA models, velocity results have been utilized to provide feedrate levels for design of experiments (DOE). DOE has been conducted to provide force, tolerance, and surface finish data necessary for the performance comparison of a DC servo motor/ballscrew equipped CNC vertical milling machine and a PMBDCLM equipped CNC vertical milling …

Acuta Enews January 2000, Vol.29, No.1

ACUTA Newsletters

In This Issue

Telecom Wish List 2000

ACUTA EVENTS

Pricing Discussions May Results in Heavy Fines

DC Update

Up On the Rooftop: Antennas Anyone?

Board Report

Welcome New Members

Positions Available

Response Of A Sage Grouse Breeding Population To Fire In Southeastern Idaho, John W. Connelly, Kerry P. Reese, Richard A. Fischer, Wayne L. Wakkinen

United States Army: Publications

Prescribed burning is a common method to eliminate sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) and has been suggested as a tool to enhance the habitat of sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). Effects of this practice on sage grouse have not been evaluated rigorously. We studied effects of prescribed fire on lek (traditional breeding display areas) attendance by male sage grouse occupying low-precipitation (<26 cm) sagebrush habitats in south- eastern Idaho from 1986 through 1994. During the preburn period (1986-89), average declines for male attendance were 48% and 46% for treatment and control leks, respectively. Lek counts were similar for treatment and control leks during the preburn years (G-test, 0.25>P>0.10). During the postburn period (1990-94), male attendance at treatment leks declined 90% and control leks declined 63%. Although declines were similar between treatment and control leks during the preburn period, postburn declines were greater for treatment …

Development Of Vaccines For Prevention Of Botulism, Michael P. Byrne, Leonard A. Smith

United States Army: Publications

Botulism is a potentially lethal disease caused by one of seven homologous neurotoxic proteins usually produced by the bacterium, Clostridium botulinum. This neuromuscular disorder occurs through an exquisite series of molecular events, ultimately ending with the arrest of acetylcholine release and hence, flaccid paralysis. The development of vaccines that protect against botulism dates back to the 1940s. Currently, a pentavalent vaccine that protects against BoNT serotypes A-E and a separate monovalent vaccine that protects against BoNT serotype F are available as Investigational New Drugs. However, due to the numerous shortcomings associated with the toxoid vaccines, several groups have efforts …

Dwell Fatigue I : Damage Mechanisms, Tarun Goswami

Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Faculty Publications

The mechanisms controlling deformation and failure under high temperature creep-fatigue conditions of materials are examined in this paper. The materials studied are solder alloys, copper alloys, low alloy steels, stainless steels, titanium alloys, and Ni-based alloys. The deformation and failure mechanisms were different (fatigue, creep, oxidation and their interactions) depending upon test and material parameters employed. Deformation mechanisms, such as cavity formation, grain boundary damage, intergranular (IG) and transgranular (TG) damage, oxidation, internal damage, dislocation cell concentration, and oxide mechanisms are very important in order to gain more knowledge of fatigue behavior of materials. The observed mechanisms can be categorized …

The Relationship Between R&D Spending And Shareholder Returns In The Computer Industry, Del A. Mank, Halvard Nystrom

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper explores the relationship between corporate R&D spending and growth in stockholder value. corporate R&D, at the macroeconomic level, mounts to controllable, discriminate, elective spending with the management intent of creating future revenue and profit opportunities for the firm. It is firmly established that different industries tend to have different levels of R&D investments as a percentage of revenue. Researchers have used R&D expenditures and their various measurable effects as proxies for inventive output in attempts to correlate current R&D &om to future results of the firms within an industry. Other studies have significantly related announced increases in firm …

Large Machine-Part Family Formation Utilizing A Parallel Art1 Neural Network, David Lee Enke, Kanchitpol Ratanapan, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The binary adaptive resonance (ART1) neural network algorithm has been successfully implemented in the past for the classifying and grouping of similar vectors from a machine-part matrix. A modified ART1 paradigm which reorders the input vectors, along with a modified procedure for storing a group's representation vectors, has proven successful in both speed and functionality in comparison to former technique. This paradigm has been adapted and implemented on a neurocomputer utilizing 256 processors which allows the computer to take advantage of the inherent parallelism of the ART1 algorithm. The parallel implementation results in tremendous improvements in the speed of the …

Application Of Wavelets And Principal Component Analysis In Image Query And Mammography, Sol Neeman Ph.D.

Engineering Studies Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Breast cancer is currently one of the major causes of death for women in the U.S. Mammography is currently the most effective method for detection of breast cancer and early detection has proven to be an efficient tool to reduce the number of deaths. Mammography is the most demanding of all clinical imaging applications as it requires high contrast, high signal to noise ratio and resolution with minimal x-radiation. According to studies [36], 10% to 30% of women having breast cancer and undergoing mammography, have negative mammograms, i.e. are misdiagnosed. Furthermore, only 20%-40% of the women who undergo biopsy, have …

Intelligent Safety And Driver Assistance Systems For Heavy Duty Trucks, Volkmar Gross, Ziad Keirouz

Engineering and Technology Management Student Projects

Preface:

The number of commercial vehicles (trucks) on the U.S. Highways will continue to growth by an average annual ra!e of approximately 10% over the next 3 to 5 years. Along with the predicted increased movement of goods due to the ecommerce revolution, accidents (and death rates) involving commercial trucks are on the rise. In the following, we will investigate the future of Intelligent Safety and Driver Assistance Systems, designed to increase the overall safety of commercial vehicles, in the wake of augmented national and government interest in these technologies. We will concentrate on vehicle-based rather than infrastructure- based technologies. …

A Strategic Analysis Of Powder Coating Industry In Malaysia : A Case Study Of Ici-Nof Powder Coatings (M) Sdn. Bhd, Meng San Tay

Student Works (2000-2009)

The powder coating industry in Malaysia has increasingly replaced the traditional liquid paints in metal-based industries due to its environmental friend liness, governmental legislation and improved technology. The powder coating industry had grown steadily in the early 1990's in tandem with the Malaysian economic performance. The high growth rate of the industry has attracted new entrants to set up manufacturing plants in the country. However, the unprecedented currency crisis in 1997 has drastically reduced the market size and demand. Faced with an overcapacity scenario, the players are scrambling for market shares by competing heavily in price. The research aims to …

Approximation Model Building For Reliability & Maintainability Characteristics Of Reusable Launch Vehicles, Resit Unal, W. Douglas Morris, Nancy H. White, Roger A. Lepsch, Richard W. Brown

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper describes the development of parametric models for estimating operational reliability and maintainability characteristics for reusable launch vehicle concepts, based on vehicle size and technology support level. A reliability and maintainability analysis tool (RMAT) and response surface methods are utilized to build parametric approximation models for rapidly estimating operational reliability and maintainability characteristics such as mission completion reliability. These models that approximate RMAT, can then be utilized for fast analysis of operational requirements, for lifecycle cost estimating and for multidisciplinary design optimization.

Analysis Of Intangible Factors In Waste Minimization Projects, Halvard E. Nystrom, William Ralph Kehr

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Continual population growth and rising standards of living that accelerate the consumption of limited resources, are forcing society to encourage conservation of these resources. These resources not only include raw material, but also the areas to dispose of the wastes. As a result, communities are driving industries towards waste minimization by limiting waste generation and landfill availability. Firms'' environmentally friendly strategies can gain competitive advantage by leading in environmental practices. This advantage emanates from the reduction of risk of environmental regulatory overreaction, as well as improved asset utilization and landfill utilization. However, these intangible benefits are difficult to identify and …

Exercising Real Unit Operational Options Under Price Uncertainty, Chung-Li Tseng

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, we use the real options framework to value the operation flexibility of a power plant. The power plant operation is formulated as a multi-stage stochastic problem. We assume that there are hourly spot markets for both electricity and the fuel used by the generator, and that their prices follow some Ito processes. At each hour, the power plant operator must decide whether or not to run the unit so as to maximize expected profit. However, the unit operation is subject to decision lead times and minimum uptime and downtime constraints, so the commitment decision must take into …

Plastic Manufacturing Process Selection Methodology Using Self-Organizing Map (Som)/Fuzzy Analysis, R. Raviwongse, Venkat Allada, T. Sandidge

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

For plastic products, one of the crucial decisions made during the preliminary design stage is the selection of an appropriate manufacturing process. In many industries, the selection of the manufacturing process is primarily based on the empirical knowledge and past experience of the manufacturing personnel. This selection procedure may result in inconsistent or poor choices if the manufacturing personnel fail to map correctly the product characteristics with the manufacturing efficacy of various manufacturing processes. This paper presents an intelligent self-organizing map (SOM)/fuzzy-based model to aid designers in the selection of an appropriate plastic manufacturing process. The plastic part attributes are …

Simple Ensemble-Averaging Model Based On Generalized Regression Neural Network In Financial Forecasting Problems, Cihan H. Dagli, Parinya Disorntetiwat

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Introduces an ensemble-averaging model based on a GRNN (generalized regression neural network) for financial forecasting. The model trains all input individually using GRNNs and uses a simple ensemble-averaging committee machine to improve the accuracy performance. In a financial problem, there are many different factors that can effect the asset price movement at different times. An experiment is implemented in two different data sets, S&P 500 index and currency exchange rate. The predictive abilities of the model are evaluated on the basis of root mean squared error, standard deviation and percent direction correctness. The study shows a promising result of the …

Strategy Planning For Technological Discontinuities In A Changing Regulatory Environment, William Ralph Kehr, Halvard E. Nystrom

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper describes an approach to the analysis of publicly available financial data for individual industries. These methods enable the analyst to assess past practices and the historical rate of technological diffusion during the transition period of discontinuous technological change. This assessment can provide a basis of comparison for current changes in their industry. These methods are applied to small rural telephone companies during the period of 1960 to 1996. Annual data is presented detailing the change from aerial distribution cable to buried cable by the roughly 600 rural telephone companies financed through loans from the Rural Utilities Services, a …

An Efficient Cnc Programming Approach Based On Group Technology, Manocher Djassemi

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Many studies and reports support the significant impact of the application of group technology on various aspects of product design and manufacturing. The fact that group technology is the common solution to similar problems is the main source of such impact. In this paper, one of the less frequently utilized features of CNC technology known as parametric part programming is used to implement the common solution feature of group technology in processing a set of similar parts. Using three part families, the advantages of blending the concept of group technology and parametric programming for CNC machining operations are illustrated. The …

Design Of Visual Displays For Teleoperation, S. H. Park, Jeffrey C. Woldstad

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Human exposures to hostile work environments can be reduced when tele-operated systems are used to remotely control manipulators in these environments. Tele-operation systems were initially developed by the nuclear industry but are currently applied in areas including surgery, construction, mining, warehousing, firefighting, undersea exploration, military operations, and space. The role of human operators in tele-operated systems varies with the level-ofautomation of the system. Some systems require only supervisory control from the operator, while many others require direct manual manipulation through a controller. However, even for highly automated systems, human operators play an important role as a backup when the system …

Digital Human Models For Ergonomics, Jeffrey C. Woldstad

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Digital human models in the context of this section are computer-generated representations of human beings used in computer-aided design (CAD) or similar programs. These models are increasingly being used by ergonomists and other engineers to design both equipment and work environments to meet the needs of human operators. They have the advantage of allowing the designer to explore the potential advantages and disadvantages of different design configurations without requiring the construction of expensive physical mock-ups used in the past.

Using a digital human model, design engineers can position and manipulate operators of varying anthropometry within the simulated work environment. A …

Quality Inspection Task In Modern Manufacturing, J. A. Pesante-Santana, Jeffrey C. Woldstad

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The development of numerically controlled machines, group technology, cellular manufacturing and just-in-time (JIT) production systems have revolutionized the way products are designed and manufactured. These technological and strategic advances have changed the role of human operators in the manufacturing environment. The highly specialized work force of the low-tech manufacturing system has evolved into the multi-skilled work force of the high- tech manufacturing system. Among the multiple tasks that an operator is expected to perform in advance manufacturing systems (AMS) are job scheduling, inventory planning, machine set-up, problem-solving and quality inspection.

Throughout this evolution, human sensory detection capabilities have been a …

Crash Quality- An Approach For Evaluating Spending On Quality Improvement Initiatives, Labiche Ferreira

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

The quality movement has become popular among corporations big and small for one reason: empirical evidence suggests that quality and productivity (and hence profitability) are linked. Unfortunately, while many firms accept that quality and productivity go together, few actually track the gains associated with their quality improvement programs. Companies also tend to spend on quality improvement with no indication or estimation of the impact of funding on the targeted process. It would be of great value to know: (1) the impact of spending to enhance the product/process quality level, and (2) the point at which expenditures for quality improvement are …

Developing A Parametric Cost Model For Operating Costs Of Army Ground Combat Weapon Systems, James O. Winbush Jr.

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop a parametric cost model for predicting operating costs of Army ground combat weapon systems. The model is intended to be used during the first two phases of the Army's acquisition process. The research necessary to develop the model was guided by two questions: what weapon system characteristics (such as weight, horsepower, fuel consumption, primary mission, NBC protection, fire control and night fighting capability) impact directly on operating ground combat systems; and what is the form of the parametric model for operating costs for ground combat systems? The study extends the bounds of …

The Factors That Affect The Implementation Of Enterprise Resource Planning (Erp) In The International Arab Gulf States And United States Companies With Special Emphasis On Sap Software, Saud Al-Sehali

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate and determine the factors affecting the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) in companies in the Arab Gulf States and the United States, using SAP software as an example.

A random sample was selected of 150 companies in the Arab Gulf States and in the United States that had implemented an ERP system using SAP software. Of the 150 respondents, 30 were companies from the Arab Gulf States and 120 from the United States. A total of 67 questionnaires were returned, a return rate of 44.7%.

The Statistical Package for the …

An Analysis Of Manufacturing Facility Characteristics And Four-Year Manufacturing Engineering Technology Competencies For Abet Accredited Programs In North Carolina, Richard Eugene Temple

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of correlation between four-year ABET/MET competencies and company demographics of plant location and plant size and usage of manufacturing technologies, and to determine the overall rating per SIC classification of validated MET competencies. This purpose is reflective of the literature, which indicated that there is a need for further development of manufacturing engineering technology competencies to meet the industry needs of a region or state.

A questionnaire was used to collect data. It was mailed to 440 randomly selected practicing manufacturing engineers in North Carolina. The sample size was 50. …

Pre-Inoculation Effect Of Sic In Production Of Thin Wall Ductile Iron Castings, Nikolay Y. Laukhin

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Pre-inoculation effect of SiC additions and its effect on castability, microstructure, and magnesium recovery in thin wall ductile iron plates have been studied. Experimental results were compared with alternative FeSi75 furnace pre-inoculation additions.

The first series of experiments aimed to set the baseline of iron quality, when using FeSi75 pre-inoculant

In the second series of experiment, different methods of introduction of Sic into liquid iron were studied. It was established that Sic added into the stream during the tapping into the flow-through chamber or added directly into the flow-through chamber produced lower Si recovery. The most effective method of introduction …

A Model For Production Scheduling And Sequencing Using Constraints Management And Genetic Algorithm, Ahmad Nadeem Choudhry

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Production planning and control (PP&C) are among the most critical activities in manufacturing. Proper use of PP&C methods can give organizations a competitive advantage in the global economy. The expected results of this research will allow manufacturing organizations to maximize the effectiveness of PP&C methods, thereby improving their competitive position in the global economy.

This research was an extension of a previous unpublished study, which investigated the PP&C methods being used at a midwestern manufacturer of agricultural equipment (MMAE). The current research study identified the constraints inherent in the production planning and control system and then developed and validated a …