Engineering Commons^™

Expanding Temperature Sensing For The Orion Bms 2, Samuel J. Parker

University Honors Theses

Formula SAE (FSAE) is an annual collegiate design competition that takes place across the globe. Portland State University’s team, Viking Motorsports, was committed to designing an Electric Vehicle (EV) for the 2021 FSAE competition. The team designed a completely custom lithium-ion cell battery that is managed by an Orion BMS 2 battery management system. The FSAE rulebook requires a robust temperature monitoring system for any EV power supply. The Orion BMS 2 can only directly collect data from eight temperature sensors, which is not enough to meet FSAE regulation. However, the BMS can be configured to monitor many more sensors …

The Return To Anisotropy Across A Jet In Crossflow, Gregory P. Sakradse

Dissertations and Theses

With data from experiments on a jet of air emitting from an orifice flush with the floor of a wind tunnel providing a transverse flow, analysis is conducted to extract information about the state of anisotropy in the Reynolds stress tensor. Inflow velocities are modulated across two distinct turbulence intensity regimes while holding jet exit conditions constant, providing an opportunity to isolate effects of both jet to crossflow velocity ratio, r and the effects of the turbulence carried by the crossflow. Anisotropy in the Reynolds stress tensor is examined through anisotropy invariant maps and evolution of the function F, …

Automated Statistical Structural Testing Techniques And Applications, Yang Shi

Dissertations and Theses

Statistical structural testing(SST) is an effective testing technique that produces random test inputs from probability distributions. SST shows superiority in fault-revealing power over random testing and deterministic approaches since it heritages the merits from both of them. SST ensures testing thoroughness by setting up a probability lower-bound criterion for each structural cover element and test inputs that exercise a structural cover element sampled from the probability distribution, ensuring testing randomness. Despite the advantages, SST is not a widely used approach in practice. There are two major limitations. First, to construct probability distributions, a tester must understand the underlying software's structure, …

Quantum Grover's Oracles With Symmetry Boolean Functions, Peng Gao

Dissertations and Theses

Quantum computing has become an important research field of computer science and engineering. Among many quantum algorithms, Grover's algorithm is one of the most famous ones. Designing an effective quantum oracle poses a challenging conundrum in circuit and system-level design for practical application realization of Grover's algorithm.

In this dissertation, we present a new method to build quantum oracles for Grover's algorithm to solve graph theory problems. We explore generalized Boolean symmetric functions with lattice diagrams to develop a low quantum cost and area efficient quantum oracle. We study two graph theory problems: cycle detection of undirected graphs and generalized …

An Analysis Of Capillary Flow In Finite Length Interior Corners, Samuel Shaw Mohler

Dissertations and Theses

We analyze the mathematical robustness of slow massively parallel interior corner flows in low gravity environments. An interior corner provides a preferential orientation in low gravity environments. This is a luxury usually only found on earth. It also provides a passive pumping mechanism due to geometry of a conduit. The driving force for this flow is a pressure difference due to local surface curvature gradients. An alternative reasoning is that due to the geometrical constraints the interior corner surface energy is unbounded below. This results in the liquid wicking into corners indefinitely. Interior corner flow's main quantity of interest is …

Modeling Cyanotoxin Production, Fate And Transport In Surface Waterbodies, Bernadel Rose Hintz Garstecki

Dissertations and Theses

Cyanobacteria exist throughout the world and are frequently associated with forming toxic blooms. The toxins produced by cyanobacteria, cyanotoxins, are harmful to both humans and animals. Rising temperatures due to global climate change, increased nutrient loading, and other anthropogenic impacts on waterbodies are expected to increase the prevalence of cyanobacteria. It is vital that we protect our drinking water supplies and natural water resources. Modeling the production and movement of these toxins is an important step in limiting exposure to them and evaluating management strategies to mitigate their impact. Cyanotoxins are diverse and the conditions under which they are formed …

Using Quantitative Stereology On High Resolution Sem Images To Estimate Diatom Percentages, Ariadna Covarrubias Ornelas

Dissertations and Theses

Diatoms are single-celled organisms of various shapes and sizes typically found in aquatic environments. When diatoms die, the organic material decomposes, and the outer skeletons (i.e., frustules) settle and accumulate as sedimentary deposits. These soils, called diatomaceous soils, exhibit nontraditional behavior since the diatom particles are typically hollow skeletons composed of amorphous silica with intricately patterned and abrasive surfaces. Recent studies have shown that diatomaceous soils are challenging geomaterials since even a small percentage of diatom particles will notably affect engineering behavior. Furthermore, laboratory studies on diatomaceous soil mixtures have demonstrated that many engineering soil properties depend on the percentage …

Field Trials And Long-Term Monitoring Of Microbially-Induced Desaturation For The Treatment Of Liquefiable Silty Soils, Kayla Rae Sorenson

Dissertations and Theses

Earthquake liquefaction hazards in silty soils are a critical problem in Portland, Oregon, and other areas around the world. This is a particular problem for existing facilities founded on liquefiable soils, for which there exists no cost-effective liquefaction mitigation solution at the present time. It is essential from both a seismic safety and a seismic resilience perspective to be able to mitigate potentially liquefiable soils underneath existing structures, and to do so in a cost-effective manner. Recent studies suggest that liquefaction mitigation using microbially-induced desaturation (MID) may provide this capability.

The objective of MID is to reduce earthquake-induced excess pore …

Simulation Of Light Propagation Captured By Photoemission Electron Microscopy (Peem), Nabila Islam

Dissertations and Theses

The Photoemission electron microscopes (PEEM) is a powerful tool capable of synchronously imaging wave nature of light manifested by interference patterns as well as its particle nature through the energy exchange between the incident photons and the photoemitted imaging electrons. PEEM offers a non-invasive high-resolution approach for studying light propagation and interaction phenomena within a nanophotonic waveguide [7,8]. The electric field intensity variation of the interference pattern yielded by the interaction between the incident light and the guided mode coupled into the waveguide produces varying photoemission yields creating contrast in PEEM image. The guided modes cannot be excited simply by …

Comparing Instruments For Measuring Runoff From Experimental Ecoroof Platforms: A Case Study On Test Plots At Portland State University, Chance F. Hodges

University Honors Theses

Stormwater management is a primary ecological benefit ecoroofs provide to ecosystems. Quantification of runoff from large scale ecoroofs is difficult to replicate, so researchers often utilize smaller experimental ecoroof platforms. This approach is becoming increasingly common, so it is useful to compare and contrast approaches for runoff measurement at the platform scale. This paper uses the four 17.86 m² ecoroof platforms located on the Science Research and Teaching Center (SRTC) at Portland State University (PSU) in Portland, OR as a case study. A unique condition of these platforms is that they are installed at grade on the roof with …

Do Secondary Cyclones Increase The Category Scale Of Atmospheric Rivers?, Edgar Sanchez Fausto

University Honors Theses

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) play a crucial role in delivering precipitation worldwide. This makes them an important phenomenon for water resource specialists to study. One such interest is to understand what mechanisms make ARs produce significant rainfall and associated hazards such as flooding. One possible mechanism is that AR duration or intensity may increase when it interacts with a secondary cyclone, either of which can increase the AR category scale. The purpose of this study is to determine whether AR and secondary cyclone interactions increase the category scale ARs. Out of 52 AR events analyzed, 32 events contained at least one …

A Method For Comparative Analysis Of Trusted Execution Environments, Stephano Cetola

Dissertations and Theses

The problem of secure remote computation has become a serious concern of hardware manufacturers and software developers alike. Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) are a solution to the problem of secure remote computation in applications ranging from "chip and pin" financial transactions to intellectual property protection in modern gaming systems. While extensive literature has been published about many of these technologies, there exists no current model for comparing TEEs. This thesis provides hardware architects and designers with a set of tools for comparing TEEs. I do so by examining several properties of a TEE and comparing their implementations in several technologies. …

Investigations Into Size And Surface Control Of Silicon Nanocrystals For Improved Optical Properties, James Donald Barnes

Dissertations and Theses

The discovery of visible photoluminescence (PL) from nanocrystalline porous silicon in 1990 led to extensive research into the mechanisms of the emergent properties, and optimization of these properties, for use in applications. The widespread use of silicon nanoparticles (Si NPs) in commercial applications is currently limited by three main factors: 1) poor radiative recombination efficiency of the interband transition, 2) instability of the interband photoluminescence, and 3) a lack of scalable methods for producing Si NPs that are both highly crystalline and size monodisperse.

To address these limitations, this dissertation correlates changes in the photoluminescence properties of hydrogen passivated silicon …

An Analysis Of Suspended Sediment Dynamics In A Partially Mixed Estuary, Riyadh Hamad Muttaleb

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this work is to investigate via data analysis and numerical modeling the SPM (suspended particulate matter) dynamics of a heavily contaminated partially urban estuary, the Lower Passaic River estuary (LPR), NJ. Accordingly, I investigate the quantity and mechanics of variation of fine and coarse SPM in the LPR via data analysis. Data analysis focuses on the parameters that affect SPM dynamics at six moored stations occupied during the Fall and Spring seasons, from near the estuary mouth to tidal freshwater. A 3D hydrodynamic model (Delft3D-FM) is used to analyze the effects of estuary topography on the dynamic …

Automated Test Generation For Validating Systemc Designs, Bin Lin

Dissertations and Theses

Modern system design involves integration of all components of a system on a single chip, namely System-on-a-Chip (SoC). The ever-increasing complexity of SoCs and rapidly decreasing time-to-market have pushed the design abstraction to the electronic system level (ESL), in order to increase design productivity. SystemC is a widely used ESL modeling language that plays a central role in modern SoCs design process. ESL SystemC designs usually serve as executable specifications for the subsequent SoCs design flow. Therefore, undetected bugs in ESL SystemC designs may propagate to low-level implementations or even final silicon products. In addition, modern SoCs design often involves …

Mit-S1 Constitutive Model Calibration For A Portland-Area Soil, Steven Ryan Young

Dissertations and Theses

Soils that are intermediate to sands and clays are a challenge for geotechnical engineers since most methods for interpreting soil properties or soil behaviors are based on sands or clays and do not address behaviors of intermediate soils. This is a particular challenge for engineers in the Portland-area where many of the major soil units are composed of intermediate soils. Analysis of intermediate soils is further challenged since many standard constitutive models are based on sandy or clay-like soils. However, the MIT-S1 constitutive model is capable of capturing intermediate soil behavior. A calibration of the MIT-S1 constitutive model for Portland-area …