Engineering Commons^™

Left Ventricle Function And Post-Transcriptional Events With Exercise Training In Pigs, Stephanie L. Samani, Shayne C. Barlow, Lisa A. Freeburg, Traci L. Jones, Marlee Poole, Mark A. Sarzynski, Michael R. Zile, Tarek Shazly, Francis G. Spinale

Faculty Publications

Background

Standardized exercise protocols have been shown to improve overall cardiovascular fitness, but direct effects on left ventricular (LV) function, particularly diastolic function and relation to post-transcriptional molecular pathways (microRNAs (miRs)) are poorly understood. This project tested the central hypothesis that adaptive LV remodeling resulting from a large animal exercise training protocol, would be directly associated with specific miRs responsible for regulating pathways relevant to LV myocardial stiffness and geometry.

Methods and results

Pigs (n = 9; 25 Kg) underwent a 4 week exercise training protocol (10 degrees elevation, 2.5 mph, 10 min, 5 days/week) whereby LV chamber stiffness (KC) …

Particle-Free High Spatial Resolution Velocimetry For Slip Flow Detection, Malhar Prasad Joshi

Theses and Dissertations

Microfluidic systems have a wide range of applications, including biomedical devices, lab-on-a-chip technologies, and aerospace propulsion. Understanding and quantifying the slip flow phenomenon in these microscale and nanoscale channels is of paramount importance for precise control and optimization of fluidic processes. Our study presents a novel approach to directly measure the velocities in a microchannel using Laser Induced Fluorescence Photobleaching Anemometer (LIFPA) and Travel Time After Photobleaching Velocimetry (TTAPV). In this experimental study, microchannels with micrometer dimensions were used, and slip flow conditions controlled. The LIFPA-TTAPV approach was applied to measure slip velocities in the near wall regime, providing accurate …

Elastic Sensing Skin For Monitoring Of Concrete Structures, Emmanuel Abiodun Ogunniyi

Theses and Dissertations

Soft elastomeric capacitors (SECs) are emerging as potential low-cost solutions for monitoring cracks and strains in concrete infrastructure, a crucial aspect of structural health monitoring. Effective long-term monitoring of civil infrastructure can reduce the risk of structural failures and potentially reduce the cost and frequency of inspections. However, deploying structural health monitoring (SHM) technologies for bridge monitoring is expensive, especially long-term, due to the density of sensors required to detect, localize, and quantify cracks. Previous research on soft elastomeric capacitors (SEC) has shown their viability for low-cost monitoring of cracks in transportation infrastructure. However, when deployed on concrete for strain …

Rapid Prediction Of Phonon Density Of States By Graph Neural Network And High-Throughput Screening Of Candidate Substrates For Wide Bandgap Electronic Cooling, Mohammed Saif Ali Al-Fahdi

Theses and Dissertations

Machine learning has demonstrated superior performance in predicting vast materials properties. However, predicting a continuous material property such as phonon density of states (DOS) is more challenging for machine learning due to the inherent issues of data smoothing and sensitivity to peak positions. In this work, phonon DOS of 2,931 inorganic cubic structures with 63 unique elements from the Open Quantum Materials Database are calculated by high precision density functional theory (DFT). With these training data, we build an equivariant graph neural network (GNN) for total phonon DOS of crystalline materials that utilizes site positions and atomic species as input …

Real-Time Edge Computing For Autonomous Systems, Junlin E. Ou

Theses and Dissertations

This research presents systematic studies and algorithmic and hardware development to enable real-time edge computing for autonomous systems, in particular, for robot path planning and localization applications. First, a low-cost, indoor, multi-camera positioning system is proposed to localize ground robots using the ArUco marker. In this system, the normalized coordinates of the marker processed by OpenCV are utilized to calculate the camera coordinates. Data-driven models are developed to establish a mapping relationship between the camera coordinates and the world coordinates of the marker. Fifty data pairs of the camera and world coordinate systems within one camera view (150 pairs in …

Water Quality Monitoring And Mapping Using Rapidly Deployable Sensor Nodes, Mohamed Abdelwahab

Theses and Dissertations

Efficient and continuous monitoring of water quality parameters plays a pivotal role in responding to pollution incidents and ensuring the safety of both human consumption and ecological resources. This research introduces an affordable and dependable in-situ water quality sensor package designed for seamless continuous monitoring, providing essential data to facilitate informed decision-making in water resource management. The sensor package enables comprehensive on-site assessment of key water characteristics, including pH, temperature, turbidity (measured in NTU), and total dissolved solids (TDS, measured in ppm). Spatial interpolation techniques, specifically Kriging, are employed to extrapolate variable values at unobserved locations based on nearby measurements. …

Gpu-Enabled Genetic Algorithm Optimization And Path Planning Of Robotic Arm For Minimizing Energy Consumption, Yichuan Cao

Theses and Dissertations

The robotic arm represents a complicated mechanical system and advanced engineering principles in robotics, enabling precise and efficient manipulation and interaction with objects in a variety of applications, such as manufacturing, healthcare, space exploration, and other industries. In most cases, energy consumption of robotic tools has been given little consideration due to their perceived insignificance compared to the benefits they offer. However, the increasing capacity demands of factories and the expanding use of robotic arms necessitate careful evaluation and reduction of energy consumption. In this regard, given a task configuration, adjusting the arm's movement path emerges as one of the …

Automated Fiber Placement Through Thickness Defect Stacking Optimization, Noah Christopher Swingle

Theses and Dissertations

In its 2022 commercial market outlook, Boeing forecasted an 80% increase in the global fleet through 2041 compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. This sharp rise in demand will drive pressure onto airframe manufacturers to ramp up production and find more efficient ways to design and manufacture airplanes. Complicating this challenge is the industry’s recent transformation from traditional metal-based airframes towards hybrid composite-metal aircraft. While composites have been used in aviation for decades, aircraft manufacturers are still struggling to design and manufacture quality parts at a high rate. Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) is one of the main manufacturing techniques used to …

Liquid Cooling System For A High Power, Medium Frequency, And Medium Voltage Isolated Power Converter, Hooman Taghavi

Theses and Dissertations

Controlling and transforming electrical power from one form into another is the Primary function of the power electronics systems that are employed today. These systems have a wide variety of applications and are utilized in things like industrial automation, electric cars, consumer electronics, and renewable energy systems, among other things. The functioning of power electronics systems results in the production of a substantial quantity of heat, despite the fact that these systems are very dependable and efficient. This heat must be dispersed to preserve system performance and avoid component damage. By ensuring that the working temperature of the components stays …

Development Of Atomistic Machine Learning Approaches For Thermal Properties Of Multi-Component Solids And Liquids, Alejandro David Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

Currently, heat transfer in many industries is the limiting factor for innovation, especially in the energy sector. For example, maximizing thermal conductivity of ceramic coatings in power plant devices improves the overall electrical to thermal energy ratio, whereas minimizing thermal conductivity is required for desirable heat-to-electricity conversion in thermoelectric devices. As such, rapid discovery of new materials with extreme thermal conductivity values is quintessential for the near-future deployment of current and developing energy applications.

The vibrational properties of crystalline materials are essential for their ability to conduct heat. Fundamentally, the restorative atomic forces of displaced atoms are sufficient to represent …

Spin Mediated Topological Black Hole In Acoustic Metamaterials Near Dirac-Like Cone Frequencies., Mustahseen Mobashwer Indaleeb

Theses and Dissertations

A unique bulk-boundary distinction and acoustic topological phenomena is discovered and explained in this dissertation. The overall objective was to discover the hidden physics, dynamic and mechanics of acoustic wave behavior that causes the formation of extremely rare ‘Topologically protected Black Hole’ (TBH) in acoustic microarchitecture metamaterials. This behavior is immensely valuable for numerous mechanical and civil engineering applications where acoustic insulators are required to create sound-free or vibration-free exterior surfaces. On the other hand, to contain the energy within the structure, for impact mitigation and energy absorption in vehicles, space crafts, aircrafts, and civil infrastructures such materials will be …

Leveraging Automated Fiber Placement Computer Aided Process Planning Framework For Defect Validation And Dynamic Layup Strategies, Joshua Allen Halbritter

Theses and Dissertations

Process planning represents an essential stage of the Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) workflow. It develops useful and efficient machine processes based upon the working material, composite design, and manufacturing resources. The current state of process planning requires a high degree of interaction from the process planner and could greatly benefit from increased automation. Therefore, a list of key steps and functions are created to identify the more difficult and time-consuming phases of process planning. Additionally, a set of metrics must exist by which to evaluate the effectiveness of the manufactured laminate from the machine code created during the Process Planning …

Nondestructive Damage Detection And Stress Corrosion Crack Mitigation In Stainless Steel Plates, Andrew Philip Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to inspect and detect damage within a structure without permanent damage has broad appeal in a range of engineering applications from aerospace structures to nuclear facilities. Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) using guided ultrasonic Lamb waves has growing potential and popularity in these fields. Lamb waves are known for being sensitive to material properties and various defects across the thickness such as cracks in metallic structures and delamination or debonding in composite structures. Research has also been done on the development of fully non-contact system that generates and detects Lamb waves, particularly focused on the use of pulsed laser for …

An Artificial Intelligence Approach To Fatigue Crack Length Estimation From Acoustic Emission Signals, Shane T. Ennis

Theses and Dissertations

As in service aircraft begin to age and fatigue, a method for evaluating the operational life they are currently operating under and have remaining comes into question. Structural health monitoring is (SHM) is a popular method of structural analysis with growing interest in the aerospace industry. SHM is capable of damage assessment and structural life estimations.

The ultimate goal of the research presented in this thesis is to develop a methodology of classifying the length of a fatigue crack though the use of machine learning. The thesis has three major chapters as described below.

The first chapter deals with the …

Comprehensive Process Planning Optimization Framework For Automated Fiber Placement, Alex Ryan Brasington

Theses and Dissertations

Advanced composite materials came about in 1966 and have since been widely used due to the possibility of superior structural performance while also achieving weight reductions. Such opportunities have led to composite materials being used to fabricate complex components, often in the aerospace sector. Most components, especially in aviation, are on a large scale and are outside the capabilities of traditional composite manufacturing techniques. Traditional manufacturing methods are also labor intensive, time consuming, have a high level of material scrap, and are prone to human error. This has led to the need for innovative manufacturing solutions to withstand the ever-increasing …

Multidimensional Transport-Coupled Numerical Investigation Of Non-Premixed Low-Temperature Flame In Atmospheric And High-Pressure Systems, Sudipta Saha

Theses and Dissertations

Gas-phase chemical reactions coupled with multidimensional fluid flow and heat and mass transport are found in various applications, i.e., from conventional engine applications to novel combustion techniques. With the goal of understanding such complex coupling in reacting flow systems, this dissertation work focuses on developing multi-physics simulation frameworks to investigate the effect of multidimensional transport on flame dynamics. This study primarily focuses on the modeling and simulation of low temperature flame formation in i) a canonical experimental setting with counterflow burners and ii) a supercritical water medium (i.e., hydrothermal flame).

In the first part of the dissertation, simulations of the …

Experimental Observation Of Sphere Symmetric Isolated Single Droplet Combustion In A Converging Channel, Mason Carrington Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Spherically symmetric isolated single droplet combustion has been observed mainly in microgravity conditions. This study sought to determine if spherically symmetric combustion can be produced in a lab-scale experiment using flow acceleration to counteract the effects of buoyancy. The experiment was conducted in a converging channel that decreased in width along its length to accelerate the flow and limit the formation of a boundary layer. The rate at which the area decreased was governed by the initial velocity condition set at the channel inlet.

The droplets were generated using a piezoelectric actuator which forced fuel out of an injector with …

Vision Controlled Autonomous Stakebot For Driving Stakes And Its Digital-Twin, Corey Lee Leydig

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis a novel vision-based AI driven autonomous ‘StakeBot’ is proposed to serve the agricultural 4.0 industries of the future. In recent years supply, demand and production of vegetables that are harvested from plants with weak stems like bell pepper, tomato, eggplant has been significantly up by several fold. With growing demand and new green-house establishments across the country production of vegetables will require a tremendous number of labors which will be hard to supply soon. To overcome the issues in addition to the labor shortages, automation through robotics will be the only viable solution. Plants like bell peppers …

Timing Deterministic Structural Model Updating Considering Impact And Fatigue Damage, Jason Michael Smith Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Naval ship structures such as support trusses, hull sections, driving machinery, and load-bearing beams are subjected to various damage states that develop on short-term (i.e. impact) and long-term (i.e. fatigue) timescales. Naval structures fitted with a structural health monitoring system with damage detection abilities will enable appropriate real-time adjustments to the ships’ posture and control policies and thus have increased survivability and lethality. A digital twin can provide real-time condition assessment of naval structures when conjoined with a decision-making framework will increase naval ship survivability through informed response management. A fundamental challenge for the development of digital twins is reliable …

An Autonomous Aerial Drone System For Water Fluorescence Mapping And Targeted Sampling, Kazi Ragib Ishraq Sanim

Theses and Dissertations

At present, aerial drones, also known as Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), are increasingly used in time and effort-heavy scientific exploration applications. One such application is inspecting the physical, chemical, and biological state of water bodies. This thesis presents a novel autonomous system capable of sensing water properties and collecting up to three 250 mL water samples from multiple sampling locations. The system features a customized aerial drone with an in-house built fluorescence sensor and pumping mechanism. It can also map the gradient of fluorescent content across the body of water to determine the best sampling …

Development Of System Pressure Drop Calculation Methods For Dilute Phase Pneumatic Conveying, Ross Daniel Gorman

Theses and Dissertations

This work is focused on dilute and dense phase pneumatic conveying of bulk solids. The motivation of this work is to use industrial data to scale up existing models for pressure drop in pneumatic conveying systems, determine which models best predict pressure drop in full conveying systems, and find the empirical coefficients that go with these models.

Several major research objectives were accomplished by this work. First, system pressure drop methods were evaluated in this research. Other researchers have focused on single pipe section type pressure drops. Second, the data used in this research both for the machine learning evaluations …

Investigation Of Electrically Isolated Capacitive Sensing Skins On Concrete To Reduce Structure/Sensor Capacitive Coupling, Emmanuel Ogunniyi, Alexander Vareen, Austin Downey, Simon Laflamme, Jian Li, Caroline Bennett, William Collins, Hongki Jo, Alexander Henderson, Paul Ziehl

Faculty Publications

Damage to bridges can result in partial or complete structural failures, with fatal consequences. Cracks develop in concrete infrastructure from fatigue loading, vibrations, corrosion, or unforeseen structural displacement. Effective long-term monitoring of civil infrastructure can reduce the risk of structural failures and potentially reduce the cost and frequency of inspections. However, deploying structural health monitoring technologies for crack detection on bridges is expensive, especially long-term, due to the density of sensors required to detect, localize, and quantify cracks. Previous research on soft elastomeric capacitors (SECs) has shown their viability for low-cost monitoring of cracks in transportation infrastructure. However, when deployed …

Studies Of Damage Tolerance In Automated Fiber Placement Based Heterogeneous Meso-Architectured Carbon/ Epoxy Composite Laminates., Karan Kodagali

Theses and Dissertations

Traditional unidirectional (UD) carbon fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites manufactured via automated fiber placement (AFP) are widely used in aerospace structures. While heterogeneous at the micro-scale, these materials are homogeneous at the meso-scale (ply-scale). The major limitation is its limited toughness, poor damage tolerance/impact resistance capability and the inability to sufficiently redistribute stresses, resulting in strength-toughness tradeoffs, making them susceptible to impact damage. From previous studies, there is an understanding that fiber architecture has a first order effect on the damage tolerance. Introducing new discontinuous/heterogeneous meso-scale architectures, through an optimal merger of material and structure, can result in unprecedented property improvements …

Wide View And Line Filter For Enhanced Image Gradient Computation And Edge Determination, Luke Bagan

Theses and Dissertations

Edge determination is a challenging yet crucial step in the object detection process for images. It is the first in a multi-step process, serving as the foundation for all subsequent operations. Its accuracy directly affects the success of any future processing techniques and final detection. The challenge of edge detection is derived from a variety of factors, including noise, image sharpness, orientation, empirical parameters, and computational complexity. Many traditional kernel-based operators excel at tackling one of these problems, but trade off their ability to handle others. For example, the popular Sobel operator uses a horizontal and vertical constant high-pass kernel. …

A Globalized Optimization Schema For Automated Fiber Placement Processing Parameters, Matthew John Godbold

Theses and Dissertations

Automated Fiber Placement is an advanced manufacturing technique for industrial-scale composite structures. Advanced robotics coupled with composite manufacturing results in faster and more consistent results than previously obtained through hand layup. The complexity and interconnectedness of the automated fiber placement process provides a difficult challenge for traditional modeling techniques. Modeling within automated fiber placement currently utilizes physics-based modeling to inform the translation of a design to a manufacturing plan. The intricacy of the automated fiber placement process dictates that attempts at modeling or optimizing these processes are often limited in their scope. Physics-based modeling for manufacturing typically involves numerous interacting …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Electrode Materials Of Solid Oxide Cells For Energy Conversion And Storage, Haixia Li

Theses and Dissertations

Solid oxide cells (SOCs) can directly convert chemical energy to electricity in the fuel cell mode and store electricity to chemicals in the electrolysis mode. However, there are still critical barriers, such as energy efficiency and durability, for developing and commercializing SOCs. This dissertation aims to design electrode materials and optimize the cell fabrication process to address the critical barriers for SOCs in energy conversion and energy storage applications. Therefore, one primary focus of the dissertation is to develop robust fuel electrode material for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) with improved sulfur tolerance. In addition, the design of novel fuel …

Uav Rapidly-Deployable Stage Sensor With Electro-Permanent Magnet Docking Mechanism For Flood Monitoring In Undersampled Watersheds, Corinne A, Smith, Joud Satme, Jacob Martin, Austin Downey, Nikolaos Vitzilaios, Jasim Imran

Faculty Publications

The availability of historical flood data is vital in recognizing weather-related trends and outlining necessary precautions for at-risk communities. Flood frequency, magnitude, endurance, and volume are traditionally recorded using established streamgages; however, the material and installation costs allow only a few streamgages in a region, which yield a narrow data selection. In particular, stage, the vertical water height in a water body, is an important parameter in determining flood trends. This work investigates a low-cost, compact, rapidly-deployable alternative to traditional stage sensors that will allow for denser sampling within a watershed and a more detailed record of flood events. The …

Metaversekg: Knowledge Graph For Engineering And Design Application In Industrial Metaverse, Utkarshani Jaimini, Tongtao Zhang, Georgia Olympia Brikis

Publications

While the term Metaverse was first coined by the author Neal Stephenson in 1992 in his science fiction novel “Snow Crash”, today the vision of an integrated virtual world is becoming a reality across different sectors. Applications in gaming and consumer products are gaining traction, industrial metaverse applications are, still in their early stages of development with one of the challenges being interoperability across various metaverse development platforms and existing software tools. In this work we propose the use of a knowledge graph based semantic data exchange layer, the Metaverse Knowledge Graph, to enable seamless transfer of information across platforms. …

Experimental Investigations Of Yarn Pull-Out Behavior In Kevlar®: Influence Of Applied Metallic Coatings And Effect Of Dynamic Loading, Julie Ann Roark

Theses and Dissertations

Flexible woven Kevlar® textile fabrics are widely used in protective armor applications. Yarn pull-out, comprised of yarn uncrimping (i.e., straightening) and yarn translation, is a major energy absorption mechanism during ballistic impact onto these fabrics, especially for impact velocities below the ballistic limit. Yarn pull-out is influenced by various parameters including inter-yarn friction, pull-out distance, pull-out velocity, transverse pre-tension, fiber diameter, fabric architecture, fabric waviness, fabric count and yarn modulus.

The first part of this thesis investigates yarn pull-out behavior of commercially available Kevlar® KM2+ individual yarns coated with metallic layers (copper, aluminum, aluminum nitride, silver) via a directed vapor …

Use Of Dic Measurements With Finite Element Models For Direct Heterogeneous Material Property Determination And Wrinkle Formation During Automated Fiber Placement, Sreehari Rajan Kattil

Theses and Dissertations

In this work, application of DIC in combination with finite element modeling is demonstrated for efficient material characterization for complex heterogeneous materials and tow wrinkle formation during automated fiber placement.

The first part of the work describes the integration of DIC measurements with finite element models for direct property identification in heterogeneous material systems. The material property identification is based on solving partial differential equations (PDE) of equilibrium for unknown elastic material properties with known boundary conditions and full field strain data (Eg. DIC). The PDEs are solved numerically using Petrov-Galerkin finite element procedure. The classical Bubnov-Galerkin method is shown …