Engineering Commons^™

An Investigation Into The Water Budget And The Management Of The Snake River System, John Whitney Hildreth

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Future climate change poses a major conceptual challenge to the availability of water resources due to the uncertainty involved with changes to the hydrologic cycle. Over the past decades, observed warming temperatures across the Western United Sates have shown significant impacts on river basin scale hydrology. This research uses physically based modeling tools to assess the hydrologic impacts of climate change in the Snake River Basin. Physically based hydrologic modeling studies of future climate do not typically take into account interactions between groundwater and surface water. To account for these interactions, the Variable Infiltration Capacity model is coupled with the …

Characterization And Feasibility Of A Portable Oxygen Concentrator For Use With A Mass Casualty Ventilator, Paul Robert Williams

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The American Association for Respiratory Care has reported a need to stockpile 5,000-10,000 mass casualty ventilators with supplemental oxygen in preparation for pandemic emergencies (1). The American Medical Association specifies oxygen concentrators supply oxygen at 5 liters per minute at ≥90% purity (2). However, these design specifications may not be the most efficient use of system resources in portable oxygen concentrators using pressure swing adsorption. A testbed was developed to investigate the system performance of an oxygen concentrator while altering the system inlet and outlet pressures and flow rates. This investigation demonstrates that a more efficient portable oxygen concentrator, which …

Analysis Of A Miniature Radio Frequency Ion Thruster With An Inductively Coupled Plasma Source, Peter Paul Bumbarger

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The performance of a 2 cm miniature ion thruster was analyzed. A thruster of this size was predicted to produce a thrust of 200 μN. The plasma density was measured against rf input power and propellant flow rate for three configurations: the ICP source by itself; the ICP source with discharge chamber; and finally, the ICP source, the discharge chamber, and the permanent magnet cusp system. Once the optimum case was determined, electrostatic grids were added and thrust measurements were taken with a set of segmented ion collector plates.

The miniature rf ion thruster obtained a thrust of 22.35 μN …

Impact Of Alkaline Doping And Reducing Conditions On Lafeo3, Geoffrey L. Beausoleil Ii

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Efficient and reliable materials for gas separation, syngas production, and hybrid nuclear power plants must be capable of reliably operating at a high-temperature range of 700-1000°C and under exposure to highly oxidizing and reducing conditions. Candidate materials for these applications include alkaline metal doped lanthanum ferrite.

In the first study, the impact of A site substitution by different alkaline metals on lanthanum ferrite (LMF, M=Ca, Sr, and Ba) was investigated. The study focused on thermal expansion near the Néel transition temperature and a magneto-elastic contribution to thermal expansion was identified for each sample. Iron oxidation, Fe³⁺ to Fe^{4+ …}

A Systematic Approach To Verify An Embedded Capacitive Touchscreen System, Jeffrey Lee Richardson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The conspicuously massive growth in the number of products utilizing capacitive touchscreen technology has raised awareness of the technology. The embedded system used to detect and report finger touches to the host is fairly complex and difficult to verify. An automated verification system is required to systematically test this type of system in a reasonable amount of time. This thesis describes the framework for an automated verification system for embedded capacitive touchscreen systems. The framework includes a Cartesian desktop robot, test instruments, communications bridge, and custom-built test management software. The criteria for selecting a Cartesian desktop robot rather than a …

Magnetic And Structural Properties Of Ni-Mn-Ga Films Produced Via Physical Vapor Tri-Deposition, Christopher Kimo Wilson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The structural, thermal, magnetic, and mechanical properties of Ni-Mn-Ga magnetic shape-memory alloys depend strongly on composition. Compositions of sputter deposited films differ from the composition of the single alloy targets from which they originate, where the composition change depends on sputter parameters. Films produced via physical vapor deposition from single alloy targets have sound film-substrate adhesion and film uniformity, however, accurate control of composition is difficult. Tri-sputter deposition from multiple targets allows the flexibility of varying deposition rates and film compositions. A robust procedure with three targets (nickel, nickel-gallium, and manganese) was developed to deposit Ni-Mn-Ga films on silicon with …

An Intrinsic Model For Graphite Oxidation And The Effects Of Microstructural Features On Apparent Rate, Joshua J. Kane

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The very high temperature reactor (VHTR) is the latest generation of high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR). The VHTR has higher outlet temperatures than a traditional HTGR with outlet temperatures up to 1000 °C. This high outlet temperature permits emissions-free process heat in the form of high-quality steam for high temperature industrial applications. Moreover, the high temperatures of the reactor could potentially be used for hydrogen production from water or high efficiency electrical power production (~50% efficiency of thermal to electrical power conversion).

The VHTR is designed to employ helium as its coolant and uses graphite for its neutron moderator and as …

A New Framework For Flooding Control In Regulated River Systems, Elizabeth Akemi Kanashiro

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a case study on the application of a dynamic framework for the intelligent control of flooding in the Boise River system in Idaho. This framework couples a robust and numerically efficient hydraulic routing approach with the popular multi-objective, non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II). The novelty of this framework is that it allows for controlled flooding when the conveyance capacity of the river system is exceeded or is about to exceed. Controlled flooding is based on weight factors assigned to each reach of the system depending on the amount of damage that would occur should a flood …

Influence Of Microstructure On The Propagation Of Fatigue Cracks In Inconel 617, Benjiman Michael Albiston

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Inconel 617 is a candidate material for use in the intermediate heat exchanger of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant. Because of the high temperatures and the fluctuations in stress and temperature, the fatigue behavior of the material is important to understand. The goal of this study was to determine the influences of the microstructure during fatigue crack propagation. For this investigation, Inconel 617 compact tension samples, fatigue tested by Julian Benz at the Idaho National Laboratory, were obtained. The testing conditions included two environments at 650 °C (lab air and impure-He) and varied testing parameters including: loading waveform (triangular, trapezoidal), …

Simulation Of Vawt And Hydrokinetic Turbines With Variable Pitch Foils, Lindsay Damon Woods

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

A dynamic computer model of a turbine was developed in MATLAB in order to study the behavior of vertical axis wind and hydrokinetic turbines with articulating foils. The simulation results corroborated the findings of several empirical studies on various turbines in both wind and water currents. The model was used to analyze theories of pitch articulation and to inform the discussion on turbine design. Several new patents and proposed configurations were tested. Simulation results showed that pitch articulation allowed Darrieus-style vertical axis wind turbines to start from rest. The tip speed ratio was found to increase rapidly, carrying the turbine …

Toward Characterization Of Diseased Vascular Structures Using Noncontact Photoacoustic And Laser-Ultrasound Imaging: A Phantom Study, Jami Lynne Johnson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Visualizing and characterizing atherosclerotic plaques is important in determining the vulnerability of a plaque to rupture. To evaluate rupture risk, several compositional factors should be evaluated, including inflammation, the presence and size of lipid pools, thickness of the fibrous cap, and calcification. Currently, a need exists for an imaging modality that can detect each of these factors in a safe, noninvasive manner with high resolution and contrast at clinically relevant depths. Photoacoustic imaging is a growing field that has the potential to improve plaque diagnosis. Spectroscopic methods have shown promise toward detection of constituents of plaque with unique optical absorption …

Electrical Characterization Of Gold Functionalized Dna Origami Nanotubes, Christopher Vinhtroung Buu

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Conductivity types (i.e., insulator, semiconductor, and conductor) can be tuned by varying the size of metallic nanoparticles. DNA origami, a molecular self-assembly technique, has promise to programmatically self-assemble nanoparticles (NPs) with nanometer precision. The work presented here demonstrates the programmatic self-assembly of AuNPs on DNA origami nanotubes (NTs). DNA origami NTs were also functionalized with positively charged Au clusters. DNA origami NTs, both bare and functionalized with Au, were electrically characterized using DC current-voltage (DC-IV) measurements. The measurements showed that bare, undecorated DNA NTs behaved as an insulator, whereas linear, ohmic conductivity was observed for Au enhanced Au decorated NTs. …

A Memristor-Based Neuromorphic Computing Application, Adrian Rothenbuhler

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Artificial neural networks have recently received renewed interest because of the discovery of the memristor. The memristor is the fourth basic circuit element, hypothesized to exist by Leon Chua in 1971 and physically realized in 2008. The two-terminal device acts like a resistor with memory and is therefore of great interest for use as a synapse in hardware ANNs. Recent advances in memristor technology allowed these devices to migrate from the experimental stage to the application stage.

This Master's thesis presents the development of a threshold logic gate (TLG), which is a special case of an ANN, implemented with discrete …

The Design, Fabrication, And Pressure Testing Of A Low-Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic Electric Propulsion Thruster, Derek J. Reis

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Electric thrusters have been used for many years for orbital station-keeping and propulsion. As technology advances, smaller satellites are possible that require less thrust. The resulting miniature electric thrusters need low-weight and compact designs. This thesis specifies the design, fabrication, and testing of a thruster and its fluid delivery system designed for use with a micro-satellite weighing less than fifty kilograms.

The advent of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) has sparked a new market with incredibly small scale designs. Using this technology with Low-Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) materials has spawned the new distinction of Ceramic Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (C-MEMS). The thruster body is …