Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Engineering Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Cost Analysis Of Optimized Islanded Energy Systems In A Dispersed Air Base Conflict, Jay F. Pearson, Torrey J. Wagner, Justin D. Delorit Sep 2020

Cost Analysis Of Optimized Islanded Energy Systems In A Dispersed Air Base Conflict, Jay F. Pearson, Torrey J. Wagner, Justin D. Delorit

Faculty Publications

The United States Air Force has implemented a dispersed air base strategy to enhance mission effectiveness for near-peer conflicts. Asset dispersal places many smaller bases across a wide geographic area, which increases resupply requirements and logistical complexity. Hybrid energy systems reduce resupply requirements through sustainable, off-grid energy production. This paper presents a novel hybrid energy renewable delivery system (HERDS) model capable of (1) selecting the optimal hybrid energy system design that meets demand at the lowest net present cost and (2) optimizing the delivery of the selected system using existing Air Force cargo aircraft. The novelty of the model’s capabilities …


Challenges To Levulinic Acid And Humins Valuation In The Sugarcane Bagasse Biorefinery Concept, Emília Savioli Lopes, Jean Felipe Leal Silva, Elmer Ccopa Rivera, Alana Petrina Gomes, Melina Savioli Lopes, Rubens Maciel Filho, Laura Plazas Tovar Sep 2020

Challenges To Levulinic Acid And Humins Valuation In The Sugarcane Bagasse Biorefinery Concept, Emília Savioli Lopes, Jean Felipe Leal Silva, Elmer Ccopa Rivera, Alana Petrina Gomes, Melina Savioli Lopes, Rubens Maciel Filho, Laura Plazas Tovar

Faculty Publications

© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Levulinic acid (LA) is currently one of the most promising chemicals derived from biomass. However, its large-scale production is hampered by the challenges in biomass hydrolysis and the poor selectivity due to the formation of humins (HUs). This study addresses these challenges using the biorefinery concept of biomass fractionation. A three-step process (pretreatment, delignification, and acid-catalyzed conversion) was optimized to produce LA from SCB considering the yield (YLA), efficiency (ELA), and concentration of LA (CLA) as functions of temperature, reaction time, acid concentration, and solids loading. By means of a …


Survey Of 8 Uav Set-Covering Algorithms For Terrain Photogrammetry, Joshua Hammond, Cory Vernon, Trent Okeson, Benjamin Barrett, Samuel Arce, Valerie Newell, Joseph Janson, Kevin Franke, John Hedengren Jul 2020

Survey Of 8 Uav Set-Covering Algorithms For Terrain Photogrammetry, Joshua Hammond, Cory Vernon, Trent Okeson, Benjamin Barrett, Samuel Arce, Valerie Newell, Joseph Janson, Kevin Franke, John Hedengren

Faculty Publications

Remote sensing with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) facilitates photogrammetry for environmental and infrastructural monitoring. Models are created with less computational cost by reducing the number of photos required. Optimal camera locations for reducing the number of photos needed for structure-from-motion (SfM) are determined through eight mathematical set-covering algorithms as constrained by solve time. The algorithms examined are: traditional greedy, reverse greedy, carousel greedy (CG), linear programming, particle swarm optimization, simulated annealing, genetic, and ant colony optimization. Coverage and solve time are investigated for these algorithms. CG is the best method for choosing optimal camera locations as it balances number of …


Efficient Incorporation Of Fatigue Damage Constraints In Wind Turbine Blade Optimization, Bryce Ingersoll, Andrew Ning Jan 2020

Efficient Incorporation Of Fatigue Damage Constraints In Wind Turbine Blade Optimization, Bryce Ingersoll, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

Wind turbine design is a challenging multidisciplinary optimization problem, where the aerodynamic shapes, structural member sizing, and material composition must all be determined and optimized. Some previous blade design methods incorporate static loading with an added safety factor to account for dynamic effects. Others incorporate dynamic loading, but in general limit the evaluation to a few design cases. By not fully incorporating the dynamic loading of the wind turbine, the final turbine blade design is either too conservative by overemphasizing the dynamic effects or infeasible by failing to adequately account for these effects. We propose an iterative method that estimates …