Engineering Commons^™

A Study Of The Efficiency And Effectiveness Of The First Four Iterations Of Sierpinski Carpet Fractal-Like Fins At Increasing Angles In Natural Convection, Sophia N. Fleri

Honors College Theses

Fractal geometries have been found in several studies to increase a fin’s thermal performance. Both the reductions of volume and mass accompanied by an increase in performance are desirable to prevent malfunction of the device through passive heat dissipation. The Sierpinski carpet fractal pattern, beginning with a basic square geometry in which an increasing number of perforations are incorporated through each successive iteration, reduces the fin’s mass while increasing its surface area simultaneously; this increase in surface area increases the rate of heat transfer experienced across the fin. The first four iterations of the Sierpinski carpet pattern, each with identical …

Dynamic Loading Experimentation And Surface Imaging Of Pressure Vessel Loadcell Fractures, Austin T. Sumner

Honors College Theses

Pressure vessels are very common pieces of equipment in industry and they are used for a variety of applications. It is standard in industry to rest pressure vessels on load cells. For some special cases, the pressure vessels are rested on load cells instead of solid foundation. Pressure vessels and their loadcells are generally designed for static environmental conditions and loading and tend to experience adverse effects when exposed to dynamic environments, such as hurricanes and earthquakes. These adverse-loading conditions cause vibrations and asymmetrical loading on the load cells, which can concurrently cause unexpected failure. This research investigates the effects …

The Mechanical Development For An Autonomous Forest Service Robot, James P. Walker

Honors College Theses

Georgia’s forests are under threat from numerous invasive species of plant, both herbaceous and woody. A primary factor in the invasive potential of any given non-native plant is the lack of natural predators and rapid reseed and regrowth cycles. To combat invasive plants, this thesis proposes an artificial, robotic predator to provide a means of controlling invasive species. Although autonomous robots are currently being developed for similar agricultural purposes, none have emerged for forestry related tasks, such as proposed in this work. The chassis, inspired by rocker bogie and similar suspension systems, has been redesigned to have eight wheels, to …

The Investigation Of Noise, Vibrations And Emissions Of Aero-Gas Turbine Combustion With Synthetic Kerosene Fuels, Margaret Kilpatrick

Honors College Theses

Climatic changes from aviation emissions are complex and include effects of greenhouse gases such as: CO2, NOx, and aerosols. For that reason, the objectives of this study were to investigate the noise, vibrations and emissions characteristics of synthetic kerosene combustion in an aerospace gas turbine to reduce the engine’s environmental impact. Sustainably produced synthetic kerosene is known for having low soot emissions due to little to no aromatics (compounds that create particle pollutants), and for being a sustainable alternative fuel source to imported oil. The noise and sound levels were collected using Bruel & Kjaer microphones to measure various mid …

Fluid Shift And Fluid Resuscitation In Burn Patients With The Use Of Bio-Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy To Monitor Fluid Levels, Temitope D. Obielodan

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this research is to explore the current methods of fluid resuscitation and other possible methods of measuring the body fluid levels of burn patients in order to fully understand the fluid increase patterns in the torso area. This will be done primarily by focusing on the concept of bio-electrical impedance spectroscopy to measure the fluid levels only in the human torso area. Three similar tests were carried out by measuring the resistance values after ingesting 500ml of water. This was repeated until a total of 1500ml of water was ingested. It was found that the resistance in …

Autonomous Object Collecting And Depositing Robot, Erik Anderson

Honors College Theses

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) hosted SoutheastCon 2019, with one of the conference’s focuses being a robotics competition. The robotics competition simulates the task of removing space debris near a space station and depositing it in predetermined areas. This task must be completed by an autonomous robot that meets a variety of physical design criteria. The performance of robots is measured by means of points, wherein accomplishing positive tasks earns points and vice versa, and the robot that most consistently scores points wins.

In response to the competition, the four engineering physics majors created a robot that …

End-To-End Learning: Using Neural Networks For Vehicle Control And Obstacle Avoidance, Keith Russell

Honors College Theses

End to End learning is a method of deep learning which has been used to great effect to solve complex problems which would normally be performed by humans. Within this thesis, a neural network was created to mimic the steering patterns of humans in highway driving situations. A Turtlebot was used in place of a car and was tested within a laboratory on a closed loop track to drive within the lanes created for it. The network architecture was based on that of Nvidia’s model which was used for predicting steering angles of a vehicle. The network was successfully trained …

An Optimization Approach Based On The Interior-Point Methodology For The Tertiary Control Of Modernized Microgrids, Isaiah D. Woodruff

Honors College Theses

With the rise in popularity of the modernized microgrids (MMGs), the addition of a controller to maximize economic efficiency while considering environmental impact is crucial. Tertiary control is at the highest control level, considering economic concerns related to the optimal operation of the microgrid and using a sampling time from minutes to hours; tertiary controls manage the flow of power between the microgrid and the connected grid. In MMGs' tertiary controls, the use of optimization algorithms to minimize an objective function with equality and inequality constraints allows for powerful control over the system. In this paper, the interior-point algorithm is …

Employing H.264 Coarse And Medium Grain Scalable Video To Optimize Video Playback Over Passive Optical Networks, David Moore

Honors College Theses

In this work, we propose the use of Coarse Grain Scalable (CGS) and Medium Grain Scalable (MGS) H.264/AVC video to optimize video playback on passive optical networks (PONs) by investigating network performance metrics such as data delay, video delay, and video delay jitter. Video playback is improved by sequentially dropping layers of scalable video. Dropping just a single CGS enhancement layer results in improvements of up to 57% for both data and video delay. However, video delay jitter benefits the most with an improvement ranging from 47% to 87%. Surprisingly, dropping subsequent CGS enhancement layers does not significantly improve the …

An Area Based Fan Beam Projection Model, Richard E. Steele, Jiehua Zhu

Honors College Theses

Area based projection models for computed tomography mitigate raw data errors by treating X-Rays as beams, whereas traditional line based projection models treat an X-Ray like a line, thus generating significant error. In an existing area based fan beam projection model, a rotation matrix, Q, simulates the rotation of the emitter detector pair to reduce computational load, but this introduces approximations by using an approximated rotation matrix. We eliminate approximations by deriving an exact formula for the entries of Q. Using a rotation of axes and by considering the neighboring cells' contributions to the area, the result has formulations for …

Nanoparticle Penetration Of Respirator Masks At Construction Sites, Jefferson W. Doehling

Honors College Theses

This experimental investigation studies the effectiveness of N95 respirators at blocking particles between 11.5 and 154 nm in diameter during 4 different construction activities. It is well known that large amounts of dust and debris are generated during construction activities. New research has found that significantly more nanoparticles are generated during construction activities than previously thought. Consequently, the N95 respirators commonly worn to protect against these particles are only rated to block 95% particles larger than 0.3 microns in size. In this investigation, two respirator models were tested, a NIOSH TC-84A-0007 pleated N95 respirator and a NIOSH 42CFR84 foldable N95 …

Efficient Image Coding And Transmission In Deep Space Communication, Reiner Dizon

Honors College Theses

The usefulness of modern digital communication comes from ensuring the data from a source arrives to its destination quickly and correctly. To meet these demands, communication protocols employ data compression and error detection/correction to ensure compactness and accuracy of the data, especially for critical scientific data which requires the use of lossless compression. For example, in deep space communication, information received from satellites to ground stations on Earth come in huge volumes captured with high precision and resolution by space mission instruments, such as Hubble Space Telescope (HST). On-board implementation of communication protocols poses numerous constraints and demands on the …

Impact Of Flow Direction On Local Flow Behavior In Biologically-Inspired Flow Passages, Derrick Dewayne Herrin

Honors College Theses

ABSTRACT

A computational fluid dynamics model was utilized to study the effect of flow direction on local flow behavior in biologically-inspired microscale flow networks. Biologically-inspired flow networks have been found to offer numerous advantages when compared with parallel flow networks, particularly in thermal management applications. Flow behavior was examined for a range of bifurcation angles and laminar inlet Reynolds numbers. The computational model was validated with existing theoretical solutions and verified for grid independence. As the bifurcation angle increased, the pressure drop, and thus pumping power, across the biologically-inspired flow networks increased. In addition, as the inlet Reynolds number increased, …

Investigation Of The Thermal Performance Of Sierpinski Carpet Fractal Fins In A Natural Convection Environment, Jennifer P. Shaffer

Honors College Theses

This experimental investigation studies the thermal performance of the first four iterations of the Sierpinski carpet pattern in a natural convection environment. This particular fractal geometry is promising in that it increases the available surface area for heat transfer while simultaneously decreasing the mass of the system. This makes it a potentially advantageous design for fins or heat sinks, especially in aerospace applications where minimizing mass of the system is essential. The thermal performance was evaluated by comparing the efficiency, effectiveness, and effectiveness per unit mass for each fractal iteration. The results indicate that efficiency decreases with each fractal iteration …

Dynamic Simulation And Analysis Of Fsae Racer For Development Of Stability Control System, Stone D. Williford

Honors College Theses

Using Adams/Car software, a computer model of Georgia Southern University’s 2016 Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) racecar was developed with the purpose of researching vehicle stability under dynamic conditions. Previous research in this field of study has been conducted to verify that Adams/Car simulations provide accurate results using data acquisition systems, so the major work for the current research has been to create an updated version of the vehicle designed and fabricated by Eagle Motor Sports. With this new model, vehicle roll, and pitch data as well as vehicle traction were collected during dynamic simulations. The overall goal for …

Scalability Of Microscale Fractal-Like Branching Channel Networks, James R. Miller Iii

Honors College Theses

Fractal-like branching channel networks have been shown to offer the advantages of reduced pumping power and lower maximum wall temperatures when employed in the design of microscale heat sinks. Unfortunately, previous literature has been limited to microscale flow networks. In this paper, a microscale flow network will be scaled up to result in a mesoscale flow network and a macroscale flow network. In order to compare the pressure drop across the flow networks of varying scales the results will be nondimensionalized in the form of the Euler number. For a laminar inlet Reynolds number the microscale, mesoscale, and macroscale fractal-like …

Novel H.265 Video Traffic Prediction Models Using Artificial Neural Networks, Collin Daly

Honors College Theses

In this work, we propose the use of non-linear, autoregressive neural network models for predicting video frame sizes. This model utilizes H.265 encoded video traces as inputs and the predicted future frame sizes as outputs. This model is developed to predict ultra-high definition video frame encoded with H.265 within IP networks. The video I, P, and B frames are predicted separately to improve model prediction accuracy. This approach is verified in MATLAB using various H.265 video traces. The results indicate that the proposed models were able to predict the video traffic fairly accurately.

Carinata Fame Production Process And Biofuel Oxidation, Benoit Kindo

Honors College Theses

In this experiment, the contribution of a standard production method for biofuels on their oxidative stability was investigated. Peroxide values were measured at different steps of the production process of Brassica carinata and peanut-based biofuels. The washing and drying steps in this production method showed significant increases in peroxide values for both biofuels and was identified as a major contributor of biofuel oxidation. Further analyses of the physical and thermal properties showed a more pronounced affect in the biofuel from Bassica carinata, and indicated an unusual composition much higher in saturated fatty acids much longer than those found in peanut. …

Machine Learning Through Mimicry And Association, Nickolas S. Holcomb

Honors College Theses

Adaptability is a key missing features that has impeded the growth of assistive robotics. In the traditional model, all actions must be explicitly coded by a skilled programmer familiar with the hardware. This project explores a method of teaching a webcam equipped arm type robot new primitive movement using visual demonstrations.

Learning From Cinara: Exploring The Depths Of Participatory Water Engagement In Cali, Colombia, Zachary T. Strickland

Honors College Theses

Located within the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia, CINARA is an academic institution, comprised of both engineers and social scientists, that has almost three decades of experience regarding participatory approaches to water supply and environmental sanitation. In this paper, I argue that CINARA’s work is important due to its emphasis on meaningful community participation that significantly involves communities in decisions on technical matters that are usually allocated exclusively to “experts.” Furthermore, the valuation of social considerations and non-technical knowledge found amongst CINARA’s engineers stands in distinct contrast to traditional development practices and engineering mindsets. This paper will go on …

State Of Accelerated Bridge Construction (Abc) In The United States, Mike Ofili

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this project is to develop a toolkit for the design and construction of bridges using prefabricated materials primarily to reduce the closure time and on-site construction time of newly constructed bridges or bridges undergoing renovation. The research focuses specifically on short span bridges in Georgia (40,60,80, and 120ft spans).

Areas of primary concern for this project were design, constructability, structural analysis, the use of concrete and steel girders, cost efficiency, and industry surveys. In this particular portion of the study, the surveys proved to be most effective when combined with information obtained existing research as well as …

Teacher Influence On Elementary School Students’ Participation In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics, Courtney Hartman

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of elementary school teachers on encouraging students’ interest and participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The researcher sought to understand what methods teachers use in their classrooms to encourage students to participate in STEM subjects and programs. This mixed methods study consisted of a questionnaire to collect quantitative data, as well as an interview of selected teachers who participated in the questionnaire to collect qualitative data. The data was analyzed to determine the overall perceptions of teachers regarding the importance of encouraging students to participate in STEM. The qualitative …

Affluent Populations And Their Effect On Biological Diversity Through The Consumption Of Meat, Electronics, And Motor Vehicles, Melody Flores

Honors College Theses

The human has caused a far greater impact on the planet's biodiversity than any other species in existence, due to the impact of population, afflluence, and technology. This thesis will argue the importance of biological diversity and how affluent populations are reducing biodiversity through the consumption of meat, electronics, and motor vehicles. Aldo Leopold's "The Land Ethic" and Herman Daly's "The Impossibility Theorem", among others, create a rubric evaluating human activities and provide alternative views on economic impossibilities. Consumption is reviewed from an ecocentric perspective, a holistic outlook placing emphasis on the ecosystem. The reader will become cognizant of their …

Water Use On The Las Vegas Strip: Assessment And Suggestions For Conservation, Suzanne H. Trabia

Honors College Theses

Due to stresses on the water supply in southern Nevada, which include an average of three million tourists per month and an ongoing drought since the year 2000, water conservation is imperative in order to sustain the growing urban area of Las Vegas. The purpose of this study is to assess water use in fourteen casinos on and off the Las Vegas Strip (the main boulevard of the largest casinos in Las Vegas) in order to suggest approaches for water conservation, such as reducing, reusing, and modifying the current system. Since data on water consumption is not publicly available, five …

Biomechanical Analysis Of Gait Kinetics Resulting From Use Of A Vacuum Socket On A Transtibial Prosthesis, Maria De Lourdes Ramos Gonzalez

Honors College Theses

The technology and design of lower limb prosthetics have evolved greatly since their introduction. The current study proposed to compare the effects of a conventional pin socket attachment and a vacuum socket attachment for a transtibial amputee. Whereas traditional measurements of gait utilize force plates and camera systems, this study made use of a small tri-axial load cell located at the base of the socket to measure the forces and moments exerted during a regular gait cycle. The hypothesis tested stated that a vacuum pump socket attachment, when compared to a non-vacuum (pin) socket, will have a significant effect on …

The Construction And Characterization Of A Magneto-Optical Trap For Rubidium-87 And Electromagnetically-Induced Transparency In Rubidium-87 In A Vapor Cell, Yu Liu

Honors College Theses

Recent years have observed fast developments in neutral atomic vapor based quantum information storage technology. The technique utilizes light fields in the optical wavelength region as signal carrier and retriever and neutral atomic systems (e.g. single atoms, ensembles of atoms, atom-like defects in solids) as storage media. Photons are robust carriers of information due to their high velocity (c = 2.998 x 10⁸ m/s) and ease of transportation (they propagate rectilinearly with low loss). Their high mobility, however, makes it a challenging task to spatially localize and therefore store them. Atoms (or atom-like systems), on the other hand, can …

Supersonic Turbine Cascade Studies Using Computational Fluid Dynamics And Water Table Experiments, Shelby E. Nelson

Honors College Theses

Design engineers use a variety of tools to perform calculations and to aid in the design process. For example, engineers designing gas turbines, specifically the aerodynamicists, use a combination of hand calculations, experimental data, and complex numerical codes to simulate air flow around each blade. Aerodynamicists designing gas turbines must predict the locations of the shocks to locate inefficiencies in the flow. In this thesis, three methods of calculating the shock angles are compared: analytical, experimental, and computational. Three different airfoil shapes are tested: a rectangular flat plate, a supersonic diamond, and a turbine airfoil. Cascade tests of the airfoil …

The Design And Testing Of A Solar Autoclave With Broad Spectrum Sterilization Capabilities, Sarah S. Trabia

Honors College Theses

Energy is difficult to come by in developing countries and this interferes with the ability of doctors to provide good healthcare to their patients. Without decent sterilization, patients can become infected and diseases can spread throughout hospitals. This study involves designing a solar autoclave for developing countries that is as efficient as electrical autoclaves. The design is intended to not require any electrical input and to be affordable to those who cannot afford advanced medical equipment. Once the solar autoclave is designed, it will be tested to determine if it can sterilize equipment against a variety of different bacteria, including …

Patterns For Success: Women In Technology: Analyzing Top Technical Women For Repeated Mindsets, Life Experiences, And Career Navigation, Julie L. Gill

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss and discover why some women are so successful in the computing fields when public opinion continues to hold that computing is not a women’s field because there are so few women in computing. The roots for this shortage begin in theAmerican educational system, “Nationwide only about 20 percent of the bachelor's degrees incomputer science go to women,” according to a November 11, 2011 NPR story titled “Addressing the Shortage of Women in Silicon Valley”. This shortage is well noted and heavily researched, Plausible solutions have been proposed and it is critically important …

Energy Sources And The Production Of Electricity In The United States, David Manukjan

Honors College Theses

The current sources of energy that the United States uses to produce electricity are costly, extremely damaging to the environment, and cause us to rely on other countries for our energy needs. The Obama Administration has begun working on replacing coal and oil with cleaner sources of energy. Over the last decade, alternative energy sources have been slowly gaining popularity as the American public learns more about climate change. However, the U.S. government will not use renewable energy as a complete substitute for fossil fuels in the immediate future because of their higher market price. The world is struggling to …