Engineering Commons^™

Liver Cancer: Current And Future Trends Using Biomaterials, Sue Anne Chew, Stefania Moscato, Sachin George, Bahareh Azimi, Serena Danti

Health & Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common type of cancer diagnosed and the second leading cause of death worldwide. Despite advancement in current treatments for HCC, the prognosis for this cancer is still unfavorable. This comprehensive review article focuses on all the current technology that applies biomaterials to treat and study liver cancer, thus showing the versatility of biomaterials to be used as smart tools in this complex pathologic scenario. Specifically, after introducing the liver anatomy and pathology by focusing on the available treatments for HCC, this review summarizes the current biomaterial-based approaches for systemic delivery and implantable tools …

Asme Design Challenge: The Jenga Stacker, Zachary Lin, Alex Chernauskas, Mitch Dorsey, Alex Remmers

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The 2020 ASME Design Challenge requires teams to build a compact engineering system capable of manufacturing a tower made exclusively from standard-sized sheets of paper. The validation of the design will include testing for manufacturing speed, height of tower, and ability to support a load. Our senior design project focuses on the stacking mechanism and is designed to stack a 4 in x 4 in tower out of prepared 4 in x 1.5 in x 1.75 in paper boxes from the ground up.

Improved Greens Harvester, Sharon Park, Khalil Clark, Millyn Brieschke

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This paper attempts to provide a prototype of the improved greens harvester. Some inconveniences of the users, including not able to cut greens at a constant length, greens getting clogged in between the brush and the basket, and the need to empty the basket a lot of times. This paper describes problem understanding, concept generation, concept selection, concept embodiment, working prototype, and design refinement. Through these analyses and processes, an improved greens harvester solving the inconveniences is designed. The improved greens harvester has a higher greens harvester with wheels that makes using the harvester less troublesome. Band saw is stuck …

Group A: Asme Student Design Challenge, Dakshi Jindal, Ashley Perry, Ben Liao

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This year's student design competition is termed "Building to the Sky." Student teams are required to build a compact engineering system capable of manufacturing a tower made of only standard-sized sheets of paper.

Group E: Improved Greens Harvester, Paige Grittner, Paul Harding, Ned Curran, Jennifer Mata

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The Improved Greens Harvester is a project designing an improved machine that will be used to harvest crops by our client, EarthDance Organic Farm School in Ferguson, MO. The goal of our design was to provide a simple, easy-to-use, and easyto-fix machine that would cut and collect baby green leaves as the user walks along the plant bed. We first sought to address issue with the client’s current machine including low cutting accuracy, strain on the user’s body, frequent jamming, and low efficiency. Our initial design was a cart design that included: an oscillating blade for cutting, a rotating rope-shaft …

Group S- Arliss Project, Preston Bailey, Zach Stelwagon, Cal Reynolds, James Hardy

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Our project was the ARLISS competition project, more specifically the second part of the project where the vehicle must survive a drop and drive to a known location over rough desert terrain. We interviewed our professor, Dr. Potter, who had previous experience with the project to understand what was required in our design. The project started with creating concept ideas and deciding on one, which initially was an airplane to avoid designing a landing mechanism and having to drive over rough terrain. However, this design proved to have too many flaws and was scrapped. The new design was a small …

Characterization Of Simulated Low Earth Orbit Space Environment Effects On Acid-Spun Carbon Nanotube Yarns, Ryan A. Kemnitz, Gregory R. Cobb, Abhendra K. Singh, Carl R. Hartsfield

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to quantify the detrimental effects of atomic oxygen and ultraviolet (UV) C radiation on the mechanical properties, electrical conductivity, and piezoresistive effect of acid-spun carbon nanotube (CNT) yarns. Monotonic tensile tests with in-situ electrical resistance measurements were performed on pristine and exposed yarns to determine the effects of the atomic oxygen and UVC exposures on the yarn’s material properties. Both type of exposures were performed under vacuum to simulate space environment conditions. The CNT yarns’ mechanical properties did not change significantly after being exposed to UV radiation, but were significantly degraded by the atomic …

3d Chocolate Printer Bed Design, Dean Oken, Jacob Margolin, Ben Hartmann, Sam Grossman

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The client wished for a device to gain the interest of young undergraduate students into basic thermal science and fluid dynamics concepts. A 3D printer bed was created from concept to prototype design and paired with chocolate dropper teams to complete the project and accomplish the client's goals.

City Of New Smyrna Beach Solar Feasibility Assessment, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

At the request of the City of New Smyrna Beach, the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) assessed rooftop solar and building energy efficiency improvement potential for 17 city-owned facilities. The intent has been to assist City leaders in identifying opportunities to reduce the City's overall electricity consumption and increase its use of renewable energy.

The FSEC team conducted Level 1 energy audit activities and site assessments including:

On-site assessment

• Solar feasibility measurements and characterization including orientation, roof shading (adjacent structures, encroaching trees, etc.), available roof area, system output, annualized savings
• HVAC characterization
• Lighting survey
• Occupancy density, schedule, thermostat settings

Post …

Mems 411 Group L (Fall 2019) - Speedy Seeder Final Report, Michael Morrow, Christopher Nelson, Ross Frame

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The Speedy Seeder or ”SS” is a device designed to decrease the time it takes to fill one seed plot by hand to roughly sixteen percent of the time. The customer of the SS is EarthDance Organic Farms School. EarthDance fills a large number of plots each year by placing a seed in every single compartment which come in three sizes: 32, 72, and 128 compartments per plot. Filling a single plot by hand can take roughly 8 minutes. The SS makes filling a plot much easier and faster, allowing a single plot to be filled in under 75 seconds. …

Experimental Study Of Condensation In A Thermoacoustic Cooler With Various 3d Printed Regenerators Using Water Vapor As The Working Fluid, Aibek Bekkulov, Andrew Luthen, Ben Xu

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Thermoacoustics (TA) deals with the conversion of heat into sound and vice versa. The device that transfers energy from a low temperature reservoir to a high temperature one by utilizing acoustic work is called TA cooler (TAC). The main components of a typical TAC are a resonator, a porous regenerator (e.g. stack of parallel plates) and two heat exchangers. The thermoacoustic phenomenon takes place in the regenerator where a nonzero temperature gradient is imposed, and interacts with the sound wave. The low temperature at the cold end of TAC can be used to condense water from the humid air and …

T-Shirt Strip Dispenser, Maxwell Dimgba, Syeda Mohsin, Sabrina Nguyen

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

There is a massive amount of waste around the textile industry. New garments are constantly being made and old garments are consistently finding themselves in landfills. This project aims to cut down on this waste. Mary Susan RuppertStroescu of the Sam Fox School at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a process to turn old garments into new ones in a practice known as up-cycling. By cutting old garments into half-inch strips, laying and adhering them flat on a sheet of dissolvable paper, and sewing over them in interesting patterns she is able to create extraordinary new designs. This …

Group M: Arliss Canister Vehicle, Greyson Bourgeois, Eleanor Macklin, Romail Dawani, Rachel Sample

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This project is a dicycle designed for the ARLISS Canister Competition. In this competition, the device is loaded into a rocket which is then launched to about 12000 ft before releasing the device. Then it must safely land and autonomously navigate to a predetermined GPS location on the ground. Due to the fact that this is a mechanical engineering design project and the time restrictions of this class, we focused on the physical aspect of the project, such as building a device that can survive the launch and landing and traverse several kilometers through the desert, forgoing the autonomous navigation …

Violin Bow-Hand Prosthetic, Jonathan Smith, Jonathon Azziz, Shawn Pavey

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The violin bow hand prosthetic was designed for a young violin player seeking to upgrade the functionality of his current violin prosthetic device. His current device is rigid, forcing him to play mostly with his shoulder. Since the strength of his wrist was unknown, we designed a prosthetic with enough brace flexibility to enable the user to control the bow motion with his own wrist. We also added an axis of rotation and spring mechanism to supplement this motion and provide him the equivalence of fine finger adjustments. The full design process of the prosthetic is documented in this report, …

Point Cloud Processing With Neural Networks, Stephanie Miller, Jiahao Li

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

In this project, we explore new techniques and architectures for applying deep neural networks when the input is point cloud data. We first consider applying convolutions on regular pixel and voxel grids, using polynomials of point coordinates and Fourier transforms to get a rich feature representation for all points mapped to the same pixel or voxel. We also apply these ideas to generalize the recently proposed "interpolated convolution", by learning continuous-space kernels as a combination of polynomial and Fourier basis kernels. Experiments on the ModelNet40 dataset demonstrate that our methods have superior performance over the baselines in 3D object recognition.

Violin Bow-Hand Prosthetic, Ron Hayes Jr, Kc Cook, Romario Lobban, Muriel Drexler

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The violin bow-hand prosthetic aims to mimic the natural hold and motion of a violinist’s bow-hand. The prosthetic is for a violinist who is missing the majority of their hand, but still has full range of motion in the wrist. Focusing on maintaining a natural playing style greatly influenced the design of the device to be user safe, durable, comfortable, easy to use, inexpensive, and practical. Many of these features were achieved by using 3D printed plastic and foam composites. These materials were selected based on strength and deflection analyses of 3-D simulations performed in SolidWorks and the ease of …

Knee Joint Biomechanics In Transtibial Amputees In Gait, Cycling, And Elliptical Training, Greg Orekhov, A. Matt Robinson, Scott J. Hazelwood, Stephen M. Klisch

Biomedical Engineering

Transtibial amputees may experience decreased quality of life due to increased risk of knee joint osteoarthritis (OA). No prior studies have compared knee joint biomechanics for the same group of transtibial amputees in gait, cycling, and elliptical training. Thus, the goal of this study was to identify preferred exercises for transtibial amputees in the context of reducing risk of knee OA. The hypotheses were: 1) knee biomechanics would differ due to participant status (amputee, control), exercise, and leg type (intact, residual) and 2) gait kinematic parameters would differ due to participant status and leg type. Ten unilateral transtibial amputee and …

Using Brookfield's Critical Incident Questionnaires To Improve Collaboration In Course Modules, Albena Yordanova, Elizabeth Tofte

ASEE Best Practice Series Presentations

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Gaps In Elementary Life Science Lessons, Kaitlin Cook

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The United States is experiencing a rise in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers while facing a shortage of STEM workers. This could partly be due to a decline in the amount of time allowed for science in elementary schools or possibly because many life science lessons in elementary school lack originality and may not stimulate an interest in science. Lack of captivating STEM education prior to college may be contributing to the decline of students graduating with STEM based degrees. My thesis focuses on getting out of the routine of using monotonous life science lesson plans. I identify …

Localized Dielectric Loss Heating In Dielectrophoresis Devices, Tae Joon Kwak, Imtiaz Hossen, Rashid Bashir, Woo-Jin Chang, Chung-Hoon Lee

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Temperature increases during dielectrophoresis (DEP) can affect the response of biological entities, and ignoring the effect can result in misleading analysis. The heating mechanism of a DEP device is typically considered to be the result of Joule heating and is overlooked without an appropriate analysis. Our experiment and analysis indicate that the heating mechanism is due to the dielectric loss (Debye relaxation). A temperature increase between interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) has been measured with an integrated micro temperature sensor between IDEs to be as high as 70 °C at 1.5 MHz with a 30 V_pp applied voltage to our ultra-low …

An Enhanced Two-Stage Grid-Connected Linear Parameter Varying Photovoltaic System Model For Frequency Support Strategy Evaluation, Colin Levis, Cathal O' Loughlin, Terence O' Donnell, Martin Hill

Dept. of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Publications

Securing a future sustainable decarbonised economy involves moving towards a system with rising penetration levels of distributed photovoltaics (PVs) within the low voltage distribution network (LVDN). This power system evolution is displacing conventional generators and has resulted in a decline in inertia that is essential for frequency stability. Emerging network codes require PV generators to maintain a scheduled curtailed active power (CAP) reserve for under-frequency contingencies. In this paper, the development, verification and application of an enhanced, two-stage grid-connected, state-space, linear parameter varying (LPV) PV system model is presented. The LPV model provides accurate and efficient modelling for PV systems …

Founding The Domain Of Ai Forensics, Ibrahim Baggili, Vahid Behzadan

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

With the widespread integration of AI in everyday and critical technologies, it seems inevitable to witness increasing instances of failure in AI systems. In such cases, there arises a need for technical investigations that produce legally acceptable and scientifically indisputable findings and conclusions on the causes of such failures. Inspired by the domain of cyber forensics, this paper introduces the need for the establishment of AI Forensics as a new discipline under AI safety. Furthermore, we propose a taxonomy of the subfields under this discipline, and present a discussion on the foundational challenges that lay ahead of this new research …

1/Fnoise Modelling And Characterization For Cmos Quanta Image Sensors, Wei Deng, Eric R. Fossum

Dartmouth Scholarship

This work fits the measured in-pixel source-follower noise in a CMOS Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) prototype chip using physics-based 1/f noise models, rather than the widely-used fitting model for analog designers. This paper discusses the different origins of 1/f noise in QIS devices and includes correlated double sampling (CDS). The modelling results based on the Hooge mobility fluctuation, which uses one adjustable parameter, match the experimental measurements, including the variation in noise from room temperature to –70 °C. This work provides useful information for the implementation of QIS in scientific applications and suggests that even lower read noise is attainable …

Using Machine Learning Classification Methods To Detect The Presence Of Heart Disease, Nestor Pereira

Dissertations

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most common cause of death in Ireland, and probably, worldwide. According to the Health Service Executive (HSE) cardiovascular disease accounting for 36% of all deaths, and one important fact, 22% of premature deaths (under age 65) are from CVD.

Using data from the Heart Disease UCI Data Set (UCI Machine Learning), we use machine learning techniques to detect the presence or absence of heart disease in the patient according to 14 features provide for this dataset. The different results are compared based on accuracy performance, confusion matrix and area under the Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) …

Energy Performance Certification: Misassessment Due To Assuming Default Heat Losses, Ciara Ahern, Brian Norton

Articles

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are issued when dwellings are constructed, sold or leased in the EU. Where the cost of obtaining the required data is prohibitive, EPC assessors use nationally applicable default-values. To ensure that dwellings are not assigned a wrongly-higher EPC rating, a standardised thermal bridging transmittance coefficient (Y-value) is typically adopted for all existing dwellings while worst-case overall heat loss coefficients (U-values) are used. Default U-values are applied to a specific building element type (roof, wall, floor etc.) based on building codes and regulations applicable at time of construction. Due to significant building fabric upgrades, default U-values are …

Group N: Fluid Flow Testing Apparatus, Jonathan Fleming, Braden Kerr, Abel Soloman

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

A fluid flow testing apparatus was needed to accurately test valves relative to the conditions seen in the factory of a local St. Louis brewery. After concept generation, a rotating track that toggled the valve between open and closed was decided on by the team. Construction of an initial prototype was done over 3 weeks with a total budget of 400 USD. The initial prototype satisfied almost all of the performance goals: capable of cycling 200 times without intervention, 1 paper-towel of leakage at most, and upper reservoir level consistency within 10 percent. To improve the initial prototype, the team …

Monte Carlo And Experimental Analysis Of A Novel Directional Rotating Scatter Mask Gamma Detection System, Julie V. Logan, Darren E. Holland, Larry W. Burggraf, Justin A. Clinton, Buckley E. O'Day Iii

Faculty Publications

Excerpt: This work demonstrates successful experimental operation of a prototype system to identify source direction which was modeled using a library of signals simulated using GEANT and a novel algorithm....

Zirconia-Based Compositions For Use In Passive NoX Adsorber Devices, Deborah Jayne Harris, David Alastair Scapens, John G. Darab, Mark Crocker, Yaying Ji

Chemistry Faculty Patents

A passive NO_x adsorbent includes: palladium, platinum or a mixture thereof and a mixed or composite oxide including the following elements in percentage by weight, expressed in terms of oxide: 10-90% by weight zirconium and 0.1-50% by weight of least one of the following: a transition metal or a lanthanide series element other than Ce.

Although the passive NO_x adsorbent can include Ce in an amount ranging from 0.1 to 20% by weight expressed in terms of oxide, advantages are obtained particularly in the case of low-Ce or a substantially Ce-free passive NO_x adsorbent.

Bringing Statistical Learning Machines Together For Hydro-Climatological Predictions - Case Study For Sacramento San Joaquin River Basin, California, Balbhadra Thakur, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad, Kenneth W. Lamb, Venkat Lakshmi

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Study region: Sacramento San Joaquin River Basin, California Study focus: The study forecasts the streamflow at a regional scale within SSJ river basin with largescale climate variables. The proposed approach eliminates the bias resulting from predefined indices at regional scale. The study was performed for eight unimpaired streamflow stations from 1962–2016. First, the Singular Valued Decomposition (SVD) teleconnections of the streamflow corresponding to 500 mbar geopotential height, sea surface temperature, 500 mbar specific humidity (SHUM500), and 500 mbar U-wind (U500) were obtained. Second, the skillful SVD teleconnections were screened non-parametrically. Finally, the screened teleconnections were used as the streamflow predictors …

A Wideband, Circularly Polarized, Directive Antenna With A Circular Reflector, Tyler J. Mcpherson, Zabed Iqbal, Sungkyun Lim

Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Publications

A two-element, patch antenna with a single feed is presented to achieve wideband, circular polarization, and uni-directional radiation. The driven element of the antenna has a rotated, corner-truncated radiating patch to achieve circularly polarized radiation with an offset microstrip feedline in the front side. The back side of the driven element comprises a wide hexagonal slot, eight meander tips, and a parasitic patch in the center. A circular reflector is added behind the driven element to increase realized gain toward the front side direction of the driven element. A prototype of the antenna is fabricated for validation. In both simulation …