Ir Barcode Reader, Isaac Lambing, Justin Gronet, Tony Ly, Mark Berry

Mechanical Engineering

BrandWatch Technologies is a company based in Portland, Oregon that seek to detect counterfeit products in the supply chain. BrandWatch has created a taggant material, a physical marker, that can be printed over barcodes or added to the ink used to print the barcodes themselves. This material, while invisible to the naked eye, is detectable using technology that they have developed.

BrandWatch enlisted the help of a four man team of Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering students to combine this technology with that of a barcode scanner. The device, capable of scanning barcodes, detecting the presence of the taggant material, and …

Heart Valve Leaflet Deflection Testing Apparatus, Brandon Cunnane, Andrew Krasts, Jackson Kunz, Steven Warnert

Mechanical Engineering

The information contained in this report is confidential and proprietary information of Edwards Lifesciences.

Analysis Of Compression Creep Deformation Of 7050 Aluminum Large Scale Open Die Forgings During The Solution Heat Treatment Process, Ashley Lopez, Elysha Cole

Materials Engineering

A stress, ranging from 104.17 to 166.67 psi, was applied to 0.5 in diameter cylindrical samples of 7050 aluminum using a manufactured fixture that applies stress using an indenter with a diameter of 0.127 in. The stress range used replicates the stresses produced on large scale forgings weighing up to 4000 lbs. We chose a maximum, medium and low stress as our stress parameters. The samples were placed into the fixture for stability then placed in a furnace heated to 890°F which is the solution heat treatment temperature for 7050 aluminum. The heat treatment times varied between 4 and 24 …

Effects Of Initial Forging Temperature, Cooling Rates, And Carbon Content On Primary Alpha Formation In Ti-6al-4v, James Tillman, Hui Wei

Materials Engineering

Ti-6Al-4V is an alpha-beta titanium alloy system, which contains both alpha and beta phases at room temperature. Both alpha and beta phases provide Ti-6Al-4V a range of different properties for a range of applications. In order to improve the energy efficiency and better satisfy customers’ requirements of less than 52% primary alpha phase, Weber Metals sponsored this project to study the effects of carbon content, forging temperature, and cooling rates on primary alpha formation in Ti-6Al-4V alloys. There has been a lot of discussion as to whether or not carbon, a known alpha stabilizer, will affect the microstructure in small …

Improving Product Design By Predicting Flexural Strength Of A Honeycomb Core Sandwich Panel Composite Using Ply Tensile Strength, Justin Lui, Javal Patel

Materials Engineering

The use of composite sandwich panels has increased in the aerospace industry. Prediction of a theoretical composite construction's flexural properties is important for efficient composite product designs. Utilizing the four point flexure geometry defined by Zodiac Aerospace, Santa Maria, CA, a mechanical model was derived to predict the flexural behavior of a theoretical honeycomb core sandwich composite using laminate tensile properties. The most common failure mode of Zodiac Aerospace’s four point bend test is a failure in tension of the bottom laminate. Given this information, ASTM D3039 (Standard Test Method for Tensile Properties of Polymer Matrix Composite Materials) was chosen …

Elevated Temperature Effects On The Mechanical Properties Of Age Hardened 6xxx Series Aluminum Alloy Extrusions, Rachael Donovan, Rose Fortune, Robert Trout

Materials Engineering

The purpose of this project is to determine if over-aging of aluminum causes the yield or tensile strength to fall below the minimum strength values set by the aluminum industry. Extruded aluminum alloys, 6061-T6, 6063-T6, and two proprietary alloys, HS6X-T6 and RX82-T6, were exposed to reheating treatments at extended times and temperatures. The three temperatures were 350°F, 390°F, and 425°F. The times of reheat increased logarithmically from 30 minutes to 64 hours. The samples were tensile tested to determine the tensile strength and yield strength. Statistical methods helped model the behavior of yield and tensile strength as a function of …

Measuring Performance Of Paint Coating Via Laboratory And Field Testing, Eugene Leung, Rocco Lattanzio

Materials Engineering

No abstract provided.

Fire Protection Analysis Cotchett Education Building, Building 002, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, William J. Beasland

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

This report analyzes the Cotchett Education Building on the Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo College campus. Since this is an existing building, with various modifications made during the life of the building, it was analyzed as an existing building. NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, 2012 edition (LSC) contains requirements for existing buildings, and was the primary code used in this analysis. Other codes used in analysis were referenced in each section. The Cotchett Education Building meets most requirements of NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, 2012 edition. However, there are recommendations regarding exiting and the alarm system. See section 7 of …

Fire And Life Safety Report- Battalion Headquarters Complex (Ueph), Mathew Mershimer

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

This fire and life safety report covers a Battalion Headquarters Complex that is used for housing military troops. This is a complete review of the building with prescriptive based fire protection along with performance base review of the building. The prescriptive fire protection covers egress analysis of the space, passive fire protection (i.e. fire walls and doors) and active fire protection (i.e. fire alarm and fire sprinklers). The performance based section looks at the prescriptive requirements and sees if these would be enough for the application at hand. The building fire protection and life safety are covered by three different …

Comprehensive Fire Protection And Life Safety Evaluation Of The Robotic Manufacturing Science And Engineering Laboratories (Rmsel) Facility, Tomas M. Sanchez

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

A comprehensive fire protection and life safety evaluation has been performed for the Robotic Manufacturing Science and Engineering Laboratory (RMSEL) at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). The evaluation considered both prescriptive and performance based aspects. Current codes, such as the 2012 International Building Code and the 2013 version of NFPA 13 – Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems, are generally the basis for the prescriptive evaluation even though they are not the code of record for the building. Use of current codes for this evaluation is mostly for academic reasons. Nevertheless, the facility is generally compliant with the provisions of …

Comprehensive Fire And Life Safety Analysis Of Building 186, Construction Innovation Center, At California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Chris Torres

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

The report summarizes the analysis of the existing fire protection features and systems installed in the Construction Innovation Center at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The center is divided into three individual buildings (Buildings A, B and C) and are connected at each floor by an exterior balcony. The analysis includes two different approaches. A prescriptive analysis approach has been used to examine if the installed fire protection features and systems compliance with the latest edition of the codes and standards in California. This approach includes an evaluation of the fire structure protection, means of egress, fire alarm …

Measurement And Analysis Of Physical And Climatic Distribution Environment For Air Package Shipment, Sher Paul Singh, Jay Singh, Koushik Saha

Industrial Technology and Packaging

There has been a significant growth in the air package shipment business, which involves the multi-modal movement of a package in transportation and material handling systems that encompass conveyors, carts, trucks, delivery vans and aircrafts of various sizes and shapes. This study was aimed at establishing the ‘air package shipment’ conditions experienced by packages transported by air under ‘normal conditions of transport’. Air package shipment data (temperature, humidity, pressure, shock and vibration) were collected for several domestic and international routes through instrumented packages. The collected data were supplemented by previous research to measure and quantify this multi-modal shipping environment. This …

Cal Poly Dining: The Avenue Redesign, Eric Calbonero, Derek Nollsch, Casey Reilly

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

Campus Dining is planning to close VG’s Cafe during the 2015-2016 school year; as a result, the remaining restaurants on campus need to accommodate the additional student demand. The student team consisting of Eric Calbonero, Derek Nollsch, and Casey Reilly met with Campus Dining’s Director of Operations, Greg Yeo, about this issue—he directed the team toward a redesign of The Avenue Food Court. To redesign The Avenue, the project team focused on several key deliverables as follows:

• Study current customer trends in The Avenue

• Develop a proposed facilities layout and design

• Perform a capacity analysis of The Avenue …

  ---

  Go to article

San Luis Obispo Children's Museum: The Circuit Lab, Megan Garcia, Victoria Higgins, Michael Xie

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

Over a nine month period, the senior project team worked closely with the San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum to develop a new interactive exhibit for the museum’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) floor. The initial budget given for this project was $3,000. The museum’s requirements for a new exhibit were that it must be safe for young children to use, require minimal supervision, is interactive, has learning objectives, and is economically feasible and sustainable. The team chose to build an exhibit that would teach young children about simple circuitry and electronics.

First, extensive research of circuits, children’s …

Visualizing Population Density Based On Wifi Router Location And Network Usage, Tyler Deitz

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

This research paper introduces a prototype of a feature for Robert E. Kennedy’s maps web application. The feature visualizes population density based off wifi router location and network usage within the building. The significance of the feature is noted by documenting the library’s transition into a hub for student life and campus culture, which increases the space’s occupancy and visitor retention for a longer time. The feature is based off a Voronoi diagram map distribution which strongly affects its technical and visual implementation. The end product is user tested by Cal Poly students and received a 93.5% satisfaction rate.

Discovering Factors Affecting Student Retention In Computer Science At Cal Poly, Diane Eykholt

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

No abstract provided.

Aerodynamic Design And Structural Analysis Procedure For Small Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbine Rotor Blade, Dylan R. Perry

Master's Theses

This project accomplished two correlated goals of designing a new rotor blade to be used with the Cal Poly Wind Power Research Center, as well as defining the methodology required for the aerodynamic analysis of an optimized blade, the procedure required for generation of an accurate CAD model for the new blade geometry, and structural integrity verification procedure for the new blade via finite element analysis under several operating scenarios. The new rotor blades were designed to perform at peak efficiency at a much lower wind speed than the current CPWPRC rotor blades and incorporated a FEA verification process which …

Ecg Classification With An Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System, Brad Thomas Funsten

Master's Theses

Heart signals allow for a comprehensive analysis of the heart. Electrocardiography (ECG or EKG) uses electrodes to measure the electrical activity of the heart. Extracting ECG signals is a non-invasive process that opens the door to new possibilities for the application of advanced signal processing and data analysis techniques in the diagnosis of heart diseases. With the help of today’s large database of ECG signals, a computationally intelligent system can learn and take the place of a cardiologist. Detection of various abnormalities in the patient’s heart to identify various heart diseases can be made through an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System …

Design And Fabrication Techniques Of Devices For Embedded Power Active Contact Lens, Errol Heradio Leon

Master's Theses

This thesis designed and fabricated various devices that were interfaced to an IC for an active contact lens that notifies the user of an event by detection of an external wireless signal. The contact lens consisted of an embedded antenna providing communication with a 2.4GHz system, as well as inductive charging at an operating frequency of 13.56 MHz. The lens utilized a CBC005 5µAh thin film battery by Cymbet and a manufactured graphene super capacitor as a power source. The custom integrated circuit (IC) was designed using the On Semiconductor CMOS C5 0.6 µm process to manage …

Hybrid Rocket Motor Scaling Process, Joseph B. R. Vanherweg

Master's Theses

Hybrid rocket propulsion technology shows promise for the next generation of sounding rockets and small launch vehicles. This paper seeks to provide details on the process of developing hybrid propulsion systems to the academic and amateur rocket communities to assist in future research and development. Scaling hybrid rocket motors for use in sounding rockets has been a challenge due to the inadequacies in traditional boundary layer analysis. Similarity scaling is an amendment to traditional boundary layer analysis which is helpful in removing some of the past scaling challenges. Maintaining geometric similarity, oxidizer and fuel similarity and mass flow rate to …

Telepresence: Design, Implementation And Study Of An Hmd-Controlled Avatar With A Mechatronic Approach, Darren Michael Chan

Master's Theses

Telepresence describes technologies that allow users to remotely experience the sensation of being present at an event without being physically present. An avatar exists to represent the user whilst in a remote location and is tasked to collect stimuli from its immediate surroundings to be delivered to the user for consumption. With the advent of recent developments in Virtual Reality technology, viz., head-mounted displays (HMDs), new possibilities have been enabled in the field of Telepresence. The main focus of this thesis is to develop a solution for visual Telepresence, where an HMD is used to control the direction of a …

Using Archived Transit Data To Analyze The Effect Of Rainfall On Transit Performance Measures At The Route Level, Nicholas F. Bleich

Master's Theses

This study investigates the effect of rainfall on transit performance measures at the route level in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. Transit agencies are required to report certain performance metrics to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), but performance measures can also be used to evaluate service and provide customers with information regarding the transit system. Using a three-year sample of archived automatic vehicle location (AVL) and hydrologic data the relationships between ridership, travel time, delay, and rainfall were investigated. The analysis of daily ridership and rainfall resulted in no statistically significant results, however, the results are supported by …

Effect Of Surfactant Architecture On Conformational Transitions Of Conjugated Polyelectrolytes, Greg A. Braggin

Master's Theses

Water soluble conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPEs), which fall under the category of conductive polymers, possess numerous advantages over other conductive materials for the fabrication of electronic devices. Namely, the processing of water soluble conjugated polyelectrolytes into thin film electronic devices is much less costly as compared to the processing of inorganic materials. Moreover, the handling of conjugated polyelectrolytes can be performed in a much more environmentally friendly manner than in the processing of other conjugated polymers because conjugated polyelectrolytes are water soluble, whereas other polymers will only dissolve in toxic organic solvents. The processing of electronic devices containing inorganic constituents such …

Criticality And Risk Assessment For Pipe Rehabilitation In The City Of Santa Barbara Sewer System, Rossi Carmelo Rossi Ii

Master's Theses

Aging sewer infrastructure is posing greater and greater risk to the health and well-being of City residents. Issues can range from pipe blockages in sewer laterals to Sanitary Sewer Overflows. This thesis develops a risk analysis method that can be used by municipalities to maintain and rehabilitate sewer assets. Risk combines the effect of Likelihood of Failure (LOF) and Consequence of Failure (COF) to perform a complete two-dimensional analysis that allows for relative comparison between different pipes in the system. The LOF rating has been equated to pipe integrity while the COF rating was related to the environmental, economic, and …

Ir-Depth Face Detection And Lip Localization Using Kinect V2, Katherine Kayan Fong

Master's Theses

Face recognition and lip localization are two main building blocks in the development of audio visual automatic speech recognition systems (AV-ASR). In many earlier works, face recognition and lip localization were conducted in uniform lighting conditions with simple backgrounds. However, such conditions are seldom the case in real world applications. In this paper, we present an approach to face recognition and lip localization that is invariant to lighting conditions. This is done by employing infrared and depth images captured by the Kinect V2 device. First we present the use of infrared images for face detection. Second, we use the face’s …

Micro Electrostatic Actuation Of A Silicon Diaphragm, Matthew W. Samples

Master's Theses

There are a number of applications, from hearing aids to microfluidic pumps, which utilize micro-scale actuating diaphragms. These MEMS (micro-electromechanical system) devices can be actuated by electrostatic forces, which utilize an induced electric field to pull two charged plates towards one another. Such devices were fabricated and electrostatic actuation of the diaphragms was performed to analyze its viability as a micro-speaker. The long-term performance of such products requires adequate diaphragm deflection to create audible pressure waves with relatively low maximum stresses to ensure a high cycle fatigue life. With these requirements, initial calculations and FEA (finite element analysis) were performed …

Development Of Electronics, Software, And Graphical User Control Interface For A Wall-Climbing Robot, Lynda Beatriz Tesillo

Master's Theses

The objective for this project is to investigate various electrical and software means of control to support and advance the development of a novel vacuum adhesion system for a wall-climbing robot. The design and implementation of custom electronics and a wirelessly controlled real-time software system used to define and support the functionalities of these electronics is discussed. The testing and evaluation of the overall system performance and the performance of the several different subsystems developed, while working both individually and cooperatively within the system, is also demonstrated.

Treatment Of Petroleum Hydrocarbons In Oil-Based Drill Cutting Mud Using Biowish Bioaugmentation Products, Diego Jose Cardenas Zepeda

Master's Theses

The efficacy of BiOWiSHTM-Thai Aqua, a commercially discontinued microbial product, in remediating oil based drill-cutting mud (DCM) was researched in this study. Experimentation was performed directly on DCM and on sand contaminated with oil extracted from DCM. A gas chromatograph-mass spectrometrer and a respirometer were used for analysis of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) and CO2 production respectively. Five experiments were analyzed by TPH extraction and analysis; four experiments were analyzed by respirometric analysis. The specific microcosm conditions tested in the experiments were control, nutrient-only control, and bioaugmentation product.

This study concluded that there might be potential for bioaugmentation of TPH …

A Finite Element Analysis On The Viscoelasticity Of Postmenopausal Compact Bone Utilizing A Complex Collagen D-Spacing Model, Austin C. Cummings

Master's Theses

The nanoscale dimension known as D-spacing describes the staggering of collagen molecules, which are fundamental to the biphasic makeup of bone tissue. This dimension was long assumed to be constant, but recent studies have shown that the periodicity of collagen is variable. Given that the arrangement of collagen molecules is closely related to the degree of bone mineralization, recent studies have begun to look at D-spacing as a potential factor in the ongoing effort to battle postmenopausal osteoporosis. The theoretical models presented by previous studies have only opted to model a single collagen-hydroxyapatite period, so the creation of an intricate …

Characterization Of Two Vernier-Tuned Distributed Bragg Reflector (Vt-Dbr) Lasers Used In Swept Source Optical Coherence Tomography (Ss-Oct), Greg M. Bergdoll

Master's Theses

Insight Photonic Solutions Inc. has continued to develop their patented VT-DBR laser design; these wavelength tunable lasers promise marked image-quality and acquisition time improvements in SS-OCT applications.

To be well suited for SS-OCT, tunable lasers must be capable of producing a highly linear wavelength sweep across a tuning range well-matched to the medium being imaged; many different tunable lasers used in SS-OCT are compared to identify the optimal solution.

This work electrically and spectrally characterizes two completely new all-semiconductor VT-DBR designs to compare, as well. The Neptune VT-DBR, an O-band laser, operates around the 1310 nm range and is a …