Engineering Commons^™

Modernizing Irrigational Facilities At Sutter Mutual Water Company: A Case Study, Frederick F. Schantz, Stuart W. Styles, Beau J. Freeman, Charles M. Burt, Doughlas Stevens

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

In 1999 Sutter Mutual Water Company (SMWC) began an effort to modernize its water-distribution system in an attempt to reduce operation and maintenance costs and conserve water and power resources. The primary technical support was provided by professionals from the Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC), California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo. Additional technical expertise was provided by Concepts in Controls of Visalia, California and Wilson Pumps of Woodland, California. This modernization project was partially funded by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), Mid-Pacific Region, Northern Area Office, though a Field Services Program Grant and technical …

A Method For Thermodynamic Work Potential Analysis Of Aircraft Engines, Robert Mcdonald

Aerospace Engineering

The objective of this paper is to provide a tool to facilitate the application of thermodynamic work potential methods to aircraft and engine analysis. This starts with a discussion of the theoretical background underlying these methods, which is then used to derive various equations useful for thermodynamic analysis of aircraft engines. The work potential analysis method is implemented in the form of a set of working charts and tables than can be used to graphically evaluate work potential stored in high-enthalpy gas. The range of validity for these charts is 300 to 36,000 °R, pressures between 0.01 and 100 atm, …

Closure To "Flap Gate Design For Automatic Upstream Canal Water Level Control", Charles M. Burt, Russdon Angold, Mike Lehmkuhl, Stuart Styles

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Semiconducting Polymer Leds, David Braun

Electrical Engineering

Technologies based on organic semiconductors may answer the increasing demands that consumers make in the areas of large-area electronics, lightweight displays, and portable computing. Advances in scientific understanding, technology, and device performance have occurred particularly rapidly in the area of polymer light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Material properties and economic considerations suggest that polymer LEDs are the devices most likely to win the race to applications that produce light on inorganic substrates such as glass and silicon, as well as plastic substrates.
The field of semiconducting polymers has its root in the 1977 discovery of the semiconducting properties of polyacetylene¹. …

Fast Landmark-Based Registration Via Deterministic And Efficient Processing, Some Preliminary Results, Fred W. Depiero

Electrical Engineering

Preliminary results of a new method for range view registration are presented. The method incorporates the LeRP Algorithm, which is a deterministic means to approximate subgraph isomorphisms. Graphs are formed that describe salient scene features. Graph matching then provides the scene-to-scene correspondence necessary for registration. A graphical representation is invariant with respect to sensor standoff. Test results from real and synthetic images indicate that a reasonable tradeoff between speed and accuracy is achievable. A mean rotational error of ~1 degree was found for a variety of test cases. Mean compute times were found to be better than 2 Hz, with …

Suggestions For Establishing Centers For Engineering Education, Trevor S. Harding, Cynthia J. Finelli

Materials Engineering

No abstract provided.

P.A.C.E.S. - A Study On Academic Integrity Among Engineering Undergraduates (Preliminary Conclusions), Donald D. Carpenter, Trevor S. Harding, Susan M. Montgomery, Nicholas H. Steneck

Materials Engineering

Student academic dishonesty, commonly referred to as cheating, has become a serious problem at institutions of higher education. This is particularly true of engineering students who, according to previous research, are among the most likely to cheat in college. To investigate this concern, the authors have undertaken a research project on the Perceptions and Attitudes toward Cheating among Engineering Students (P.A.C.E.S.). The premise of this research is that a combination of pressures, rather than malicious motivations, account for most student cheating. The P.A.C.E.S study consists of a seven page, self-reported survey that investigates: (1) student definitions of academic dishonesty; (2) …

Integrating Manufacturing, Design And Teamwork Into A Materials And Process Selection Course, Trevor S. Harding, G. Y. Lai, B. L. Tuttle, C. V. White

Materials Engineering

No abstract provided.

Estimation Of Wind Load On Structures, Soheil Saadat, Fuh-Gwo Yuan, Mohammad N. Noori, Gregory D. Buckner

Office of the Dean (CENG) Scholarship

Accurate spatial and temporal estimation of wind loads on structures plays an important role in the design and construction of buildings in coastal regions and open terrains. The common approach to this problem is using codes and standards obtained from wind-tunnel tests on isolated structures. The use of artificial neural networks for finding specific patterns in data obtained from wind-tunnel and field tests has been reported in the literature. In this study localized radial basis functions neural networks are proposed and successfully used for estimation of wind loads on a three-story shear building using a state-space model of the structure.

The Effect Of Alloying On The Properties Of (Nb, Ti)Cr2 C15 Laves Phases, Dan J. Thoma, K. A. Nibur, Katherine C. Chen, J. C. Cooley, L. B. Dauelsberg, W. L. Hults, Paul G. Kotula

Materials Engineering

The effect of composition on the ternary (NbCr₂–TiCr₂) C15 phase properties has been investigated, focusing upon the defect structure, elastic properties, and mechanical behavior. The C15 phase field is continuous between NbCr₂–TiCr₂, with a maximum phase field width of at least 7 at.% solubility. The defect mechanism is governed by anti-site constitutional defects for all alloys. Mechanically, the alloys display a maximum in hardness in the center of the ternary phase field (and a minimum of toughness). The ternary phase field has features that are characteristic of solid-solution strengthening mechanisms. …

Dynamic Properties Of Fire Sprinkler Systems, James S. Dillingham, Rakesh K. Goel

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Four fire protection systems have been attached to a small building model for testing their dynamic properties. Three of the systems used CPVC (fire rated) plastic pipes while the fourth was made from schedule-40 steel pipe. The building model was securely attached to a three by three foot shake table in one of two orientations and was able to experience base accelerations along both its principle axis (longitudinal, transverse). Test procedures involved sending a sine sweep with a progressively increasing frequency at a constant acceleration value. Various recording locations provided data showing fundamental frequencies with pronounced amplification over the base …

Complex Low-Pass Filters, Peter Kiss, Vladimir I. Prodanov, Jack Glas

Electrical Engineering

Quadrature zero-if transceivers suffer from the imbalance of the I and Q paths. By using a complex low-pass filter topology instead of a conventional pair of real low-pass filters, this imperfection can be reduced. Both analytical and numerical analysis show that the proposed technique is significantly more robust to circuit imperfections than the traditional architecture.

Automatic Speechreading With Application To Speaker Verification, Charles C. Broun, Xiaozheng Zhang, Russell M. Mersereau, Mark A. Clements

Electrical Engineering

Speech not only conveys the linguistic information, but also characterizes the talker's identify and therefore can be used in personal authentication. While most of the speech information is contained in the acoustic channel, the lip movement during speech production also provides useful information. In this paper we investigate the effectiveness of visual speech features in a speaker veri pound sterling cation task. We pound sterling rst present the visual front-end of the automatic speechreading system. We then develop a recognition engine to train and recognize sequences of visual parameters. The experimental results based on the XM2VTS database [1] demonstrate that …

Visual Speech Feature Extraction For Improved Speech Recognition, Xiaozheng Zhang, Russell M. Mersereau, Mark A. Clements, Charles C. Broun

Electrical Engineering

Mainstream automatic speech recognition has focused almost exclusively on the acoustic signal. The performance of these systems degrades considerably in the real world in the presence of noise. On the other hand, most human listeners, both hearing-impaired and normal hearing, make use of visual information to improve speech perception in acoustically hostile environments. Motivated by humans' ability to lipread, the visual component is considered to yield information that is not always present in the acoustic signal and enables improved accuracy over totally acoustic systems, especially in noisy environments. In this paper, we investigate the usefulness of visual information in speech …

Arrival Rate Identification For A Class Of Traffic Signal Control Problem, Xiao-Hua Yu, Allen R. Stubberud

Electrical Engineering

Setting signals at traffic intersections to reduce congestion is one of the most challenging problems in traffic management. To find the optimal control strategy, specific information of the traffic flows passing through intersections must be provided in advance. It has been shown that the Markovian decision control theory can be successfully applied to solve traffic signal control problems, when both the state transition probabilities and the one-step reward function are known. In this paper, an online parameter identification algorithm is investigated for adaptive Markovian decision control at an isolated traffic intersection with unknown vehicle arrival rates. The authors give a …

Phase Changes In Ni-Ti Under Laser Shock Loading, R. E. Hackenberg, D. C. Swift, J. C. Cooley, Katherine C. Chen, D. J. Thoma, D. L. Paisley, A. Hauer

Materials Engineering

Near-equiatomic Ni-Ti, known for its shape memory behavior, can decompose to martensitic phases and/or second phase compounds. This phase competition is investigated in Ni_xTi_100-x (494Ti₃ but no martensite in the AQ state, consistent with resistivity and dilatometry results which showed no hysteresis indicative of first order phase changes over 1.9 K4Ti₃ amounts (present in the AQ state) did change upon loading, indicating the importance of shock-induced heating. A thermodynamically complete equation of state (EOS) for NiTi in its B2 (CsCl) structure was generated by ab initio quantum mechanical calculations. This was tested by …

Influence Of Inclined Viscous Damper On Column Axial Force, Rakesh K. Goel

Civil and Environmental Engineering

This investigation examined the influence of inclined viscous damper on column axial force in a simple one-story frame building for harinonic loading and earthquake ground motion. It is shown that the peak column axial force in a system with inclined damper can be several times that in a system with horizontal damper, both having the same damping ratio. The amplification factor increases with increasing ratio of the forcing frequency to the system's natural frequency for harmonic loading, and with increasing system's natural vibration period for earthquake loading; the amplification also increases with increasing damping ratio. Furthermore, the peak column axial …

A Taxonomy Of Scheduling Problems In Semiconductor Device Test Operations, Tali Freed, Robert C. Leachman, Kenneth H. Doerr

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Semiconductor device test facilities differ not only by production volume and tester brands. The complexity of the devices and the characteristics of the testers affect the scheduling methodologies as well. Goals and strategies vary from one firm to another, leading to a variety of objectives and performance measures. Due to random yield lot size is variable and lot priorities are common. Changeover times are oftentimes sequence-dependent. Since semiconductor device testing systems are very costly, scheduling methods that increase the throughput of the facility are financially significant. In this paper we describe a variety of semiconductor device testing environments, develop mathematical …

A Mixture Of Elastic Materials With Different Constituent Temperatures And Internal Constraints, Stephen M. Klisch

Mechanical Engineering

A novel treatment of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and the development of general thermomechanical constraints are introduced for a mixture of two elastic materials in which the constituents may have different temperatures. First, a homothermal quasi-static process at a common mixture temperature is introduced. Part I of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is invoked to assert that the Clausius integrals are path-independent, which leads to a prescription, or an identification, of the partial entropy functions. Then, two assumptions are introduced that establish the values of the partial entropy functions for general processes, including those for which the constituent temperatures …

Thin Film Interference Filters For 25ghz Channel Spacing, M. A. Scobey, R. M. Fortenberry, L. F. Stokes, W. P. Kastanis, Dennis J. Derickson

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Modal Pushover Analysis: Sac Buildings Excluding Gravity Loads, Anil K. Chopra, Rakesh K. Goel

Civil and Environmental Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Modal Pushover Analysis Procedure For Estimating Seismic Demands For Buildings, Anil K. Chopra, Rakesh K. Goel

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Developed herein is an improved pushover analysis procedure based on structural dynamics theory, which retains the conceptual simplicity and computational attractiveness of current procedures with invariant force distribution. In this modal pushover analysis (MPA), the seismic demand due to individual terms in the modal expansion of the effective earthquake forces is determined by a pushover analysis using the inertia force distribution for each mode. Combining these ‘modal’ demands due to the first two or three terms of the expansion provides an estimate of the total seismic demand on inelastic systems. When applied to elastic systems, the MPA procedure is shown …

Kinetics Of Mn(Ii) Oxidation By Leptothrix Discophora Ss1, Jinghao Zhang, Leonard W. Lion, Yarrow M. Nelson, Michael L. Shuler, William C. Ghiorse

Civil and Environmental Engineering

The kinetics of Mn(II) oxidation by the bacterium Leptothrix discophora SS1 was investigated in this research. Cells were grown in a minimal mineral salts medium in which chemical speciation was well defined. Mn(II) oxidation was observed in a bioreactor under controlled conditions with pH, O>sub>2, and temperature regulation. Mn(II) oxidation experiments were performed at cell concentrations between 24 mg/L and 35 mg/L, over a pH range from 6 to 8.5, between temperatures of 10°C and 40°C, over a dissolved oxygen range of 0 to 8.05 mg/L, and with L. discophora SS1 cells that were grown in the presence …

A Biomechanical Comparison Of Three Sternotomy Closure Techniques, David J. Cohen, Lanny V. Griffin

Biomedical Engineering

Background. A biomechanical study of three sternotomy closuretechniques (figure-of-eight stainless-steel wires, PectofixDynamic Sternal Fixation [DSF] stainless-steel plates, and figure-of-eightstainless-steel cables) was conducted to compare strength andstiffness variables in three clinically relevant loading modes(anterior-posterior shear, longitudinal shear, and lateral distraction).

Methods. All tests were conducted on polyurethane foam sternalmodels that simulate the properties of cancellous bone. Eachmodel was divided longitudinally and reconstructed using oneof the sternotomy closure repair techniques. Tests were performedusing a materials testing system that applies a continuouslyincreasing amount of force in one direction to the model untilit catastrophically breaks. A total of six trials of each …

Evaporation From Irrigated Agricultural Land In California, Charles M. Burt, Andrew Mutziger, Daniel Howes, Kenneth H. Solomon

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Variable Frequency Drives And Scada — Are They Worthwhile Investments?, Charles M. Burt, Daniel J. Howes

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

Managers and personnel from five California irrigation districs were interviewed to determine if installing variable frequency drives (VFDs) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems were worthwhile investments.

Infrared Inspection, Charles M. Burt, Daniel J. Howes

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

Infrared thermography is the use of infrared radiation to qualitatively and quantitatively express heat signatures and heat differences. Infrared inspection can help identify weak connections in an electrical box, uneven heating of pump windings, overheating of bearings, and many other possibly devastating problems well before any failure occurs. The use of thermography as a preventative tool can increase system reliability and efficiency.

Wireless Lans, Jack Glas, Mihai Banu, Joachim Hammerschmidt, Vladimir I. Prodanov, Peter Kiss

Electrical Engineering

Wireless LANs based on the IEEE 802.11 standard have achieved wide customer acceptance in the enterprise environment. They are expected to continue to expand in popularity and become ubiquitous communication systems even in private and public places. This paper discusses the basics of the wireless LAN physical layer, focusing on radio transceiver specifications and design options.

Automatic Speechreading With Applications To Human-Computer Interfaces, Xiaozheng Zhang, Charles C. Broun, Russell M. Mersereau, Mark A. Clements

Electrical Engineering

There has been growing interest in introducing speech as a new modality into the human-computer interface (HCI). Motivated by the multimodal nature of speech, the visual component is considered to yield information that is not always present in the acoustic signal and enables improved system performance over acoustic-only methods, especially in noisy environments. In this paper, we investigate the usefulness of visual speech information in HCI related applications. We first introduce a new algorithm for automatically locating the mouth region by using color and motion information and segmenting the lip region by making use of both color and edge information …

Basic Design Of Replogle Flumes, Charles M. Burt, Stuart W. Styles

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

To facilitate accurate flow measurement, this paper describes specific design and construction considerations applicable to Replogle flumes in irrigation applications. A design example is provided to illustrate these concepts.