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Articles 1291 - 1320 of 2584

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Optimal Design Of Validation Experiments For Calibration And Validation Of Complex Numerical Models, Matthew Egeberg Aug 2014

Optimal Design Of Validation Experiments For Calibration And Validation Of Complex Numerical Models, Matthew Egeberg

All Theses

As prediction of the performance and behavior of complex engineering systems shifts from a primarily empirical-based approach to the use of complex physics-based numerical models, the role of experimentation is evolving to calibrate, validate, and quantify uncertainty of the numerical models. Oftentimes, these experiments are expensive, placing importance on selecting experimental settings to efficiently calibrate the numerical model with a limited number of experiments. The aim of this thesis is to reduce the experimental resources required to reach predictive maturity in complex numerical models by (i) aiding experimenters in determining the optimal settings for experiments, and (ii) aiding the model …

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Design And Simulation Of A Nerve Tracer System For Vagotomy Surgery, Guneet Bedi Aug 2014

Design And Simulation Of A Nerve Tracer System For Vagotomy Surgery, Guneet Bedi

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The vagus nerve is one of the most important nerves in the human body. It is associated with a plethora of functions one of them being acid secretion inside the stomach to aid in digestion. The cerebrum part of the brain initiates an action potential that is propagated along the vagus nerve to the parietal cells that secrete acid. In some cases, the cerebrum over stimulates the parietal cells leading to excess acid secretion, more than is needed for the digestion process. This excess acid leads to the formation of open sores along the stomach lining called gastric/peptic ulcers. In …

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Verifying A Systematic Application To Accelerator Roadmap Using Shallow Water Wave Equations, Ranajeet Anand Aug 2014

Verifying A Systematic Application To Accelerator Roadmap Using Shallow Water Wave Equations, Ranajeet Anand

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With the advent of parallel computing, a number of hardware architectures have become available for data parallel applications. Every architecture is unique with respect to characteristics such as floating point operations per second, memory bandwidth and synchronization costs. Data parallel applications possess inherent parallelism that needs to be studied and the hardware that can best exploit this parallelism can be identified and selected for large-scale implementation. The application that I have considered for my thesis is - numerical solution of shallow water wave equations using finite difference method. These equations are a set of partial differential equations that model the …

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Finite Element Beam Model For Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Using Higher Order Shear Deformation Theory, Akhilesh Surabhi Aug 2014

Finite Element Beam Model For Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Using Higher Order Shear Deformation Theory, Akhilesh Surabhi

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Piezoelectric energy harvesting devices convert mechanical energy to usable electrical energy, which can be used to power other electronic devices and sensors. Typical piezoelectric harvesters are unimorph cantilever composite beams, which have a single active piezoceramic layer and a passive substrate or a bimorph that has a passive substrate sandwiched between two piezoceramic layers. Power is captured across a coupled load resistor circuit in either a series or parallel connection. The mathematical modeling approaches for piezoelectric beam harvesters present in literature range from analytical distributed parameter modeling, to approximate distributed parameter, Rayleigh- Ritz global discretization or finite element local discretization. …

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Acoustic Scattering And Radiation Response Of Circular Hexagonal And Auxetic Honeycomb Shell Structures, Vaibhav Iyer Aug 2014

Acoustic Scattering And Radiation Response Of Circular Hexagonal And Auxetic Honeycomb Shell Structures, Vaibhav Iyer

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Sandwich panels with honeycomb cores are used in many engineering applications because of their high strength to weight ratio, vibration isolation and sound transmission loss characteristics. Previous studies indicate that such sandwich structures with auxetic honeycomb cores (negative in-plane Poisson's ratio) can have a higher sound transmission loss compared to a regular hexagonal honeycomb core structure. In this study, sound scattering and acoustic radiation characteristics of sandwich structures with hexagonal and auxetic cores arranged in a circular pattern interacting with exterior acoustic domains of both air and water have been investigated using finite element analysis. A novel in-plane honeycomb geometry …

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Application Of Bamboo For Flexural And Shear Reinforcement In Concrete Beams, Nathan Schneider Aug 2014

Application Of Bamboo For Flexural And Shear Reinforcement In Concrete Beams, Nathan Schneider

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As the developing world is industrializing and people migrate to cities, the need for infrastructure is growing quickly and concrete has become one of the most widely used construction materials. One poor construction practice observed widely across the developing world is the minimal use of reinforcement for concrete structures due to the high cost of steel. As a low-cost, high-performance material with good mechanical properties, bamboo has been investigated as an alternative to steel for reinforcing concrete. The goal of this research is to add to the knowledge base of bamboo reinforced concrete (BRC) by investigating a unique stirrup design …

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Ecohydrological Function Of Lower Coastal Plain Bioretention Cells In South Carolina, Jessica Palazzolo Aug 2014

Ecohydrological Function Of Lower Coastal Plain Bioretention Cells In South Carolina, Jessica Palazzolo

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Flooding and stormwater control is a critical issue in coastal South Carolina because of shallow water table elevation, topography and rapid urbanization in the region. A best management practice (BMP) using low impact design (LID) principles known as a bioretention cell (BRC) is gaining popularity for stormwater management. Five BRCs in four landscape positions (well-drained uplands, tidal-proximal, poorly-drained-uplands, and floodplain) were instrumented for microclimate, soil moisture, and water table elevation for hydraulic efficiency and for water quality measurements. Three BRCs did not have an overflow outlets, one BRC (floodplain) employed an underdrain system, and one BRC (tidal proximal) had an …

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Hollow Massive Timber Panels: A High-Performance, Long-Span Alternative To Cross Laminated Timber, William Graham Montgomery Aug 2014

Hollow Massive Timber Panels: A High-Performance, Long-Span Alternative To Cross Laminated Timber, William Graham Montgomery

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Since the development of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), there has been a surge in interest in massive timber buildings. Furthermore, recent conceptual and feasibility designs of massive timber towers of 30 or more stories indicate that performance of mass timber structural elements can compete with other building materials in the commercial industry (MGB Architecture and Design et al.). However, in order for massive timber to penetrate the commercial market even further, a solution is needed for long-span massive timber floor systems. Unfortunately, CLT falls short in this area and is unable to span long distances. The hollow massive timber (HMT) …

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Anaerobic And Aerobic Biodegradation Of The Oil Dispersant Components 1,2-Propanediol And 2-Butoxyethanol In Seawater, Benjamin Rhiner Aug 2014

Anaerobic And Aerobic Biodegradation Of The Oil Dispersant Components 1,2-Propanediol And 2-Butoxyethanol In Seawater, Benjamin Rhiner

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Oil spills are a recurring issue associated with fossil fuel consumption. The largest accidental oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry was the Deepwater Horizon explosion and seafloor well blowout, where the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank, allowing the well to gush uncontrolled from April 20, 2010, until it was capped on July 15, 2010, releasing an estimated 210,000,000 gallons of oil. Oil dispersants were used in unprecedented quantities during the cleanup response to the spill with a total of 1,840,000 gallons of the dispersant COREXIT being applied. The goal of this research was to evaluate …

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Automatically Measuring Individual Consumption Events During Natural Eating Using A Table Embedded Scale, Ryan Mattfeld Aug 2014

Automatically Measuring Individual Consumption Events During Natural Eating Using A Table Embedded Scale, Ryan Mattfeld

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This thesis is motivated to improve the tools available for tracking energy intake. The goal of this work is to develop a table-embedded scale capable of measuring the weight of individual consumption events during unrestricted eating. The method was tested on a data set gathered from 276 subjects eating 518 courses consisting of 22,383 marked individual consumption events in a cafeteria environment. Approximately 30% of the consumption events can be detected and weighed. The remaining 70% of the events occur without participants interacting with the scale or when noisy interactions with the scale prevent weight measurement. The relationship between bite …

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Static And Dynamic In Vitro Testing Of Estrogen Coated Balloons, Adam Metzger Aug 2014

Static And Dynamic In Vitro Testing Of Estrogen Coated Balloons, Adam Metzger

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Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Atherosclerosis is the main contributing factor for CVD. Current treatment methods for atherosclerosis include balloon angioplasty and stent implantation, which both have drawbacks associated with them. Balloon angioplasty shows restenosis in 3-6 months after deployment in 25-50% of patients. Bare metal stents have all the risks associated with implanting a medical device in a blood contacting area along with restenosis due to neointimal hyperplasia and stent fracture. In coronary arteries, drug-eluting stents (DES) have been shown to be very safe and effective with a very low percentage of …

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Modeling And Design Strategy Of Online Advertising Ecosystem, Qiuchen Wang Aug 2014

Modeling And Design Strategy Of Online Advertising Ecosystem, Qiuchen Wang

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Internet has undoubtedly become a major and effective medium for advertising, and it will soon replace traditional advertising media. Online advertising ecosystem is consisted of thousands of agents, which can be divided into three types: users, advertisers and publishers. Each type of the agents plays an important role in the ecosystem. However, it is generally very difficult to model such a complex and large-scale system, not to mention the design of suitable strategies for the ecosystem. On the other side, replicator-mutator (RM) dynamics combine tools from evolutionary dynamics of populations, complex networks, and control theory to study evolution of behavior …

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Workability-Integrated Mixture Proportioning Method For Pervious Concrete, Betiglu Eshete Jimma Aug 2014

Workability-Integrated Mixture Proportioning Method For Pervious Concrete, Betiglu Eshete Jimma

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Portland cement pervious concrete (PCPC) is increasingly gaining attention as a preferred material in selected pavement applications. This concrete has several unique features, which makes it an environment-friendly construction material. Its porous structure allows precipitation to infiltrate directly into the ground. This reduces accumulation of a large amount of storm water in areas of heavy storms and recharges the ground water system, thus reducing the need for expensive storm water collection and treatment systems. Also, it allows the pollutants on pavement surfaces such as motor oil, etc. to drain into the subsurface be treated by native microbes in the soil, …

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Building Envelope Failure Assessment Of Residential Developments Subjected To Hurricane Wind Hazards, James Grayson Aug 2014

Building Envelope Failure Assessment Of Residential Developments Subjected To Hurricane Wind Hazards, James Grayson

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An unfortunate global precedent has been set by hurricane wind hazard events that illustrate the importance of building resilient coastal communities. Although community resilience is heavily dependent upon the socioeconomic response of the community before, during, and after a hazard event, it is also dependent on the vulnerability of the community to a disaster. Therefore, one way that structural engineers can assist communities in becoming more resilient is to investigate and implement methods that mitigate the 'initial shock' experienced by a residential development subjected to a hazard event. The focus of this research was to develop a mechanics-based building envelope …

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A Study Of Automatic Detection And Classification Of Eeg Epileptiform Transients, Jing Zhou Aug 2014

A Study Of Automatic Detection And Classification Of Eeg Epileptiform Transients, Jing Zhou

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This Dissertation documents methods for automatic detection and classification of epileptiform transients, which are important clinical issues. There are two main topics: (1) Detection of paroxysmal activities in EEG; and (2) Classification of paroxysmal activities. This machine learning algorithms were trained on expert opinion which was provided as annotations in clinical EEG recordings, which are called 'yellow boxes' (YBs). The Dissertation describes improved wavelet-based features which are used in machine learning algorithms to detect events in clinical EEG. It also reveals the influence of electrode positions and cardinality of datasets on the outcome. Furthermore, it studies the utility of using …

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Equilibrium And Dynamic Charge Storage In Nanopores With Room Temperature Ionic Liquids, Peng Wu Aug 2014

Equilibrium And Dynamic Charge Storage In Nanopores With Room Temperature Ionic Liquids, Peng Wu

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Electrochemical capacitors store electrical energy physically in the electrical double layers at the electrode/electrolyte interfaces. In spite of their high power density and extraordinary cyclability, the widespread deployment of electrochemical capacitors is limited by their moderate energy density. The current surge in interest in electrochemical capacitors is driven by recent breakthroughs in developing novel electrode and electrolyte materials. In particular, electrodes featuring sub-nanometer pores and room-temperature ionic liquids are promising materials for next-generation electrochemical capacitors. To realize the full potential of these materials, a basic understanding of the charge storage mechanisms in them is essential. In this Dissertation, using atomistic …

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Integrating Visual Mnemonics And Input Feedback With Passphrases To Improve The Usability And Security Of Digital Authentication, Kevin Juang Aug 2014

Integrating Visual Mnemonics And Input Feedback With Passphrases To Improve The Usability And Security Of Digital Authentication, Kevin Juang

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The need for both usable and secure authentication is more pronounced than ever before. Security researchers and professionals will need to have a deep understanding of human factors to address these issues. Due to their ubiquity, recoverability, and low barrier of entry, passwords remain the most common means of digital authentication. However, fundamental human nature dictates that it is exceedingly difficult for people to generate secure passwords on their own. System-generated random passwords can be secure but are often unusable, which is why most passwords are still created by humans. We developed a simple system for automatically generating mnemonic phrases …

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Optical Forces In Nanophotonic Structures, Chenguang Huang Aug 2014

Optical Forces In Nanophotonic Structures, Chenguang Huang

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Nowadays, optical forces are widely used to control or measure the position of micrometer- to nanometer-sized particles, such as living cells, DNA and bacteria. Two major categories of optical forces are discussed here: gradient or dipole force and scattering force. The gradient force is originated from the fact that a polarizable micro-particle placed in a laterally varying optical field will experience different forces in the positively and negatively charged sides. In this thesis, we investigate the optical gradient force in 2D hybrid and plasmonic waveguides. Compared to the conventional dielectric waveguides, we show that the optical force can be enhanced …

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Predictive Model Development For Adsorption Of Organic Contaminants By Carbon Nanotubes, Onur Apul Aug 2014

Predictive Model Development For Adsorption Of Organic Contaminants By Carbon Nanotubes, Onur Apul

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The main objective of the study was to investigate mechanisms and statistical modeling of synthetic organic contaminant (SOC) adsorption by carbon nanotubes (CNTs). First, predictive models were developed for adsorption of low molecular weight aromatic compounds by multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) using experimental data for 59 compounds. Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) and linear solvation energy relationship (LSER) approaches were employed and developed models were externally validated using an independent dataset obtained from the literature. Up to date, no QSAR model has been reported for predicting adsorption of organics by CNTs. No LSER model is available which comprehensively investigates the adsorption …

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Synthesis And Characterization Of Nanoscale Polymer Films Grafted To Metal Surfaces, Yuriy Galabura Aug 2014

Synthesis And Characterization Of Nanoscale Polymer Films Grafted To Metal Surfaces, Yuriy Galabura

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Anchoring thin polymer films to metal surfaces allows us to alter, tune, and control their biocompatibility, lubrication, friction, wettability, and adhesion, while the unique properties of the underlying metallic substrates, such as magnetism and electrical conductivity, remain unaltered. This polymer/metal synergy creates significant opportunities to develop new hybrid platforms for a number of devices, actuators, and sensors. This present work focused on the synthesis and characterization of polymer layers grafted to the surface of metal objects. We report the development of a novel method for surface functionalization of arrays of high aspect ratio nickel nanowires/micronails. The polymer 'grafting to' technique …

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Projections Of Future Us Design Wind Speeds Due To Climate Change For Estimating Hurricane Losses, Fangqian Liu Aug 2014

Projections Of Future Us Design Wind Speeds Due To Climate Change For Estimating Hurricane Losses, Fangqian Liu

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Hurricane is among the most dangerous and costliest natural hazards that affect the coastal environment of the United States (U.S.) every year. Hurricane activities have been observed to change in many aspects since the last century including the changes in both intensity and annual storm frequency. The extent to which aspect of climate change contributes to the variation in hurricane activities from long-term historical statistics is still not clearly understood at this point. This study examines the impacts of two climate change effects (change in annual storm frequency and sea surface temperature) on future U.S. design wind speeds for the …

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Investigation Of Concurrent Energy Harvesting From Ambient Vibrations And Wind, Amin Bibo Aug 2014

Investigation Of Concurrent Energy Harvesting From Ambient Vibrations And Wind, Amin Bibo

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In recent years, many new concepts for micro-power generation have been introduced to harness wasted energy from the environment and maintain low-power electronics including wireless sensors, data transmitters, controllers, and medical implants. Generally, such systems aim to provide a cheap and compact alternative energy source for applications where battery charging or replacement is expensive, time consuming, and/or cumbersome. Within the vast field of micro-power generation, utilizing the piezoelectric effect to generate an electric potential in response to mechanical stimuli has recently flourished as a major thrust area. Based on the nature of the ambient excitation, piezoelectric energy harvesters are divided …

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Towards Efficient File Sharing And Packet Routing In Mobile Opportunistic Networks, Kang Chen Aug 2014

Towards Efficient File Sharing And Packet Routing In Mobile Opportunistic Networks, Kang Chen

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With the increasing popularity of portable digital devices (e.g., smartphones, laptops, and tablets), mobile opportunistic networks (MONs) [40, 90] consisting of portable devices have attracted much attention recently. MONs are also known as pocket switched networks (PSNs) [52]. MONs can be regarded as a special form of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) [7] or delay tolerant networks (DTNs) [35, 56]. In such networks, mobile nodes (devices) move continuously and meet opportunistically. Two mobile nodes can communicate with each other only when they are within the communication range of each other in a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner (i.e., without the need of …

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The Effects Of Amine Structure, Chloramine Species And Oxidation Strategies On The Formation Of N-Nitrosodimethylamine, Meric Selbes Aug 2014

The Effects Of Amine Structure, Chloramine Species And Oxidation Strategies On The Formation Of N-Nitrosodimethylamine, Meric Selbes

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To comply with the increasingly stringent disinfection by-product (DBP) regulations in the United States, many water treatment plants have been switching from chlorination to chloramination in the last decade. Although chloramination reduces the formation of regulated DBPs such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, it causes the formation of nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are a class of compounds that are probable human carcinogens, mutagens and teratogens at concentrations as low as 0.2 ng/L. In particular, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) is the most frequently detected nitrosamine in distribution systems in the United States. Although, nitrosamines are currently not regulated by the USEPA, they have been recently …

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Advanced Bulk Processing Of Lightweight Materials For Utilization In The Transportation Sector, Justin Milner Aug 2014

Advanced Bulk Processing Of Lightweight Materials For Utilization In The Transportation Sector, Justin Milner

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The overall objective of this research is to develop the microstructure of metallic lightweight materials via multiple advanced processing techniques with potentials for industrial utilization on a large scale to meet the demands of the aerospace and automotive sectors. This work focused on (i) refining the grain structure to increase the strength, (ii) controlling the texture to increase formability and (iii) directly reducing processing/production cost of lightweight material components. Advanced processing is conducted on a bulk scale by several severe plastic deformation techniques including: accumulative roll bonding, isolated shear rolling and friction stir processing to achieve the multiple targets of …

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Unified Dynamics And Control Of A Robot Manipulator Mounted On A Vtol Aircraft Platform, Peng Xu Aug 2014

Unified Dynamics And Control Of A Robot Manipulator Mounted On A Vtol Aircraft Platform, Peng Xu

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An innovative type of mobile manipulator, designated Manipulator on VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) Aircraft (MOVA), is proposed as a potential candidate for autonomous execution of field work in less-structured indoor and outdoor environments. Practical use of the MOVA system requires a unified controller that addresses the coupled and complex dynamics of the composite system; especially the interaction of the robotic manipulator with the aircraft airframe. Model-based controller design methods require explicit dynamics models of the MOVA system. Preliminary investigation of a two-dimensional MOVA system toward a dynamics model and controller design is presented in preparation for developing the controller …

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Microfluidic Particle And Cell Manipulation Using Reservoir-Based Dielectrophoresis, Saurin Patel Aug 2014

Microfluidic Particle And Cell Manipulation Using Reservoir-Based Dielectrophoresis, Saurin Patel

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Controlled manipulation of synthetic particles and biological cells from a complex mixture is important to a wide range of applications in biology, environmental monitoring, and pharmaceutical industry. In the past two decades microfluidics has evolved to be a very useful tool for particle and cell manipulations in miniaturized devices. A variety of force fields have been demonstrated to control particle and cell motions in microfluidic devices, among which electrokinetic techniques are most often used. However, to date, studies of electrokinetic transport phenomena have been primarily confined within the area of microchannels. Very few works have addressed the electrokinetic particle motion …

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Electrostatic And Electrical Transport Analysis Of Nanomaterials And Numerical Methods Development, Hua Li Aug 2014

Electrostatic And Electrical Transport Analysis Of Nanomaterials And Numerical Methods Development, Hua Li

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The nanotechnology today is continuously boosting the application of nanostructured materials in the development and innovation of electronic devices, such as Nano &ndash Electromechanical Systems (NEMS), electrical transistors, thermoelectric devices, and solar cells. Due to the size miniaturization, quantum mechanical effects play important roles in the performance of such devices. To correctly capture the quantum mechanical effects and understand how these effects influence the electrostatic and electrical transport properties of nanomaterials, efficient and accurate computational models are highly desirable. Currently, the commonly used model for electrostatic analysis of nanoscale devices is based on self &ndash consistent solution of the effective …

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Fluid Mud Gravity Currents Through Emergent Aquatic Vegetation, Nazli Yilmaz Aug 2014

Fluid Mud Gravity Currents Through Emergent Aquatic Vegetation, Nazli Yilmaz

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In this theoretical and experimental investigation, the propagation dynamics of the fluid-mud underflows form in pipeline dredge disposal operations in the designated areas are studied. These areas such as wetlands, nearshore waters are typically covered with stiff, cylindrical, emergent aquatic vegetation. The main goals of this study are to propose mathematical formulations for the bottom shear force and drag force of emergent stiff aquatic vegetation acting on the gravity current, and to present novel propagation modeling approaches. To be able to predict these forces, a friction coefficient (for the bottom shear force), and a drag coefficient (for vegetation skin friction …

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A Biophysical Understanding Of The Applications And Implications Of Nanomaterials, Nicholas Geitner Aug 2014

A Biophysical Understanding Of The Applications And Implications Of Nanomaterials, Nicholas Geitner

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The last few decades have seen an explosion in the study and application of nanomaterials that continues to grow at a dizzying pace. Despite exciting applications in nano-enabled electronics, materials, medicine, and environmental remediation, an understanding of the interactions of these materials with natural materials and systems and the resulting implications lags severely behind. The purpose of this Dissertation is to illuminate these interactions as well as develop novel environmental applications from a biophysical perspective. Following an introduction and literature review in Chapter 1, Chapters 2-4 will explore the application of dendritic polymers as novel and biocompatible oil dispersants for …

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