Engineering Commons^™

Embracing Identities And Affirming Agency: Exploring Effective Mentorship For Women Doctoral Students In Engineering Disciplines Using An Intersectional Lens, Jennifer Brown

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Positive mentoring experiences are crucial for retaining and advancing those who hold marginalized identities in STEM, as they foster a greater sense of belonging and self-efficacy that encourage these students to persist in their fields. Marginalized identities in STEM include, but are not limited to, women, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), low-income, first-generation, neurodivergent, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Oftentimes, these identities intersect, introduce additional nuance in interactions within engineering spaces, and affect the mentoring support that both mentees and their mentors require.

Prior research has shown the reciprocal value that is created when graduate students are …

Experimental And Computational Platforms For Studying Systems Mechanobiology, Brendyn Miller

All Dissertations

Mechanical stimulation through physical activity has been shown to play an important role in treating and preventing several non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, lower back pain (LBP), type-2 diabetes mellitus, and several cancers. This is accomplished through the regulation of cellular behavior and tissue remodeling within the body at both the micro- and macro-scale levels. The goal of mechanobiology research is to gain in-depth knowledge and understanding of how cells sense physical forces in conjunction with other biochemical cues and translate those factors into important biological functions that either maintain tissue homeostasis or lead to pathological states. Understanding these processes …

Hpc-Enabled Fast And Configurable Dynamic Simulation, Analysis, And Learning For Complex Power System Adaptation And Control, Cong Wang

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This dissertation presents an HPC-enabled fast and configurable dynamic simulation, analysis, and learning framework for complex power system adaptation and control. Dynamic simulation for a large transmission system comprising thousands of buses and branches implies the latency of complicated numerical computations. However, faster-than-real-time execution is often required to provide timely support for power system planning and operation. The traditional approaches for speeding up the simulation demand extensive computing facilities such as CPU-based multi-core supercomputers, resulting in heavily resource-dependent solutions. In this work, by coupling the Message Passing Interface (MPI) protocol with an advanced heterogeneous programming environment, further acceleration can be …

Addressing Mercury Contamination From Artisanal Gold Mining In Colombia: Pollution Exposure, Health Risk, And Educational Efforts In The Communities Of La Toma, Colombia, Kelli Mccourt

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Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) has become a primary environmental and public health concern in the region of Colombia known as Alto Cauca. The predominantly Afro-descendent communities of Yolombó and La Toma in Alto Cauca have experienced pollution linked to the use of mercury in the ASGM process. For the past decade, mercury has emerged as a contaminant of increasing concern in the communities due to its toxicity and ability to bioaccumulate and biomagnify. Likewise, mining in the region raises concerns over the leaching of metals into local waters. Given the complexity of risk and pollution in the communities, …

A Scalable Transmission And Distribution Co-Simulation Platform For Ibr-Heavy Power Systems, Yousu Chen

All Dissertations

The grid is evolving rapidly to meet the requirements of the clean energy transition. This evolution involves an increasing penetration of renewable energy resources and new complexities with a larger number of devices and controls spread across transmission and distribution networks. The boundary between transmission and distribution becomes blur. Consequently, we face significant challenges in managing the fundamental shift in power system physics. The ubiquitous use of Inverter Based Resources (IBRs) throughout the transmission and distribution systems has made it more difficult for the grid to maintain grid stability under dynamic conditions. Therefore, there is a strong need to explore …

Influence Of Photoreactor Design Parameters On The Performance Of Ultraviolet Light-Induced Degradation Of Per-And Polyfluoroalkyl Substances By Bismuth Oxy Hydroxy Phosphate And Hexagonal Boron Nitride Photocatalystsinfluence Of Photoreactor Design Parameters On The Performance Of Ultraviolet Light-Induced Degradation Of Per-And Polyfluoroalkyl Substances By Bismuth Oxy Hydroxy Phosphate And Hexagonal Boron Nitride Photocatalysts, Mojtaba Qanbarzadeh

All Dissertations

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the practical applicability of heterogeneous photocatalysis technology powered by ultraviolet (UV) photons for the degradation of per and -polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in contaminated groundwater samples. For this purpose, bismuth oxyhydroxy phosphate (BOHP) and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) were utilized as the main photocatalysts in slurry photodegradation systems. BOHP (Bi₃O(OH)(PO₄)₂) is a wide bandgap semiconductor with high activity for degrading long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs) in mild operational conditions. Boron nitride (BN) is another wide bandgap semiconductor material that was used in this study due to its …

Citrate Hydrogels For Regenerative Medicine Applications, Mark Pitman

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Regenerative medicine focuses on restoring cells and tissues to re-establish proper function. Hydrogels are a customizable and adaptable set of materials that can be engineered as tools for regenerative medicine. My research has focused on developing and applying biomaterials to spinal cord injury and chronic wounds. Spinal cord injury and chronic wounds share pathophysiological issues with oxidative stress, excess free, and macrophage polarization. Furthermore, both conditions lack robust, effective treatments. We hypothesized that citrate hydrogels – hydrogels that contain citric acid as a functional component – would provide radical scavenging and iron chelation that would benefit both conditions. The hydrogels …

Damage Detection With An Integrated Smart Composite Using A Magnetostriction-Based Nondestructive Evaluation Method: Integrating Machine Learning For Prediction, Christopher Nelon

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The development of composite materials for structural components necessitates methods for evaluating and characterizing their damage states after encountering loading conditions. Laminates fabricated from carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are lightweight alternatives to metallic plates; thus, their usage has increased in performance industries such as aerospace and automotive. Additive manufacturing (AM) has experienced a similar growth as composite material inclusion because of its advantages over traditional manufacturing methods. Fabrication with composite laminates and additive manufacturing, specifically fused filament fabrication (fused deposition modeling), requires material to be placed layer-by-layer. If adjacent plies/layers lose adhesion during fabrication or operational usage, the strength …

Workshop On Data For Ai In Network Systems - Event Summary, Kuang-Ching Wang, Ron Hutchins, Anita Nikolich

Workshop on Data for AI in Network Systems

No abstract provided.

Data For Ai In Network Systems Workshop Report, Kuang-Ching Wang, Ron Hutchins, Anita Nikolich

Workshop on Data for AI in Network Systems

No abstract provided.

The Professional Constructor, Full Issue, Volume 48, Number 01

The Professional Constructor

No abstract provided.

A Transport Property-Based Assessment Of Triple Ionic-Electronic Conductors As Cathodes For Protonic Ceramic Fuel Cells, Jack Harrison Duffy

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Triple ionic-electronic conductors (TIECs) are a widely studied class of materials for electrodes in ceramic electrochemical devices such as protonic ceramic fuel cells. These ceramics are perovskite-based and exhibit concurrent conductivity of protons, oxide ions, and electrons at elevated temperatures. Despite their numerous references in literature, few studies have systematically probed the fundamental surface- and bulk-level properties of TIECs. In this dissertation, dopant levels are systematically altered in the BaCo_0.4Fe_0.4Zr_0.1Y_0.1O_3-δ-type perovskite TIEC to reveal the effects on structure, transport properties, and durability of each material. The results of this work …

Tunable Linewidth Chip-Level Lasers Using Hybrid Integration Methods, Charles Porter

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Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have significant value in today’s world of research. They enable devices to experience large reductions in size, weight, operation power, and cost (SWAPc), making photonic technology more accessible than ever. The functionality of PICs is greatly enhanced due to the realization of both active and passive devices within a single device structure. This is made possible through hybrid integration, which utilizes various coupling methods to transfer light from an active chip to a passive chip. Hybrid integration technology tremendously expands the capabilities of PICs, leading to a plethora of applications. One significant application is that of …

The Potential Of Iron Electrodes In Electrochemical Cells For The Stabilization Of Synthetic Urine, Skyler Voisin

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Source separation and urine treatment present the opportunity to significantly reduce influent concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater treatment plants and to capture those minerals for reuse. This study aims to use electrochemical cells with a sacrificial iron electrode to produce hydrogen peroxide in situ for the stabilization of urea while dissolving ferrous iron ions to promote the precipitation of phosphate into compounds such as vivianite (Fe₃ (PO₄)₂ ∙ 8 H₂O), a precipitate with potential uses in agriculture and manufacturing. Synthetic urine samples were treated as anolyte, then were given time to form …

Impact Of Granular Activated Carbon On In-Situ Reductive Dechlorination Of Chlorinated Solvents, Reagan Gregory

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Treatment of chlorinated solvent-contaminated aquifers with in-situ activated carbon offers a simple yet cost-effective treatment opportunity, yet the interactions between activated carbon and the chlorinated solvents and their daughter products are not well understood.

The objective of this research is to demonstrate the impacts of in situ activated carbon on complete reductive dechlorination of chlorinated solvents in contaminated aquifer material with mixed dehalogenating cultures. This research seeks to characterize the sorption of trichloroethene and its daughter products cis-dichloroethene, vinyl chloride, and ethene to granular activated carbon and how that sorption relates to the removal of trichloroethene from contaminated material in …

Tandem Peptides Targeting Her2 For Delivery Of Cd44 Sirna Into Her2+ Breast Cancer Cells In Vitro, James Kalogeros

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More than 300,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and approximately 48,000 women will die this year due to the disease in the United States. HER2+ breast cancer accounts for 20-25% of invasive breast cancer, and it has a worse prognosis and higher early-stage mortality rate than other breast cancer subtypes. Common treatments for HER2+ breast cancer involve surgical removal of the breast or systemic therapy with chemotherapeutic drugs, both of which cause damage to healthy tissue. Due to the lack of a natural ligand for the HER2 receptor, there is a need for improved targeting strategies for the …

Vibration Fatigue Of Leaded Solder Joint Interconnects For Pcb Electronics, John Crowder

All Theses

With the increasing prevalence of electronic equipment worldwide, there is also a decrease in the size of the components on their printed circuit boards (PCBs), leading to an increase in the density of these components. A significant amount of failure in electronic equipment is vibration fatigue of solder joints and their attachments. However, the complexity of these PCBs and their components has made finite element modeling (FEM) more complex, adding considerable time to create and analyze a model.

This paper aims to provide a literature review for the vibration fatigue of leaded solder components, create a test setup, and validate …

Digital Twins And Artificial Intelligence For Applications In Electric Power Distribution Systems, Deborah George

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As modern electric power distribution systems (MEPDS) continue to grow in complexity, largely due to the ever-increasing penetration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), particularly solar photovoltaics (PVs) at the distribution level, there is a need to facilitate advanced operational and management tasks in the system driven by this complexity, especially in systems with high renewable penetration dependent on complex weather phenomena.

Digital twins (DTs), or virtual replicas of the system and its assets, enhanced with AI paradigms can add enormous value to tasks performed by regulators, distribution system operators and energy market analysts, thereby providing cognition to the system. DTs …

Glass Bubbles Grafted With Polymer Brushes For Liquid Hydrocarbon Fire Extinguishment, Randall Snipes

All Dissertations

The current most efficient solution to fighting liquid pool fires involves the use of firefighting foams containing fluorinated surfactants. The physiochemical properties of these foams are considerably different to all other currently available firefighting foams. Fluorinated surfactants lower the surface tension to a point where the foam solution draining from the foam structure forms a continuous aqueous film on the surface of a volatile hydrocarbon fuel, adding an additional barrier to fuel vapor diffusion to the burning fire. For this reason, these foams qualify as aqueous film forming foams (AFFFs). However, fluorinated compounds are extremely harmful for the environment due …

Life Cycle Energy Assesment Of Advanced Fiber Reinforced Composite Design And Manufacturing Methodologies, Urjit Lad

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Automotive industry at large is focused on vehicle light-weighting since a 6%-8% increase in fuel efficiency can be achieved with a 10% reduction in vehicle weight [1]. With the growing demand for cost-effective and sustainable light weighting of automobile structures, interest has increased in the application of fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) composites for use in the Body-in-White (BiW), which can account for up to 40% of the total vehicle weight. Traditional FRP composite manufacturing processes like vacuum assisted resin transfer molding, autoclave consolidation or use of automated fiber placement have been successfully used for marine and aerospace applications. However, these …

Virtual Prototyping And Validation For Autonomous Assistive Mobility, Amogh Venkataramana Reddy

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Physical disability in humans is something that no one has control over. It is catastrophic for people to experience it, and sometimes hinders them from enjoying the essence of life. Though disability is something people have no control over, they do have control on how they can go forward and make life beautiful and meaningful. Wheelchairs have helped people with disabilities in mobility, allowing them to move around with the help of others or sometimes on their own. This research will focus on development of an autonomous assistive mobility robot to help the disabled using virtual prototyping tools for development …

Understanding The Role Of Interactivity And Explanation In Adaptive Experiences, Lijie Guo

All Dissertations

Adaptive experiences have been an active area of research in the past few decades, accompanied by advances in technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. Whether the currently ongoing research on adaptive experiences has focused on personalization algorithms, explainability, user engagement, or privacy and security, there is growing interest and resources in developing and improving these research focuses. Even though the research on adaptive experiences has been dynamic and rapidly evolving, achieving a high level of user engagement in adaptive experiences remains a challenge. %????? This dissertation aims to uncover ways to engage users in adaptive experiences by incorporating …

Prevention And Reversal Of Elastin-Associated And Phosphate-Dependent Arterial Calcification Using Targeted Nanotherapeutics In Pre-Clinical Models, Fatema Tuj Zohora

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Vascular calcification can be life-threatening, involving calcium phosphate crystal deposits in the blood vessels. The calcification in the intimal layer of the arterial wall is usually associated with atherosclerotic plaque build-up that, in the advanced stage, harbors ‘dispersed’ and ‘spotty’ deposits of calcium phosphate crystals in the necrotic core of the plaque. In contrast, medial arterial calcification (MAC) can form independently of atherosclerosis and appears as ‘Railroad-like’ calcific deposits along degraded elastin lamellae in the medial layer of arteries. The mechanisms of such elastin-associated medial arterial calcification and potential therapies are the key concerns of this dissertation. MAC is common …

Development Of Mass Transfer Coefficient Correlations Between Carbon Dioxide And Oxygen For Air-Lift Devices, John Walker

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An experimental method for measurement and determination of carbon dioxide volumetric mass transfer coefficients (k_La) in high pH water was developed. The goal of this research was to develop a relationship between CO₂ and O₂ volumetric mass transfer coefficients for accurate k_La values in order to meet the needs of carbon capture systems and other industries. Results included dissolved oxygen (DO) and total inorganic carbon (TIC) k_La comparisons, as well as polarographic DO (mg/L) and galvanic DO (mV) k_La correlation. CO₂ k_La estimation based on O_{2 …}

Influence Of Swirl And Turbulence In The Particle Removal Using Fog In A Pipe Flow, Nisarg T. Patel

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Fog-and-tube scrubbers are employed to remove harmful ultrafine aerosols, such as Diesel particulate matter (DPM), from an airflow. The underlying principle of this removal process involves enlarging the aerosol particles by coagulating them with fog drops, which are subsequently eliminated through inertial impaction onto the tube wall. Previous research conducted by Tabor et al. (2021) demonstrated an increase in scavenging of ultrafine DPM particles, ranging from 11.5 nm to 154 nm, by as large as 45% over the no fog case. This finding is crucial in addressing the challenges associated with conventional filtration methods for capturing ultrafine particles.

The present …

Effect Of Transverse Post-Tensioning On Moment Distribution Between Channel Girders, William Eubanks

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This thesis investigates the strength of prestressed concrete channel girders used

in bridges in South Carolina and how to improve their load distribution. The specimens

are 30 feet in length, 33 inches wide and 17 inches deep. South Carolina has 377 bridges

containing prestressed concrete channel girders and many of these bridges received a

poor load rating in a recent load rating project conducted by the South Carolina

Department of Transportation (SCDOT). The research included flexural testing of seven

individual channel girders and load distribution tests of three transversely post-tensioned

channel girders. Individual flexural testing was done to determine the …

Performance Modeling Of Inline Compression With Software Caching For Reducing The Memory Footprint In Pysdc, Sansriti Ranjan

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Modern HPC applications compute and analyze massive amounts of data. The data volume is growing faster than memory capabilities and storage improvements leading to performance bottlenecks. An example of this is pySDC, a framework for solving collocation problems iteratively using parallel-in-time methods. These methods require storing and exchanging 3D volume data for each parallel point in time. If a simulation consists of M parallel-in-time stages, where the full spatial problem has to be stored for the next iteration, the memory demand for a single state variable is M ×Nx ×Ny ×Nz per time-step. For an application simulation with many state …

A Study Of 5g Cellular Connectivity To Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Jackson Murrin

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The market of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has seen significant growth in the past ten years on both the commercial and military sides. The applications for UAVs are endless and options by manufacturers allow users to modify their drones for their specific goals. This industry has opened up the excitement of piloting vehicles in the air, photography, videography, exploration of nature from a different point of view and many other hobbies assisted by the emergence of UAVs. The growth of this industry coincides with the roll out of new 5G cellular network technology. This upgrade in cellular network infrastructure allows …

Generalizable Deep-Learning-Based Wireless Indoor Localization, Ali Owfi

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The growing interest in indoor localization has been driven by its wide range of applications in areas such as smart homes, industrial automation, and healthcare. With the increasing reliance on wireless devices for location-based services, accurate estimation of device positions within indoor environments has become crucial. Deep learning approaches have shown promise in leveraging wireless parameters like Channel State Information (CSI) and Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) to achieve precise localization. However, despite their success in achieving high accuracy, these deep learning models suffer from limited generalizability, making them unsuitable for deployment in new or dynamic environments without retraining. To …

The Effect Of Deployment And Optimal Dispatch Of Shared Electric Shuttles On The Energy Efficiency Of Campus Transit, Robert Smith

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A problem facing most public transit systems is low energy efficiency and the continued cycling of large transport vehicles such as buses at low occupancy when low demand for transport exists, wasting energy to no benefit. To remedy this issue, we propose a hybrid system consisting of existing diesel buses and automated electric shuttles to augment the system during off-peak hours. Due to their smaller size, higher occupancy, and more efficient powertrains, these shuttles could reduce the system energy used per passenger-mile-traveled. Automation removes the labor cost of drivers and, thus, eliminates the need to employ more drivers for the …