Engineering Commons^™

On Chip Implement Of Deadlock Avoidance In Wormhole Networks, Kiran K. Gururaj

Theses

This thesis gives a detailed description of the Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) design to avoid deadlocks in Wormhole Networks. Deadlock avoidance is the most critical issue while considering wormhole networks and should be avoided by any routing protocol and algorithm. A novel architecture for the Turn Prohibition Based Routing (TPBR) protocol has been proved to be efficient and was developed as a part of this work. This architecture for implementing the algorithm is divided into three parts. The first part determines the order of selccuon of the nodes, in the network to run the algorithm. The second part deals …

Probability Of A Hazardous Material Truck Accident In New Jersey, Mahesh Damodaran

Theses

Accident prediction modeling is a powerful tool for determining the frequency of accidents under certain circumstances. Nationwide, direct damages from highway hazardous material spills for the year 2000 were tallied at over $31billion. This thesis determines the probability of an accident involving hazardous materials on the roads of New Jersey. The methodology is based on a British predictive equation used by their Highways Agency to determine the probability of a hazardous spill over a section of a roadway. The parameters used by the British's Highways Agency, which is obtained from their accident data, were modified to reflect conditions that best …

Formation & Characterization Of P/N Shallow Junctions In Sub-Micron Mosfets, Samrat G. Chawda

Theses

The formation of shallow junctions in the source and drain regions is a major challenge to the continued success of scaling of complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) circuits. The formation of these device structures requires low-energy ion implantation and rapid thermal annealing (RTA). One of the processes which has been shown to be advantageous is spike annealing, with fast ramping and short dwell time at maximum temperature. This work is a study of the effects of implant energy, implant dose and annealing cycles on the reverse-bias leakage current in the diode junction. The reversebias leakage is the study of junction …

Bi-Axially Loaded Slender Reinforced Concrete Columns Subjected To Sustained Loads, Song Gu

Dissertations

A generalized analytical approach is presented in this research to predict the behavior both of slender and short reinforced concrete columns under sustained biaxial eccentric load.

The present analysis proposes equations established at a cross section of a reinforced concrete column by combining force equilibrium, constitutive law, and compatibility conditions. The strain and curvature of each section and the deflection of the column can then be obtained and resolved.

The established creep computation models, recommended separately by American Concrete Institute (ACI) 209R-92 and the Comite' Euro-International du Be'ton (CEB)-FIP 1990 Model Code have been used to calculate creep and shrinkage …

The Development Of H Homogeneous Nucleation Rate Model For Thermoplastic Foams Based On A Molecular Partition Function And Fickian Diffusion, Ronald G. Gabbard

Dissertations

An improved homogeneous nucleation rate model for thermoplastic foams has been developed. This model does not rely on experimentally determined parameters and only uses pure component physical property data and a binary diffusion coefficient. This model, like those derived from classical nucleation theory, is made up of two parts, one that determines the size of the energy barrier in the nucleation process and one that estimates the forward rate of the process. A statistical-mechanical approach was used to create an energy term that is based on a molecular partition function. In this approach, the bulk phase (polymer and blowing, agent …

Destructive Disassembly Of Bolts And Screws Using Impact, Kyung Geun Pak

Dissertations

Disassembly, the process of separating parts or components at the end of their useful life is complex due to a variety of fastener shapes and variability in their damage during use. As a natural solution, mechanical impact has been suggested as a cost-effective method for destructive disassembly of joining elements.

The objective of this research is to improve the efficiency of impact disassembly process by studying the characteristics of elastic waves caused by impact. This research presents a new method for increasing the shear stress applied on the bolt head without increasing the energy input invested on launching striker. The …

Complete Stress-Strain Characteristics Of High Performance Concrete, Insang Lee

Dissertations

High performance concrete (HPQ has recently become a widely used concrete construction material for modem buildings, bridges, and pavements, etc. To produce such a better quality of concrete, chemical and mineral admixtures such as fly ash, slag cement, and silica fume, ground granulated blast furnace slag, as well as air-entraining agents are commonly used in the field construction. It has been found that high perforinance concrete can improve the workability, ultimate strength and durability of the concrete. However, the enhancement of ductility in concrete, and concrete structures as a whole is still inconclusive and needs more research. The ductility can …

Theory And Design Of Mixed Lumped-Distributed Cross-Coupled Filters With Applications To Linear Phase Shifter And Tunable Filters, Sanghoon Shin

Dissertations

Using cross-coupled networks of a new concept, transmission zeros were efficiently located in the complex frequency-domain. With this approach, the group delay and attenuation slope of the circuit network can be controlled to get both sharp rejection characteristics and linear phase slopes. In order to achieve this performance, various types of combline filters are suggested. Various simulation tools (commercial linear circuit and E-M simulators), as well as the developed pole-zero locator program, were used to design a new class of cross-coupled networks. In particular, the polezero locator program can be used to extract an equivalent circuit of the topology that …

Process Control Of A Laboratory Combustor Using Neural Networks, Thana Slanvetpan

Dissertations

Active feedback and feedforward-feedback control systems based on static-trained feedforward multi-layer-perceptron (FMLP) neural networks were designed and demonstrated, by experiment and simulation, for selected species from a laboratory two stage combustor. These virtual controllers functioned through a Visual Basic platform. A proportional neural network controller (PNNC) was developed for a monotonic control problem - the variation of outlet oxygen level with overall equivalence ratio (Φ₀). The FMLP neural network maps the control variable to the manipulated variable. This information is in turn transferred to a proportional controller, through the variable control bias value. The proposed feedback control methodology …

Analysis Of Costs And Delivery Intervals For Multiple-Release Software, High-Way Sun

Dissertations

Project managers of large software projects, and particularly those associated with Internet Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Customer (B2C) applications, are under pressure to capture market share by delivering reliable software with cost and timing constraints. An earlier delivery time may help the E-commerce software capture a larger market share. However, early delivery sometimes means lower quality. In addition, most of the time the scale of the software is so large that incremental multiple releases are warranted.

A Multiple-Release methodology has been developed to optimize the most efficient and effective delivery intervals of the various releases of software products, taking into consideration …

Experimental Studies Of Wave Propagation In Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystals, John M. Tobias

Dissertations

Photonic crystals were proposed fifteen years ago. Propagation is selectively prevented through these crystals resulting in a photonic band gap, that is, a frequency region where light cannot propagate. These frequency bands are analogous to electronic band gaps in solid-state crystals.

The optical properties of the photonic crystal in regions near the band gap remain relatively unexplored. Yet, there is significant evidence to suggest that this avenue of investigation can provide useful optical and microwave applications. Numerical studies have predicted that the effective permittivity near the photonic band gap approaches zero and becomes negative. Selfcollimation of the propagating beam and …

A Bi-Level Programming Approach For The Shipper-Carrier Network Problem, Ya Wang

Dissertations

The Stackelberg game betweenshippers and carriers in an intermodal network is formulated as a bi-levelprogram. In this network, shippers make production, consumption, androuting decisions while carriers make pricing and routing decisions.The oligopolistic carrier pricing and routing problem, which comprisesthe upper level of the bi-level program, is formulated either as a nonlinearconstrained optimization problem or as a variational inequality problem,depending on whether the oligopolistic carriers choose to collude orcompete with each other in their pricing decision. The shippers' decisionbehavior is defined by the spatial price equilibrium principle. Forthe spatial price equilibrium problem, which is the lower level of thebi-level program, a …

Development Of Icejet-Based Surface Processing Technology, Dimitri V. Shishkin

Dissertations

The objective of the proposed work is to acquire knowledge needed for the development and deployment of manufacturing processes utilizing the enormous technological potential of water ice. Material removal by blasting with ice media such as particles, pellets and slugs was investigated. The ice media was accelerated by entrainment in a fluid stream (air, steam, liquid water, supercritical C0₂), impact of rotating blades, fluid expansion, etc. The ice-airjet has to replace sand blasting and the ice-waterjet has to replace the abrasive waterjet. Based on these results, technical approaches for surface processing and machining will be improved. A primary …

Concurrent Evaporating Spray Jets In Dilute Gas-Solid Pipe Flows, Xiaohua Wang

Dissertations

Evaporating spray jets into gas-solids suspensions are encountered in many industrial applications. The rapid evaporation of spray jets has significant effects on the gas-solids mixing near the jet nozzle regions, including non-uniform solids concentration dilution, gas/solids temperature reduction, and gas/solids velocity acceleration. Furthermore, the jet structure is altered by the change of solids loading, jet mass flow rate and initial droplet size distribution. These interactions of gas, solids and evaporating droplets dominate the process efficiency and product quality. There is an urgent need for exploring fundamental mechanisms of the multi-phase interactions with heat and mass transfer as there are few …

Experiments With A Galton Board, Christopher Oshman

Theses

Galton boards have been used for over a half-century as a tool to illustrate the formation of Gaussian shaped distributions as well as the Central Limit Theorem. Here, the Galton board was used to study the spontaneous percolation of a particle through an ordered array of rigid scatterers. The apparatus that was designed and fabricated provided a means to release 1/8" diameter spheres one at a time in a controlled and precise manner at any location on the board. The three experimental variables used in these experiments were the particle material, the release height, and the board tilt. angle. The …

Current Requirements By Electro Hydrodynamic Filter Systems Under Shipboard Operation Conditions, Ravi Shankar Attri

Theses

An experimental study was performed to determine the current required by an ElectroHydrodynamic (EHD) filter system to clean contaminants from Diesel Engine Lubrication Oil under normal shipboard operation conditions. The amount of current at a set predetermined voltage, which together means Power, was needed in order to anticipate the power required to perform a Shipboard Site Test Evaluation of the EHD filter.

The filter uses the effect of dielectrophoresis to separate contaminants from the lubrication oil. The filter operates at two thousand volts (2KV ac-rms) and thus requires substantial current to energize its electrodes. This type of Power is not …

Determination Of Phase Composition Of Sputtered Tantalum On Steel Substrates By Resistivity Measurements, Younes Abbassi

Theses

The objective of this thesis was to develop a method of distinguishing between alpha and beta phases of tantalum films on steel substrates, using the four-point probe resistivity measurements. While there is a large difference between resistivities of the two Ta phases, the problem is challenging because the measurements are influenced by the low resistivity of steel.

For reference, the resistivity measurements of tantalum coatings (1-20 μm) on silicon and silicon dioxide substrates were conducted first. The measured resistivities were related to the crystallographic phase composition of Ta, which has lower resistivity in bcc form, α-phase, (13.5 to 42 μΩcm), …

Impact Of Truck Regulation And 65mph Speed Limit On Truck Accidents In New Jersey, Rajat G. Rajbhandari

Theses

The state of New Jersey enacted two regulations with significant importance to the highway operations: 65 mph speed limit and truck restriction on the National Network. The speed limit of 65mph was used on limited sections of interstate system highways with an objective to reduce energy consumption by vehicles and truck restriction was used on the interstate system and other state highway system to reduce large truck accidents and thereby increase truck safety. In this research, the safety impacts of these two regulations on truck crashes were studied.

The research focused on monthly truck crashes along the highway sections where …

Recent Advances In Silicon Light Emitting Diodes, Aravind Balakrishnan

Theses

A silicon based light emitting diode (LED) is a new gateway for combining optoelectronics with CMOS integrated circuits. The choice of silicon is limited due to its indirect band gap nature. There are new approaches for improving emission efficiencies in Si-LED to nearly 1% at room temperature. Boron implantation has been employed to introduce dislocation array and as a p-type dopant to form p-n Junction in an n-type Si substrate. The device operates as a conventional LED under forward bias. The temperature dependence of radiative recombination rate is addressed by Varshni empirical formula. The difference between the energy at which …

Stereo Matching Algorithm By Propagation Of Correspondences And Stereo Vision Instrumentation, Peerajak Witoonchart

Theses

A new image processing method is described for measuring the 3-D coordinates of a complex, biological surface. One of the problems in stereo vision is known as the accuracy-precision tradeoff problem. This thesis proposes a new method that promises to solve this problem. To do so, two issues are addressed. First, stereo vision instrumentation methods are described. This instrumentation includes a camera system as well as camera calibration, rectification, matching and triangulation. Second, the approach employs an array of cameras that allow accurate computation of the depth map of a surface by propagation of correspondences through pair-wise camera views.

The …

A Computational Model Of Spasticity Based On A Decoupling Of The Alpha And Gamma Efferents, Bruno A. Mantilla

Theses

It is generally accepted that spasticity results from changes in the excitability of the stretch reflex. This change lowers the threshold of the motoneurons of the spinal cord where the integration of a signal from velocity/position sensors is processed and then fed back to the contracting muscle (alphaextrafusal and gamma-intrafusal fibers). The stretch reflex depends on the initial length of the muscle, the stretch velocity and voluntary activity. The exact sequence of the triggering events remains unknown, is poorly understood and as a result is controversial. The clinical classification scales are mainly subjective and by definition, inaccurate.

This computational model …

Absorption Of Co2 Through Hollow Fiber Membranes Using Aqueous Solutions Of Various Absorbents, Praveen Babu Kosaraju

Theses

Absorption behavior of CO₂ was studied in different hollow fiber membrane modules fabricated using Celgard (polypropylene) and poly(4-methylpentene-1) microporous hollow fibers. Pure water, aqueous solutions of poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimer of generation zero and monoethanolamine (MEA) were used as the absorbent; the absorbent solution flowed through the fiber bore, the gas mixture of C02 and N2 flowed countercurrently on the shell side. The system consisted of absorption in one module and stripping with Helium in another module of the same fibers. The absorption characteristics of the dendrimer solution and the MEA solution were studied in the modules built of Celgard …

Dry Particle Coating And Granulation In Rotating Fluidized Beds, Madhuri Kolli

Theses

The practicability of using rotating fluidized bed as dry particle coater and granulator is investigated in this study. Dry particle coating, in which fine guest particles are coated onto bigger host particles in the absence of binders or solvents, is studied for various systems of host and guest particles. Coating results are explained by considering the collisions between the host and guest particles and among themselves. Balance between collisional energy and adhesion energy is suggested to be the limiting condition for the adhesion and hence the coating of guest particles onto host particles. It is observed that the experimental and …

Development Of A Method To Examine Shear Stress On Cardiomyocytes, Dhawal Desai

Theses

Cardiac hypertrophy is the remodeling or enlargement of the heart exhibited by individuals suffering from heart disease. Cardiac hypertrophy involves two mechanisms, mechanical stresses and humoral changes in the cardiac tissue. One such humoral change involves the Renin Angiotensin System (RAS). The primary fimction of RAS is maintenance of hemodynamics of the body mediated through an effector protein, Angiotensin 11. However, RAS has been shown to play a significant role in the pathophysiology of the heart; contributing to hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy and myocardial infarction. RAS acts through binding of Angiotensin 11 at its receptors. The two forms of Angiotensin 11 …

Flexible Manufacturing System Utilizing Computer Integrated Control And Modeling, Yahia Mohammed Al-Smadi

Theses

In today's fast-automated production, Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) play a very important role by processing a variety of different types of workpieces simultaneously. This study provides valuable information about existing FMS workcells and brings to light a unique concept called Programmable Automation.

Another integrated concept of programmable automation that is discussed is the use of two feasibility approaches towards modeling and controlling FMS operations; the most commonly used is programmable logic controllers (PLC), and the other one, which has not yet implemented in many industrial applications is Petri Net controllers (PN). This latter method is a unique powerful technique to …

Numerical Simulation Of Mechanofusion System For Dry Particle Coating Process, Wenliang Chen

Dissertations

A numerical simulation of the Meclianofusion device for dry particle coating is carried out using Discrete Element Method (DEM) technique. In dry particle coating, tiny sub-micron guest particles are coated onto larger micron sized host particles by using mechanical forces, which the Mechanofusion device provides. It consists of a rotating cylindrical chamber that contains the powder mixture, a stationary inner piece (which has a cylindrical surface at the end), and a fixed scraper blade, which prevents powder from caking against the chamber wall. The simulation studies are performed on two scales: system scale to investigate the particle-particle and particle system …

Application Of Chemical Kinetic Modeling To Improve Design And Performance Criteria For A Practical Incineration System, Charles A. Bass Jr.

Dissertations

In this study, detailed thermo-chemical kinetics with networked ideal reactor model were applied to simulate a practical combustion system -the Secondary Combustion Chamber (SCC) of the Rotary Kiln incineration Simulator (RKIS) at the EPA facility at Research Triangle Park, NC. The networked ideal model was developed using analysis of reactor geometry, temperature profile measurements, and SO₂ tracer data provided by EPA. A computer simulation of the networked model was developed using the CHEMKIN H library. A parallel effort considered the effects of non-ideal mixing on detailed thermo-kinetic, simulations. Specifically, an alternate approach was developed to solve the Partially Stirred …

Seismic Response Of Transformer Bushing Systems And Their Rehabilitation Using Frictional Pendulum System, Selahattin Ersoy

Dissertations

This thesis is concerned with the performance of electric power transformers and their attachments under earthquake loading. It begins with the description of the transformers, attached bushings, and some typical examples of substation failures in earthquake loading. This is followed by the development of finite element model of three different sizes of transformers. Finite element models consist of several thousand degrees of freedom and they are basic to this thesis. Some of the major findings from these models are utilized to derive a simplified model of a portion of a substation, The frictional pendulum system (a base isolation method) is …

On Performance Analysis And Implementation Issues Of Iterative Decoding For Graph Based Codes, Xuefei Wei

Dissertations

There is no doubt that long random-like code has the potential to achieve good performance because of its excellent distance spectrum. However, these codes remain useless in practical applications due to the lack of decoders rendering good performance at an acceptable complexity. The invention of turbo code marks a milestone progress in channel coding theory in that it achieves near Shannon limit performance by using an elegant iterative decoding algorithm. This great success stimulated intensive research oil long compound codes sharing the same decoding mechanism. Among these long codes are low-density parity-check (LDPC) code and product code, which render brilliant …

Experimental And Numerical Study Of Flow Characteristics And Segregation In Flow Enhanced Systems, Gregory James

Dissertations

In the study of granular materials, two major topics of importance are powder flow enhancement mechanisms and the flow characterization. This dissertation is involved with both of these topics. With respect to the powder flow enhancement, this study involves investigation of two types of flow enhancement methods. The first flow enhancement method examined is a novel method called the Magnetically Assisted Powder Flow (MAPF) method. In the MAPF, small magnetic particles and powders are placed in a test hopper. A mesh is placed at the bottom of the hopper to hold the magnetic particles while the powder is discharged through …