Engineering Commons^™

Close-Range, Noncontact Distance Measurement By Controlled Image Irradiance, Jaeho Kim

Dissertations

Dimensional measurement or check is a major part of the inspection and quality control in manufacturing. Most of the measurement applications are based on contact methods. While a number of non-contact methods are available, they are limited in accuracy, in flexibility, or in the range of application areas. An optical, close-range, non-contact distance measurement method has been developed for manufacturing and other applications. Based on a simple imaging principle, the method derives the distance information from the power response of a small axial image area, the irradiance of which is controlled by an active controlled illumination of the corresponding object …

Isoparametric Finite Elements For Linear Isotropic Micropolar Plate Bending, Vallanore K. Suresh

Dissertations

Finite element analysis programs for bending of linear isotropic micropolar elasticity are developed in this thesis. Isoparametric two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements are used to solve plate bending problems. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional finite element formulations are developed. Corresponding finite element programs are then developed. Patch tests are performed on the two-dimensional elements. Convergence studies are undertaken for the elements. Several plates are considered to evaluate the finite element scheme. The effects of the coupling factor N and characteristic length 1 are studied. A post processor with graphical display of displacements is developed.

Numerical results obtained for various plates are in good …

Permeability And Volume Change Characeristics Of Bentonite-Sand Mixes In A Contaminant Environment, Yuan-Hsun Wu

Dissertations

This research was conducted to study the characteristics of permeability and volume change of bentonite-sand mixes due to contaminants. The soil specimens consisted of clean sand, bentonite, and fly ash. Test liquids included seven diluted organic and inorganic chemicals and a landfill leachate.

Index tests included liquid limit, expansion, cracking, and sedimentation tests. Expansion tests proved to be the most useful for permeability evaluation in a contaminant environment.

The conventional consolidometer permeameter and flexible wall permeameter proved to be not completely satisfactory for testing soft bentonite mixes. A triple ring permeameter was developed to compensate for the limitations of these …

Thermotropic Liquid Crystalline Polyesters Based On The Monomer Of Poly(Ethylene Terephthalate), Satish Baliga

Dissertations

A series of thermotropic liquid crystalline polyesters were synthesized, based on Bis-hydroxyethyl terephthalate (BHET), para-acetoxybenzoic acid (PAB) and terephthalic acid (TA). Structural studies of these aromatic polyesters using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Infrared Spectroscopy (IR) and X-ray diffraction techniques indicated the existence of substantial amounts of rigid -PAB-PAB- linkages within the mesogenic backbone. Optical study of their melts using Polarizing Microscopy indicated a "threaded" microstructure typical of a nematic mesophase. Morphological rearrangements were found to occur at higher temperatures as was evident from a two-phase structure, one phase speculated to be rich in flexible Poly(ethylene Terephthalate) (PET) segments and the …

Kinetic Study On Pyrolysis Of C6h5cl And M-C6h4cl2 Diluted In H2 : Detailed Reaction Kinetics And Thermodynamic Property Estimation Techniques, Edward Robert Ritter

Dissertations

Thermal reaction studies of dilute mixtures (0.37%) of C6H5Cl in hydrogen and m-C6H4C12 (0.4%) in hydrogen have been performed in tubular flow reactors at various surface to volume ratios, and 1 atm total pressure. Residence times range from 0.02 to 2.5 seconds,with temperatures between 1050 to 1275 K. HCl, C₆H₅Cl, C₆H₆, and carbon solids (C(s)) are observed as the major products; minor products include methane, cyclopentadiene, toluene, naphthalene and biphenyls. Pyrolysis in helium yields significantly less conversion, but more C(s) for similar residence times.

A detailed chemical mechanism is developed to describe …

Competitive Bidding Strategy In The Construction Industry : A Game Theoretic Approach, Hongbin Chen

Theses

A game theoretic approach is applied to analyze competitive bidding in the construction industry because previous models do not consider the conflict of interest that exists among competitors. The game theoretic model improves corporate performance when compared to previous Bayesian analyses.

The game theoretic model is discussed in conjunction with construction contracting practice. Competitive bidding is formulated as a game theoretic model in which a contractor optimizes his bid price to maximize his utility or corporate performance. Using available historical data, order statistics are employed to access the distribution of estimated costs among bidders for a project. The winner's curse …

A Non-Invasive Technique For Burn Area Measurement, Jong-Daw Yu

Theses

The need for a reliable and accurate method for assessing the surface area of burn wounds currently exists in the branch of medicine involved with burn care and treatment. The percentage of the surface area is of critical importance in evaluating fluid replacement amounts and nutritional support during the 24 hours of postburn therapy. A noninvasive technique has been developed which facilitates the measurement of burn area. The method we shall describe is an inexpensive technique to measure the burn areas accurately.

Our imaging system is based on a technique known as structured light. Most structured light computer imaging systems, …

Reduced Complexity Receivers For Trellis Coded Modulations Via Punctured Trellis Codes, Bonchul Koo

Theses

We introduce a new concept, called matched punctured trellis encoding, that simplifies the complexity of Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation (MLSE) receivers for combined trellis encoding and modulations with memory. Matched punctured trellis encoding is applied to tamed frequency modulation (TFM) which is a bandwidth efficient correlative - FM scheme. TFM finds applications in satellite, microwave radio, and mobile communications.

Our approach is based on puncturing a rate - 1/2 matched convolutional code to obtain a rate - 2/3 mismatched code. A matched code is one that produces trellis coded modulations of minimum complexity. Puncturing these codes to obtain mismatched codes …

Schottky-Barrier Solar Cells, Surface Patterning For Efficient Light Collection, Constantinos Manolis

Theses

Different geometrical surface configurations are considered here for a Au/n-Si semiconductor Schottky-barrier solar cell to improve their light collection efficiency.

Optical and electrical properties are theoretically analyzed for two given optical wavelengths of 0.9 and 0.5 micrometers respectively.

The configurations considered are: V-shaped, Star- shaped, M-shaped, asymmetric-V-shaped, and asymmetric-M-shaped. They all show a significant improvement in the short-circuit current over a flat cell model, while the open-circuit voltage remains practically unchanged.

Computer Controlled Oxygen Bioreactor, Dinesh Sachdeva

Theses

A computer controlled oxygen bioreactor has been designed to obtain more accurate values for oxygen bioreactor requirements and to optimize oxygen productivity with respect to oxygen concentration. This study solves a specific problem relating to oxygen concentration measurement and bioreactor control. The proposed reactor system is computer controlled to insure a desired oxygen concentration supply to an oxygen consuming reaction or organism. This thesis also explains and illustrates the bioreactor and its computer control system.

The computer controller incorporates oxygen sensing, oxygen measurement and temperature measurement, Electrical circuits have been designed and built for proper signal conditioning, data acquisition, data …

Application Of Microwave Energy To Remediation Of Soils Contaminated With Chromium, Chih-Ju Jou

Theses

A process based upon microwave treatment has been developed to render soil non-hazardous after that soil had been classified as hazardous due to heavy metal contamination. It has been applied to chromium-contaminated soil. The object of the present regulations is to prevent damage to water supplies as a result of the leaching of heavy metal ions from the soils. This object is expressed in the standard test for leaching, namely, the EPA EP Leachate test. This process can be used to immobilize metal ions sufficiently to meet the aforementioned standard. The present standard is based upon acid leaching, and not …

A Computer Program On The Economics Of Collection And Sortation Of Recyclable Materials In Municipal Solid Wastes, Ara Nigogos Kahyaoglu

Theses

The first version of the economic of recyclable materials in municipal solid waste analysis program was developed in interpretive BASIC by Rutgers the State University of New Jersey. Since BASIC is a line interpretative language several restrictions were encountered, the major one being the language size restriction.

The first objective was to obtain a truly portable program that would not be dependent on specific compilers and operating systems. The second objective was to generate a program that had the capability for expansion.

The C language was used over other high level languages such as PASCAL and FORTRAN because it had …

The Evaluation Of Polysulfone Composites As Structural Implants In Orthopaedic Surgery, Howard L. Scalzo

Theses

Two polysulfone composites were evaluated to determine their use as structural implants in orthopaedic surgery. The first composite, carbon fiber reinforced polysulfone (C/PS), was evaluated for environmental degradation in an in vivo and in vitro study. The C/PS composites were implanted subcutaneously in the abdomen of rabbits for the in vivo study and immersed in saline solution at 32° C for the in vitro study. The second composite, hydroxylapatite coated polysulfone (HA/PS), was evaluated for bone ingrowth in an in vivo study, and for attachment strength between the HA and the PS in an in vitro study. Also, two surface …

Ph Parametric Pumping : An Examination Of Different Feed Locations For A Two And Three Column Process With The Same Flow Patterns And Ph Distribution, Roberta Rosty

Theses

PH parametric pumping is used to separate protein mixtures of hemoglobin and Albumin.

In this thesis, modifications to a two-column process, where the fluid stage flow pattern and the pH distributions were constant, were explored. These modifications consisted of: changes in the feed stream inlet and outlet locations, changes in the amount of feed itself, and an addition of another column and reservoir to the original two-column process. The results were obtained through computer simulation.

Results indicate that the batch or no-feed two and three column processes yield better separations of the two proteins than the same processes with feed …

Scanning Electron Microscopy And X-Ray Energy Dispersive Spectroscopic Analysis Of Selected Sorbent Materials, Elhamy Amin Sedhom

Theses

A previous study⁽¹⁾ showed that a combination of acidic and basic sorbents in a layered system is required to reduce to safe levels the contaminants present in the leachates emanating from industrial landfills. The sorbents used were fly ash, vermiculite, kaolinite, illite, zeolite, apautagite, bentonite, activated carbon and bauxite.

The purpose of this investigation is to study the physical properties, elemental composition and the distribution of the aforementioned solid sorbents. Properties of interest are particle size, shape and distribution and also the chemical composition and the distribution of the elements within the sample particles.

Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and …

An Intelligent Electrocardiogram Tutoring Package Ekgchallenger, Santosh K. Ananthraman

Theses

This thesis presents the development and implementation of an intelligent electrocardiogram tutoring package, namely, EKGCHALLENGER which is meant for use in medical schools to teach medical students a method of diagnosing electro cardiograms.

EKGCHALLENGER is an IBM - PC based, user friendly package. It works in two basic modes. The first is a tutorial mode wherein the user is taught the step-by-step diagnosis of electrocardiograms ( EKGs ) which are presented in order of increasing difficulty. The second is the challenger mode wherein the user is asked to diagnose EKGs which are randomly chosen from an EKG database. The diagnosis …

Performance Enhancement & Fault Detection Of Cmos Dynamic Logic For Vlsi, Ashok Arunachalum

Theses

New CMOS dynamic latches are designed which can be used along with conventional dynamic circuits to realize fast pipelined dynamic logic. Also a new method is described for detecting the difficult CMOS Non-classical faults viz. stuck open and stuck on faults. The conventional Domino logic is redesigned to make all the stuck open and stuck on faults detectable.

Anaerobic Biodegradation Of Trichloroethylene By Activated Carbon Fluidized-Bed, Yeam-How Chin

Theses

Abstract - The biodegradation of Trichloroethylene by using anaerobic activated carbon fluidized bed has been investigated in the present study. High quality effluent was obtainable when the TCE influent concentration was up to 2.4 ppm in the first stage. Glucose was introduced as a cosubstrate to determine the effects of glucose/TCE ratio on the COD, Glucose and TCE removal. The experimental data indicates that the overall TCE removal efficiency was only slightly affected by TCE loading, but the first stage performance was significantly influenced by TCE loadings. It was also found that the microbial activities were affected by TCE loadings …

Implementation Of The Sliding Dictionary Data Compression Algorithm On An At&T Dsp 32 Digital Signal Processor, Shu Fang

Theses

Compared with other data compression algorithms, the sliding dictionary is more practical for implementation in hardware. After a comprehensive study of the algorithm, an on line data compression scheme which uses AT&T DSP 32 Digital Signal Processor has been developed. Assembly language programs for encoder and decoder have been written and tested. The whole compression system has been simulated in a real-time environment and results have been obtained. A quantized coding scheme has been used to increase compression ratio. Separate assembly language programs have been written to implement the quantized coding scheme and tested. Results obtained from real-time simulation are …

Simulation And Off-Line Programming Of Robotic Workcells, Krishnaprasad V. Kamisetty

Theses

A typical, complex robotic workcell, namely NJIT's Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) cell has been designed, modelled and simulated to bridge the gap between design and its implementation. McDonnell Douglas' (McAuto) PLACE, BUILD, COMMAND and ADJUST have been used to simulate entire cycle of the NJIT's FMS cell. Various aspects such as "Cycle Time Analysis", robot reachability of various positions in the cell and "Collision Detection" have also been studied and analyzed.

The ease of effecting any modifications to the existing workcell design has been demonstrated. The NJIT's FMS cell consists of the GE P-50 robot, the IBM 7535 robot, the …

Feasibiltiy, Planning, And Justification Of Fms : A Case Study, Joo Hwan Kim

Theses

FMS production technology, because of its ability to adjust to changes in product demands and produce at competitive costs even on small runs and at above quality levels, has caused its adoption by the major automobile manufacturers. These attributes are of particular interest to Korean automobile manufacturers who due to a small home market need to manufacture in relative small quantities and to export.

This paper considers how such a technology can be implemented. It discusses the key factors to be considered such as strategy, selection and design of the appropriate hardware and software, required organizational changes, and its economic …

Investigation Of The Distribution Of Particles In An Abrasive Water Jet, Sun Kim

Theses

This study is concerned with the distribution of abrasive particles within an abrasive waterJet. The Jet is generated by the Ingersoll Rand nozzle set at the different diameters of the sapphire nozzles and carbide mixers. Water pressure is maintained at 4.7- 4.9 ksi.

The distribution of particles is examined by the separation of the central and adjacent part of the flow and the measurement of the fractions of the mixture and abrasive in the separated region. The separation is carried out by diamond washers coaxial with a carbide mixer. The second series of experiments involve the estimation of the Jet …

Visual System Modeling And System Response Analysis, Zhongquan Li

Theses

Based on the anatomical structure, a structural model of the visual system was established. System responses of different stimulations were analyzed based on the model. More extensive study was made on the system impulse response. A mathematical model with parameters representing prominent process components was developed to represent the system response in a compact form and the parameters were statistically studied to correlate to the real physiological characteristics of the visual system. The parameters of the model were used to fit the system intensity response function. The result shows that it is a more quantitative way to construct the system …

The Effects Of Degraded Indoor Air Quality On Employees Working In High Rise Office Buildings, Richard Patrick Luongo

Theses

An examination of the effects of poor indoor air quality on workers in high rise office buildings was conducted. These effects are manifested physiologically, psychologically and economically and originate from sources inside and outside the building, as well as from the building's ventilation system. These sources include combustion products, microorganisms, volatile organic chemicals, cigarette smoke and miscellaneous chemicals. Lower productivity and higher absenteeism are the initial results of these effects. If the situation becomes chronic, an erosion of trust between employer and employee can occur which may eventually serve as the basis for litigation, such as worker's compensation claims and …

Distributed Data Collection System Based On Hierarchical Network, Harish Mahindrakar

Theses

On line data collection systems are essential in order to satisfy the requirements for real-time applications. Typical applications are computer integrated manufacturing, security control, hourly wage calculations, human resources management. On line data collection system makes it possible to closely monitor and track different operations with more accuracy. On line data collection systems eliminate redundant work, save time and money.

If the distributed system is based on a multicontroller, it becomes really cost effective solution to build such a system.

This effort is the design of a distributed multicontroller system, required in a data collection system. A hierarchical network is …

Sediment Transport/Sand Bypassing Analysis At Manasquan, Nj, Christopher Clemens Obropta

Theses

An experiment to determine the longshore sediment transport rate using a fluorescent dyed sand tracer was conducted during the summer of 1987 to help determine the feasibility of sand bypassing at the Manasquan Inlet in New Jersey. After the fluorescent sand tracer was introduced to the longshore transport system, the Spatial Integration Method was used to sample the surf zone. The Spatial Integration Method allowed the tracer cloud to be monitored in both time and space. The tracer experiment provided a constant to be used in the calculation of the longshore sediment transport rate. This constant is specific to the …

Trellis Encoded M-Ary Partial-Response Schemes, Raju P. Patel

Theses

Convolutional codes can be used to improve the reliability of partial-response channels in a Gaussian noise environment. Multilevel partial-response schemes can be used to increase the information rate in a given bandwidth compared to binary partial-response schemes. This thesis deals with the theory and construction of convolutionally encoded 4-ary partial- response schemes. The free Euclidean distance of the combined trellis of rate-1/2 convolutional code and 4-ary partial-response scheme is found through a computer search, using the Viterbi-algorithm.

The matched encoding concept is also applied to find the conditions for matched encoding for combined trellis of rate-1/2 convolutional codes and 4-ary …

Slurry Wall Backfill Integrity And Desiccation, Mahendraratnam Thilliyar

Theses

The upper reaches of slurry wall, in a waste containment structure may under go cycles of wetting and drying, because of seasonal ground water level fluctuations. This may result in desiccation and cracking of back fill material. Experiments were conducted to study these effects with water, aniline, phenol, hydrochloric acid solutions on soils containing different proportions of bentonite, kaolinite, and sand. The largest crack was formed with phenol and the smallest with water. With hydrochloric acid no crack was formed. With increase kaolinite content, the width and density of crack decreased. Hydraulic conductivity tests on cracked specimens indicated high hydraulic …

Nonlinear Variants Of The Least Mean Square (Lms) Algorithm, John George Van Saders

Theses

Adaptive systems using the LMS algorithm or its variants usually require bilinear correlation multipliers with high dynamic range and large bandwidth. The class of LMS-type algorithms utilizing zero-memory limiters (on one or both correlation multiplier inputs) to reduce dynamic range are examined. The correlator limiters may be included to simplify the hardware implementation or may arise due to limited dynamic range of the loop components. The application of a theorem due to Price provides a technique for simplifying the analysis, which otherwise might be extremely difficult. The analysis provides closed-form expressions for the mean weight convergence behavior, permitting examination of …

Image Coding With Quantization Noise Feedback, Jen-Chieh Wang

Theses

A progressive image transmission based on Laplacian pyramid structure is used for the scheme of quantization noise feedback. Because a reduction in transmission rate inevitably increases the quantization noise and degrades the image quality, the designer of the quantizer laces the dilemma of balancing the transmission rate and the quantization noise. Using the algorithm of noise feedback will reduce the quantization error without appreciably increasing transmission rate. Uniform quantization and nonuniform quantization rate used to compare the result with or without noise feedback. In the transmitter end, the original image can be reduced by a certain procedure to form a …