Engineering Commons^™

Improving Quality Of Patient Care Through Automated Nerve Segmentation, Madisen D. Phillips

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

A continuous peripheral nerve block cPNB is most commonly used in patients during the post-operative period, with documented benefits that include a decrease in reported pain, a decrease of opioid related side effects, and an increase in patient satisfaction. Accurately identifying nerve structures for cPNB placement is a critical step for proper insertion. The aim of this research is to use supervised learning techniques (least squares regression and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis) to build a model that can segment and annotate a bundle of nerves known as the brachial plexus (BP) while minimizing segmentation error. Dependent on large …

Flux Focusing Axial Magnetic Gear, Robert J. Rutherford

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

Power transmission is traditionally achieved with a mechanical gear. These gears require maintenance, cause vibration, and have no overload protection. Magnetic gears (MGs) offer an innovative solution to these drawbacks as they do not require regular maintenance, have no need for lubrication, create very little acoustic noise, have built in overload protection and as a result of these advantages, have a longer lifetime of operation. The flux focusing axial magnetic gear (FFAMG) was assembled for future testing of power transmission, conversion, and generation applications.

Gears are used to transmit power by converting low speed-high torque rotary motion into high speed-low …

Deposition Velocity Dependence On Urban Morphology, Rawand Muzafar Rasheed

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

Understanding the interactions between the atmospheric boundary layer and urban structures provides insights into emerging problems such as green building design as well as dispersion and deposition of pollutants on urban structures. Characterization of deposition velocity dependence through the naphthalene sublimation method on model urban structures is conducted herein where the analogous fundamental transport mechanisms of momentum and mass transport is obtained via mass of naphthalene transferred. Via wind tunnel experiments, results show that deposition velocity of naphthalene from urban structures increases with increased number of urban structures ahead of the point of investigation. This is attributed to the wakes …

Jet Bounce In Low Gravity, Caleb Turner

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

Liquid jets rebound (‘bounce’) from superhydrophobic surfaces when they impinge at oblique angles. We call this interesting phenomena ‘jet bounce’ and in this work we investigate the phenomena at large length scales in a reduced gravitational environment. For example, for water at Reynolds numbers 0 < Re < 3500 and surface normal Weber numbers 0 < We < 60 we characterize the response of the jets on the hydrophobic surface in the brief 2.1s micro-gravity environment achieved using a drop tower. It is observed that by varying jet velocity, flow rate, jet diameter, and incident angle we observe up to four distinct regimes of behavior. The various regimes may be targeted for specific applications and we demonstrate a variety of unique jet bounce behaviors for applications such as no-touch, no-contact fluid-thermal transport for spacecraft unit operations such as contaminated water processing, device cooling, and cryogenic fluids transport and management.

Stable jet bounce from small diameter jet ≈ 1 mm and low impact angle. Characterizing Reynolds number ≈ 900 and normal Weber number ≤ 10 allow jet bounce to rebound in non-destructive behavior.

Conditional Averaging And Classification In The Near Wake Of A Wind Turbine Array Boundary Layer, Sarah E. Smith

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

Flow perturbation induced by interaction with a turbine rotor produces considerable turbulence which can alter the productivity of subsequent units within a wind farm. Previous methods have characterized near wake vorticity of a single turbine as well as recovery distance for various turbine array configurations. This study aims to build from previous methods of analysis from the perspective of the rotor well within a turbine array and develop a model to examine points of significant imposition in relation to rotational effects. Hot wire anemometry was employed downstream of a turbine located in the middle of the third row in a …

The Aerodynamic Effects On Flight Patterns And The Evolutionary Changes In Pterosaurs, Johnathan D. Talik

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

Early pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to achieve powered flight, and remained small-to-medium sized from the Triassic Period to the end of the Jurassic Period. During that interval, lasting from 210 million years ago to 66 million years ago, pterosaurs underwent a notable changes at the end of the Jurassic Period and through the Cretaceous Period. They were abruptly replaced by much larger forms, characterized by great size and peculiar head ornamentation, among other unique and notable morphological features. While many different explanations theorize why and how the features of the pterosaurs changed over the Cretaceous Period, the aerodynamic influences …

The Effect Of Plasma On Graphene Quality In An Inductively Couple Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition Reactor, Brendan Coyne

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

Despite continued interest in research and application development, full scale graphene production is still limited by many factors including prohibitively high growth temperature requirements. Extremely high quality graphene growth is possible at high temperatures using chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Use of an inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition (ICP CVD) reactor with the benefit of precursor gas decomposition through plasma generation, may provide possibility to reduce growth temperature. Herein, we report plasma’s effects on graphene growth by comparing growths of increasing power supplied to plasma generation and changes in precursor gas ratios. Plasma composition was characterized by ultraviolet and visible …

Design And Test Of 3d Printed Lenses For Sub-Thz Radiation, Justin Patterson

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

The terahertz gap in the electromagnetic spectrum provides promising advantages for applications such as increased airport security and medical diagnosis. Quasi-optical systems used to study THz radiation require multiple mirrors or lenses, which can be quite costly. In order to manipulate THz beams we investigated production of inexpensive lenses using additive 3D printing. 3D printing technology promises to be not only accessible and inexpensive, but should also enable quick experimentation with different lens designs. The Picometrix time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) system was used to characterize 3D printable plastics. The absorption coefficient and refractive index were analyzed from 0.2 to 2 THz …