Engineering Commons^™

Coel: A Web-Based Chemistry Simulation Framework, Peter Banda, Drew Blount, Christof Teuscher

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The chemical reaction network (CRN) is a widely used formalism to describe macroscopic behavior of chemical systems. Available tools for CRN modelling and simulation require local access, installation, and often involve local file storage, which is susceptible to loss, lacks searchable structure, and does not support concurrency. Furthermore, simulations are often single-threaded, and user interfaces are non-trivial to use. Therefore there are significant hurdles to conducting efficient and collaborative chemical research. In this paper, we introduce a new enterprise chemistry simulation framework, COEL, which addresses these issues. COEL is the first web-based framework of its kind. A visually pleasing and …

Advances In Aquatic Target Localization With Passive Sonar, John Thomas Gebbie

Dissertations and Theses

New underwater passive sonar techniques are developed for enhancing target localization capabilities in shallow ocean environments. The ocean surface and the seabed act as acoustic mirrors that reflect sound created by boats or subsurface vehicles, which gives rise to echoes that can be heard by hydrophone receivers (underwater microphones). The goal of this work is to leverage this "multipath" phenomenon in new ways to determine the origin of the sound, and thus the location of the target. However, this is difficult for propeller driven vehicles because the noise they produce is both random and continuous in time, which complicates its …

Combined Traction And Energy Recovery Motor For Electric Vehicles, James Long, Xin Wang, Claude Kansaku, Brian Moravec

TREC Final Reports

Electric vehicle manufacturers are looking for ways to optimize energy use for vehicle range extension and reduction of battery capacity. Electric motors have lower efficiencies at very low speed and high torque. This is typically at vehicle launch from standstill, at very low speeds, and during energy regeneration at lower speeds and approaching standstill. The KersTech solution is a breakthrough technology allowing supplement of the electric drive with a hydraulic drive, active in lower speeds ranges, dropping out as the electric motor takes over in its higher efficiency range of operation. The report consists of four parts. Part I presents …

Tillamook County Waste Disposal Technology Assessment, Arvind Kumar, Ryan Menze, Joe Smith, Jerrod Thomas

Engineering and Technology Management Student Projects

Tillamook County is a rural county straddling the Northern Oregon Coast Range with the majority of the local economy based around agriculture, timber, tourism, and fishing. As part of Tillamook County’s mission statement, they strive“to enhance the quality of life for its citizens by promoting and preserving public health and safety, maintaining a stable economy, encouraging wise use of resources, and providing services in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.” To that end, Tillamook County, Tillamook County Economic Development Council (TCEDC), Portland State University, Oregon State University, and Tetra Tech have undergone an evaluation and technology assessment process to …

An Analysis Of Secular Change In Tides At Open-Ocean Sites In The Pacific, Edward D. Zaron, David A. Jay

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hourly sea level is examined at 25 open-ocean stations in the Pacific Ocean with records longer than 30 yr. A search for trends finds that the amplitude of the dominant semidiurnal tide M₂ is increasing at 12 of the 13 sites where a statistically significant trend can be identified. It is also found that nontidal variance in the neighborhood of M₂ is decreasing at all 12 of the sites where a significant increase in M₂ tide is occurring. The trend in amplitude of the dominant diurnal tide K₁ is significant at six stations, and it is …

Passive Localization Of Noise-Producing Targets Using A Compact Volumetric Array, John Gebbie, Martin Siderius, Peter L. Nielsen, James Miller

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A technique is presented for passively localizing multiple noise-producing targets by cross-correlating the elevation beams of a compact volumetric array on separate bearings. A target’s multipath structure inherently contains information about its range; however, unknown, random noise waveforms make time separation of individual arrivals difficult. Ocean ambient noise has previously been used to measure multipath delays to the seabed by cross-correlating the beams of a vertical line array [Siderius, Song, Gerstoft, Hodgkiss, Hursky, and Harrison, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 2193–2200 (2010)], but this methodology has not been applied to distant noise sources having non-vertical arrivals. The technique presented in …

Safety Verification Of Semi-Algebraic Dynamical Systems Via Inductive Invariant, Hui Kong, Fei He, Xiaoyu Song, Ming Gu, Hongyan Tan, Jiaguang Sun

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

To verify the safety of nonlinear dynamical systems based on inductive invariants, key issues include defining the most complete inductive condition and discovering an inductive invariant that satisfies the specified inductive condition. In this paper, to lay a solid foundation for future research into the safety verification of semi-algebraic dynamical systems, we first establish a formal framework for evaluating the quality of continuous inductive conditions. In addition, we propose a new complete and computable inductive condition for verifying the safety of semi-algebraic dynamical systems. Compared with the existing complete and computable inductive condition, this new inductive condition can be easily …

Probabilistic Analysis For Reliable Logic Circuits, Scott Blakely

Dissertations and Theses

Continued aggressive scaling of electronic technology poses obstacles for maintaining circuit reliability. To this end, analysis of reliability is of increasing importance. Large scale number of inputs and gates or correlations of failures render such analysis computationally complex. This paper presents an accurate framework for reliability analysis of logic circuits, while inherently handling reconvergent fan-out without additional complexity. Combinational circuits are modeled stochastically as Discrete-Time Markov Chains, where propagation of node logic levels and error probability distributions through circuitry are used to determine error probabilities at nodes in the circuit. Model construction is scalable, as it is done so on …

Experimental Investigation Of Lateral Cyclic Behavior Of Wood-Based Screen-Grid Insulated Concrete Form Walls, John Stuart Garth

Dissertations and Theses

Insulated concrete forms (ICFs) are green building components that are primarily used for residential wall construction. Unlike most polystyrene based ICF variants, the Faswall ICFs used in these experiments were significantly denser because they were made from recycled wood particles and cement. The current design approach for structures constructed with this type of wall form only allows the designer to consider the contribution of the reinforced concrete cores. Previous research has shown that this approach may be conservative. This project experimentally evaluated the lateral structural response of these types of grid ICF walls under increasing amplitude of in-plane cyclic loading. …

Stress Analysis For Chip Scale Packages With Embedded Active Devices Under Thermal Cycling, Hyunwook Yeo

Dissertations and Theses

One of the main challenges in the electronics manufacturing and packaging development is how to integrate more functions inside the same or even smaller size. To meet the demand for higher integration, the interest toward passive and active component embedding has been increasing during the past few years. One of the main reasons for the growing interest toward embedded active components, in addition to demand for higher packaging density, is the need for better electrical performance of the component assemblies. However, it is little known how embedded IC and passives affect the reliability of IC packaging.

Solder joints have been …

System-Wide Performance Analysis For Virtualization, Deron Eugene Jensen

Dissertations and Theses

With the current trend in cloud computing and virtualization, more organizations are moving their systems from a physical host to a virtual server.

Although this can significantly reduce hardware, power, and administration costs, it can increase the cost of analyzing performance problems. With virtualization, there is an initial performance overhead, and as more virtual machines are added to a physical host the interference increases between various guest machines. When this interference occurs, a virtualized guest application may not perform as expected. There is little or no information to the virtual OS about the interference, and the current performance tools in …

A 3.6 Ghz Doherty Power Amplifier With A 40 Dbm Saturated Output Power Using Gan On Sic Hemt Devices, Bryant Baker

Dissertations and Theses

This manuscript describes the design, development, and implementation of a linear high efficiency power amplifier. The symmetrical Doherty power amplifier utilizes TriQuint's 2nd Generation Gallium Nitride (GaN) on Silicon Carbide (SiC) High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) devices (T1G6001032-SM) for a specified design frequency of 3.6 GHz and saturated output power of 40 dBm. Advanced Design Systems (ADS) simulation software, in conjunction with Modelithic's active and passive device models, were used during the design process and will be evaluated against the final measured results. The use of these device models demonstrate a successful first-pass design, putting less dependence on classical load …

Ranked Similarity Search Of Scientific Datasets: An Information Retrieval Approach, Veronika Margaret Megler

Dissertations and Theses

In the past decade, the amount of scientific data collected and generated by scientists has grown dramatically. This growth has intensified an existing problem: in large archives consisting of datasets stored in many files, formats and locations, how can scientists find data relevant to their research interests? We approach this problem in a new way: by adapting Information Retrieval techniques, developed for searching text documents, into the world of (primarily numeric) scientific data. We propose an approach that uses a blend of automated and curated methods to extract metadata from large repositories of scientific data. We then perform searches over …

Toward A Reliable Prediction Of Seasonal Forecast Uncertainty: Addressing Model And Initial Condition Uncertainty With Ensemble Data Assimilation And Sequential Bayesian Combination, Caleb Matthew Dechant, Hamid Moradkhani

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Uncertainties are an unfortunate yet inevitable part of any forecasting system. Within the context of seasonal hydrologic predictions, these uncertainties can be attributed to three causes: imperfect characterization of initial conditions, an incomplete knowledge of future climate and errors within computational models. This study proposes a method to account for all threes sources of uncertainty, providing a framework to reduce uncertainty and accurately convey persistent predictive uncertainty. In currently available forecast products, only a partial accounting of uncertainty is performed, with the focus primarily on meteorological forcing. For example, the Ensemble Streamflow Prediction (ESP) technique uses meteorological climatology to estimate …

An Assessment Model For Energy Efficiency Program Planning In Electric Utilities: Case Of The Pacific Of Northwest U.S.A., Ibrahim Iskin

Dissertations and Theses

Energy efficiency stands out with its potential to address a number of challenges that today's electric utilities face, including increasing and changing electricity demand, shrinking operating capacity, and decreasing system reliability and flexibility. Being the least cost and least risky alternative, the share of energy efficiency programs in utilities' energy portfolios has been on the rise since the 1980s, and their increasing importance is expected to continue in the future. Despite holding great promise, the ability to determine and invest in only the most promising program alternatives plays a key role in the successful use of energy efficiency as a …

Durability Assessment Of Recycled Concrete Aggregates For Use In New Concrete Phase Ii, Jason H. Ideker, Matthew P. Adams, Jennifer Tanner, Angela Jones

TREC Final Reports

This Phase II investigation into the durability of new concrete incorporating recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) focused on several goals: 1) Provide corroboration of results obtained in Phase I for a multi-laboratory study related to assessing alkali-silica reactivity (ASR) of RCA in accelerated laboratory tests; 2) Investigate the efficacy of mitigation methods to control ASR in concrete containing potentially reactive RCA; 3) Establish long-term data through placement of concrete blocks containing RCA in an outdoor exposure site in Laramie, WY; and 4) Survey state DOTs and other transportation agencies about their perceptions and usage of RCA ASR in concrete within their …

Wake Interaction And Power Production Of Variable Height Model Wind Farms, M. H. Vested, N. Hamilton, J. N. Sørensen, Raul Bayoan Cal

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Understanding wake dynamics is an ongoing research topic in wind energy, since wakes have considerable effects on the power production when wind turbines are placed in a wind farm. Wind tunnel experiments have been conducted to study the wake to wake interaction in a model wind farm in tandem with measurements of the extracted power. The aim is to investigate how alternating mast height influences the interaction of the wakes and the power production. Via the use of stereo-particle image velocimetry, the flow field was obtained in the first and last rows of the wind turbine array as a basis …

Local Vibrational Modes Competitions In Mn-Doped Zno Epitaxial Films With Tunable Ferromagnetism, Qiang Cao, Maoxiang Fu, Guolei Liu, Huaijin Zhang, Shishen Yan, Yanxue Chen, Liangmo Mei, Jun Jiao

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We reported spectroscopic investigations of high quality Mn-doped ZnO (ZnMnO) films grown by oxygen plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. Raman scattering spectra revealed two local vibrational modes (LVMs) associated with Mn dopants at 523 and 712cm^-1. The LVMs and magnetic properties of ZnMnO films can be synchronously modulated by post annealing processing or by introducing tiny Co. The relative intensity of two LVMs clearly shows competitions arising from uncompensated acceptor and donor defects competition for ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic films. The experimental results indicated that LVM at 523 cm^-1 is attributed to Mn—(Zinc-vacancy) complexes, while LVM at 712 cm …

Lessons From The Green Lanes: Evaluating Protected Bike Lanes In The U.S., Christopher Monsere, Jennifer Dill, Nathan Mcneil, Kelly J. Clifton, Nick Foster, Tara Goddard, Mathew Berkow, Joe Gilpin, Kim Voros, Drusilla Van Hengel, Jamie Parks

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report presents finding from research evaluating U.S. protected bicycle lanes (cycle tracks) in terms of their use, perception, benefits, and impacts. This research examines protected bicycle lanes in five cities: Austin, TX; Chicago, IL; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, D.C., using video, surveys of intercepted bicyclists and nearby residents, and count data. A total of 168 hours were analyzed in this report where 16,393 bicyclists and 19,724 turning and merging vehicles were observed. These data were analyzed to assess actual behavior of bicyclists and motor vehicle drivers to determine how well each user type understands the design …

Design And Implementation Of Pedestrian And Bicycle-Specific Data Collection Methods In Oregon, Miguel Figliozzi, Christopher Monsere, Krista Nordback, Pamela Johnson, Bryan Philip Blanc

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although there is a growing need to access accurate and reliable pedestrian and bicycle data, there is no statewide system to collect data or plan future data collection efforts in the state of Oregon. To address these issues this research conducted a comprehensive review of pedestrian and bicycle data collection methods and counting technologies. Oregon data sources were also compiled and AADT estimation techniques were reviewed and applied to Oregon data. A pilot study was conducted to test bicycle and pedestrian counting methods at signalized intersections with 2070 controllers. The report also provides a summary of recommendations regarding factoring methods …

Coherence Extrapolation For Underwater Ambient Noise, Jorge Quijano, Stan E. Dosso, Martin Siderius, Lanfranco Muzi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper considers extrapolation of the vertical coherence of surface-generated oceanic ambient noise to simulate measurements made on a longer sensor array. The extrapolation method consists of projecting the noise coherence measured with a limited aperture array into the domain spanned by prolate spheroidal wave functions, which are an orthogonal basis defined by array parameters and the noise frequency. Using simulated data corresponding to selected multi-layered seabeds as ground truth, the performance of the extrapolation method is explored. Application of the technique is also demonstrated on experimental data.

An Eigenvector-Based Test For Local Stationarity Applied To Array Processing, Jorge Quijano, Lisa M. Zurk

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In sonar array processing, a challenging problem is the estimation of the data covariance matrix in the presence of moving targets in the water column, since the time interval of data local stationarity is limited. This work describes an eigenvector-based method for proper data segmentation into intervals that exhibit local stationarity, providing data-driven higher bounds for the number of snapshots available for computation of time-varying sample covariance matrices. Application of the test is illustrated with simulated data in a horizontal array for the detection of a quiet source in the presence of a loud interferer.

Characterization Of Li-Air Batteries: Lithium Peroxide Formation In Li-Air Electrodes, Claudia Torres Garibay, Jeremiah Deboever

TREC Final Reports

Li-air batteries are attractive candidates to be used in electric vehicles (EV) due to their high theoretical capacity, which results in an improved range, a requirement to make EV competitive against fossil fuel powered vehicles. However, Li-air battery technology is considered to be far from commercialization, due to its short lifespan. The decomposition of the electrolyte and its effect on cyclablity has been widely studied, no so much the cathode. This work will make use of recently reported novel adaptation of titration techniques to study cathode degradation in Li-air batteries, along capacity, cyclability, and EIS studies, to characterize the effect …

Quantifying The Impacts Of Initial Condition And Model Uncertainty On Hydrological Forecasts, Caleb Matthew Dechant

Dissertations and Theses

Forecasts of hydrological information are vital for many of society's functions. Availability of water is a requirement for any civilization, and this necessitates quantitative estimates of water for effective resource management. The research in this dissertation will focus on the forecasting of hydrological quantities, with emphasis on times of anomalously low water availability, commonly referred to as droughts. Of particular focus is the quantification of uncertainty in hydrological forecasts, and the factors that affect that uncertainty. With this focus, Bayesian methods, including ensemble data assimilation and multi-model combinations, are utilized to develop a probabilistic forecasting system. This system is applied …

Design And Prototyping Of An Antenna-Coupled Cryotron, Shauna Jensen

Dissertations and Theses

Grid-scale integration of renewable energy sources and smart grid devices has created new demands in flexible power conversion. State-of-the-art semiconductor power switches present limitations in power handling capability, as well as forward and reverse breakdown voltages. Superconducting materials are a viable alternative due to their robustness against high ampacities, large electric fields and abrupt changes in power flow. This work pays focus to material testing and apparatus design for an antenna-coupled cryotron (ACC), which is a superconducting power switch.
Design, fabrication and testing are examined for a longitudinal resonant cavity, paired with monopole transmit and modified slot receive antennae. These …

Agent-Based Control Of A Flapping Wing Micro Aerial Vehicle, Michal Podhradský

Student Research Symposium

Flapping wing micro aerial vehicles (FWMAVs) are biomimetic vehicles, because they imitate insects in the way they fly. FWMAVs are very small and highly manoeuvrable and can be used in reconnaissance, environmental monitoring, search & rescue, and other applications. The goal of the project is to develop & verify an agent based flight controller for FWMAV that can adapt to different flight conditions, actuator failures, and different vehicles while delivering constant performance. Agent based control was successfully applied in industry and distributed applications, but to our best knowledge never in an actual flying vehicle. Agent based control utilizes machine learning, …

Detecting Rule Of Balance In Photography, Uyen T. Mai, Feng Liu

Student Research Symposium

Rule of Balance is one of the most important composition rules in photography, which can be used as a standard for photo quality assessment. The rule of balance states that images with evenly distributed visual elements are visually pleasing and thus are highly aesthetic. This work presents a method to automatically classify balanced and unbalanced images. Detecting the rule of balance requires a robust technique to locate and analyze important objects and visual elements, which involves understanding of the image content. Since semantic understanding is currently beyond the state of the art in computer vision, we employ the saliency maps …

The Status Device, John Worcester, Jon Pace, Gabe Guodace, Santos Perez

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

We have come across an issue, that has saddened us deeply. The problem being that there are numerous stories across the nation about elderly patients with dementia and Alzheimer are getting lost and dying. These are not just stories about people losing track of where they live, but elderly patients under the care of senior home staff. Obviously not everyone can be everywhere at once, and we don't expect that. What we want to do is make it easier for the staff, assurance for the families, and almost importantly, for the patient.

What our plan is to do, is to …

Medibox, Bronson Kim, Chris Halverson, Devon Straub, Rose Adrian, Theo Nyguen

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Thoughts on design Concepts:

• Product must fill a need and appeal to its target consumer.
• A product must be wanted

The Industry's design concept for the elderly:

• Slightly alter products aimed toward other people.
• Promise to improve their lives by adding something new to their routine.

Our Findings and Ideas:

• The elderly have developed their methods and routines.
• They don't need something new to worry about.
• A product for the elderly should enhance their lives without burdening or inconveniencing them.
• Utilizing a familiar form and with an inventive look at exiating functionality.
• It is important to allow the elderly to …

Rotostorage Shelf Storage System, Alden Akeman, Garrett Cheadle, Jared Chin, Louis Duvoisin, Flynn Hutchinson, Paige Hval, Louie Liu, Yiling Liu

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

A problem faced by the elderly is the accessibility and ergonomics of storage space. The elderly often are unable to store items in higher places due to physical limitations. The current options for reaching items in high places are bulky, hard to use, and impractical.

After interviewing the elderly at , it was found that many seniors were not comfortable with storing items in higher places as they did not want to climb chairs to access the items. They also did not want to stoop to reach items in lower places due to the physical strain.

Our storage solution increases …