Engineering Commons^™

Tangerine Avenue Retrofitting Project, Ni-Bin Chang, Martin Wanielista

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Building America Industrialized Housing Partnership Case Studies - 2010, Florida Solar Energy Center, Janet Mcilvaine

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This document is a compilation of 14 separate case studies of home builders who have adopted Building America principles of high performance as standard construction. This work was compiled by the Building America Industrialized Housing Partnership (www.baihp.org ) for the U.S. Department of Energy to serve as a model for other housing providers. BAIHP is led by the Florida Solar Energy Center of the University of Central Florida.

Florida Weatherization Training - Quarterly Report (July 2010 - September 2010), Florida Solar Energy Center, Neil Moyer

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The weatherization training for the State of Florida Dept of Community Affairs continues at the Florida Solar Energy Center's Training Facility. Progress for the fifth three months of the contract included minor course refinement of presentation materials and handouts as the result of the June 2010 updates to the P & G . Four 1-day IR classes were completed (45 students).

Opportunities For Energy Conservation And Improved Comfort From Wind Washing Retrofits In Two-Story Homes - Part Ii, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Wind washing is a general term referring to diminished thermal control caused by air movement partially or completely bypassing the thermal barrier. The primary focus of this paper relates to a specific type of wind washing where wind can push attic air into the floor cavity between first and second stories of the home through ineffective (or missing) air barriers separating attic space from the floor cavity. A second type of wind washing studied in this project involves insulation batts on knee walls where space between the batts and the wall board allow air movement against the gypsum wall board. …

Opportunities For Energy Conservation And Improved Comfort From Wind Washing Retrofits In Two-Story Homes - Part I, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Wind washing is a general term referring to diminished thermal control caused by air movement over or through a thermal barrier. The primary focus of this paper is towards a specific type of wind washing where wind can push attic air into the floor cavity between first and second stories of the home through ineffective (or missing) air barriers separating attic space from the floor cavity. A second type of wind washing studied in this project involved insulation batts on knee walls where space between the batts and the wall board allowed air movement against the gypsum wall board. During …

Affiliate Steps Toward Building Energy Star Homes, Florida Solar Energy Center, Janet Mcilvaine

FSEC Energy Research Center®

To certify a home as an Energy Star, a builder works with a RESNET certified home energy rater to evaluate the home with respect to criteria required by the Energy Star program. The following steps will help Habitat affiliates navigate the path toward building Energy Star homes.

Pilot Evaluation Of Energy Savings And Persistence From Residential Energy Demand Feedback Devices In A Hot Climate, Florida Solar Energy Center, Danny Parker

FSEC Energy Research Center®

According to past studies, providing instantaneous feedback on household electrical demand has shown the promise to typically reduce energy consumption by 5-10%. This paper briefly reviews past research and describes a two year pilot evaluation of a low cost residential energy feedback system installed in twenty case study homes in Florida. Although not a statistical sample (the participants were self-selected and interested in reducing energy use), the study showed an average 7% reduction in energy use from feedback homes in the second year of monitoring after controlling for weather-related influences. However, a follow-up evaluation done three years later found little …

Exploring Cost-Effective, High Performance Residential Retrofits For Affordable Housing In The Hot Humid Climate, Florida Solar Energy Center, Janet Mcilvaine

FSEC Energy Research Center®

In 2009, a Department of Energy Building America team led by the Florida Solar Energy Center began working with partners to find cost-effective paths for improving the energy performance of existing homes in the hot humid climate. A test-in energy audit and energy use modeling of the partner's proposed renovation package was performed for 41 affordable and middle income foreclosed homes in Florida and Alabama. HERS1 Indices ranged from 92 to 184 with modeled energy savings ranging from 3% to 50% (average of 26%). Analyses and recommendations were discussed with partners to encourage more efficient retrofits, highlight health and safety …

Evaluation Of Bias Issues Within Regression-Based Inverse Modeling Methods Against Climate And Building Characteristics Using Synthetic Data, Florida Solar Energy Center, Jamie Cummings

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Typically, a model of the energy use of a building is created using the building's characteristics and climate information for its location. However, models of existing homes can be created using monitored energy and climactic data in a process called inverse modeling. Such a technique has potential for those seeking to evaluate the savings a home before and after a retrofit (Meier, Busch, & Conner, 1988).Several programs use an inverse modeling technique to model a home's energy use based on total home energy use, heating and cooling energy use, and indoor/outdoor temperature data from a home (Kissock, Haberl, & Claridge, …

Side-By-Side Testing Of Water Heating Systems Results From 2009-2010 Testing, Florida Solar Energy Center, Carlos Colon

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The Hot Water System (HWS) Laboratory test facility at the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) in Cocoa, FL was used for testing seven differing types of residential water heating systems. The HWS building provides unconditioned housing (similar to a garage in Florida) for one reference electric 50-gallon heater, three solar thermal electric assisted systems, one electric tankless system, one reference 40-gallon natural gas (NG) and tankless gas system. The performance of all seven systems has been compared in a side-by-side test configuration over a full year period. Simultaneous hot water draws take place for all hot water heating systems on …

Field Monitoring And Hourly Simulation Of Energy And Demand Savings From Use Of The Telkonet Ss5000 System Hotel Ac Occupancy Control, Florida Solar Energy Center, James Cummings

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Air conditioning and heating control systems were installed in a 56-room hotel in central Florida. Thermostat setpoints in half of the rooms were adjusted when the room was detected to be unoccupied. Heating and cooling energy use was monitored for a period of 9.5 months. Energy and demand savings were analyzed.

Solar Water Heating Performance: Use Of Energy Factors, Florida Solar Energy Center, Carol Emrich

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The goal of increasing solar energy installations is widely accepted by all. The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) concluded that the goal of increasing solar hot water system installations in Florida could be greatly enhanced by concentrating its efforts on new construction through simplification of the residential building energy code. Since implementation in 1980, the Florida Energy Efficiency Code for Building Construction has required a calculation procedure that assigns multipliers to residential water heating systems. The multiplier for every water heating system type except solar is based on the system's rated efficiency at standard conditions and is a one- or …

Poppleton Creek Wet Detention Pond, Stormwater Academy

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Building America Industrialized Housing Partnership (Baihp Ii), Annual Report - Budget Period 4 (Bp4), January 01, 2009 - December 31, 2009, Florida Solar Energy Center, Robert Abernethy

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This annual report summarizes the work conducted by the Building America Industrialized Housing Partnership (BAIHP - www.baihp.org) during the fourth budget period (BP4) of our contract, January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009. Progress from the three previous budget periods is included for context.

BAIHP is led by the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) of the University of Central Florida. With over 50 Industry Partners including factory and site builders, work was performed in four task areas:

• Task 1: System Evaluations
• Task 2: Prototype House Evaluations
• Task 3: Community Scale Evaluations
• Task 4: Post- Phase 3 Activities.

In Task 1, …

Baffle Box Effectiveness Monitoring Report, Stormwater Academy

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Updated Miscellaneous Electricity Loads And Appliance Energy Usage Profiles For Use In Home Energy Ratings, The Building America Benchmark And Related Calculations [Revised], Florida Solar Energy Center, Danny Parker

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This report addresses the ever increasing percentage of whole house energy use that is attributable to miscellaneous electricity loads (MELs) and major appliances. It builds on earlier U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reports on the same subject and incorporates the 2005 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) public use data set to determine how major appliance use is related to the number of bedrooms in existing homes. These data, coupled with existing and proposed DOE appliance testing and labeling standards, are then used to determine a set of baseline lighting and appliance energy end use values for use in the HERS …

Response-Calibration Techniques For Antenna-Coupled Infrared Sensors, Peter Krenz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Infrared antennas are employed in sensing applications requiring specific spectral, polarization, and directional properties. Because of their inherently small dimensions, there is significant interaction, both thermal and electromagnetic, between the antenna, the antenna-coupled sensor, and the low-frequency readout structures necessary for signal extraction at the baseband modulation frequency. Validation of design models against measurements requires separation of these effects so that the response of the antenna-coupled sensor alone can be measured in a calibrated manner. Such validations will allow confident extension of design techniques to more complex infrared-antenna configurations. Two general techniques are explored to accomplish this goal. The extraneous …

Synthesis, Structure, And Catalytic Properties Of Size-Selected Platinum Nanoparticles, Simon Armando Covone

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of heterogeneous catalysis is well established in chemical synthesis, energy, and environmental engineering applications. Supported Pt nanoparticles have been widely reported to act as catalysts in a vast number of chemical reactions. In this report, the performance of Pt/ZrO2 nanocatalyst for the decomposition of methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol, and 2-butanol is investigated. The potential of each alcohol for the production of H2 and other relevant products in the presence of a catalyst is studied. All the alcohols studied show some decomposition activity below 200°C which increased with increasing temperature. In all cases, high selectivity towards H2 formation is observed. …

Live Video Database Management Systems, Rui Peng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the proliferation of inexpensive cameras and the availability of high-speed wired and wireless networks, networks of distributed cameras are becoming an enabling technology for a broad range of interdisciplinary applications in domains such as public safety and security, manufacturing, transportation, and healthcare. Today’s live video processing systems on networks of distributed cameras, however, are designed for specific classes of applications. To provide a generic query processing platform for applications of distributed camera networks, we designed and implemented a new class of general purpose database management systems, the live video database management system (LVDBMS). We view networked video cameras as …

Predictive Modeling Of Sulfide Removal In Tray Aerators, Jumoke O. Faborode

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hydrogen sulfide is commonly found in many Florida potable groundwater supplies. Removing sulfur species, particularly hydrogen sulfide is important because if left untreated, sulfide can impact finished water quality, corrosivity, create undesirable taste and odor, and oxidize to form visible turbidity and color. This document presents the results of a study designed to investigate the removal efficiencies of a variety of tray aerators in Central Florida in order to develop a predictive mathematical model that could be used to determine tray effectiveness for sulfide removal. A literature review was performed that indicated there was limited information regarding the removal of …

Fast-Response Liquid Crystal Displays, Meizi Jiao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After about five decades of extensive material research and device development, followed by massive investment in manufacturing technology, thin-film-transistor liquid-crystaldisplay (TFT-LCD) has finally become the dominant flat panel display technology. Nowadays, LCD performances, such as viewing angle, contrast ratio, and resolution, have reached acceptable levels. The remaining major technical challenges are response time, light efficiency, and sunlight readability. Fast response time is desired to reduce motion blur and to enable field sequential color displays using red (R), green (G), and blue (B) LEDs (light emitting diodes) without noticeable color breakup. Sequential RGB colors would eliminate the commonly used spatial color …

Architectural Support For Improving System Hardware/Software Reliability, Martin Dimitrov

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is a great challenge to build reliable computer systems with unreliable hardware and buggy software. On one hand, software bugs account for as much as 40% of system failures and incur high cost, an estimate of $59.5B a year, on the US economy. On the other hand, under the current trends of technology scaling, transient faults (also known as soft errors) in the underlying hardware are predicted to grow at least in proportion to the number of devices being integrated, which further exacerbates the problem of system reliability. We propose several methods to improve system reliability both in terms …

A Decision Support System Methodology For The Selection Of Rapid Prototyping Technologies For Investment-Cast Gas Turbine Parts, Angela Gallagher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the power generation sector, more specifically, the gas turbine industry, competition has forced the lead time-to-market for product advancements to be more important than ever. For design engineers, this means that product design iterations and final product development must be completed within both critical time windows and budgetary constraints. Therefore, two areas that have received significant attention in the research and in practice are: (1) rapid prototyping technology development, and (2) rapid prototyping technology selection. Rapid prototyping technology selection is the focus of this research. In practice, selecting the rapid prototyping method that is acceptable for a specific design …

Bit-Rate Aware Reconfigurable Architecture For H.264/Avc Deblocking Filter, Rakan Khraisha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In H.264/AVC, DeBlocking Filter (DBF) achieves bit rate savings and it is used to improve visual quality by reducing the presence of blocking artifacts. However, these advantages come at the expense of increasing computational complexity of the DBF due to highly adaptive mode decision and small 4x4 block size. The DBF easily accounts for one third of the computational complexity of the decoder. The computational complexity required for various target applications from mobile to high definition video applications varies significantly. Therefore, it becomes apparent to design efficient architecture to adapt to different requirements. In this work, we exploit the scalability …

Film Cooling With Wake Passing Applied To An Annular Endwall, Nghia Trong Tran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advancement in turbine technology has far reaching effects on today's society and environment. With more than 90% of electricity and 100% of commercial air transport being produced by the usage of gas turbine, any advancement in turbine technology can have an impact on fuel used, pollutants and carbon dioxide emitted to the environment. Within the turbine engine, fully understanding film cooling is critical to reliability of a turbine engine. Film cooling is an efficient way to protect the engine surface from the extremely hot incoming gas, which is at a temperature much higher than allowable temperature of even the most …

The Relevance Of Time-To-Digital Converters To Small Platform Direction Finding Systems, Paul Jeffrey Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores a Time-Difference-of-Arrival (TDOA) approach to radio direction finding, utilizing picosecond-resolution Time-to-Digital Converters (TDCs). By measuring the relative time of arrival of a pulsed RF signal impinging on an antenna array, direction of arrival (DOA) can be ascertained. This technology enables versatile DOA calculation on platforms only several meters in length, and offers various size, weight, power, and cost advantages when compared to present DF technologies. A short baseline S-band TDOA DF system utilizing TDCs is designed, fabricated, and tested in a laboratory environment. This research suggests that such a DF system based on TDCs provides sufficient accuracy …

Parameter Estimation In Heat Transfer And Elasticity Using Trained Pod-Rbf Network Inverse Methods, Craig Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In applied mechanics it is always necessary to understand the fundamental properties of a system in order to generate an accurate numerical model or to predict future operating conditions. These fundamental properties include, but are not limited to, the material parameters of a specimen, the boundary conditions inside of a system, or essential dimensional characteristics that define the system or body. However in certain instances there may be little to no knowledge about the systems conditions or properties; as a result the problem cannot be modeled accurately using standard numerical methods. Consequently, it is critical to define an approach that …

Particle Separation Through Taylor-Couette Flow And Dielectrophoretic Trapping, Christopher Paul Bock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the world population approaches seven billion, a greater strain is put on the resources necessary to sustain life. One of the most basic and essential resources is water and while two thirds of the earth is covered by water, the majority is either salt water (oceans and seas) or it is too contaminated to drink. The purpose of this project is to develop a portable device capable of testing whether a specific source of water (i.e. lake, river, well…) is potable. There are numerous filtration techniques that can remove contaminants and make even the dirtiest water clean enough for …

Modeling And Design Of Multi-Port Dc/Dc Converters, Zhijun Qian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, a new satellite platform power architecture based on paralleled three-port DC/DC converters is proposed to reduce the total satellite power system mass. Moreover, a fourport DC/DC converter is proposed for renewable energy applications where several renewable sources are employed. Compared to the traditional two-port converter, three-port or four-port converters are classified as multi-port converters. Multi-port converters have less component count and less conversion stage than the traditional power processing solution which adopts several independent two-port converters. Due to their advantages multi-port converters recently have attracted much attention in academia, resulting in many topologies for various applications. But …

Correlation Between Preparation Parameters And Properties Of Molybdenum Back Contact Layer For Cigs Thin Film Solar Cells, Eigo Takahashi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Molybdenum (Mo) thin film back contact layers for thin film CuIn(1-x)GaxSe2 (CIGS) solar cells were deposited onto soda lime glass substrates using a direct current (DC) planar magnetron sputtering deposition technique. Requirements for the Mo thin film as a back contact layer for CIGS solar cells are various. Sheet resistance, contact resistance to the CIGS absorber, optical reflectance, surface morphology, and adhesion to the glass substrate are the most important properties that the Mo thin film back contact layer must satisfy. Experiments were carried out under various combinations of sputtering power and working gas pressure, for it is well known …