Engineering Commons^™

A Tale Of Two Sides: Modeling Great Salt Lake Flows To Help Balance Current Ecosystem Influences, Eric Larsen

Research on Capitol Hill

USU senior Eric, hailing from Spanish Fork, studies mechanical engineering and funded this project through an engineering student grant. While there are several sampling stations that measure the waterflow of the Great Salt Lake, there are gaps in the data they collect that limit our ability to predict how water moves between the north and south sides of the lake. Eric has been developing machine learning models that more accurately portray the flows. This has applications for both GSL ecological preservation and the brine shrimp and salt industries. Eric loved how hands-on this project was, seeing the phenomenon that his …

Identification Of A Novel Glucuronyltransferase From Streptomyces Chromofuscus Atcc 49982 For Patural Product Glucuronidation, Jie Ren, Caleb Don Barton, Kathryn Eternity Sorenson, Jixun Zhan

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Glycosylation is an effective way to increase the polarity of natural products. UDP-glucuronyltransferases (UGTs) are commonly observed and extensively studied in phase II drug metabolism. However, UGTs in microorganisms are not well studied, which hampered the utilization of this type of enzyme in microbial glucuronidation of natural products. Screening of five actinomycete strains showed that Streptomyces chromofuscus ATCC 49982 can convert diverse plant polyphenols into more polar products, which were characterized as various glucuronides based on their spectral data. Analysis of the genome of this strain revealed a putative glucuronidation gene cluster that contains a UGT gene (gcaC) …

Community Based Engineering Design Challenges For Adolescent English Learners, Amy Wilson-Lopez

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Assessing Leachable Cytotoxicity Of 3d-Printed Polymers And Facile Detoxification Methods, Venkatakrishnan Rengarajan, Angela Clyde, Jefferson Pontsler, Jonathan Valiente, Adreann Peel, Yu Huang

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Additive manufacturing of polymers is gaining momentum in health care industries by providing rapid 3D printing of customizable designs. Yet, little is explored about the cytotoxicity of leachable toxins that the 3D printing process introduced into the final product. We studied three printable materials, which have various mechanical properties and are widely used in stereolithography 3D printing. We evaluated the cytotoxicity of these materials through exposing two fibroblast cell lines (human and mouse derived) to the 3D-printed parts, using overlay indirect contact assays. All the 3D-printed parts were measured toxic to the cells in a leachable manner, with flexible materials …

A Comparison Of National Water Model Retrospective Analysis Snow Outputs At Snow Telemetry Sites Across The Western United States, Irene Garousi-Nejad, David G. Tarboton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This study compares the US National Water Model (NWM) reanalysis snow outputs to observed snow water equivalent (SWE) and snow-covered area fraction (SCAF) at snow telemetry (SNOTEL) sites across the Western United States. SWE was obtained from SNOTEL sites, while SCAF was obtained from moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) observations at a nominal 500 m grid scale. Retrospective NWM results were at a 1000 m grid scale. We compared results for SNOTEL sites to gridded NWM and MODIS outputs for the grid cells encompassing each SNOTEL site. Differences between modelled and observed SWE were attributed to both model errors, as …

Impact Of Covid-19 On Aviation-Wildlife Strikes Across Europe, Isabel C. Metz, Marta Giordano, Dionysios Ntampakis, Marianna Moira, Anneke Hamann, Rosanne Blijleven, Jürgen J. Ebert, Alessandro Montemaggiori

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Collisions between aircraft and wildlife (i.e., wildlife strikes) pose a serious threat toward the safety of aircraft, its crew, and passengers. The effects of COVID-19 related travel restrictions on wildlife strikes are unknown. With this study, we aim to address this information gap by assessing the changes of wildlife hazard management performance across European airports during the lockdown period (e.g., period of reduced operations and borders closure in spring 2020). We also sought to raise awareness of the importance of wildlife strike prevention in times of reduced operations. The objective of our study was to compare wildlife strike data before …

A Two-Layer Constellation Scheduling Approach For Imaging And Communication, Skylar Cox, Justin Whitaker, John Humble, Greg Droge

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Spacecraft constellations continue to grow in numbers, capability, and sophistication, requiring in creased levels of automation to properly cooperate in achieving their objectives. This paper develops a constellation scheduling capability for collecting images of points of interest (POI) and communicating the imagery data through the constellation to established ground station terminals. Various levels of coordination are considered. First, satellites coordinate to avoid duplicate efforts for imaging POIs; second, ground stations only service a single satellite at a time for downlinking; and third, satellites may crosslink data within the constellation to enable a more timely delivery of high-valued information as well …

A Monolithic Solid-State Interferometer For Real-Time Multi-Environment Measurements, Aaron J. Pung

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

The high degree of precision offered by optical interferometry makes it an ideal tool in many applications, including vibration detection, wind tunnel aerodynamics, surface topology measurements, and environmental sensing. In the latter case, real-time measurement of real-world environments is crucial to ensuring the health and safety of individuals operating within domestic and industrial domains. Currently, these measurements are made possible with portable fiber-based interferometer systems – systems that are also limited by high cost, fragility, coupling loss, and low power. This work presents a lightweight free-space interferometer that is versatile, modular, and compact. The interferometer is monolithic, geometrically simple, easy …

Lessons From Real-Time, Online Collaborative Modeling To Discuss More Adaptive Reservoir Operations, David E. Rosenberg

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This work had the purpose to model and discuss in real-time more adaptive Colorado River reservoir operations with manager and experts. I created real-time, online collaborative modeling environments by using an interactive web spreadsheet (Google Sheet) during video conference sessions. 26 Colorado River managers and experts participated. Within each session, up to 6 people from the same stakeholder group simultaneously consumed, saved, and traded water in six basin water accounts, protected reservoirs, and sustained endangered, native fish of the Grand Canyon. The collaboration differed from prior studies that excluded stakeholders, extracted data from participants, had a lead modeler or facilitation …

Adapting Colorado River Basin Depletions To Available Water To Live Within Our Means, Jian Wang, David E. Rosenberg

Publications

The Colorado River’s two largest reservoirs are drawing down because releases exceed inflows and releases adapt to reservoir elevations instead of elevation and inflow triggers. To help slow reservoir drawdown and sustain target elevations, we introduced a new rule that adapted basin depletions to available water. We simulated inflow-based operations and validated existing operations in a new open-source exploratory model for the Colorado River Basin. We developed the exploratory model to more easily adapt Upper and Lower Basin depletions to available water, reduce run time, and lower costs to use compared to the proprietary RiverWare Colorado River Simulation System (CRSS) …

Attainable Moment Set And Actuation Time Of A Bio-Inspired Rotating Empennage, Christian R. Bolander, Douglas F. Hunsaker, David Myszka, James J. Joo

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Future tactical aircraft will likely demonstrate improvements in efficiency, weight, and control by implementing bio-inspired control systems. This work analyzes a novel control system for a fighter aircraft inspired by the function of – and the degrees of freedom available in – a bird’s tail. The control system is introduced to an existing fighter aircraft design by removing the vertical tail and allowing the horizontal tail surfaces to rotate about the roll axis. Using a low-fidelity aerodynamic model, an analysis on the available controlling moments and actuation speeds of the baseline aircraft is compared to that of the bio-inspired rotating …

Disambiguation Of Large-Scale Educational Network Data For Social Network Analysis, Adam Weaver

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a research method which quantitatively maps qualitative social interactions between individuals who comprise a ‘network’. Delineating these social networks yields highly valuable data, including SNA measures like centrality, which can be used to measure social influence, connectivity, and more. Further, these networks can also be visualized by graphing individuals as ‘nodes’, and then by drawing ‘edges’ (the lines that connect them) to produce sociograms. With these sociograms, researchers can concurrently conduct visual and statistical analysis of relations between node and network traits of interest. As a result of these capabilities and the growth of social …

Pan Variant Sars-Cov-2 Common Interactions And Drug Candidates, Kolton Hauck

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

As the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread, multiple strains have appeared. Research has investigated potential drug candidates for COVID-19, but without consideration for the multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2. A domain-based and interolog-based method were implemented to predict protein-protein interactions (PPIs) between the SARS-CoV-2 variants and human proteins. A common set (conserved among all strains) and a unique set (distinct for each strain) of interactions were made. These sets of interactions were characterized via subcellular localization, tissue expression, pathway enrichment and gene ontology. Lastly, drug candidates were identified for the common set. The combined domain and interolog methods resulted in 8963 predicted …

Establishing A Framework Of Nitrogen Acquisition For Martian Agriculture, Tyler Wallentine

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Nitrogen (N) forms a crucial part of DNA, proteins, and other biomolecules and is an essential element to life. Luckily, N is abundant in Earth’s and Mars’ atmospheres in its atmospheric form (N₂); however, plants and humans are unable to metabolize it in this state. N₂ gas is only able to be consumed by undergoing nitrogen fixation, an intensive process that breaks the extremely-stable N ≡ N bond in order to form bioavailable ammonia (NH₃). Many prokaryotes are capable of nitrogen fixation. Plants may uptake fixed N from these, which are then consumed by other …

Designing An Electric Vehicle Wireless Charging System, Conner Sabin

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

USU researchers at ASPIRE NSF Engineering research center are developing power electronic systems including wireless charging systems to increase EV charging accessibility. EV wireless charging systems include two charging coils, one on the ground and one on the bottom of the car. Current is driven through the charging coil as a car drives over the top of or parks on top of this coil. High current creates a magnetic field which induces current in the car coil. The alternating magnetic fields can charge the car as the car is simply parked on the top of this coil. Designing a wireless …

A Computational Model Of Angiogenesis In Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Brandon Pace

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a chronic disease which causes central blindness in the eye. This progressive disease is thought to affect 1 of every 4 people over the age of 80 living in developed countries, including America. There is no cure and the only treatments to halt disease progression involve biweekly eye injections for the rest of the patient’s life. Clearly there is a great need to understand AMD and find better treatment for the many afflicted. It is known that harmful capillary growth (angiogenesis) contributes to AMD. By learning more about retinal angiogenesis, we can understand AMD in …

Effects Of The Checks, Andrew Stott

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of people have lost thousands of dollars, and some much more. As a result, the government issued aid in the form of stimulus checks, with the intention to stimulate the economy and compensate for money lost. The government is not adding value to the economy, but merely moving it around, and in many cases simply making it worse. The checks allude to an even bigger issue: that of universal income and welfare checks. Although these things may be helpful to the individual, they are ineffective and harmful to the economy because they …

Effectiveness Of Cannabidiol And Resveratrol Against Diesel Exhaust Particle-Induced Lung Cell Cytotoxicity, Emily Brothersen

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Environmental air pollution poses a significant health risk to individuals across the world. Diesel exhaust particles (DEPs), a major component of air pollution, have been shown to cause lung damage leading to cancer, respiratory infections, and premature death. Antioxidants, such as resveratrol, have previously demonstrated protective properties against DEP-induced cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species. Cannabinoids extracted from hemp species have also been found to have powerful antioxidant properties, though these properties have not been thoroughly explored. In this study, A549 human lung carcinoma cells were used as a cellular model to determine the effectiveness of cannabinoids’ antioxidant properties against DEP-induced …

Airfoil Flow Optimized Control With An Upstream Cylinder, Nicole Steiner

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

The purpose of this research is to optimize the aerodynamic performance of an airfoil with an upstream cylinder by neural network artificial intelligence. The effects of an upstream oscillating cylinder on the aerodynamic performance of an airfoil are also studied. This paper reports the effects oscillating frequency of the cylinder and the Reynolds number on the lift/drag ratio of the airfoil. The frequency has a complicated correlation with the lift/drag ratio, while the Reynolds number is found to have a positive correlation with the lift/drag ratio. The optimized case is found to have a lift/drag ratio of 1.7319, which is …

Smart Solar Microgrid Inverter, Conner Sabin, Mckay Waite, Dakota Goodrich, Tucker Skinner

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

With a major increase in the integration of renewable and distributed energy resources along with the use of solar inverters in microgrid applications, the need for advanced power electronics, specifically smart inverters, is higher than ever. It is desirable for these smart inverters to operate with maximum efficiency as well as provide grid services such as voltage and frequency regulation. A smart inverter design can improve the reliability and resilience of the grid, reduce the cost of energy, and ease grid maintenance. This is done through the management of active power generation and reactive power compensation between the solar inverter …

A Highly Versatile Fungal Glucosyltransferase For Specific Production Of Quercetin-7-O-Β-D-Glucoside And Quercetin-3-O-Β-D-Glucoside In Different Hosts, Jie Ren, Wenzhu Tang, Caleb Don Barton, Owen M. Price, Mark Wayne Mortensen, Alexandra Phillips, Banner Wald, Simon Elgin Hulme, Logan Powell Stanley, Joan Hevel, Jixun Zhan

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Glycosylation is an effective way to improve the water solubility of natural products. In this work, a novel glycosyltransferase gene (BbGT) was discovered from Beauveria bassiana ATCC 7159 and heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli. The purified enzyme was functionally characterized through in vitro enzymatic reactions as a UDP-glucosyltransferase, converting quercetin to five monoglucosylated and one diglucosylated products. The optimal pH and temperature for BbGT are 35 ℃ and 8.0, respectively. The activity of BbGT was stimulated by Ca2+, Mg2+, and Mn2+, but inhibited by Zn2+. BbGT enzyme is flexible and can glycosylate a variety of substrates such as curcumin, …

Increasing Affordability, Energy Efficiency, And Ridership Of Transit Bus Systems Through Large-Scale Electrification, Ziqi Song

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Uptpu: Improving Energy Efficiency Of A Tensor Processing Unit Through Underutilization Based Power-Gating, Pramesh Pandey, Noel Daniel Gundi, Koushik Chakraborty, Sanghamitra Roy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The AI boom is bringing a plethora of domain-specific architectures for Neural Network computations. Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), a Deep Neural Network (DNN) accelerator, has replaced the CPUs/GPUs in its data centers, claiming more than 15 × rate of inference. However, the unprecedented growth in DNN workloads with the widespread use of AI services projects an increasing energy consumption of TPU based data centers. In this work, we parametrize the extreme hardware underutilization in TPU systolic array and propose UPTPU: an intelligent, dataflow adaptive power-gating paradigm to provide a staggering 3.5 ×-6.5× energy efficiency to TPU for different input …

Collective Motion In Pelotons And Fish Schools: Observation And Modeling, Syed Rafid Rahman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In recent years there has been a sharp increase in deriving inspiration from nature for engineering applications. However there has been lack of high-resolution data from which insights into collective behavior can be drawn and models can be validated. In this imaging based thesis, data from high-speed, overhead cameras, and GPS tracking are used to collect position and sensory data for large groups of 40 or more members. These data helps us understand how different members (fish, cyclists) of a group interact with each other in collective motion. The focus of this work is to find how individual behavior leads …

Airframe And Systems Design, Analysis, And Testing Of The Horizon Morphing-Wing Aircraft, Sabrina A. Snow

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Morphing trailing edge technology can provide the ability to dynamically alter the twist distribution, and therefore lift distribution, of an aircraft during flight. There are certain optimal lift distributions which can be chosen to create proverse yawing effects and eliminate the need for vertical control surfaces. The purpose of this project is to support the design and testing of a morphing, crescent flying wing airframe which will be used to evaluate yaw control in an aircraft without vertical control surfaces. There are three main objectives of this project, which are to perform static and dynamic analysis on the crescent wing …

Roadway-Embedded Transmitters And Multi-Pad Receivers For High Power Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer, Benny J. Varghese

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Electric vehicles (EVs) offer considerable economic and environmental benefits to society. Despite the decreasing vehicle costs and increasing range of newer EVs, the problem of range anxiety still exists. Range anxiety, at its core, is an issue of charging speeds rather than a concern about the driving range. Dynamic wireless charging of EVs is seen as a potential solution to this issue of range anxiety. Further, wireless charging technology also helps the push towards level 5 autonomy and opens new opportunities for how an EV can be utilized.

Dynamic wireless power transfer (DWPT) systems typically require a high initial investment …

English-To-Ipa Transcription, Riley Roberts

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The purpose of this project was to create a tool that could automate English-to-IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription. Research was done to determine what would be required to perform such a transcription. After researching and experimenting with existing tools, it was determined that developing the signal processing and Artificial Intelligence model portion of the application would be too intensive to successfully complete within the timeframe of this project.

The choice was made to develop an iOS application, with the Python library Allosaurus used to do the speech processing and as the Artificial Intelligence model. This model was then deployed in …

High-Magnification Digital Image Correlation Techniques For Aged Nuclear Fuel Cladding Testing, Robert Scott Hansen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nuclear fuel cladding in light water reactors, often made of zirconium alloys, is naturally made more brittle by exposure to the water coolant during normal reactor operation. However, this embrittlement by zirconium hydrides changes the mechanical behavior of the cladding material, affecting how it will deform and what may cause it to fail. Because the cladding already has different properties in different material directions, mechanical testing also needs to be direction specific. In addition, to understand the effects that these microscale hydride features have, measurements of deforming cladding need to be at a microscale. This dissertation describes several high-magnification innovations …

Ammonia Emission Assessment From Gasoline And Diesel Engines Under Utah Specific Conditions, Motasem Suleiman Abualqumboz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study aims to quantify ammonia (NH₃) emission rates from the on-road gasoline and diesel motor vehicles fleet of the Wasatch Front, Utah. For this purpose, a portable Pollution Emissions Monitoring System (PEMS) was used to estimate NH₃ emission rates from a representative fleet of 53 in-use light-duty (LD) gasoline and diesel vehicles over a total of 166 on-road Real Driving Emissions (RDE) tests. The post-catalyst concentrations of NH₃ precursors, nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and carbon monoxide (CO) were also measured. The outcomes of this study showed that a motor vehicle in the Wasatch Front …

Active Transportation Routes Using Canal Corridors: Decision Tools In Creating Successful Canal Trail Projects, Matthew Scott Crump

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The state of Utah has many canal corridors that offer potential opportunities for establishing public trails.In the past, concerns such as public safety and canal companies’ abilities to perform maintenance have inhibited the construction of canal trails. Recently, local governments and canal companies have worked to overcome these challenges which has led to the establishment of some canal trails. The purpose of this study is to provide valuable insights and tools that can be used in developing future canal trails. In order to accomplish this, the study documents various case studies of completed canal trail projects, interviews stakeholders for future …