Engineering Commons^™

Investigation Of The Flow Field Inside A Drainage System: Gully - Pipe - Manhole, N. A. Beg, R. F. Carvalho, J. Leandro, P. Lopes, L. Cartaxo

International Junior Researcher and Engineer Workshop on Hydraulic Structures

No abstract provided.

Usu Cee Graduate Wins Award | Civil And Environmental Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Justin Maughan is a graduate of our department, with BS and MS in 2009. He now works at Nibley City, Utah as Public Works Director. He recently received a reward from Utah Rural Water Association.

Annual Meeting And Technology Showcase 2016 | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

The first annual technology showcase brought attendees from around the country to collaborate, network and ideate the future of electrified transportation. The conference was held at the Utah State University Electric Vehicle and Roadway (EVR) testing center. Future conferences will be held at SELECT Faculty locations (Purdue, University of Colorado - Colorado Springs, University of Colorado - Boulder, and Olin College of Engineering).

Characterization Of Geolocation Accuracy Of Suomi Npp Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder Measurements, Yang Han, Fuzhong Weng, Xiaolei Zou, Hu Yang, Deron Scott

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) onboard Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite has 22 channels at frequencies ranging from 23 to 183 GHz for probing the atmospheric temperature and moisture under all weather conditions. As part of the ATMS calibration and validation activities, the geolocation accuracy of ATMS data must be well characterized and documented. In this study, the coastline crossing method (CCM) and the land-sea fraction method (LFM) are utilized to characterize and quantify the ATMS geolocation accuracy. The CCM is based on the inflection points of the ATMS window channel measurements across the coastlines, whereas the LFM collocates …

Multi-Static Mimo Along-Track Interferometry (Atl), Chad Knight, Ross Deming, Jake Gunther

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Along-track interferometry (ATI) has the ability to generate high-quality synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images and concurrently detect and estimate the positions of ground moving target indicators (GMTI) with moderate processing requirements. This paper focuses on several different ATI system configurations, with an emphasis on low-cost configurations employing no active electronic scanned array (AESA). The objective system has two transmit phase centers and four receive phase centers and supports agile adaptive radar behavior. The advantages of multistatic, multiple input multiple output (MIMO) ATI system configurations are explored. The two transmit phase centers can employ a ping-pong configuration to provide the multistatic …

Electric Vehicle And Roadway Conference To Showcase Wireless Charging | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

NEWS RELEASE – May 8, 2016 – The fourth annual Conference on Electric Roads & Vehicles (CERV) will showcase several exciting technologies including a first-ever demonstration of wireless charging of an electric bus in motion.

Congratulations Class Of 2016 | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

May 7, 2016 — The College of Engineering congratulates its graduating class of 2016 along with the master's and PhD students who graduated yesterday. Here's the breakdown of our graduates.

• Biological Engineering: 37
• Computer Science: 69
• Computer Engineering: 11
• Civil & Environmental Engineering: 69
• Electrical Engineering: 47
• Environmental Engineering: 9
• Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering: 145

Creating A 3d Imaging Device, Bryce Walker

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This report provides a summary of Bauble, a 3D imaging device designed at Utah State University by Bryce Walker. It is designed to work somewhat like a high tech Mirascope. Unfortunately, it has not yet been successful. Many setbacks occurred in the manufacturing process, detailed below. Simulations of Bauble show both that Bauble is an exciting idea, and that the technology required to manufacture a Bauble is not currently available.

Doctoral Proposal Defense By Anna Doloman | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Research hypothesis:

Production of biogas can be enhanced through manual introduction and constant stimulation of key microbial consortia that are responsible for degradation of an organic waste of interest. Bacteria in sediments fromLogan Lagoons have a hidden potential to degrade a wide variety of wastewater contaminants and can serve as a universal inoculum for anaerobic digestion and substrate-adaptation studies. To test the hypothesis, microbial consortia isolated from Logan Lagoons sediments will be analyzed for the specific hydrolytic or methane producing activity and tested for the capabilities to withstand preservation at varying conditions. Increase in production of biogas with addition of …

Dr. Hadi Soroosh Research Presentation | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Rise of human population causes an increase of freshwater use and wastewater production worldwide. Wastewater contains various pathogens injurious to health and nutrients (mainly N and P) which would support photosynthesis of chlorophytes and terrestrial plants but can be also an ecological threat to the environment. The conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) require a large amount of energy (for mechanical aeration) and causes emission of CO2 and secondary contamination (by use of flocculants). Microalgae-Bacteria (MaB) biocoenosis can improve the capacity of the treatment system by simultaneous removal of the nutrients and carbon from wastewater with minimum carbon footprint and energy …

2016 Student Professional Awareness Conference (Spac) | Electrical And Computer Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

This program exists in many forms across the nation as the scope and goals of the event are at the discretion of the host Branch. In 2013, the USU Student Branch had a vision for a conference never before seen at USU, and since 2014, this branch has hosted the largest S-PACs in the Utah section. The event has been attended by up to 170 people and featured workshops and speakers in an all-day professional conference setting. Today, the IEEE Student branch is building on the success of the past IEEE Councils to make this the best year for the …

High Speed Digital Sample Rate Conversion For A Real-Time Ground Station Receiver, Brian Joseph Carrick

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

Small satellites are becoming a popular spacecraft option because of their low cost, and complexity. Past small satellites had simple communication systems with low data rates that rarely exceeded 38.4 kbps. Engineers, researchers, and students, from Space Dynamics Laboratory and Utah State University, have recently created and launched a pair of small satellites called the Dynamic Ionosphere CubeSat Experiment (DICE). This mission was revolutionary because of its high-speed data link, with data rates up to 1.5 Mbps.

Due to the high-speed data link, it was necessary to create a ground station capable of receiving and processing the received data. For …

Synergistic Timing Speculation For Multi-Threaded Programs, Atif Yasin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Timing speculation is a promising approach to increase the processor performance and energy efficiency. Under timing speculation, an integrated circuit is allowed to operate at a speed faster than the rated speed specified by its vendor. However, doing so might result in an incorrect execution. Consequently, as long as the processor is equipped with an error detection and recovery mechanism, its performance can be increased and/or energy consumption reduced beyond that achievable by any other conventional operation.

While many past works have dealt with timing speculation within a single core, in this work, a new direction is being uncovered by …

An Electromagnetic Coupling Model For Side-Channel Analysis, Michael L. Schena

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis presents an EM coupling model used to enhance power, side-channel measurements used in CPA. The Kalman filter is used to combine measurements of magnetic flux density with voltage or current traditionally used to measure power consumption. The DES encryption algorithm is used to evaluate CPA using EM coupled power measurements compared to traditional power measurements.

Optimizing Dam Siting In The Paru River In Brazil Using A Multi-Objective Approach, Henrique De Paula

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

How should a decision-maker choose which hydropower plant to build in a given river? Hydropower plant expansion is a task that involves several stakeholders, objectives, and resources. It requires that decision-makers use not only experience and previous knowledge to come up with their final decision, but also the use of tools to help them to decide, as well as to support their choices. The present project developed a computation model to optimize the choice of hydropower plants that can be built within a given river, considering three different objectives - energy generation, flooded surface area and river connectivity. The input …

Techno-Economic Assessment Of Micro-Algae Production Systems, Justin Hoffman

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

Global oil consumption is rising at an unprecedented rate renewing interest in alternative fuels. Micro-algae represents a promising feedstock due to inherent advantages such as high solar energy efficiencies, large lipid fractions, and utilization of various waste streams including industrial flue gas. Current technological challenges have limited the commercial viability of microalgae based biofuel production systems. This study directly evaluates and compares the economic viability of biomass production from two different open cultivation platforms, 1) algal turf scrubbers and 2) open raceway ponds. Modular sub-process models were developed and leveraged for the economic comparison of the systems on the metrics …

Quality Of Experience Aware Spectrum Efficiency And Energy Efficiency Over Wireless Heterogeneous Networks, Yiran Xu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Propelled by the explosive increases in mobile data traffic volume, existing wireless technologies are stretched to their capacity limits. There is a tremendous need for an expansion in system capacity and an improvement on energy efficiency. In addition, wireless network will support more and more multimedia services and applications, in which user experience has been always an important factor in evaluating the overall network performance. In order to keep pace with this explosion of data traffic and to meet the emerging quality of experience needs, wireless heterogeneous networks have been introduced as a promising network architecture evolution of the traditional …

Evapotranspiration Estimation: A Study Of Methods In The Western United States, Clayton S. Lewis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Theoretical water use of well-watered vegetation in the western United States was investigated by comparing a gridded dataset developed from satellite and ground instruments to weather stations representative of irrigated agricultural conditions. Since wetter environments are cooler and therefore subject to lower levels of evaporation than the same scenario with warmer temperatures, models derived from dryland and often populated areas overestimate potential plant needs in semi-arid or arid conditions. Evaluation of the model revealed an acceptable fit for air temperatures and solar radiation but with less confidence in humidity and wind speeds. Ultimately, the last two parameters were minor components …

Investigating The Effect Of Carbon Nanotube Functionalization In A Polydimethylsiloxane Composite Through Use Of A Stepped Bar Apparatus, Matthew I. Ralphs

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are used in transporting heat away from a circuit or electronic module. Composite materials are a popular research area for TIMs because they allow the desired properties to be joined in a composite to take advantage of the best properties from all the constituents involved. The composite selected for this study uses carbon nanotubes (CNT) as the filler and an elastomeric polymer for the matrix, specifically a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) / polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite. This study looks at chemical modification (functionalization) of the CNTin an effort to produce a better bond between the CNT and …

Xhab Microgravity Food Growth Chamber, Nathan I. Stacey

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

NASA and other organizations are preparing to send humans deeper into space, including a NASA manned mission to Mars in the 2030s, in order to learn more about our universe and the origin of life and to ensure the survival of the human race. Long journeys in space require efficient, dependable, and sustainable methods to provide for astronauts' metabolic needs such as oxygen, water, and food. In order for microgravity plant growth chambers to become a viable solution, several challenges encountered by past growth chambers must be resolved.

One problem with existing space food growth chambers is hypoxia, or lack …

Understanding Pyrotechnic Shock Dynamics And Response Attenuation Over Distance, Richard J. Ott

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Component requirements govern design and production in the aerospace industry. One such potential requirement for a component is the survival and continued function upon exposure to shock environments. A shock event is a high amplitude, short duration traveling wave that induces large loads on components in its path that can cause degradation of electronic components, cracks and fractures in brittle materials, local plastic deformation, and materials to experience accelerated fatigue life. In defining these environments for new structures, industry experts rely mainly on empirical data. Measurements from similar structures are scaled and enveloped to create a predicted bounding case. This …

Pedicle Lengthening Spacer, David S. Wood

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In the lumbar region of the spine, the spinal cord travels through a small hole in your vertebrae called the spinal canal. There is a medical condition where the spinal canal becomes restricted. This condition is called stenosis. There are several reasons for this pinching of the spinal column. These include the growth of bone spurs, the accumulation of ligaments in the canal, or a genetic trait. When these occur in the lower five vertebrae (the lumbar region), it is called lumbar stenosis. The symptoms of Lumbar Stenosis are shooting pain through the legs, especially during activity, and feelings of …

Understanding The Characteristics Of Successful Projects And Post-Campaign Activities In A Crowdfunding Platform, Madhavi Reddy Dontham

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Online crowdfunding platforms provide project creators with new opportunities for seeking funds from people in the world. But reaching a fund-raising goal or making a project successful is always a challenge. Besides, little is known about post-campaign activities of project creators and backers. To fill the gap, in this research, we are interested in understanding (i) the characteristics of successful projects, (ii) how project creators reacted when their projects failed, and (iii) what post-campaign activities creators and backers made. To achieve our research objectives, first, we analyzed successful projects and failed projects on Kickstarter, the most popular crowdfunding platform. Then …

Analysis And Modeling Of Pedestrian Walking Behaviors Involving Individuals With Disabilities, Mohammad Sadra Sharifi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Walking facilities like walkways and stairs are important infrastructures which must be designed to effectively accommodate the behavior of pedestrians. Heterogeneity in pedestrian composition is one important factor generally overlooked in walking facility design guidelines and handbooks. While individuals with disabilities constitute a significant portion of the population in the United States, they are often overlooked due to lack of available data. To remedy this, large scale controlled walking experiments were performed at Utah State University (USU) to study the walking behavior of various types of individuals with disabilities (including vision and mobility impairments) in different walking environments. These environments …

Live Load Testing And Analysis Of A 48-Year-Old Double Tee Girder Bridge, Victor J. Torres

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A 48-year-old prestressed double tee girder bridge located on Icy Springs road in Coalville, Utah, was tested for live load. The test measured strains, deflections and rotations. The instruments used for measuring the respective measurements were strain gages, deflectometers ("twangers") and tiltmeters.

From the recorded measurements a finite element model (FEM) was calibrated to validate the modeling techniques based on the test data. The FEM implemented two joint link elements to connect the flanges of the FEM deck to model the transverse load distribution of the bridge deteriorated shear connectors. The abutment restraints were modeled by one joint link elements. …

Exploiting Adaptive Techniques To Improve Processor Energy Efficiency, Hu Chen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As technology advances, the size of transistor — the basic building block of microprocessors, continues shrinking. The downscaled transistor will make its manufacture process become less controllable, and its operation less predictable. Moreover, smaller transistor size will lead to higher volume of transistors on a single chip, thus increases the chip power consumption. This dissertation proposes various techniques to efficiently tolerate the uncertainties in microprocessors. Also, it proposes an innovative design paradigm to build energy-efficient processor under ultra-low supply-voltage. Evaluated with rigorous methodology, the proposed approaches achieve significant improvement in processor energy efficiency, compared to other state-of-art techniques.

Urban Agriculture And Small Farm Irrigation: Case Studies From Cache Valley, Utah, Tyler Pratt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The socioeconomic landscape of water in Utah is rapidly changing due to population growth, conversion of agricultural land to urban development, and increasing awareness of future water scarcity. The Utah Division of Water Resources (DWRe) forecasts that the currently developed water supplies will not be enough to provide for Utah’s future population, and is pursuing conservation and new development to be able to meet the state’s needs.

Along with the urban growth Utah is experiencing a quickly growing sector of urban and small farm agriculture, but knowledge of water use and current practices in this area is limited. Further research …

Chromium Oxidation By Disinfectants And Oxidants Used In Drinking Water Treatment, Nathan D. Rogers

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This project investigated the behavior of hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI), a potential carcinogen) in drinking water. While Cr(VI) can exist naturally, it can also be oxidized from Cr(III), a known trace nutrient. Recently, the State of California implemented a water regulation specifically for Cr(VI) at 10 parts per billion (ppb). This project completed a comprehensive evaluation of chromium behavior when in contact with common drinking water treatment chemicals including chlorine, monochloramine, chlorine dioxide, potassium permanganate, and ozone.

The results of these oxidation experiments are highly applicable to water treatment facilities. If a treatment plant is using monochloramine, there is no indication …

Size Scale Effects On Linear Weir Hydraulics, Kedric W. Curtis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Linear weirs are a type of hydraulic structure that have been used for centuries with many different applications. One of the characteristics of weirs that is particularly useful is the head-discharge relationship where the discharge over the weir is directly related to the upstream water depth above the crest. In general, the head-discharge relationship for a weir is determined experimentally using geometrically similar models. Due to space, time, money, and discharge capacity limitations at water laboratories, creating full scale models is not always a feasible option when determining head-discharge relationships for weirs, resulting in the use of smaller scale models. …

Rhizosphere Interactions Between Copper Oxide Nanoparticles And Wheat Root Exudates In A Sand Matrix; Influences On Bioavailability And Uptake, Paul Mcmanus

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) are extremely small particles (less than 1 nm in one or more dimension, or one billionth (10^-9) of a meter) used in a diverse range of industries. They have been shown to travel through water systems, and like pharmaceuticals, can end up in wastewater treatment plants and then be land applied as biosolids, where crops are grown for animal consumption, potentially leading to food chain accumulation.

Cu is an essential micronutrient for plants, but is phytotoxic at higher concentrations. CuO NPs present an increasingly real environmental threat to agriculture in soils treated with …