Engineering Commons^™

Modeling The Liquid, Nasal, And Vowel Transitions Of North American English Using Linear Predictive Filters And Line Spectral Frequency Interpolations For Use In A Speech Synthesis System, Jacob G. Nieveen

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

A speech synthesis system with an original user interface is being developed. In contrast to most modern synthesizers, this system is not text to speech (TTS). This system allows the user to control vowels, vowel transitions, and consonant sounds through a simple 2-d vowel pad and consonant buttons. In this system, a synthesized glottal waveform is passed through vowel filters to create vowel sounds. Several filters were calculated from recordings of vowels using linear predictive coding (LPC). The rest of the vowels in the North American English vowel space were found using interpolation techniques with line spectral frequencies (LSF). The …

Development Of Standards, Objectives, And Curriculum Guide To Teach Basic Electronics For Utah Science Credit In Secondary School Education, Rick Pierce

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

Recently, the Utah State Office of Education (USOE) has accepted Basic Electronics, Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code 47.0105, as an elective to fill the required third science credit for secondary education (grades 10-12) students. The current Utah state core standards and objectives used for curriculum development in the Basic Electronics classes are now inadequate, as they are more than 15 years old, and designed specifically for students pursuing a technical career path. A formatting change to the document was implemented in 2008, but the standards and objectives were not changed.
Students are subsequently being taught the fundamentals of technology …

Evolutionary Optimization Algorithms For Nonlinear Systems, Ashish Raj

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the real world, we encounter a number of problems which require iterative methods rather than heuristic approaches to solve them. Not every problem can be solved with a definitive method. Optimization algorithms come to the aid of such instances. These algorithms carry out multiple iterations or generations to try to achieve the lowest value of a cost function. The demand for fast and robust stochastic algorithms to cater to the optimization needs is very high. The faster the convergence to a low value of the cost function, the better the algorithm is. This is attained in greedy criterion approaches, …

Air Vent Sizing In Low-Level Outlet Works For Small- To Medium-Sized Dams, Nathan W. Wright

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The majority of dams contain low-level outlet works, which typically consist of closed conduits that run through the dam, and are used to release water from the reservoir when the water level is below the level of the surface spillways. It is also used to flush the reservoir of sediments and to control the elevation of the reservoir. Low-level outlet works typically consist of a gate that controls the flow within a closed conduit that runs through the dam and an air vent that supplies air behind the gate. In the absence of properly designed air vents, negative pressures may …

Transformable Wheelchair, Benjamin Shurtz

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This report includes the development, design, and analysis of a transformable wheelchair. There was a need to design and build a wheelchair that transformed to be pushed, pulled, or self-propelled. This design meets the need of physically restricted wheelchair users who frequent simple hiking trails without needing to move to a secondary off-road capable device. Documentation for concepts, analysis, and completed design details follows.

Towed Water Turbine Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis, Robert G. Maughan

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

Computational fluid dynamics can be used to predict operating conditions of towed water turbines which are used in long distance sailing applications to meet electrical demands. The design consists of a turbine fastened to a shaft which is attached to a generator by a rope. The turbine is pulled in water behind a sailboat and torque is transmitted through the rope to turn the onboard generator and produce power. Torque curves from an alternator, generator, and from computational fluid dynamics were used to determine the operating spin rate and output power of the system. On-water tests were conducted to determine …

Miniature Wire Boom System For Cubsat Application, Keith R. Bradford

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

Small satellites and especially CubeSats are becoming more widely used to study the space environment. The Ionosphere is one region of particular interest, more specifically the altitude region of 85 km to 600 km. Small satellites are particularly useful for studying this region of the Earth’s atmosphere since the effects of aerodynamic drag on a CubeSat are much less than those on a larger more traditional satellite, thus the lifespan of a CubeSat in this region is much longer. In order to observe the electric field in space, the electric potential between various points needs to be measured. These measurements …

Systems Engineering Of The Double-Probe Instrumentation For Measuring Electric-Fields Cubesatellite, Steven M. Grover

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

This report presents the general mission overview of the Double-probe Instrumentation for Measuring Electric-fields (E-fields) (DIME) program. The Lessons learned from a previous program are summarized, and the subsequent changes to the main science instrument and overall satellite bus design are presented. The trade-studies, design, and systems engineering of the Double-probe Electric Field (E-field) science instrument is described. This report also outlines the overall mechanical design of a 1.5U CubeSatellite and its deployable mechanisms for use on the DIME program.

Optimization Of Polyhydroxybutyrate Production In Recombinant Escherichia Coli Through Metabolic Modeling And Simulation, Yoshitaro Heshiki

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

The objective of this study is to optimize the growth media and genes to maximize PHB production computer simulations, and to evaluate the simulation results through experiments. In order to achieve this objective, the metabolism of E. coli that produces PHB was modeled using the existing E. coli genome-scale metabolic networks. To identify the best additional nutrient for PHB production, carbon sources, minerals, amiano acids, nitrogen sources, and sulfur sources were examined by production potential analysis. Strain design was conducted to find the unwanted reactions to overexpress PHB synthesis pathway.

Power Efficient Restart-Capable Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene-Based Arc Ignition For Hybrid Rocket Motors, Nathan R. Inkley

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

Hybrid rocket ignition has historically involved either dangerous energetic materials or inefficient and failure-prone plasma sources. The vast majority of such systems cannot sup- port multiple restart cycles, thus limiting the applicability of hybrid rockets–especially for in-space propulsion. During research investigating its use as a fuel for hybrid rockets, it was discovered that Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) plastic possesses unique electrical breakdown characteristics. During a properly designed breakdown event, application of a strong electric field induces a high-temperature arc along the surface of the ABS, concurrent with rapid production of hydrocarbon vapor. This behavior forms the basis of a novel …

Study And Development Of Blind Equalization For Demodulation Of Dynamic Ionosphere Cubesat Experiment Satellite Data, Ravi Kant

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

The project presented in this report is for combating the narrowband interference present in the downlink data of Dynamic Ionosphere Cubesat Experiment (DICE) satellites. The interference prevents the Phase Locked Loop (PLL) and timing synchronization loops from performing efficiently and the data is not demodulated properly. The samples are corrupted and correct decisions about the signal constellation cannot be made. Here, blind equalization techniques are used to tackle this problem. In this thesis, Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA) and Multi-Modulus Algorithm (MMA) algorithms are extended to offset- Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation and then implemented. When applied to simulated and real …

Cationic Starch Synthesis, Development, And Evaluation For Harvesting Microalgae For Wastewater Treatment, Renil John Anthony

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Microalgae are the preferred crop for the production of biodiesel. Microalgae are microplants that have the ability to harness sunlight more efficiently than other plants and store 20-80% lipids per g of dry algae in their cells. Microalgae have the extraordinary ability to grow in brackish water or wastewater. Microalgae can be grown in municipal wastewater to uptake phosphorus and nitrogen and remediate the wastewater of these nutrients. Microalgae thus cultivated accomplishes a dual role of wastewater treatment and provides a sustainable feedstock for biofuels and other bioproducts.

This study focused on efficiently harvesting microalgae from water using modified starch. …

Laboratory Modeling Of Erosion Potential Of Seepage Barrier Material, Nathan E. Braithwaite

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Earthen dams and levees often use seepage barriers to reduce the flow of water through their foundations and embankments. A seepage barrier is a wall of less porous material built inside an embankment or its foundation. High water pressures and stresses during the curing of seepage barriers have been observed to cause the seepage barriers to crack. These cracks decrease the barrier’s effectiveness in reducing seepage flow and may lead to serious seepage problems. The purpose of this study is to determine, given highly porous soils and high water pressures, whether or not cracks in seepage barriers will erode and …

Catalytic Decomposition Of Nitrous Oxide Monopropellant For Hybrid Motor Ignition, Matthew D. Wilson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nitrous oxide (N₂O), a commonly-used industrial gas, is also often used as a rocket motor oxidizer. It has been used in both hybrid rocket motors (using a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer) and liquid rocket engines (using liquid fuel and oxidizer).

As a liquid form, nitrous oxide is highly stable, but in vapor form it can be decomposed, releasing large amounts of heat as it dissociates into nitrogen and oxygen. This project investigates using the energy from decomposing nitrous oxide to ignite a hybrid or liquid rocket. Such a system would be practical in rocket …

Enhance Variational Asymptotic Method For Unit Cell Homogenization (Vamuch) For Real Engineering Structures And Materials, Zheng Ye

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The applications of heterogeneous materials and other materials with engineered microstructures growth rapidly in all industries to achieve better performance. These materials and structures are defined such as composites and nanotube. With the increasing of computing power, though the well-established commercial finite element analysis (FEA) has the ability to analyze such material of a small portion. It is not feasible for the structure level, since the computing requirements of a finite element model can easily exceed the bearable time in analysis or the capability of the best mainstream computers. To reduce the computational efforts, an efficient way is to use …

Canoebis, Mitchel Robert Dabling

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Egyptian mythology is full of legend and mystery. Ra, the Chief God of Ancient Egypt, used a mysterious canoe, named Meseket, to cross the underworld at night (Ions, 1983). Our fabricated legend begins with Aken, Ra's loyal ferryman. When Aken accidentally broke the canoe Meseket, he was left without a vessel to ferry Ra. Without proper materials to fashion another wooden boat, he asked Anubis, the god of embalming for assistance. Together they built a new canoe out of concrete using raw materials from the Egyptian landscape. The 2013 Utah State University Concrete Canoe Team has endeavored to recreate this …

Analysis Of Water Footprint Of A Photobioreactor Microalgae Biofuel 1 Production System From Blue, Green And Lifecycle Perspectives, Jason C. Quinn

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Microalgae are currently being investigated as a feedstock for the commercial production of transportation fuels, due to their potential scalability and sustainability advantages over conventional feedstocks. The water consumption of microalgae has been postulated to be a resource barrier for large-scale production. This study presents an assessment of the water footprint (WF) of a closed photobioreactor-based biofuel production system, where microalgae cultivation is simulated with geographical and temporal resolution. The assessment focuses on the WF as modeled for four different fuel conversion pathways, and in 10 continental US locations corresponding to high productivity yields. The WF is comprehensively assessed using …

Energy-Vorticity Turbulence Model With Application To Flow Near Rough Surfaces, W. F. Phillips, E. B. Fowler, Doug F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Based on a more direct analogy between turbulent and molecular transport, a foundation is presented for an energy–vorticity turbulence model. Whereas traditional k-εk-ε, k-ωk-ω, and k-ζk-ζ models relate the eddy viscosity to a dissipation length scale associated with the smaller eddies having the highest strain rates, the proposed model relates the eddy viscosity to a mean vortex wavelength associated with the larger eddies primarily responsible for turbulent transport. A rigorous development of the turbulent-energy-transport equation from the Navier–Stokes equations includes exact relations for the viscous dissipation and molecular transport of turbulent kinetic energy. Application of Boussinesq’s analogy between turbulent and …

Analysis And Design Of A Thermal Capacitor For Use In The Food Industry, Karen Nielson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Team Hot Stuff is working with Thermal Management Technologies (TMT) of Logan, UT to explore the concept of a thermal capacitor serving platter. With the funding from TMT, Hot Stuff will design, build, and test a prototype serving platter. This report is written by Hot Stuff for MAE 4800, Capstone Design I; it covers the design and analysis of a serving platter.

Functional Dissection And Module Swapping Of Fungal Cyclooligomer Depsipeptide Synthetases, Dayu Yu, Fuchao Xu, David Gage, Jixun Zhan

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

BbBSLS and BbBEAS were dissected and reconstituted in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The intermodular linker is essential for the reconstitution of the separate modules. Module 1 can be swapped between BbBEAS and BbBSLS, while modules 2 and 3 control the product profiles. BbBSLS is a flexible enzyme that also synthesizes beauvericins.

A Method To Quantify Road Safety Audit Data And Results, Joshua Reid Jones

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Utah Local Technical Assistant Program (Utah LTAP) with assistance from the Utah Department of Transportation conducted over 18 Road Safety Audit (RSA’s) projects on existing roadways. The projects ranged from roads on minor rural collectors to major urban collectors as well as intersections and unpaved roads. Part of this research shows the lessons learned and the common recommendations for each type of facility.

After all the RSA projects were conducted a tool was developed to help quantify the risk for drivers and pedestrians on the roadway. The tool is able to analyze the risk before and after recommended safety …

Hazard Classification And Hydraulic Remediation Options For Flat-Topped And Ogee-Crested Low-Head Dams, Riley J. Olsen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The dangerous hydraulic conditions that can form downstream of a low-head dam were investigated. These dangerous hydraulic conditions have been the cause of hundreds of drowning incidents since the construction of the first low-head dams. Two primary objectives were identified for this study, each of which were primarily performed using the Computational Fluid Dynamics software, Flow-3D^®, with physical models used to verify the numerical results. The first objective was the identification of a risk factor made up of easily measured parameters that could accurately predict when the dangerous hydraulic conditions are present at a low-head dam. The risk …

Effect Of Deposition From Static Test Fires On Corn And Alfalfa, Scout Mendenhall

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Alliant Techsystems, Inc (ATK) manufactures solid rocket motors for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the Promontory, UT facility. Periodically ATK conducts static test fires, where the rocket is restrained horizontally and fired into a hillside. The plume entrains native soil and is carried by the wind until it cools and settles. Although the area around ATK is sparsely populated, residents of nearby Penrose and Thatcher, UT are concerned with the deposition of the test fire soil (TFS) from the static rocket tests. In 2010, several crop fields nearing harvest were dusted with TFS, prompting the investigation of …

Cognitive Vehicle Platooning In The Era Of Automated Electric Transportation, Pooja Kavathekar

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research focuses on a concept called “cognitive vehicle platooning.” A group of vehicles, either of the same type or different, following one another at highway speeds, coupled together by wireless communication is vehicle platooning. With this technology, passengers can comfortably enjoy their rides without having to drive their cars, as the cars will drive themselves. This automatic car driving is an advanced form of cruise control. These cars will run on dedicated lanes on highways. The leader of the platoon communicates wirelessly to its followers, its position, velocity, and acceleration information. Using this data, the followers will have a …

Thermo-Piezo-Electro-Mechanical Simulation Of Algan (Aluminum Gallium Nitride) / Gan (Gallium Nitride) High Electron Mobility Transistor, Lorin E. Stevens

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Due to the current public demand of faster, more powerful, and more reliable electronic devices, research is prolific these days in the area of high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) devices. This is because of their usefulness in RF (radio frequency) and microwave power amplifier applications including microwave vacuum tubes, cellular and personal communications services, and widespread broadband access. Although electrical transistor research has been ongoing since its inception in 1947, the transistor itself continues to evolve and improve much in part because of the many driven researchers and scientists throughout the world who are pushing the limits of what modern …

Using Qual2kw As A Decision Support Tool: Considerations For Data Collection, Calibration, And Numeric Nutrient Criteria, Andrew J. Hobson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Surface water quality in the United States is managed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under direction of the Clean Water Act. Designated uses are required for all state waters. Numeric or narrative water quality standards provide measures to determine if each waterbody meets the intended use. Narrative standards typically include vague terminology that is difficult to interpret and this has led EPA to encourage states to develop numeric criteria for nutrients in all its streams, rivers, and lakes. These numeric nutrient criteria are intended to stave off the harmful effects of over-growth of aquatic plants which can result …

Determination Of Ionospheric Current Systems By Measuring The Phase Shift On Amateur Satellite Frequencies, Prajwal M. Kasturi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Linearly polarized electromagnetic waves traveling through cold magnetized plasma experience Faraday rotation. The Appleton Hartree dispersion equation relates the phase shift on any electromagnetic ray to the magnetic field B, ion-electron density N_e and the angle the ray makes with the instantaneous magnetic field. This work uses the dispersion relation to calculate small time scale magnetic perturbations in the ionosphere due to electrojet current systems. The ionosphere is modeled as a collision free cold plasma with synthesized small scale magnetic perturbations. The work presented here simulates test cases, where the satellites transmits three amateur satellite radio band frequencies …

Particle Dynamics And Resistivity Characteristics In Bifurcated Current Sheets, Tushar Andriyas

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Charged particle chaos and its collective effects in different magnetic geometries are investigated in a sequence of various numerical experiments. The fields generated by the particles as a result of interaction with the background electric and magnetic fields is not accounted for in the simulation. An X-line is first used to describe the geometry of the magnetotail prior to magnetic reconnection and a study of the behavior of charged particles is done from a microscopic viewpoint. Another important geometry in the magnetotail prior to substorm onset is Bifurcated Current Sheet. The same analysis is done for this configuration. The existence …

Extracting Atmospheric Profiles From Hyperspectral Data Using Particle Filters, Dustin Rawlings

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Removing the effects of the atmosphere from remote sensing data requires accurate knowledge of the physical properties of the atmosphere during the time of measurement. There is a nonlinear relationship that maps atmospheric composition to emitted spectra, but it cannot be easily inverted. Inverting this relationship, however, would allow us to estimate atmospheric parameters by taking hyperspectral measurements of the light emitted from the atmosphere. The particle filter is a method whereby one can estimate a hidden system state based on measurements, without ever having to directly invert the measurement relationship.

Traditionally, particle filters do not perform well in high-dimensional …

Applications Of Bayesian Statistics In Fluvial Bed Load Transport, Mark L. Schmelter

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The science of fluvial sediment transport studies the processes involved in the movement of river sediments. It is commonly understood that when rivers flood they have a great capacity to move sand, gravel, and even larger cobbles and boulders. This process is not only limited to the big floods that usually attract so much attention, but also the more common river flows play a very important role in forming a river. As engineers and scientists, we like to be able to develop equations and relationships that describe some natural phenomenon—in this case, fluvial sediment transport. While we are able to …