Engineering Commons^™

Great Salt Lake Model Depletion, Katherine Wright

Spring Runoff Conference

When does water leasing make sense? Using New Information to Make Better Leases.

Lease, but only if it makes sense.

• Farmers have a legal right to use water on their farms for agriculture.
• Leasing might be a good economic decision for you, but not your neighbor.
• Leasing is voluntary, the purpose of this presentation is to explain the benefits of leasing and give you the information you need to decide if it is right for you. 

Utah Water Research Lab, David Tarboton

Spring Runoff Conference

The concept of a dedicated water research laboratory evolved over years, with significant contributions from Vaughn E. Hansen, Dean F. Peterson, and George D. Clyde. The UWRL represents the culmination of a long-held vision at USU to advance water research.

Legislative Updates Panel, Casey Snider, Brian Steed, Kelly Pehrson, Joel Ferry

Spring Runoff Conference

Legislative Updates Panel

Water Rights Update, Teresa Wilhelmsen

Spring Runoff Conference

State Engineer's Update:

2024-2025 Strategic Action Plan

2024 Updates by functional section:

• Adjudication
• Applications & Records
• Dam Safety & Stream Alterations
• Data Services
• Field Services
• Technical Services

Northern Utah Gaging And Measurement Infrastructure Needs And Updates, Beth Neilson

Spring Runoff Conference

We can’t manage what we don’t MEASURE. We can’t manage what we don’t UNDERSTAND.

Great Salt Lake: What’S Next?, Brian Steed

Spring Runoff Conference

Water security is key to living in the West.

Snowpack And Water Supply Outlook, Jordan Clayton

Spring Runoff Conference

>95% of the water we use in Northern Utah comes from snow. Therefore, it’s critically important to quantify how much water is stored in our snowpack.

Increasing Electric Vehicle Charger Availability With A Mobile, Self-Contained Charging Station, Robert Serrano, Arifa Sultana, Declan Kavanaugh, Hongjie Wang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Student Research

As the transition to sustainable transportation has accelerated with the rise of electric vehicles (EVs), ensuring drivers have access to charging to maximize the electric miles driven is critical to lowering carbon emissions in the transportation sector. Limited charging station capacity and poor reliability, especially during peak travel times, long distance travels, holidays, and events, have hindered the adoption of EVs and threaten the progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptive, flexible deployment strategies combined with innovative approaches integrating mobility and renewable energy are essential to address these systemic challenges and bridge the current infrastructure gap. To address these challenges, …

Lifting-Line Predictions For The Ideal Twist Effectiveness Of Spanwise Continuous And Discrete Control Surfaces, Zachary S. Montgomery, Douglas F. Hunsaker, James J. Joo

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Modern materials and manufacturing technologies have allowed the construction of morphing wings that are able to continuously vary certain airfoil parameters such as twist, camber, or control surface deflection as a function of span. This work presents a twist effectiveness parameter as a means of comparing the ideal aerodynamic efficiency of spanwise continuous control surfaces (morphing wings) and spanwise discrete control surfaces (standard wings). A numerical algorithm is used to compute the twist effectiveness of both continuous and discrete control-surface designs over a wide range of planform shapes with evenly spaced actuation for inviscid, incompressible flow. Results included here show …

Using Thermal Camera Drones In Beef Cattle Roundup, Justin Wyatt Clawson, Eric Galloway, Shalyn Drake, Shawn Barstow, Ross Israelsen, Michael Pate

All Current Publications

Using drones with thermal sensors can be an effective tool in finding and collecting livestock from summer mountain ranges in the West. Drones can complete searches in much less time than required on horseback in demonstrated areas. Using drones reduces the workload of the rider and horse, saving time and energy and reducing the risk of injury. With proper training and certification, livestock producers can use drones to locate cattle and perform many other cost-cutting operations.

Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks For Streamflow Prediction In The Upper Colorado Basin, Akhila Akkala, Soukaina Filali Boubrahimi, Shah Muhammad Hamdi, Pouya Hosseinzadeh, Ayman Nassar

Computer Science Student Research

Streamflow prediction is vital for effective water resource management, enabling a better understanding of hydrological variability and its response to environmental factors. This study presents a spatio-temporal graph neural network (STGNN) model for streamflow prediction in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB), integrating graph convolutional networks (GCNs) to model spatial connectivity and long short-term memory (LSTM) networks to capture temporal dynamics. Using 30 years of monthly streamflow data from 20 monitoring stations, the STGNN predicted streamflow over a 36-month horizon and was evaluated against traditional models, including random forest regression (RFR), LSTM, gated recurrent units (GRU), and seasonal auto-regressive integrated …

Immersive Modeling To Communicate And Manage Risks Of Water Shortages, David Rosenberg, Erki Porse

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Our project goal is to use immersive online collaborative modeling as a tool for active learning to communicate and manage users conflicting risks of water shortages because decisions now to manage risk effect future risk. State-of-the art river basin forecasting tools provide probabilistic estimates of streamflow at hourly to annual scales. Water resource models quantify tradeoffs and risk across hundreds or thousands of scenarios of inflow and demand forecast out decades. Our project objectives are: 1) Formulate extreme scenarios for reservoir inflows without probabilities one to three years out that pose imminent risk of water shortages. 2) Hold immersive model …

Introduction To Drones, Shawn Barstow, Justin Wyatt Clawson, Shalyn Drake, Eric Galloway, Michael Pate

All Current Publications

Unmanned aircraft have advanced so much that they are completing tasks and integrating into all aspects of our lives. They deliver, survey, collect data, and complete assigned tasks with more efficiency and lower cost than many currently used techniques. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) completely supports UAS in the National Airspace System (NAS) and continually updates information in this new and exciting field. This fact sheet will help you identify how you can legally fly drones and become an integral part of aviation’s vast and ever-progressing world.

There May Be A Safer Treatment Against A Virus That Can Cause Birth Defects And Hearing Loss, Kade Robison

Research on Capitol Hill

CMV is the leading cause of non-genetic birth defects and hearing loss.

Staff Training Increases Success For Veterans And Service Members In Engineering, Samuel Shaw, Allison Miles

Research on Capitol Hill

Previous research developed four stages of support that staff can offer SVSM. The hope is through effective training, faculty, staff, and administrators can become “aware” and seek to further their ability to provide support. Increased support directly improves student success and academic belonging among SVSM.

Arrowhead-Shaped Shock Angle Influence Leading Edge Equation Influence Aircraft Outperform Other Structures At Hypersonic Speeds, Jacob Wiberg

Research on Capitol Hill

Hypersonic (at least 5 times faster than sound waves can travel) aircraft are quickly becoming a solution for fast travel for commercial and defense purposes.

Hagfish Protein Models Of Heart Tissue Reveal Processes Of Diabetes, Maelyn Andreasen

Research on Capitol Hill

Diabetic cardiomyopathy impairs and damages heart tissue through chronic exposure to hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, in diabetic individuals. 

Studying the disease in heart tissue is difficult, so we set out to create a three-dimensional heart model that we can study under these hyperglycemic conditions.

Genetic Engineering In Alpacas May Unlock Cures For Currently Incurable Human Disease, James Cisneros

Research on Capitol Hill

We aimed to establish laparoscopic ovum pickup (L-OPU) techniques in alpaca to retrieve oocytes for in vitro maturation and fertilization. Our project successfully retrieved and matured alpaca oocytes in vitro, a crucial step toward genetic engineering. Next, we will apply CRISPR-Cas9 to deactivate the IGM gene in fertilized embryos, aiming to enhance HCAb production. This will lay the foundation for humanizing these antibodies, making them viable for therapeutic use in human medicine.

Stanag 4575 Cst M35, Will Scheirer, Lee Sublett, George Weiss, Tina Howell, Ben Hill, Jared Sanders

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

General Information

➢ Provides a standardized “direct data download” capability from any NADSI compliant ISR data acquisition recorder to a compliant ground station

➢ STANAG 4575 Ed.4 became a mandated DISR standard for US DoD organizations on 24 April 2018; STANAG 4575 Ed. 5 is currently under JCGISR silence procedure until 14 February

➢ Magnetic Disk, Solid State, Complete Units, or Removable Media Modules (RMMs); Non-proprietary Directory and File Structure

➢ Based On Commercial Gigabit Ethernet Standards TCP/IP and Fiber Channel

Ongoing Efforts

➢ Working NADSI Ed.5 implementation with various national and international industry partners and manufacturers

➢ Further NADSI …

Recent Developments In Heterologous Expression Of Cellulases Using The Pichia Pastoris Expression System: A Comprehensive Literature Review, Nazish Muzaffar, Abdur Raziq, Muhammad Waseem Khan, Niaz Muhammad Khan, Bushra Shahid, Anbareen Gul, Hayat Ullah

Biological Engineering Student Research

Cellulosic biomass is considered an important and sustainable source of renewable energy, which needs a complex mixture of different enzymes for its degradation. After amylase, cellulases are the second most important enzymes, gain more importance due to their broad range of applications at the industrial level, and are considered more economical and environmentally friendly; researchers have focused more on the production of cellulase with its higher expression rate and low cost. Pichia pastoris, a methylotrophic yeast strain, has a more effective and well-established system for the production of heterologous proteins, particularly for industrial enzymes. Moreover, its readily achievable high-density …

Proximal Remote Sensing: An Essential Tool For Bridging The Gap Between High-Resolution Ecosystem Monitoring And Global Ecology, Zoe Amie Pierrat, Troy S. Magney, Will P. Richardson, Benjamin R. K. Runkle, Jen L. Diehl, Xi Yang, William Woodgate, William K. Smith, Miriam R. Johnston, Yohanes R. S. Ginting, Gerbrand Koren, Loren P. Albert, Christopher L. Kibler, Bryn E. Morgan, Mallory Barnes, Adriana Uscanga, Charles Devine, Mostafa Javadian, Karem Meza, Tommaso Julitta, Giulia Tagliabue, Matthew P. Dannenberg, Michal Antala, Christopher Y. S. Wong, Andre L. D. Santos, Koen Hufkens, Julia K, Marrs, Atticus E. L. Stovall, Yujie Liu, Joshua B. Fisher, John A. Gamon, Kerry Cawse-Nicholson

Civil and Environmental Engineering Student Research

A new proliferation of optical instruments that can be attached to towers over or within ecosystems, or ‘proximal’ remote sensing, enables a comprehensive characterization of terrestrial ecosystem structure, function, and fluxes of energy, water, and carbon. Proximal remote sensing can bridge the gap between individual plants, site-level eddy-covariance fluxes, and airborne and spaceborne remote sensing by providing continuous data at a high-spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we review recent advances in proximal remote sensing for improving our mechanistic understanding of plant and ecosystem processes, model development, and validation of current and upcoming satellite missions. We provide current best practices for data availability …

Stabilizing A Bio-Inspired Rotating Empennage Fighter Aircraft In Multiple Trim Scenarios, Benjamin C. Moulton, Matthew W. Harris, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

This paper considers the problem of stabilizing a bio-inspired fighter aircraft at its Air Combat Maneuver Condition in steady level and coordinated-turning flight. The aircraft equations of motion are linearized, and an infinite-horizon linear quadratic regulator design is conducted. The open-loop system is unstable in the short period and Dutch roll modes. This is mitigated in the closed-loop system, which is analyzed in the time and frequency domains. Included in the simulation dynamics are first-order actuator models, actuator deflection limits, and actuator rate limits. These are particularly important for this bio-inspired aircraft because control actuation requires rotation of the empennage, …

Influence Of Process Parameter And Build Rate Variations On Defect Formation In Laser Powder Bed Fusion Ss316l, Tasrif Ul Anwar, Patrick Merighe, Rahul Reddy Kancharla, Boopathy Kombaiah, Nadia Kouraytem

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is an additive manufacturing process that has gained interest for its material fabrication due to multiple advantages, such as the ability to print parts with small feature sizes, good mechanical properties, reduced material waste, etc. However, variations in the key process parameters in LPBF may result in the instantiation of porosity defects and variation in build rate. Particularly, volumetric energy density (VED) is a variable that encapsulates a number of those parameters and represents the amount of energy input from the laser source to the feedstock. VED has been traditionally used to inform the quality …

Evaluation Of Stability And Controllability Of The Multiple Trim Solutions For A Bio-Inspired Rotating Empennage Fighter Aircraft, Benjamin C. Moulton, Christian R. Bolander, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

Aircraft with non-traditional actuators tend to have multiple or infinite trim solutions for a single flight condition. For a given flight condition the bio-inspired rotating empennage fighter aircraft has multiple distinct trim solutions with varying tail rotation angles. In the present work these trim solutions are evaluated from various perspectives including: minimum drag, dynamic stability, controllability, and degree of controllability. The results of these analyses can be used to further constrain a trim solver routine such that a trim solution is found meeting a desired criterion. The purpose of the present paper is to evaluate the multiple trim solutions for …

Immersive Modeling Of Water Banking Elicits Local Knowledge To Explore Strategies To Get More Water To Great Salt Lake, Hadia Akbar, David E. Rosenberg

Civil and Environmental Engineering Student Research

This study used immersive online collaborative modeling of water banking to explore strategies to get more water to the declining Great Salt Lake (GSL). In a model session, each collaborator immersed in a water user role. They articulated a strategy to consume and bank water. Then they adapted their strategy in response to their available water, others’ choices, and the real-time discussion of choices. Collaborators included 29 farmers, ranchers, practitioners, and experts. Collaborators who personified agricultural users had the most varied strategies. They balanced economic viability, long-term sustainability, and land preservation. Pricing water was challenging, with prices ranging from $15 …

Phase Change Cells And Verification Of Gallium As Thermal Calibration Reference In Space, Harri Latvakoski, T. Shane Topham, Gail Bingham, Mike Watson, Igor Podolski

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

• Phase change cell introduction

• Design and ground testing of on-orbit phase cells

• ISS phase cell flight experiment

Radiometric Sensor Level Calibration For Remote Sensing (Planning, Testing, And Operation), Joe Tansock

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Contents

• What is Calibration and Why is it Important (example) 
• Remote Sensor Calibration Approaches
• Typical Space-based Sensor Lifecycle and Calibration Efforts at SDL
• EO Calibration Applications (example) 
• Example Calibrations at SDL
• Calibration Testing at SDL and example Calibration Equipment
• Calibration is Multi-Path
• Student Employment/Projects to Support SDL Calibration

Calibration For Small Satellite Payloads, Jason Knudsen, Christian Conkle, Alex Allgrunn, Deron Scott

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

SDL Presentation on Calibration for Small Satellite Payloads

Rbi Ground Calibration, Harri Latvakoski, Greg Cantwell, James Peterson, Joel Cardon

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

• RBI overview

• Ground calibration objectives

• Calibration configurations & chamber setup

• Calibration tests & equipment

Small Satellite Payload Calibration, Deron Scott, Cole Miller, Eli Salay, Shane Canfield, Scott Hansen, Matt Berghout, Jan Kunzler, Duane Miles

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

SmallSat missions have cost, time, and scale limitations. Calibration methods can be optimized to enable mission success at a low cost by providing customers the best “bang for their buck.”