Engineering Commons^™

Ceas E-News 12.16.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Foundation Members Race SAE Baja Car, Innovation Day, Senior Design Presentations, Michigan Industry Road Trip

Ceas E-News 05.13.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

SAE and Sunseeker competition, Traffic Bowl, Marathon.

49th Conference On Senior Engineering Design, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

Senior Engineering Design Conference

The 49th Conference on Senior Engineering Design Projects was held on December 6, 2011 at the College of Engineering and applied Sciences on the Parkview Campus of Western Michigan University. The college sponsors the conference to showcase the work of its graduating seniors, who are required to complete a capstone project that puts into practice what they have learned. Many of the projects are sponsored by business and industry.

Ceas E-News 11.22.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Stryker Challenge Team Win, Student Team and Alumni Accelerate Michigan Win, ProModel Team Win, Workshop, Roundtable, SWE Event, Make a Difference

Ceas E-News 11.04.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

CAViDS Eaton Research, Armstrong Scholarship, Ben Franklin Award, 1st Annual Michigan Road Trip, Upcoming Senior Design

Ceas E-News 10.07.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Concrete Canoe & Steel Bridge, Engineering Expo, GMI Award, Alumni Excellence Academy, Faculty/Staff Awards

Comparison Of Computational And Experimental Aerodynamics: Results For A Wmu Solar Car Model, Yang Yang, William W. Liou

The Hilltop Review

Three-dimensional numerical simulations using FLUENT [1] were performed to model the airflow over the Sunseeker, an award-winning solar car that was designed and built at Western Michigan University. Converged numerical solutions on three different grids are reported and compared with the available experimental data, which include the lift and the drag coefficients. Also reported are the results obtained by using the second-order upwinding discretization on one of the grids. The comparison shows that the computed lift coefficients agree well with the experimental data for all the three grids and the different orders of numerical methods, indicating that the pressure field …

Evaluation Of Dye And Pigment Based Ink Jet Ink Sets, Veronika Chovancova

The Hilltop Review

The development of high performance inkjet printers and inks is advancing rapidly. Manufacturers seem to introduce their new technology inks to the market on an almost daily basis. Chemists in ink laboratories are still fighting with the issue of combining a wide gamut of dye-based inks with the lightfast and weather resistance qualities of pigment-based inks into new-age ink formulations.

Three different inkjet printers and inks were investigated in this work: the Epson Stylus® Pro 5000, using a dye-based ink set, the Epson Stylus® Pro 5500, employing Archival ink technology, and the Epson Stylus® Photo 2200, with 7-color UltraChrome™ inks. …

Adaptive Control In Swarm Robotic Systems, Hanyi Dai

The Hilltop Review

Inspired by the collective behavior observed in natural insects, swarm robotics is a new approach in designing control algorithms for a large group of robots performing a certain task. In such robotic systems, an individual robot with only limited capabilities in terms of sensing, computation, and communication can adapt its own behavior so that a desired collective behavior emerges from the local interactions among robots and between robots and the environment. Swarm robotics has been the focus of increased attention recently because of the beneficial features demonstrated in such systems, such as higher group efficiency, robustness against the failures of …

The Study Of Ink Pigment Dispersion Parameters, Lokendra Pal, Paul D. Fleming Iii

The Hilltop Review

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of rotation speed and milling time on the pigment dispersion quality. The information can be used to obtain a standard laboratory condition at which a wide range of pigments may be dispersed to formulate water-based rotogravure inks. The influence of pigment concentration and shear forces on the pigment dispersion were also studied.

The procedure consisted of dispersing the pigment using a laboratory Dispermat® SL bead mill at various milling times with two different rotation speeds and measuring the particle size and particle size distribution of the milled samples. The pigment …

Electric Vehicle Battery - Wind Energy Storage System, Steven K. Srivastava, Gary Nola

Green Manufacturing Research Journal

The proposed concept utilizes the EV battery waste stream as a means to store wind energy in order to increase wind energy capacity factor, improve utilization, and make more efficient use of EV batteries prior to recycling. Michigan is an ideal location for such a facility because many of the battery and automotive manufacturers are located here. A 200 MW wind farm can charge a battery farm which consists of all reject and post-consumer batteries and all EVs located in Michigan by 2015. Michigan is on track to meet a 10% renewable portfolio by 2015 with over 1100 MW of …

Ceas E-News 09.08.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Welcome Week for First Year Students, Mod Designer of the

Ceas E-News 08.18.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Casting Challenge, First Annual SAE Alumni Drive, Best Poster

Ceas E-News 08.03.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

BTR Bike Race, Sunseeker Events

Ceas E-News 07.15.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Dr. Anthony, Dean of CEAS Elected President of SAMPE

Blair Balden, Margaret Von Steinen

International Faculty Researchers

A visiting professorship at the University of Passau in Passau, Germany for Dr. Blair Balden, a WMU associate professor of aviation, provided an excellent opportunity to share ideas and information about teaching aviation law with professors from Germany and Austria.

Ceas E-News 06.27.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Outstanding Student Engineer, BTR Bike Race

Ceas E-News 06.09.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Wireless Sensor With Unique Features, CCE Offers New Grade I Certification

Ceas E-News 05.20.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

II-VI Foundation Gift, New Staff, Transporting a 3.8 Million Pound Bridge

Ceas E-News 04.25.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Blood Drive in Honor of Gideon, Outstanding Seniors, Scenes of Senior Presentations.

Comparison Of Martin’S Empirical Correlation With Measurements On A Compact Plate Heat Exchanger, Abdulmohsen A. Alothman

Masters Theses

The need for more effective heat exchangers is becoming more necessary these days. At the same time, the size of the heat exchanger also plays a big role. Therefore, in many applications the compact plate heat exchanger is used where high effectiveness and small size are required. As a result, it is a necessary to study and understand the performance of compact plate heat exchangers. More specifically, the performance of heat transfer, represented by the Colburn factor j, and friction factor f, must be deeply studied and understood.

A mathematical model has been built to express f and j factors …

Ceas E-News 04.01.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

CEAS Students Win Stryker Challenge, Unveiling of Charging Station, KAMSC Science Fair

48th Conference On Senior Engineering Design, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

Senior Engineering Design Conference

The 48th Conference on Senior Engineering Design Projects was held on April 19, 2011 at the College of Engineering and applied Sciences on the Parkview Campus of Western Michigan University. The college sponsors the conference to showcase the work of its graduating seniors, who are required to complete a capstone project that puts into practice what they have learned. Many of the projects are sponsored by business and industry.

Parametric Study Of Gear Rattle And The Effect Of Flexible Enclosures On Gearbox Vibratory Responses, Joshuah Thomas Racine

Masters Theses

Gearbox noise emitted from vehicles has become of particular importance to manufacturers due to the significant reduction of engine and masking noises in most modem designs. The reduction of gearbox rattle was the subject of this research using Romax Designer. Both drive and neutral loading conditions were considered for a parametric study of the influence of altering input torque fluctuation, backlash between gears, component rigidities and driveline inertia. Next, an external enclosure was added, where its effect was studied by altering the wall thickness, material properties and fixed boundary positions. Finally, results obtained from Romax Designer for a physical gearbox …

On-Board Monitoring Of Engine Oil, Ryan James Clark

Masters Theses

Engine oil condition was quantified in a diesel engine through direct, real-time measurements of lubricant properties using an on-board oil-condition sensor. The sensor measures the lubricant temperature, density, dynamic viscosity and dielectric constant. Comparative bench-top experiments using ASTM methods or equivalent techniques validated the accuracy and precision of the lubricant property measurements from the oil-condition sensor for a specific temperature range. Bench-top experiments were also used to establish correlations between fuel contamination levels and changes in lubricant properties.

Through engine experiments, the change in the lubricant properties with respect to operating time was quantified. A correlation was found between the …

Evaluation Of Silver/Graphite Ink Blends For Use In Printed Electronics, Sagar Satish Joshi

Masters Theses

Many organizations around the globe are actively involved in the research and development of printed displays, circuits, printed batteries, RFID tags and other printed electronics applications. The requirements for using printing techniques in the manufacturing of circuits are much more demanding than for conventional printing.There are many challenges that have to be overcome for successful printing and functioning of the printed circuits. These challenges are not only for the printing process and the substrates, but also for the functional inks used for printed electronics manufacturing.

This work focuses on gravure printing of conductive inks, more specifically silver, graphite and silver-graphite …

Ceas E-News 03.21.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

"Where in the World is this CEAS Bronco" Challenge, Perennial BioEnery Takes 4th Place, & Senior Design Conference

Ceas E-News 03.01.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

E-Week Highlights, Earthquake Engineering Simulation, & Russian Scientists

Ceas E-News 02.14.2011, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

32nd Annual Engineers Week Dinner and Career Fair

The Impact Of Driving Conditions On Phev Battery Performance, Nathan Christensen, John Patten, Steven Srivastava, Gary P. Nola

Green Manufacturing Research Journal

The battery performance of a modified Prius with a 5 kWh plug-in battery was documented for a year to determine the impact of environmental conditions and user attributes on vehicle performance. Both fuel economy and pure electrical efficiency were compared to ambient temperature. The fuel economy has a positive relationship with ambient temperature until approximately 70˚F where the efficiency begins to drop. Electrical performance has a positive linear relationship with ambient temperature. With the emergence of electric vehicles (EVs) and PHEVs from a variety of automotive manufacturers, information on EV and PHEV performance for consumers will become more important.