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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

An Assessment Of Linear Wrist Motion During The Taking Of A Bite Of Food, Meredith Drennan May 2010

An Assessment Of Linear Wrist Motion During The Taking Of A Bite Of Food, Meredith Drennan

All Theses

Motivated by the goal of building a device capable of detecting when a user takes a bite of food, we examine whether there is a correlation between linear wrist motion and bite detection. Such a device could be used to manage weight loss by tracking eating trends over time and providing real time feedback to the user regarding eating rate or total consumption. A comprehensive analysis of tracking linear motion using low cost inertial sensors is presented. Based on this theory, we discuss the design and tracking accuracy of a prototype bite counting device. We show that tracking position using …


Comparision Of Open Graded Friction Course Mix Design Methods Currently Used In The United States, Laura Kline May 2010

Comparision Of Open Graded Friction Course Mix Design Methods Currently Used In The United States, Laura Kline

All Theses

This research compares the open graded friction course (OGFC) mix design methods which are currently being used in the United States. OGFCs are a type of porous pavement that have been used in the United States since 1944, but has provided inconsistent and highly variable performance results. The design procedures for several agencies were obtained, and then compared for similarities. All of the design methods were then conducted to determine the optimum binder content. The optimum binder content (OBC) of a single aggregate gradation for each method was tested for properties and performance characteristics.
The design methods which are currently …


Characterization And Modification Of Helmet Padding System To Improve Shockwave Dissipation, Katelyn Howay May 2010

Characterization And Modification Of Helmet Padding System To Improve Shockwave Dissipation, Katelyn Howay

All Theses

Currently soldiers are being exposed a much higher number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and the resulting shockwaves. These shockwaves can cause traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) even without the occurrence of ballistic impact. The focus of this research was to reduce the amount of shockwaves soldiers are exposed to by inserting fibers and woven fabrics into a foam padding system. These fibers and fabrics facilitate the dissipation of the shockwave energy before it is able to penetrate the padding and cause TBIs.
The sound velocity of high-performance fibers, commodity fibers and woven fabric was measured using a Dynamic Modulus Tester. …


Performance Evaluation Of Sbs Modified Asphalt Mixtures Using Warm Mix Technologies, Hakseo Kim May 2010

Performance Evaluation Of Sbs Modified Asphalt Mixtures Using Warm Mix Technologies, Hakseo Kim

All Theses

The need for more sustainable methods and techniques in industry has been increasing and it is important to respond to the needs of society and address issues surrounding its environment and health. In order to better introduce such new and more sustainable methods, it is necessary to combine existing and proven methods with new technology. The main idea of this research was to use the established industry standard of using Styrene Butadiene Styrene (SBS) modified binder and combine it with the relatively new Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) technology in order to create a more sustainable and eco-friendly asphalt paving process. …


Acceleration Of Biomolecular Simulations Using Fpga-Based Reconfigurable Computing, Ananth Nallamuthu May 2010

Acceleration Of Biomolecular Simulations Using Fpga-Based Reconfigurable Computing, Ananth Nallamuthu

All Theses

A paradigm shift is occurring in the way compute-intensive scientific applications are developed. Thanks to advancements in commercially viable hybrid architectures for High-Performance Computing (HPC), the focus has shifted from improving performance by merely scaling algorithms on von Neumann computing nodes to fully exploiting additional computational capabilities provided by accelerators such as FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and GPGPUs (General Purpose Graphical Processing Units).
Computational chemists use Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations like LAMMPS (Large Scale Atomic Molecular Massively Parallel Systems) and NAMD (NAnoscale Molecular Dynamics) to simulate biomolecular behaviour such as protein folding and small molecule docking to proteins. MD …


Interpretability Analysis Of Function Structures At Various Levels Of Abstraction: A User Study, Jonathan Thomas May 2010

Interpretability Analysis Of Function Structures At Various Levels Of Abstraction: A User Study, Jonathan Thomas

All Theses

Function models are used during the conceptual design phase of the design process to model the intended use or objective of a product, independent of the products physical form. Function models also aid in guiding design activities such as generating concepts and allocating design team resources. Recent research efforts have focused on the formalization of functional models through a controlled vocabulary and archival of functional representations in computer-based repositories. However, the usefulness and interpretability of these function models has not been rigorously evaluated.
This thesis presents the results of two controlled user studies to ascertain the interpretability of functional representations …


Influence Of Shear Key Performance On The Fatigue Life Of Adjacent Beam Bridges, Sara Roberts Jan 2010

Influence Of Shear Key Performance On The Fatigue Life Of Adjacent Beam Bridges, Sara Roberts

All Theses

Adjacent beam bridges, such as box beams and hollow core bridges have been one of the most popular forms of precast prestressed bridges in the past. Recently, an awareness of major durability problems has led owners to make improvements to the old standards or move away from the system completely. These issues usually stem from the breakdown of the shear key which provides continuity between adjacent members. This research focuses on determining the best improvements that will reduce durability issues and increase the bridge's service life.
A review of previous research performed on adjacent beam bridges is performed, focusing on …


The Characterization Of Leadership Within Undergraduate Engineering Design Teams Through Case Study Analysis, Gary Palmer Ii Jan 2010

The Characterization Of Leadership Within Undergraduate Engineering Design Teams Through Case Study Analysis, Gary Palmer Ii

All Theses

The purpose of this research is to clearly define leadership that exists within engineering project teams. Leadership can be applicable to any field of study and is heavily researched in business management. Sources which review leadership classify this topic in reference to managerial styles, leadership types and styles, emotional intelligence, and work climate. However, there are few sources which define leadership specifically within engineering environments. The motivation of this research is driven by the absence of defining and observing consistency in engineering leadership through the research‟s experience in engineering teams. Existing leadership is defined in this research through conducting two …


Investigation Of The Thermoelectric Behavior Of Cu-Doped Pbteagxse, Ben Ma Jan 2010

Investigation Of The Thermoelectric Behavior Of Cu-Doped Pbteagxse, Ben Ma

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Sustainable energy research is currently on the forefront of scientific exploration thus a major effort is devoted to the development of new energy conservation and production techniques. Thermoelectric materials can play a significant part both in energy conservation and energy production via the Seebeck effect (heat to electric power) and the Peltier effect (electricity to cooling power), since they can convert wasted heat to useful electrical energy.
Presented herein are the measured electrical and thermal transport properties and phenomenal analysis of the PbTeAgxSe (x=1.9, 2.0, 2.01) system. First, it would lead to a significant reduction in the thermal conductivity and …


Analysis Of Factors Contributing To Roadside Tree Crashes In South Carolina, Vijay Bendigeri Dec 2009

Analysis Of Factors Contributing To Roadside Tree Crashes In South Carolina, Vijay Bendigeri

All Theses

The state of South Carolina has experienced a large number of fatalities and injuries resulting from run off the road tree related crashes. According to 2008 FARS data tree related fixed object fatal crashes in South Carolina (65%) are more than double that of the national (25.8%). Thus, trees are much bigger proportion of all roadside hazards in South Carolina than nationally. In order to achieve a safer roadside which is favorable to the road user, factors contributing to the tree related crashes should be critically analyzed to determine suitable safety improvements.
This research aims at qualitatively and quantitatively assessing …


The Effect Of A Surfactant Monolayer On Gas Exchange Across An Air-Water Interface During Mixed Convection, Richard Lee Dec 2009

The Effect Of A Surfactant Monolayer On Gas Exchange Across An Air-Water Interface During Mixed Convection, Richard Lee

All Theses

A set of laboratory experiments are presented that reveal the effect of a surfactant monolayer on the transport of oxygen across an air-water interface during mixed convection conditions. The experiments were conducted in a wind/water tunnel with water tanks of differing depth. Forced convection was imposed via the air flow, while natural convection was imposed by heating the water bulk above the air temperature. For the range of wind speeds being considered, mixed convection conditions resulted. Experiments were also conducted with only forced convection present. The data acquired during these experiments were used to develop a parameterization between the Sherwood …


Effectiveness Of Team-Building And Teamwork In Real And Virtual Worlds, Rachana Ranade Dec 2009

Effectiveness Of Team-Building And Teamwork In Real And Virtual Worlds, Rachana Ranade

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Given the increasing importance of globalization and collaboration, this research investigates the possibility of performing team-building training for globally dispersed teams using the capabilities of the virtual world Second Life. Three meeting conditions, the 3D virtual world Second Life, a combination of face-to-face and Second Life and face-to-face were evaluated. Thirty randomly assigned 3 person teams performed an ice-breaker session and then a team-building activity in each meeting condition. Four dependent variables were measured: task completion time; quality of task performance; the subjective satisfaction with the process based on group cohesiveness, perception of the process and satisfaction with the outcome; …


Modeling The Cooling Phase Of The Lens Molding Process, Saravanan Kannan Dec 2009

Modeling The Cooling Phase Of The Lens Molding Process, Saravanan Kannan

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The lens molding process is a relatively new technique used to manufacture lenses, in particular, high precision aspheric lenses. In order to achieve the desired size and shape of the lens, the cooling process after pressing must be controlled precisely because of the time and temperature dependent viscoelastic behavior of glass near and below the molding temperature. This thesis gives a detailed description of a three-dimensional computational model for analyzing the cooling phase of the lens molding process. Conduction, convection and radiation are considered in the model by coupling a computational fluid dynamics analysis of the flow of nitrogen through …


A Logistic Regression Model To Predict Incident Severity Using The Human Factors Analysis And Classification System, Hrishikesh Kavade Dec 2009

A Logistic Regression Model To Predict Incident Severity Using The Human Factors Analysis And Classification System, Hrishikesh Kavade

All Theses

The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) is used to help identify causal factors that lead to human error. The framework has been used in a variety of industries to identify leading contributing factors of unsafe events, such as accidents, incidents and near misses. While traditional application of the HFACS framework to safety outcomes has allowed evaluators to identify leading causal issues based on frequency, little has been done to gain a more comprehensive view of the system's total risk. This work utilizes the concept of event severity along with the HFACS framework to help better identify target areas …


Analysis Of Distributed Denial Of Service Attacks And Countermeasures, Sampada Karandikar Dec 2009

Analysis Of Distributed Denial Of Service Attacks And Countermeasures, Sampada Karandikar

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Network technology has experienced explosive growth in the past two decades. The vast connectivity of networks all over the world poses monumental risks. The generally accepted philosophy in the security world is that no system or network is completely secure [1] which makes network security a critical concern. The work done in this thesis focuses on Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS) where legitimate users are prevented from accessing network services. Although a lot of research has been done in this field, these attacks remain one of the most common threats affecting network performance.
One defense against DDoS attacks is …


Thermoelastic Behavior Of A Small Bearing Cage, Eric Planting Dec 2009

Thermoelastic Behavior Of A Small Bearing Cage, Eric Planting

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The full field non contact measurement of objects undergoing testing is one of interest for manufacturers of parts which are graded on their longevity. Unfortunately, for homogenous small parts with irregular geometries, such as bearing cages, the solution for testing is typically to use only a FEA model and compliment the testing of the model with simply cyclically loading the sample until failure. To better understand the stresses and behavior of a small object Thermoelasticity can be employed in order to see in a full field technique what stress patterns exist and their correlation to a FEA model.
The FEA …


Performance Of Storm Water Stage And Quality Measuring Instruemtnation Of A Small Watershed Using A Remote Monitoring Station, Rebecca Crane Dec 2009

Performance Of Storm Water Stage And Quality Measuring Instruemtnation Of A Small Watershed Using A Remote Monitoring Station, Rebecca Crane

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ABSTRACT


As economic development proceeds special care must be taken to preserve and sustain our water resources. Monitoring the storm water from a watershed during a rainfall event can help quantify any changes in water quantity and quality. An accurate means of measuring flow is necessary for all watershed monitoring projects. This study was conducted to analyze the performance of stage, turbidity, and temperature measuring devices in a laboratory setting as well as on Honeycutt Creek in Clemson, South Carolina.
The stage measuring devices under study include: a radar level sensor, ultrasonic transmitter, pressure transducer, and a bubbler module. A …


A Particle Swarm Optimization Using Random Keys For Flexible Flow Shop Scheduling Problem With Sequence Dependent Setup Times, Vinodh Sankaran Dec 2009

A Particle Swarm Optimization Using Random Keys For Flexible Flow Shop Scheduling Problem With Sequence Dependent Setup Times, Vinodh Sankaran

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In this research, a particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) using random keys is developed to schedule flexible flow lines with sequence dependent setup times to minimize makespan. The flexible flow line scheduling problem is a branch of production scheduling and is found in industries such as printed circuit board and automobile manufacturing. It is well known that this problem is NP-hard. For this reason, we approach the problem by implementing a particle swarm optimization (PSO), a metaheuristic which is inspired by the motion of a flock of birds or a school of fish searching for food. The proposed PSO has …


Vibrations Of Thin Plate With Piezoelectric Actuator: Theory And Experiments, Parikshit Mehta Dec 2009

Vibrations Of Thin Plate With Piezoelectric Actuator: Theory And Experiments, Parikshit Mehta

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Vibrations of flexible structures have been an important engineering study owing to its both deprecating and complimentary traits. These flexible structures are generally modeled as strings, bars, shafts and beams (one dimensional), membranes and plate (two dimensional) or shell (three dimensional). Structures in many engineering applications, such as building floors, aircraft wings, automobile hoods or pressure vessel end-caps, can be modeled as plates. Undesirable vibrations of any of these engineering structures can lead to catastrophic results. It is important to know the fundamental frequencies of these structures in response to simple or complex excitations or boundary conditions.
After their discovery …


User Study Of Information Extracted From Engineering Representations, Rachel Hannah Dec 2009

User Study Of Information Extracted From Engineering Representations, Rachel Hannah

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It is important for designers to understand the usefulness of different engineering representations in order to save time and money throughout a project. Designers often rely on past experience to decide which model to construct; yet students without this experience have no help. Interestingly there are noticeable gaps in the research literature with respect to how and when to select representations and modeling approaches for engineering designs. This thesis examines the differences between three types of engineering representations, specifically sketches, drawing packages, and physical prototypes. The amount of information designers can extract from these representations and also the correctness and …


Sensor-Based Soil Water Monitoring To More Effectively Manage Agricultural Water Resources In Coastal Plain Soils, Christopher Bellamy Dec 2009

Sensor-Based Soil Water Monitoring To More Effectively Manage Agricultural Water Resources In Coastal Plain Soils, Christopher Bellamy

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Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is widely grown in the United States with 5.7 million ha grown nationally and 1.2 million ha grown in the humid southeastern states in 2005. From 1969 to 2003, agricultural irrigated farmland acreage and total water applied increased by over 40% and 11% respectively to include a total of 55.3 million acres in 2002. Combined with recent and more frequent drought periods and legal water conflicts between states, there has been an increased interest in more effective southeastern water management, thus making the need to develop improved irrigation scheduling methods and enhanced water use efficiency of …


Voltage Stability Indices Based On Active Power Transfer Using Synchronized Phasor Measurements, Rui Sun Dec 2009

Voltage Stability Indices Based On Active Power Transfer Using Synchronized Phasor Measurements, Rui Sun

All Theses

In recent years and in the foreseeable future, power demands generally around the world and particularly in North America will experience rapid increases due to the increase of customers' requirements, while the development of transmission systems in North America is rather slow. Voltage stability assessment becomes one of the highest priorities to power utilities in North America. Voltage stability index is a feature for solving voltage stability problems. It is generated from the basic power flow equations and/or energy functions. The mathematical expression of a VSI is often written as a polynomial containing the systems real-time measurements such as voltage …


Linguistic Analysis Of Natural Language Engineering Requirements, Carl Lamar Dec 2009

Linguistic Analysis Of Natural Language Engineering Requirements, Carl Lamar

All Theses

In engineering design, the needs of the customer are expressed through engineering requirement statements. These requirement statements are often expressed using natural language because they are easily created and read. However, there are several problems associated with natural language requirements including but not limited to ambiguity, incompleteness, understandability, testability and over specificity. Several representation and analysis tools have been proposed to address these problems within a requirement statement. These tools include formal languages, such as UML and SysML, requirement management tools, such as IBM Telelogic Doors, and natural language processors such as QuARS. These tools assist in the systematic elicitation …


The Development Of A Mechatronics And Material Handling Course: Laboratory Experiments And Projects, James Shirley Dec 2009

The Development Of A Mechatronics And Material Handling Course: Laboratory Experiments And Projects, James Shirley

All Theses

Mechatronic systems integrate technologies from a variety of engineering disciplines to create solutions to challenging industrial problems. The material handling industry utilizes mechatronics to move, track, and manipulate items in factories and distribution centers. Material handling systems, because of their use of programmable logic controllers (PLC), PLC networks, industrial robotics, and other mechatronic elements, are a natural choice for a college instructional environment. This thesis offers insight and guidance for mechatronic activities introduced in a laboratory setting. A series of eight laboratory experiments have been created to introduce PLCs, robotics, electric circuits, and data acquisition fundamentals. In-depth case studies synthesize …


A Voltage Flicker Suppression Device For Residential Air Conditioners And Heat Pumps, John Fox Dec 2009

A Voltage Flicker Suppression Device For Residential Air Conditioners And Heat Pumps, John Fox

All Theses

In some circumstances, voltage flicker due to the inrush current of residential heat pump can be a fairly visible to the residents as a slight flashing of the household's lights during the compressor starting event. The voltage flicker problem is caused by a variable contribution from sizable equivalent power system impedances and considerable inrush currents drawn by compressors. While this is not a new problem, and there are technologies on the market that attempt to alleviate the voltage flicker issue, no current solution attempts to correct for the problem at its root cause.
This thesis presents a device designed to …


The Formation And Control Of Iodinated Trihalomethanes In Drinking Water Treatment, Darryl Jones Dec 2009

The Formation And Control Of Iodinated Trihalomethanes In Drinking Water Treatment, Darryl Jones

All Theses

Ever since toxic disinfection by-products (DBPs) were discovered in the 1970s drinking water utilities have had to continue to develop treatment strategies to reduce the acute health risk from infectious pathogens in water, and at the same time limit the formation of disinfection by-products. The recent two stage (1998, 2006) D/DBP rule enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which sets limits of 80 µg/L for trihalomethanes (THMs) and 60 µg/L for haloacetic acids (HAAs) will likely put more pressure on utilities in the future to decrease their chorine contact time and follow that with ammonia addition to form monochloramine …


A Genetic Approach To Voltage Collapse Mitigation, Dwarakesh Nallan Chakravartula Dec 2009

A Genetic Approach To Voltage Collapse Mitigation, Dwarakesh Nallan Chakravartula

All Theses

The objective of this thesis is to provide an efficient and accurate corrective solution to a system that is on verge of voltage collapse. This thesis describes, in detail, the development of an optimization scheme that aims to alleviate power system instability and voltage collapse condition based on the principles of an evolutionary approach called Genetic Algorithm. The state of a system is determined using a voltage stability identifier termed Collapse Proximity Index (CPI) and the critical loading condition is identified. Applying principles of Genetic Algorithm, the critical system is brought back to a stable operating region. The sequential procedure …


Identifying The Optimum Process Parameters Of Precision Glass Molding For Aspherical Lenses, Waqas Iqbal Dec 2009

Identifying The Optimum Process Parameters Of Precision Glass Molding For Aspherical Lenses, Waqas Iqbal

All Theses

The purpose of this research is to determine the optimum process parameters for the Precision Glass Molding (PGM) Process using Manufacturing Design, Design of Experiments and Metrology (for measuring the geometry of lenses). First, a custom machine is designed and manufactured which can carry out Precision Glass Lens Molding Experiments. This machine is then modified to improve temperature, position and force control. A literature review is performed to obtain data for process parameters that have been used in previous PGM studies. The collected data is then used in Design of Experiments to create twenty seven experiments that determine the optimum …


Identifying And Comparing Key Process Attributes For Sustainable Building Delivery In India And The U.S., Prashanth Palanisamy Dec 2009

Identifying And Comparing Key Process Attributes For Sustainable Building Delivery In India And The U.S., Prashanth Palanisamy

All Theses

India is a rapidly developing nation with the associated brisk pace of construction. More sustainable building practices for construction in India would have social, environmental, and economic benefits. However, the key process attributes for successfully planning, designing, and constructing sustainable buildings in India are largely undefined. Other projects in India would benefit from a rigorous identification of these key process attributes which could help leapfrogging the sustainable building delivery in India to the best available practices.
Sustainable buildings require different delivery processes than traditional buildings; this can lead to process wastes due to unfamiliarity or incompatibility of the processes. These …


The Design Of An Ic Half Precision Floating Point Arithmetic Logic Unit, Balaji Kannan Dec 2009

The Design Of An Ic Half Precision Floating Point Arithmetic Logic Unit, Balaji Kannan

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A 16 bit floating point (FP) Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) was designed and implemented in 0.35µm CMOS technology. Typical uses of the 16 bit FP ALU include graphics processors and embedded multimedia applications.
The ALU of the modern microprocessors use a fused multiply add (FMA) design technique. An advantage of the FMA is to remove the need for a comparator which is required for a normal FP adder. The FMA consists of a multiplier, shifters, adders and rounding circuit. A fast multiplier based on the Wallace tree configuration was designed. The number of partial products was greatly reduced by the …