Engineering Commons^™

Integrating 3d Layered Manufacturing With Photonic Sintering, Precision Machining And Smart Coating Techniques For Rapid Casting Applications, Hemant Bohra

Dissertations

Developments in rapid casting technologies have led to a new era of inclusion of 3D printing. Three-Dimensional (3D) printing provides the flexibility and ease of reproducing a sand mold directly from CAD models, eliminating patterning steps, thus reducing the process time for creating prototypes. In addition to minimizing processing steps, 3D printing provides the advantages of higher precision and the ability to produce complex shaped sand molds, but it simultaneously possesses some limitations and concerns related to throughput, safety and logistics.

This study proposes an alternative method for creating sand molds by introducing a hybrid rapid prototyping approach to overcome …

Predicting Professional Golfer Performance Using Proprietary Pga Tour “Shotlink” Data, Brian Leahy

Dissertations

It can cost a minimum of $110,000 a year for a professional golfer to compete on the PGA Tour. For the successful golfers who earn millions every year, this is not a problem. For those lower ranked golfers, it is a problem. This is due to the fact that almost half the golfers who compete in any one PGA Tour tournament will not get paid, because they have missed the dreaded cut. When a golfer begins to consistently miss the cut, they can come under financial pressure which may manifest itself into poor further tournament performances. This dissertation attempts to …

Process Control & Automation Of A Batch Reactor, James Kelly

Dissertations

The development of a split range PID controller with SCADA screens to facilitate manual and automatic control of a pilot plant scale batch reactor is presented in this thesis. Since the characteristics of the system were unknown a step response was obtained from the system and from the experimental results a model of the system was developed and analysed. The PID controller for the system was implemented via an Allen Bradley MicroLogix 1100 Programmable Logic Controller with the human interface for the controller being a SCADA system that was developed using the software package LabVIEW a visual programming language. From …

Opportunistic Service Differentiation And Cloud Resource Management In Support Of Enhanced Vehicular Applications, Mohammad Ali Salahuddin

Dissertations

An integral part of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs), which consist of vehicles with on-board units (OBUs) and fixed road-side units (RSUs). Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment (WAVE) offers QoS via service differentiation by using application defined priorities. However, WAVE has unbounded delay and is oblivious to network load and severity of vehicles with respect to their environment. Our context severity metric innovatively enhances WAVE to be sensitive to vehicle and environment interactions. Our novel Opportunistic Service Differentiation (OSD) technique, dynamically readjusts the WAVE packet priorities to improve utilization of lower latency queues, prioritizing packets …

Hydrodynamic Evaluation Of Climate Change And The Effects Of Coastal Effluent On The Long-Term Circulation Ofthe Arabian Gulf And Its Impact On Desalination, Abubaker Awad Elhakeem

Dissertations

The prime objectives of this dissertation are to develop, validate, and use a state of the art 30 Hydrodynamic Model (HD) to evaluate the long-term salinity and seawater temperature variations in the Gulf subject to climate change and coastal effluent; and to develop a Quantification tool that can assess the impact of projected ambient conditions upon the cost of desalination. Both objectives were realized.

Evaluating the long-term variability of seawater salinity and temperature due to climate change and coastal effluent is a growing concern. It may represent an economic and operational limiting factor in the desalination process given the clear …

Pbs Quantum Dot-Based Hetrojunction Solar Cells, Sawsan Khader Dagher

Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of nanoparticles (NPs) size on their optical properties, and the effect of combination of lead sulfide (PbS) quantum dots (QDs), with n-type and p-type NPs, on the photogenerated charge carriers transport across the heterojunction solar cell structure. PbS QDs, of a range of sizes, were synthesized using a co-precipitation process. In this study, p-type NPs, which are poly [3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene] –poly [styrenesulfonate] (PEDOT: PSS), copper oxide (CuO) and graphene oxide (GO); and n-type NPs which are zinc oxide (ZnO), titanium dioxide (TiO2), cadmium sulfide (CdS) and bismuth sulfide (Bi2S3), were synthesized and characterized by SEM and …

Kinetic Analysis Of Thiol Oxidation To Study The Effects Of Fluorinated Groups On Metal Phthalocyanine Catalysts, Nellone Eze Reid

Dissertations

The oxidation of thiol (RSH) to disulfide (RSSR) is important biologically and industrially. Corrosive and malodorous thiols exist as contaminants in wastewater discharge from mining facilities, pulp and paper mills, tanneries, and oil refineries. The elimination of thiols from petroleum products is necessary for even cleaner fuels. Thiols in gas products can also inhibit catalyst activity for some downstream processes.

Experiments and mechanistic kinetic studies were conducted for the aerobic oxidation of 2-mercaptoethanol (2-ME) and 4-fluorobenzenethiol (4-FBT) catalyzed by cobalt phthalocyanines: H₁₆PcCo, F₁₆PcCo, and F₆₄PcCo, each exhibiting a metal center subject to increasing Lewis …

Global Optimization Methods For Localization In Compressive Sensing, Marco Rossi

Dissertations

The dissertation discusses compressive sensing and its applications to localization in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars. Compressive sensing is a paradigm at the intersection between signal processing and optimization. It advocates the sensing of “sparse” signals (i.e., represented using just a few terms from a basis expansion) by using a sampling rate much lower than that required by the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem (i.e., twice the highest frequency present in the signal of interest). Low-rate sampling reduces implementation’s constraints and translates into cost savings due to fewer measurements required. This is particularly true in localization applications when the number of measurements is …

Optimization Of Vehicle Routing And Scheduling With Travel Time Variability - Application In Winter Road Maintenance, Haifeng Yu

Dissertations

This study developed a mathematical model for optimizing vehicle routing and scheduling, which can be used to collect travel time information, and also to perform winter road maintenance operations (e.g., salting, plowing). The objective of this research was to minimize the total vehicle travel time to complete a given set of service tasks, subject to resource constraints (e.g., truck capacity, fleet size) and operational constraints (e.g., service time windows, service time limit).

The nature of the problem is to design vehicle routes and schedules to perform the required service on predetermined road segments, which can be interpreted as an arc …

Characterizing Motor Control Signals In The Spinal Cord, Yi Guo

Dissertations

The main goal of this project is to develop a rodent model to study the central command signals generated in the brain and spinal cord for the control of motor function in the forearms. The nature of the central command signal has been debated for many decades with only limited progress. This thesis presents a project that investigated this problem using novel techniques. Rats are instrumented to record the control signals in their spinal cord while they are performing lever press task they are trained in. A haptic interface and wireless neural data amplifier system simultaneously collects dynamic and neural …

Congestion Control, Energy Efficiency And Virtual Machine Placement For Data Centers, Yan Zhang

Dissertations

Data centers, facilities with communications network equipment and servers for data processing and/or storage, are prevalent and essential to provide a myriad of services and applications for various private, non-profit, and government systems, and they also form the foundation of cloud computing, which is transforming the technological landscape of the Internet. With rapid deployment of modern high-speed low-latency large-scale data centers, many issues have emerged in data centers, such as data center architecture design, congestion control, energy efficiency, virtual machine placement, and load balancing.

The objective of this thesis is multi-fold. First, an enhanced Quantized Congestion Notification (QCN) congestion notification …

Physical Controls On Water Flow And Solute Transport In Coastal Aquifers, Xiaolong Geng

Dissertations

Groundwater flow and associated subsurface solute fates have a significant impact on the structure and productivity of near-shore coastal ecosystems. For proper assessment and management of these coastal groundwater resources, it is quite essential to investigate the key factors (tides, waves, evaporation, and freshwater recharge etc.) affecting coastal groundwater systems. The main objective of this study is to examine and quantify two important physical control factors, oceanic waves and evaporation, on the groundwater flow and solute transport in near-shore aquifers. For the investigation of wave effects, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling tool, Fluent, is used to simulate wave- induced …

Field Methods For Rapidly Characterizing Contaminant Mobility In Paint Waste During Bridge Rehabilitation, Zhan Shu

Dissertations

Currently, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) uses a conservative approach of classifying all paint waste as hazardous from bridges undergoing rehabilitation which were constructed before 1989. This practice stems from the fact that there is no approved reliable, fast, and efficient method for classifying paint waste in-situ as non-hazardous. The main objective of this study was to develop a model that can predict the leachability of trace metals in paint waste generated during bridge rehabilitation. A statistically significant number of bridge sites were sampled based on hypothesis testing. Samples were then evaluated for total concentration of Resource …

Modeling, Control And Simulation Of Control-Affine Nonlinear Systems With State-Dependent Transfer Functions, Roger Kobla Kwadzogah

Dissertations

There has been no known research that applies nonlinear transfer function to a nonlinear control problem. The belief is that nonlinear systems have no transfer functions. The Laplace transformation required to define transfer functions is not tractable mathematically when the coefficients of the differential equation are functions of state, output and control variables. In other words, it is not defined for systems that do not obey principles of superposition. Only linear systems obey this principle. Therefore, this dissertation work represents the very first research to demonstrate how transfer functions can be used to represent and design feedback control for nonlinear …

Dynamics Of 1d Granular Column, Luo Zuo

Dissertations

This dissertation is focused on a discrete element study of the dynamics of a one- dimensional column of inelastic spheres that it subjected to taps by prescribing a half sine wave pulse to supporting floor. Contact interactions obey the Walton-Braun soft-sphere model in which the loading (unloading) path is governing by linear springs of stiffness K1, thereby producing col lisional energy loss through a constant restitution coefficient e. Over a ‘short time scale’, computations are done to examine the floor pulse wave as it propagates through the column contact network. Comparisons of the simulated findings are made with experimental measurements …

Gas-Solid Transport And Reaction Via Intervened Evaporating Sprays, Pengfei He

Dissertations

Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is a major process used for converting heavy oils to transportation fuels and light olefins. The gas-solid transport with reaction via intervened evaporating sprays in the FCC riser is specially important but complicated, with coupled mechanisms of chemical reaction and heat, momentum and mass transfer among multiple phases (liquid, solid and gas) in the restriction of wall boundary. Recent developments in FCC process models have progressed along two lines. One aims to develop composition-based kinetic models derived from molecular characterization of petroleum fractions while overlooking the hydrodynamic effect on local catalyst to oil ratio (CTO). The …

The Mpt Assessment Deployed Via Digital Mobile Application, Niall Duffy

Dissertations

This project will look at the area of the Matching Person and Technology assessment (MPT). This project will be to develop a version of the MPT that can be deployed as a mobile application. The key research being performed in this project will be the analysis of the results given on the mobile application when compared to those given via the traditional paper method. The MPT is a very large assessment; because of this there are a number of different specific assessments like workplace and education assessments (Cook, A.M. and Hussey, S. 2001). Because of the size of the assessment …

Predicting Mortgage Arrears: An Investigation Into The Predictive Capability Of Customer Spending Patterns, Jamie Roche

Dissertations

The management of credit risk and mortgage arrears has become a very important area in financial services and banking. This dissertation set out to build a statistical model, which incorporates customer spending habits and the current equity value of a property, capable of predicting arrears. Current literature identifies many themes such as negative equity and unemployment that are common occurring factors in mortgage arrears but a multi-faceted approach was required to build a model capable of accurately predicting arrears. Property equity values were included in the model by taking the current outstanding value of the loans and using a property …

Reducing Ambiguities In Customer Requirements Through Historical Rule-Based Knowledge In A Small Organization, Silvia Brum Preston

Dissertations

During the elicitation process the requirements for a software application are obtained from the customer. Customers often do not know how to clearly express the requirements of the application to be built, causing requirements to be ambiguous. Many studies have been found to cover different characteristics of the requirements elicitation process including methods for reducing ambiguities in requirements. The methods and findings of these studies were found to be too general when it comes to the specific domain of the requirements and knowledge about the requirements. In addition, some studies did not take into consideration the level of expertise of …

Resource Allocation For Wireless Relay Networks, Hanan Hassan Al-Tous

Dissertations

In this thesis, we propose several resource allocation strategies for relay networks in the context of joint power and bandwidth allocation and relay selection, and joint power allocation and subchannel assignment for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. Sharing the two best ordered relays with equal power between the two users over Rayleigh flat fading channels is proposed to establish full diversity order for both users. Closed form expressions for the outage probability, and bit error probability (BEP) performance measures for both amplify and forward (AF) and decode and forward (DF) cooperative communication …

Development Of An Integrated Incident And Transit Priority Management Control System, Faisal Ahmed

Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to develop a distributed adaptive control system which can work standalone for a single intersection to handle various boundary conditions of recurrent, non-recurrent congestion, transit signal priority and downstream blockage to improve the overall network in terms of productivity and efficiency. The control system uses link detectors’ data to determine the boundary conditions of all incoming and exit links. Four processes or modules are deployed. The traffic regime state module estimates the congestion status of the link. The incident status module determines the likelihood of an incident on the link. The transit priority module …

Processing And Characterization Of Innovative Magnesium Alloys For Biodegradable Orthopaedic Implants, Christopher E. Smith

Dissertations

There is a need for innovation in medical implant devices through novel biomaterials that will improve the quality of life. The first step in the creation of a foundation of knowledge and technology to improve these implant devices is through the creation of new alloys with the capabilities of biodegradation and bioabsorption without a toxic effect that will pass through FDA regulatory procedures. In this study, unique heat treatment processing techniques coupled with innovation in elemental alloying produced distinctive magnesium (Mg) based alloy systems. The MgZnCa system was used as the underpinning system where four groups of novel alloys were …

An Adaptive Kalman Filter For Voltage Sag Detection In Power Systems, Hisham Odeh Alrawashdeh

Dissertations

The exact values of the noise covariance matrix of the Kalman filter state vector Q and the measured signal noise covariance matrix R must be obtained in order to achieve the optimal performance of the Kalman filter. There have been many techniques and assumptions made to evaluate and compute Q and R. The effects of Q and R are investigated in detail in this dissertation. Based on these investigations, the Kalman filter has been modeled to detect the fundamental signal amplitude variations of power system signals. This technique helps in evaluating voltage sags in power systems.

Two algorithms are …

Size-Dependent Interactions Of Metal Nanoparticles With Fluorophores And Semiconductors, Liyana A. Wajira Ariyadasa

Dissertations

In recent years, nanoscale metallic particles have gained considerable interest due to their potential applications in advanced technology. Despite such interest, synthetic procedures that produce gram-scale, well-defined metallic nanoparticles with controlled size and shape, especially with diameters less than 5 nm remains a challenge. Our work has focused on developing synthetic procedures that produce well-defined platinum and palladium metal nanoparticles in the 1-5 nm size range. Thioether ligands were used as stabilizers and resulted in metal nanoparticles with controlled size. The nanoparticles were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy …

A Metaevaluation Of Energy Efficiency Evaluations, Brandy Brown

Dissertations

This study systematically reviews the methodological characteristics of energy efficiency evaluations and uses metaevaluation to assess its quality. Metaevaluation is used to systematically assess the quality of evaluation products, confirm that evaluations deliver sound findings and conclusions, are useful to the client, are credible, are ethically conducted, and are done as cost-effective as possible. The results of this study show that the ability to accurately assess evaluation for methodological quality using evaluations reports as a primary data source depends on the presence of detailed descriptions of evaluation methods. Furthermore, the study suggests that methodological variations of energy efficiency evaluations coalesce …

Active Control Of Aerial Refueling Drogue, Taeseung Kuk

Dissertations

An active stabilization method for an aerial refueling drogue used in probe-drogue refueling system is presented in this study. The present refueling drogue exhibits an unstable motion due to various turbulent natures, which results in high failure rates and sometimes catastrophic accidents. Although it is considered a routine procedure for human pilot, the workload for mid-air refueling is highly demanding and autonomous operation is by no means a simple task. With rapidly growing use of unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous aerial refueling is identified as one of essential technologies in future aviation. The present research is a pioneering work in active …

Numerical And Experimental Investigation Of Orthopaedic Fracture Fixation, Bipinchandra Patel

Dissertations

Poor bone fracture fixation leads to malunion, delayed union, non-union, or infection. These malunited fractures affect a bone’s ability to carry loads. Patient outcomes regarding fixation quality can be affected by the healing environment and human factors such as bone quality and surgeons’ perception. Furthermore, the stiffness and strength of the screw-plate construct affect the healing environment. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the stiffness and strength of the non-locking (conventional) and locking (fixed angle) type screw-plate constructs and the factors that contribute to them, such as screw-plate interface, screw design, bone density, cortical bone thickness and load orientation. Additionally, the surgeon’s …

Bringing Knowledge To Imbedded Collaboration Tools Within An Irish Financial Services It Department, Anthony Daly

Dissertations

The field of organisational knowledge management attempts to define and identify work practices and the use of technologies which provide an organisation with sustained competitive advantage. This research presents findings from analysis carried out in an Irish financial services organisation. The organisation has no defined knowledge management strategy yet as this research will indicate that this firm can be classified as a Knowledge-Intensive Organisation. Many of the desired attributes of a knowledge management strategy and characteristics for a knowledge management system can be found within the organisations technology and cultural structures. This project, having reviewed the established literature which defines …

Cloud-Based Storage Applications For Smart Phones: Forensic Investigation Of Cloud Storage Applications, Radoslaw Ochrymowicz

Dissertations

The proliferation of smart phones across the globe, development of 4G network standards and its progressing implementation along with shift towards cloud computing bring risks to smart phone users who avail of these service. Security of cloud storage mobile applications should be essential to smart phone users. Enterprises’ move to huge data centres and availing of their infrastructure, platform and service is an advantage but poses a risk. Users use corporate resources managed and administered with security in mind of policy makers but it is still possible to use unsecure, designed for users services without business being aware of it. …

A Framework For The Analysis And User-Driven Evaluation Of Trust On The Semantic Web, Peter Clarke

Dissertations

This project will examine the area of trust on the Semantic Web and develop a framework for publishing and verifying trusted Linked Data. Linked Data describes a method of publishing structured data, automatically readable by computers, which can linked to other heterogeneous data with the purpose of becoming more useful. Trust plays a significant role in the adoption of new technologies and even more so in a sphere with such vast amounts of publicly-created data. Trust is paramount to the effective sharing and communication of tacit knowledge (Hislop, 2013). Up to now, the area of trust in Linked Data has …