Engineering Commons^™

The Mathematical Relationship Among Normal Patellar Dimensions, To Find The Pre-Diseased Patellar Thickness In Different Populations, Mahdie Kerdari, Shima Rastegar, Yasmeen Mustafa, Mohammadreza Abbassian, Armin Aalami Harandi, Mary M. Stahle, Robert Hube, Hamid Rs Hosseinzadeh

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Whether resurfacing or not resurfacing the patella during total knee arthroplasty (TKA) still is a challenge to orthopedic surgeons. A significant reason for this controversy is the far from perfect outcomes of both techniques, resulting from inadequate knowledge of normal patellar dimensions in a diseased one. The primary purpose of the current study is to find the pre-diseased patellar dimensions and the ethnic differences in patellar dimensions. We measured the patella's dimensions on 927 normal young adult knee MRIs from seven different ethnicities. Besides comparing the dimensions between sexes, ages, and sides, we analyzed the differences among ethnic groups. The …

Effect Of Microcapsule Content On Diels-Alder Room Temperature Self-Healing Thermosets., Sadella C Santos, John J La Scala, Giuseppe R Palmese

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

A furan functionalized epoxy-amine thermoset with an embedded microcapsule healing system that utilizes reversible Diels-Alder healing chemistry was used to investigate the influence of microcapsule loading on healing efficiency. A urea-formaldehyde encapsulation technique was used to create capsules with an average diameter of 150 µm that were filled with a reactive solution of bismaleimide in phenyl acetate. It was found that optimum healing of the thermoset occurred at 10 wt% microcapsule content for the compositions investigated. The diffusion of solvent through the crack interface and within fractured samples was investigated using analytical diffusion models. The decrease in healing efficiency at …

Peristaltic Flow In The Glymphatic System., Francesco Romanò, Vinod Suresh, Peter Galie, James B Grotberg

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

The flow inside the perivascular space (PVS) is modeled using a first-principles approach in order to investigate how the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) enters the brain through a permeable layer of glial cells. Lubrication theory is employed to deal with the flow in the thin annular gap of the perivascular space between an impermeable artery and the brain tissue. The artery has an imposed peristaltic deformation and the deformable brain tissue is modeled by means of an elastic Hooke's law. The perivascular flow model is solved numerically, discovering that the peristaltic wave induces a steady streaming to/from the brain which strongly …

The Sars-Cov-2 Spike Protein Alters Barrier Function In 2d Static And 3d Microfluidic In-Vitro Models Of The Human Blood-Brain Barrier., Tetyana P Buzhdygan, Brandon J Deore, Abigail Baldwin-Leclair, Trent A Bullock, Hannah M Mcgary, Jana A Khan, Roshanak Razmpour, Jonathan F Hale, Peter Galie, Raghava Potula, Allison M Andrews, Servio H Ramirez

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

As researchers across the globe have focused their attention on understanding SARS-CoV-2, the picture that is emerging is that of a virus that has serious effects on the vasculature in multiple organ systems including the cerebral vasculature. Observed effects on the central nervous system include neurological symptoms (headache, nausea, dizziness), fatal microclot formation and in rare cases encephalitis. However, our understanding of how the virus causes these mild to severe neurological symptoms and how the cerebral vasculature is impacted remains unclear. Thus, the results presented in this report explored whether deleterious outcomes from the SARS-CoV-2 viral spike protein on primary …

Comparative Analysis Of Extreme Verification Latency Learning Algorithms, Muhammad Umer, Robi Polikar

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

One of the more challenging real-world problems in computational intelligence is to learn from non-stationary streaming data, also known as concept drift. Perhaps even a more challenging version of this scenario is when -- following a small set of initial labeled data -- the data stream consists of unlabeled data only. Such a scenario is typically referred to as learning in initially labeled nonstationary environment, or simply as extreme verification latency (EVL). Because of the very challenging nature of the problem, very few algorithms have been proposed in the literature up to date. This work is a very first effort …

Optical-Amplifier-Compatible Long-Distance Secure Key Generation Based On Random Phase Fluctuations For Wdm Systems, Ben Wu, Yue-Kai Huang

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

We proposed and experimentally demonstrated a secure key generation and distribution system that is compatible with optical amplifiers and standard wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission systems. The key is generated from the phase fluctuations induced by environmental instabilities. The key generation system is tested in a 240 km bidirectional fiber-pair link with multiple optical amplifiers. To demonstrate the compatibility with WDM systems, 38 WDM channels are transmitted together with the key distribution channel. The secret key is protected against eavesdropping and coherence detection attack by the wide-band property of the signal carrier and the fast-changing rate of the phase fluctuations.

Optimization Of Energy Absorption Performance Of Polymer Honeycombs By Density Gradation, Oyindamola Rahman, Behrad Koohbor

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Density gradation has been analytically and experimentally proven to enhance the load-bearing and energy absorption efficiency of cellular solids. This paper focuses on the analytical optimization (by virtual experiments) of polymeric honeycomb structures made from thermoplastic polyurethane to achieve density-graded structures with combined desired mechanical properties. The global stress-strain curves of single-density honeycomb structures are used as input to an analytical model that enables the characterization of the constitutive response of density-graded hexagonal honeycombs with discrete and continuous gradations and for various gradients. The stress-strain outputs are used to calculate the specific energy absorption, efficiency, and ideality metrics for all …

Sound Vortex Diffraction Via Topological Charge In Phase Gradient Metagratings, Yangyang Fu, Chen Shen, Xiaohui Zhu, Junfei Li, Youwen Liu, Steven A. Crummer

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Wave fields with orbital angular momentum (OAM) have been widely investigated in metasurfaces. By engineering acoustic metasurfaces with phase gradient elements, phase twisting is commonly used to obtain acoustic OAM. However, it has limited ability to manipulate sound vortices, and a more powerful mechanism for sound vortex manipulation is strongly desired. Here, we propose the diffraction mechanism to manipulate sound vortices in a cylindrical waveguide with phase gradient metagratings (PGMs). A sound vortex diffraction law is theoretically revealed based on the generalized conservation principle of topological charge. This diffraction law can explain and predict the complicated diffraction phenomena of sound …

Engineered Full-Length Fibronectin-Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogels For Stem Cell Engineering., Sara Trujillo, Sebastian Vega, Kwang Hoon Song, Ana San Félix, Matthew J Dalby, Jason A Burdick, Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Mechanical cues induce a variety of downstream effects on cells, including the regulation of stem cell behavior. Cell fate is typically characterized on biomaterial substrates where mechanical and chemical properties can be precisely tuned; however, most of these substrates do not recapitulate the biological complexity of the extracellular matrix (ECM). Here, hydrogels are engineered for mechanobiological studies using two major components of the ECM: hyaluronic acid (HA) and fibronectin (FN). Rather than typical surface chemisorption of FN to substrates, the system contains full-length FN covalently crosslinked to HA throughout the hydrogel. The control over the mechanical properties of the hydrogel …

Dual Target Optimization Of Two-Dimensional Truss Using Cost Efficiency And Structural Reliability Sufficiency, Mohammad Rezaee, Seyed Hooman Ghasemi, Mansoureh Rezaee

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

The main contribution of this study is to open a discussion regarding the structural optimization associated with the cost efficiency and structural reliability sufficiency consideration. To do so, several various optimization approaches are investigated to deliberate both cost and reliability concerns. Particularly, particle swarm optimization is highlighted as a reliable optimization approach. Accordingly, an illustrative example is rendered to compare the feasibility of the considered optimization approaches. The feasibility of the investigated approaches is evaluated using the cost and reliability analysis. For the considered example, it was observed that the PSO optimization algorithm has multiple advantages such as easy realization, …

Application Of Satellite Remote Sensing In Monitoring Elevated Internal Temperatures Of Landfills, Rouzbeh Nazari, Husam Alfergani, Francis M. Haas, Maryam E. Karimi, Md Golam Rabbani Fahad, Samain Sabrin, Jess Everett, Nidhal Carla Bouaynaya, Robert W. Peters

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Subsurface fires and smoldering events at landfills can present serious health hazards and threats to the environment. These fires are much more costly and difficult to extinguish than open fires at the landfill surface. The initiation of a subsurface fire may go unnoticed for a long period of time and undetected fires may spread over a large area. Unfortunately, not all landfill operators keep or publish heat elevation data and many landfills are not equipped with a landfill gas extraction system to control subsurface temperatures generated from the chemical reactions within. The timely and cost-effective identification of subsurface fires is …

Epoxidation Of Cardanol's Terminal Double Bond., Emre Kinaci, Erde Can, John J La Scala, Giuseppe R Palmese

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

In this investigation, the terminal double bonds of the side chain epoxidized cardanol glycidyl ether (SCECGE) molecule were further epoxidized in the presence of Oxone® (potassium peroxomonosulfate) and fluorinated acetone. Regular methods for the double bond epoxidation are not effective on the terminal double bonds because of their reduced electronegativity with respect to internal double bonds. The terminal double bond functionality of the SCECGE was epoxidized to nearly 70%, increasing the epoxy functionality of SCECGE from 2.45 to 2.65 epoxies/molecule as measured using proton magnetic nuclear resonance (1H-NMR). This modified material—side chain epoxidized cardanol glycidyl ether with terminal epoxies (TE-SCECGE)—was …

Formulation Of A Model Resin System For Benchmarking Processing-Property Relationships In High-Performance Photo 3d Printing Applications., Jianwei Tu, Kamran Makarian, Nicolas J Alvarez, Giuseppe R Palmese

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

A well-defined resin system is needed to serve as a benchmark for 3D printing of high-performance composites. This work describes the design and characterization of such a system that takes into account processability and performance considerations. The Grunberg–Nissan model for resin viscosity and the Fox equation for polymer Tg were used to determine proper monomer ratios. The target viscosity of the resin was below 500 cP, and the target final Tg of the cured polymer was 150 °C based on tan-δ peak from dynamic mechanical analysis. A tri-component model resin system, termed DA-2 resin, was determined and fully characterized. The …

Investigating Effects Of Landfill Soil Gases On Landfill Elevated Subsurface Temperature, Samain Sabrin, Rouzbeh Nazari, Md Golam Rabbani Fahad, Maryam Kirimi, Jess Everett, Robert W. Peters

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Subsurface temperature is a critical indicator for the identification of the risk associated with subsurface fire hazards in landfills. Most operational landfills in the United States (US) have experienced exothermic reactions in their subsurface. The subsurface landfill area is composed of various gases generated from chemical reactions inside the landfills. Federal laws in the US mandate the monitoring of gases in landfills to prevent hazardous events such as landfill fire breakouts. There are insufficient investigations conducted to identify the causes of landfill fire hazards. The objective of this research is to develop a methodological approach to this issue. In this …

Influence Of Epoxidized Cardanol Functionality And Reactivity On Network Formation And Properties., Emre Kinaci, Erde Can, John J La Scala, Giuseppe R Palmese

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Cardanol is a renewable resource based on cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL), which consists of a phenol ring with a C15 long aliphatic side chain in the meta position with varying degrees of unsaturation. Cardanol glycidyl ether was chemically modified to form side-chain epoxidized cardanol glycidyl ether (SCECGE) with an average epoxy functionality of 2.45 per molecule and was cured with petroleum-based epoxy hardeners, 4-4'-methylenebis(cyclohexanamine) and diethylenetriamine, and a cardanol-based amine hardener. For comparison, cardanol-based diphenol diepoxy resin, NC514 (Cardolite), and a petroleum-based epoxy resin, diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA) were also evaluated. Chemical and thermomechanical analyses showed that for …

High‐Tensile Strength, Composite Bijels Through Microfluidic Twisting, S. P. Kharal, Robert P. Hesketh, Martin F. Haase

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Rope making is a millennia old technique to collectively assemble numerous weak filaments into flexible and high tensile strength bundles. However, delicate soft matter fibers lack the robustness to be twisted into bundles by means of mechanical rope making tools. Here, weak microfibers with tensile strengths of a few kilopascals are combined into ropes via microfluidic twisting. This is demonstrated for recently introduced fibers made of bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels (bijels). Bijels show promising applications in use as membranes, microreactors, energy and healthcare materials, but their low tensile strength make reinforcement strategies imperative. Hydrodynamic twisting allows to produce continuous …

Narmax Identification Based Closed-Loop Control Of Flow Separation Over Naca 0015 Airfoil, Sohaib Obeid, Goodarz Ahmadi, Ratneshwar Jha

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

A closed-loop control algorithm for the reduction of turbulent flow separation over NACA 0015 airfoil equipped with leading-edge synthetic jet actuators (SJAs) is presented. A system identification approach based on Nonlinear Auto-Regressive Moving Average with eXogenous inputs (NARMAX) technique was used to predict nonlinear dynamics of the fluid flow and for the design of the controller system. Numerical simulations based on URANS equations are performed at Reynolds number of 106 for various airfoil incidences with and without closed-loop control. The NARMAX model for flow over an airfoil is based on the static pressure data, and the synthetic jet actuator is …

Integrating Entrepreneurial Mindset In A Multidisciplinary Course On Engineering Design And Technical Communication, Kevin Dahm, Scott C. Streiner, Cheryl Bodnar, Kaitlin Mallouk, Bruce Oestreich, Ted Howell, Jennifer Tole

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

The engineering curriculum at XXXX University includes a sophomore level two-course sequence (required for engineering students in all disciplines) in which the primary learning outcomes are engineering design and technical communication. These courses are team-taught by faculty from Engineering and from Communications, specifically, Writing Arts in the fall and Public Speaking in the spring. Historically, the fall course has featured three major course deliverables: (1) a “research sequence” consisting of a rhetorical analysis, and annotated bibliography and a literature review, (2) a humanities assignment in which students explore the impact of technology on societal needs, and (3) laboratory and design …

Effects Of Cyclic Heating And Water Cooling On The Physical Characteristics Of Granite, Xiangchao Shi, Leiyu Gao, Jie Wu, Cheng Zhu, Shuai Chen, Xiao Zhuo

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

This paper aims to study the effect of cyclic heating and flowing-water cooling conditions on the physical properties of granite. Ultrasonic tests, gas measured porosity, permeability, and microscope observations were conducted on granite after thermal treatment. The results showed that the velocity of P- and S-waves decreased as the number of thermal cycles increased. The porosity increased with the number of the thermal cycles attained at 600 °C, while no apparent changes were observed at 200 and 400 °C. The permeability increased with the increasing number of thermal cycles. Furthermore, microscope observations showed that degradation of the granite after thermal …

Classification Of Seismic Vulnerability Based On Machine Learning Techniques For Rc Frames, Seyed Hooman Ghasemi, Hossein Bahrami, Mahdi Akbari

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Seismic vulnerability means the inability of historical and monumental buildings to withstand the effects of seismic forces. This article presents a classification model to specify the damage state of the Reinforced Concrete (RC) frames based on a collection of datasets from the damaged buildings in Bingol earthquake of Turkey for use in the learning process of the algorithm. The proposed model uses two classifiers including the redundancy and also the construction quality of the buildings to estimate the class of damage from four categories including none, light, moderate and severe. The available database of the considered earthquake includes the information …

System Reliability Analysis Of The Scoliosis Disorder., Fatemeh Nouri, Seyed Hooman Ghasemi, Ji Yun Lee

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

BACKGROUND: Scoliosis is a spine abnormal deviation, which is an idiopathic disorder among children and adolescents. As a matter of the fact, distribution of loads on the patient's spine and load-carrying capacity of the vertebral column are both random variables. Therefore, the probabilistic approach may consider as a sophisticated method to deal with this problem.

METHOD: Reliability analysis is a probabilistic-based approach to consider the uncertainties of load and resistance of the vertebral column. The main contribution of this paper is to compare the reliability level of a normal and scoliosis spinal. To do so, the numerical analyses associated with …

Dispersion Tuning And Route Reconfiguration Of Acoustic Waves In Valley Topological Phononic Crystals, Zhenhua Tian, Chen Shen, Junfei Li, Eric Reit, Hunter Bachman, Joshua E. S. Socolar, Steven A. Crummer, Tony Jun Huang

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

The valley degree of freedom in crystals offers great potential for manipulating classical waves, however, few studies have investigated valley states with complex wavenumbers, valley states in graded systems, or dispersion tuning for valley states. Here, we present tunable valley phononic crystals (PCs) composed of hybrid channel-cavity cells with three tunable parameters. Our PCs support valley states and Dirac cones with complex wavenumbers. They can be configured to form chirped valley PCs in which edge modes are slowed to zero group velocity states, where the energy at different frequencies accumulates at different designated locations. They enable multiple functionalities, including tuning …

Effects Of Fiber Density And Strain Rate On The Mechanical Properties Of Electrospun Polycaprolactone Nanofiber Mats., Adriano A Conte, Katie Sun, Xiao Hu, Vincent Beachley

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

This study examines the effects of electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) fiber density and strain rate on nanofiber mat mechanical properties. An automated track collection system was employed to control fiber number per mat and promote uniform individual fiber properties regardless of the duration of collection. Fiber density is correlated to the mechanical properties of the nanofiber mats. Young's modulus was reduced as fiber density increased, from 14,901 MPa for samples electrospun for 30 s (717 fibers +/- 345) to 3,615 MPa for samples electrospun for 40 min (8,310 fibers +/- 1,904). Ultimate tensile strength (UTS) increased with increasing fiber density, where …

Diurnal Patterns Of Gene Expression In The Dorsal Vagal Complex And The Central Nucleus Of The Amygdala - Non-Rhythm-Generating Brain Regions., Mary M Staehle, Sean O'Sullivan, Rajanikanth Vadigepalli, Kate F Kernan, Gregory E Gonye, Babatunde A Ogunnaike, James S Schwaber

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Genes that establish the circadian clock have differential expression with respect to solar time in central and peripheral tissues. Here, we find circadian-time-induced differential expression in a large number of genes not associated with circadian rhythms in two brain regions lacking overt circadian function: the dorsal vagal complex (DVC) and the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA). These regions primarily engage in autonomic, homeostatic, and emotional regulation. However, we find striking diurnal shifts in gene expression in these regions of male Sprague Dawley rats with no obvious patterns that could be attributed to function or region. These findings have implications …

Upgrading The Capstone Projects: The Engineering Clinic Model, Smitesh Bakrania, Ratneshwar Jha

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Capstone engineering design projects are ideal for broad application of engineering concepts on open-ended research and design problems. These projects allow students to reinforce their skills and extend their expertise into specialized areas of interest. Often, the capstone projects serve as both test grounds and launch pads for students’ engineering careers. Within the engineering curriculum, these projects typically span the final year of an engineering program and entail a single project within a single disciplinary area. While their significance to the educational experience is unequivocal, the benefits of a capstone project can be expanded to further reflect real-world experiences. Over …