Engineering Commons^™

Study And Characterization Of Conductive Elastomers For Biomedical Applications, Hadis Gharacheh

Theses and Dissertations

Health issues have always been one of humankind's biggest challenges. Over the last century, there has been significant and monumental progress in health and biomedical science, with the end goal of alleviating and eliminating illnesses and ailments. For developing biomedical devices, polymers and elastomers group among other types of biomaterials have been highlighted to be used due to high flexibility, stability, biocompatibility, and mechanical and rheological characteristics. In this work, the characterization of acrylated poly glycerol_sebacate (PGSA) polymer conjugated with bio ionic liquid (BIL) was investigated. Results showed high biocompatibility, high printability with tunable mechanical, adhesive, and conductivity properties. For …

Performance Of A Full-Scale Rammed Aggregate Pier Group In Silty Sand Based On Blast-Induced Liquefaction Testing In Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Paul Joseph Walsh Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

To investigate the liquefaction mitigation capability of Rammed Aggregate Piers® (RAP) in silty sand, blast liquefaction testing was performed at a soil profile treated with a full-scale RAP group relative to an untreated soil profile. The RAP group consisted of 16 piers in a 4x4 arrangement at 2 m center-to-center spacing extending to a depth of 9.5 m. Blasting around the untreated area induced liquefaction (ru ≈1.0) from 3 m to 11 m depth, producing several large sand boils, and causing settlement of 10 cm. In contrast, installation of the RAP group reduced excess pore water pressure (ru ≈0.75), eliminated …

Analysis Of Performance Measures Of Traffic Incident Management In Utah, Mitchell Gregory Hadfield

Theses and Dissertations

In 2009 the Federal Highway Administration published a report regarding a Focus States Initiative that had been conducted with 11 states to discuss the development of national Traffic Incident Management (TIM) standards. Performance measures were defined, and a national TIM dashboard created, but very little data has been added to the dashboard since. In this research study, performance measures of the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) TIM program were analyzed. Data availability was first assessed to determine whether these performance measures could be calculated. It was determined that crash response data available from the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP) could be …

Evaluating The Impacts Of Hurricane Maria On The Residential Construction Industry In Puerto Rico And The Effectiveness Of Reconstruction Efforts, M. Bradley Wells

Theses and Dissertations

In September of 2017, Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria, both category 5 hurricanes, swept across the Caribbean, including the U.S. Territory island of Puerto Rico. These two storms, particularly Hurricane Maria, caused catastrophic damages from high winds and flooding to the island paradise. This research investigates the direct effects that Hurricane Maria had on the residential construction industry within Puerto Rico and evaluates how to better prioritize and manage these types of efforts in the future. This research was initiated to identify challenges and opportunities that have been encountered within the Puerto Rican construction industry during the first year of …

Improving The Piezoelectric Properties Of Flexible Polymer-Nanoparticle Energy Harvesters, Muhammet Emin Cavusoglu

Theses and Dissertations

In this research, one of the widely used polymers, poly(vinylidene fluoride)(PVDF), was used to develop thin-film polymer energy harvesters. Dimethylformamide (DMF) and methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) were used to dissolve the PVDF powder. Four different (0%, 3%, 5%, and 7%) ZnO nanoparticle (NP) concentrations were used to enhance the electrical output of the thin-film energy harvesters. A sonication bath and additional MEK were used in dispersing the ZnO NPs to obtained uniform PVDF/ZnO NP solution. The electrode poling technique was used for dipole alignment to improve the electrical performance of the devices. The fabricated samples were tested using the tensile …

Toward Precision Medicine With Nanopore Technology, Trang Andrea Vu

Theses and Dissertations

Currently, when patients are diagnosed with cancer, they often receive a treatment based on the type and stage of the tumor. However, different patients may respond to the same treatment differently, due to the variation in their genomic alteration profile. Thus, it is essential to understand the effect of genomic alterations on cancer drug efficiency and engineer devices to monitor these changes for therapeutic response prediction. Nanopore-based detection technology features devices containing a nanometer-scale pore embedded in a thin membrane that can be utilized for DNA sequencing, biosensing, and detection of biological or chemical modifications on single molecules. Overall, this …

Designing Developable Mechanisms On Conical And Cylindrical Developable Surfaces, Lance Parker Hyatt

Theses and Dissertations

The research results presented in this thesis provide tools and methods to aid in the design of developable mechanisms. This work will help engineers design compact mechanisms onto developable surfaces, making it possible for them to be used in future applications. The thesis introduces terminology and definitions to describe conical developable mechanisms. Models are developed to describe mechanism motion with respect to the apex of the conical surface, and connections are made to cylindrical developable mechanisms using projected angles. The Loop Sum Method is presented as an approach to determine the geometry of the cone to which a given spherical …

Computational Investigation Of The Effects Of Rotor-On-Rotor Interactions On Thrust And Noise, Austin R. Schenk

Theses and Dissertations

Recent advancements in electric propulsion systems have made electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft a reality, and one that is seen as a partial solution to the growing issue of urban traffic congestion. Designing an aircraft with multiple smaller motors and rotors spread across the wings–referred to as distributed electric propulsion (DEP)–has shown great potential in help- ing improve electric aircraft performance by offering increased propulsive efficiency, augmented lift, and structural load distribution. For these reasons, DEP is one configuration that is currently being implemented into multiple prototype designs (e.g. NASA’s Maxwell X-57, Airbus Vahana, Opener BlackFly, and Joby S2). …

Optimized 3d Reconstruction For Infrastructure Inspection With Automated Structure From Motion And Machine Learning Methods, Samuel Arce Munoz

Theses and Dissertations

Infrastructure monitoring is being transformed by the advancements on remote sensing, unmanned vehicles and information technology. The wide interaction among these fields and the availability of reliable commercial technology are helping pioneer intelligent inspection methods based on digital 3D models. Commercially available Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been used to create 3D photogrammetric models of industrial equipment. However, the level of automation of these missions remains low. Limited flight time, wireless transfer of large files and the lack of algorithms to guide a UAV through unknown environments are some of the factors that constraint fully automated UAV inspections. This work …

Development Of A 3d Computational Vocal Fold Model Optimization Tool, Austin C. Vaterlaus

Theses and Dissertations

One of the primary objectives of voice research is to better understand the biomechanics of voice production and how changes in properties of the vocal folds (VFs) affect voice ability and quality. Synthetic VF models provide a way to observe how changes in geometry and material property affect voice biomechanics. This thesis seeks to evaluate an approach of using a genetic algorithm to design synthetic VF models in three ways: first, through the development of a computationally cost-effective 3D vocal fold model; second, by creating and optimizing a variation of this model; and third, by validating the approach. To reduce …

Identifying High-Potential Work Areas In Engineering For Global Development: Linking Industry Sectors To The Human Development Index, Daniel Oliver Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Those working in Engineering for Global Development seek to improve the conditions in developing countries. A common metric for understanding the development state of a given country is the Human Development Index (HDI), which focuses on three dimensions: health, education, and income. An engineer’s expertise does not always align with any of those dimensions directly, while they still hope to perform impactful work for human development. To discover other areas of expertise that are highly associated with the HDI, correlations and variable selection were performed between all World Development Indicators and the HDI. The resultant associations are presented according to …

Byu Diesel Engine Lab Setup And Parasitic Losses Of The Water Pump And Vacuum Pump On A Cummins 2.8l Engine, Eric Ashton Jessup

Theses and Dissertations

The need to minimize carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is becoming increasingly important with the total number of vehicles throughout the world exceeding one billion. Carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by improving vehicle fuel efficiency. While electric transportation is gaining popularity, most passenger vehicles are still powered by gasoline or diesel engines. The main objective of this work was to provide opportunities for studying and improving the fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines (ICE). This was achieved by 1) Designing, building and testing auxiliary systems necessary to run a Cummins 2.8 L engine in a an engine test cell; 2) …

Understanding The Relationships Between Ion Transport, Electrode Heterogeneity, And Li-Ion Cell Degradation Through Modeling And Experiment, Fezzeh Pouraghajansarhamami

Theses and Dissertations

Electrode microstructure directly affects ion and electron transport and, in turn, has a strong correlation to battery performance. Understanding the separate yet complementary effects of ionic and electronic transport in cell behavior is a challenge. This work provides through a combination of experiments and modeling a better understanding of the relationship between three aspects of the cell: ion transport within the electrode, electrode uniformity, and cell degradation. The first part of this work compares two experimental methods that determine ion transport in terms of tortuosity, a dimensionless geometric factor. The polarization-interrupt and blocking-electrolyte methods measure effective diffusivity and conductivity, respectively. …

Characterization Of Slow Pyrolysis Behavior Of Live And Dead Vegetation, Elham Amini

Theses and Dissertations

Prescribed (i.e., controlled) burning is a common practice used in many vegetation types in the world to accomplish a wide range of land management objectives including wildfire risk reduction, wildlife habitat improvement, forest regeneration, and land clearing. To properly apply controlled fire and reduce unwanted fire behavior, an improved understanding of fundamental processes related to combustion of live and dead vegetation is needed. Since the combustion process starts with pyrolysis, there is a need for more data and better models of pyrolysis of live and dead fuels. In this study, slow pyrolysis experiments were carried out in a pyrolyzer apparatus …

Towards Machine Self-Awareness - A Bayesian Framework For Uncertainty Propagation In Deep Neural Networks, Dimah Dera

Theses and Dissertations

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have surpassed human-level accuracy in various fields, including object recognition and classification. However, DNNs being inherently deterministic, are unable to evaluate their confidence in the decisions. Bayesian inference provides a principled approach to reason about model confidence or uncertainty by estimating the posterior distribution of the unknown parameters. The challenge in DNNs is the multi-layer stages of non-linearities, which makes propagation of high-dimensional distributions mathematically intractable. This dissertation establishes the theoretical and algorithmic foundations of uncertainty or belief propagation by developing new deep learning models that can quantify their uncertainty in the decision and self-assess their …

Synthesis And Evaluation Of Catalytic Application Of Porous Resin, Mahboubeh Nabavinia

Theses and Dissertations

The abilities to tailor catalytic functional groups and chemical characteristics onto a robust polymer structure make mesoporous phenolic resins great candidates for catalytic support applications. The use of a template synthesis method for configuring a catalytic structure is neither commercially nor environmentally friendly. In this Ph.D. thesis, new one-pot template-free methods for synthesizing mesoporous metal-doped phenol-formaldehyderesin were developed. The methods facilitate scaling for industrial catalytic applications in pharmaceutical, environmental, and medical applications. Heterogeneous palladium centered catalytic mesoporous structures were synthesized by a single-stage template-free method. BET adsorption measurements, SEM, EDX, XPS, and TEM were used to study the surface area, …

Real Time Design Space Exploration Of Static And Vibratory Structural Responses In Turbomachinery Through Surrogate Modeling With Principal Components, Spencer Reese Bunnell

Theses and Dissertations

Design space exploration (DSE) is used to improve and understand engineering designs. Such designs must meet objectives and structural requirements. Design improvement is non-trivial and requires new DSE methods. Turbomachinery manufacturers must continue to improve existing engines to keep up with global demand. Two challenges of turbomachinery DSE are: the time required to evaluate designs, and knowing which designs to evaluate. This research addressed these challenges by developing novel surrogate and principal component analysis (PCA) based DSE methods. Node and PCA-based surrogates were created to allow faster DSE of turbomachinery blades. The surrogates provided static stress estimation within 10% error. …

Electrochemical Sensors Enhanced By Convection And By 3d Arrays Of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes, Benjamin James Brownlee

Theses and Dissertations

Early and accessible diagnostics are important elements to reducing the negative side-effects of untreated disease. One key advancement in diagnostic monitoring is through the development of highly sensitive sensors that have the capability to detect lower concentrations, while still remaining accessible for point-of-care use. This dissertation characterizes electrochemical sensing platforms that are enhanced by convection and by 3D electrodes made from high surface area, vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs). Free-standing VACNTs were patterned into microchannel arrays for flow-through amperometric sensing. Convective mass transfer enhancement was shown to improve sensor performance in amperometric sensing through the use of high surface area …

Robust Real-Time Model Predictive Control For High Degree Of Freedom Soft Robots, Phillip Edmond Hyatt

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is focused on the modeling and robust model-based control of high degree-of-freedom (DoF) systems. While most of the contributions are applicable to any difficult-to-model system, this dissertation focuses specifically on applications to large-scale soft robots because their many joints and pressures constitute a high-DoF system and their inherit softness makes them difficult to model accurately. First a joint-angle estimation and kinematic calibration method for soft robots is developed which is shown to decrease the pose prediction error at the end of a 1.5 m robot arm by about 85\%. A novel dynamic modelling approach which can be evaluated …

Roof Material Suitability For It Mission-Critical Facilities, Charles Akira Petrinovich

Theses and Dissertations

Mission-critical facilities house operations that when interrupted, can prove disastrous to an organization’s future. Limited market research is available to determine what roof types are best suited to meet the unique demands of these buildings. The purpose of this research was to evaluate different roof materials and to observe trends relative to their lifecycle costs and roof professional’s assessment in use with mission-critical facilities. The objectives of the study were to determine the average annual lifecycle costs for the sampled roof materials, to determine the roofing professionals’ preferred mission-critical facility roof materials, and to priority rank the sampled roof materials …

Analiza E Sektorit Energjetik Në Kosovë, Valdrin Arifi

Theses and Dissertations

Qëllimi i punimit të kësaj teme të diplomës në nivelin bachelor , është përshkrimi i sektorit të energjisë duke marrur parasysh gjitha burimet të cilat egzistojn në vendin tonë duke filluar nga ato fosile deri tek burimet e ripërtrishme.

Një nder faktoret kryesor të zhvillimit ekonomik të një vendi është energjia elektrike. Furnizimi me energji elektrike në Kosovë mbështetet pothuajse plotësisht në energjinë e prodhuar nga termocentralet (97%) , përkatësisht Kosova si lënd të parë përdor rezervat e linjitit , sigurimi i furnizimit të qëndrueshëm , cilësor , të sigurtë dhe të pandërprerë me energji elektrike është një prej kushteve …

Design And Test Of An Autonomy Monitoring Service To Detect Divergent Behaviors On Unmanned Aerial Systems, Loay Y. Almannaei

Theses and Dissertations

Operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) support many critical missions in the United State Air Force (USAF). Monitoring abnormal behavior is one of many responsibilities of the operator during a mission. Some behaviors are hard to be detect by an operator, especially when flying one or more autonomous vehicles; as such, detections require a high level of attention and focus to flight parameters. In this research, a monitoring system and its algorithm are designed and tested for a target fixed-wing UAV. The Autonomy Monitoring Service (AMS) compares the real vehicle or simulated Vehicle with a similar simulated vehicle using Software …

Tension-Tension Fatigue Behavior Of Nextel™ 720/Alumina-Mullite Ceramic Composite At 1200°C In Air And In Steam, Sarah A. Witzgall

Theses and Dissertations

Uniaxial tension-tension fatigue performance of an oxide-oxide continuous fiber ceramic composite was studied at 1200°C in laboratory air and in steam. The composite is reinforced with laminated, 0/90 mullite/alumina (NEXTEL™720) fibers woven in an eight-harness satin weave and has a porous alumina/mullite matrix. There is no interphase between the fiber and matrix. The composite relies on the porous matrix for crack deflection and flaw tolerance. Tension-tension fatigue was examined for maximum stresses of 45 – 136 MPa in air and in steam. To assess the effects of the steam environment on fatigue performance, experimental results obtained in air are compared …

An Analysis Of A Hurricane Loss Model, Validation From Tyndall Afb, And Applications For The Air Force, Nestor Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

Recent reconstruction of infrastructure and its associated cost due to hurricanes justify research into hurricane loss models that can provide a more robust cost estimate. Academic research indicates that hurricane disasters are becoming more frequent and are becoming costlier. This research intends to explore hurricane loss models used by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Risk Management Solution (RMS) and Florida State University (FSU). Within the literature review, key components of hurricane loss models were identified. These models and the key components were explored in order to help bring an understanding of loss estimation. The research found that the implementation of …

Përformanca E Teknologjisë Së Turbinave Me Erë Dhe Efikasiteti I Tyre, Njomza Heta

Theses and Dissertations

Ky punim mundëson njohjen e shëndrrimit të energjisë së ripërtëritshme, konkretisht Energjinë me erë. Turbinat me erë kanë efikasitet gjenerues optimal, në përfitimin e energjisë elektrike dhe punë operacionale prej 80% kanë efikasitet në kontrollin ne lëndën që e prodhojnë, gjithashtu mund të jenë financiarisht në varësi të qëllimit dhe vendit ku i pozicionojm, kjo energji është tërsisht natyrale. Në ketë punim në formë të detajuar është paraqitur performanca e turbinave dhe teknologjia inovative e përdorur në sistemin e koncentrimit të tipit të gjerë e ndikuar nga pozita gjeografike ku janë të vendosura turbinat. Tipi i fermave (eco-parqe) më të …

Monte Carlo Tree Search Applied To A Modified Pursuit/Evasion Scotland Yard Game With Rendezvous Spaceflight Operation Applications, Joshua A. Daughtery

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis takes the Scotland Yard board game and modifies its rules to mimic important aspects of space in order to facilitate the creation of artificial intelligence for space asset pursuit/evasion scenarios. Space has become a physical warfighting domain. To combat threats, an understanding of the tactics, techniques, and procedures must be captured and studied. Games and simulations are effective tools to capture data lacking historical context. Artificial intelligence and machine learning models can use simulations to develop proper defensive and offensive tactics, techniques, and procedures capable of protecting systems against potential threats. Monte Carlo Tree Search is a bandit-based …

Evaluation Of The Cytotoxic Effect Of Salvia Triloba On Osteosarcoma (U2os) Cell Line, Rowan Bahaa El-Din Abd El-Bary

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the huge advancement in the field of cancer treatment, the conventionally used treatments still present significant challenges such as low effectiveness and adverse side effects. Thus, there is a critical need to continuously develop new, more effective and safe drugs against cancer. Herbal plants serve as a potential source for a wide variety of complex compounds with probable anticancer activity. The genus Salvia encompasses about 900 species. Salvia triloba, commonly known as Greek sage, is native to the Middle East and is inherently linked to local traditional medicine systems. It was recently shown to possess anti-proliferative activity against breast …

Enhancing Facility Management For Existing Facilities With Building Information Modeling, Ryan Loeh

Theses and Dissertations

Building information modeling (BIM) refers to the process of creating a comprehensive three-dimensional (3D) model that allows for a seamless transition from design and construction to operation & maintenance during a building's lifecycle. While a majority of past research for building information modelling was focused on design and construction, research has shifted to operation, maintenance and renovation. This study investigates the feasibility of integrating BIM (Autodesk Revit) and facility management (BUILDER SMS). BUILDER SMS is currently used at the sponsor's facilities to encourage proactive maintenance and provide updated condition assessments. While both datasets have their own benefits, this study investigates …

How Predictable Is Space Exploration?, Michael Christopher Howell

Theses and Dissertations

Recent research has suggested that progress in technological domains often improves in an exponential manner. The traditional method to model this increase in capability has been to fit a model with time or effort as an independent variable and then extrapolate the trend (Moore, 1965, Wright, 1936, Magee et al., 2014). Although other methods have been used as well (Nagy et al, 2013). While effective, these methods are not the only way to forecast such trends and they have their own limitations. Recent research has indicated that a potentially useful approach for modeling technological improvement is time series analysis. I …

Biomaterials For Bone Regeneration: Tunable Structural And Mechanical Characteristics, Anwer Mhanawee

Theses and Dissertations

Tissue engineering is a promising alternative treatment for damaged tissues. In bone regeneration, bone graft replacements can be made from different biomaterials (basically ceramic and polymer) and used for different treatment purposes. In the first section of this dissertation, the Compression test results showed that its modulus of elasticity depends on its porosity. Also, we developed a testing method to measure the swelling force of the material during expansion due to liquid absorption. The maximum swelling force was found to be proportional to the material modulus. In the second part, we successfully design, fabricate and characterize a novel expandable bone …