Engineering Commons^™

Optimization Of An Advanced Water Treatment Plant: Bromate Control And Biofiltration Improvement, Dustin William Bales

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The David L. Tippin Water Treatment Facility (DLTWTF) serving the city of Tampa, Florida is an advanced drinking water treatment facility consisting of coagulation/flocculation, ozonation, granular activated carbon biofiltration, and disinfection by chloramine. New regulations and the recent economic crisis pushed the facility to investigate methods to decrease costs and meet regulatory requirements easier.

The two major issues identified as priorities for investigation were the optimization of the biofiltration system and the use of a novel process to reduce the formation of bromate during ozonation.

Optimization of the biofiltration system is needed to remove more of the assorted particles that …

Aggregation Of Sediment And Bacteria With Mucilage From The Opuntia Ficus-Indica Cactus, Audrey Lynn Buttice

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Flocculants are commonly used in industrial settings where solid-liquid separations are desired including industrial and municipal wastewater management and potable water production facilities. Conventional flocculants include inorganic metal salts and synthetic organic polymers. The cost, availability, and harmful effects of the non-biodegradable nature of these flocculants have led to the widespread study of natural flocculants. Current natural flocculants being studied include polysaccharides cultivated from microbial extracellular matrix products and plant based materials. In this study, the mucilage of Opuntia ficus-indica cactus was evaluated as a natural flocculant for sediments and bacteria. The O. ficus-indica cactus is also known as the …

Crack Analysis In Silicon Solar Cells, Maria Ines Echeverria Molina

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Solar cell business has been very critical and challenging since more efficient and low costs materials are required to decrease the costs and to increase the production yield for the amount of electrical energy converted from the Sun's energy. The silicon-based solar cell has proven to be the most efficient and cost-effective photovoltaic industrial device. However, the production cost of the solar cell increases due to the presence of cracks (internal as well as external) in the silicon wafer. The cracks of the wafer are monitored while fabricating the solar cell but the present monitoring techniques are not sufficient when …

Shape-Shifting Surfaces For Rapid Release And Direct Stamping Of Organized Micro-Tissues, Samuel James Dupont

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary aim of the research in this study is to develop a robust and simple platform for the in vitro organization of cells on surfaces which facilitate rapid cell release and allows for the direct stamping of highly organized micro-tissues. Current approaches towards this goal have been very successful but are lengthy and subject cells to harsh conditions for extended periods of time raising questions regarding cell health and maintenance of physiological state. To address these concerns a platform was developed to allow for rapid cell release by utilizing a release mechanism different from previous work.

Micron-scale structures comprised …

Precipitation Of Phosphate Minerals From Effluent Of Anaerobically Digested Swine Manure, Alex Y. Lin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Swine production represents approximately 40% of the world's meat production, and its wastes contain high concentrations of organic carbon, nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P). Anaerobic digestion is an increasingly popular technology for treating animal wastes while simultaneously generating energy. Its propagation and ability to solubilize organic N and P make adding a struvite recovery process attractive. Recovering struvite (MgNH4PO4) from anaerobically digested swine waste can address global P shortages, meet P discharge guidelines, and produce slow-release fertilizer, which can be sold for revenue.

Anaerobic digesters were operated with at organic loading rates of 3.4-3.9 g volatile solids per liter per …

Numerical Simulation Of Sliding Friction And Wet Traction Force On A Smooth Tire Sliding On A Random Rough Pavement, Janaka Vishwanath Kosgolla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Availability of analytical and numerical tools that can provide reliable and accurate estimates of wet frictional resistance in different pavements would preclude the need for time consuming field tests. Therefore, many research efforts have been made to develop such tire-pavement friction predictive tools that are invaluable for friction management programs. However, due to the complexity of the problem, most existing tools have been developed based on several simplifying assumptions and without field verification of their predictions. The current study is focused on the evaluation of two specific prediction methods that can be used to predict friction on a smooth tire …

Design Of Contact Line Friction Measurement Machine Apparatus, Seyed Kamran Najafi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project is to design and manufacture a high precision machine to directly measure the surface force of fluids. Knowing how to move droplets easier with less resistance can increase the potential of a wide range of applications and improve the performance of things such as self-assembly applications. This machine has the ability to measure forces of up to 100 N with a MEMS based sensor. The motion system on this machine moves a substrate underneath of a droplet for 100 mm and applies dragging force to the sensor. It moves with a controlled speed with high …

Design Of Colloidal Composite Catalysts For Co2 Photoreduction And For Co Oxidation, Bijith D. Mankidy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this doctoral dissertation, novel colloidal routes were used to synthesize nanomaterials with unique features. We have studied the impact of nanoparticle size of catalyst, role of high surface area of a photocatalyst, and the effect of varying elemental composition of co-catalytic nanoparticles in combination with core-shell plasmonic nanoparticles. We have demonstrated how physical and chemical characteristics of nanomaterials with these unique features play a role in catalytic reactions, specifically the oxidation of CO and the photoreduction of CO2. The first objective of this doctoral dissertation involved the preparation of CoO nanoparticles with discrete nanoparticles sizes (1-14 nm) using a …

Development And Application Of Its Operations Evaluation Models (Itsoems), Gummadavelly Narasimha Murthy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) play an important role in supporting motorists and first responders to handle major incidents, hazmat spills, security measures and other emergency operations. Increasingly, technology advancements and applications are providing invaluable integration opportunities to interconnect safety, maintenance, ITS, traffic operations, facilities, and transportation equipment programs to maximize available resources and achieve efficiency in transportation operations.

This research focuses on one of the prominent ITS devices: Dynamic Message Signs (DMS) operations. Using real time incident management operations data and ITS operations data, an attempt is made to develop ITS Operations Evaluations Models (ITSOEMs) that are capable of quantifying …

Water's Dependence On Energy: Analysis Of Embodied Energy In Water And Wastewater Systems, Weiwei Mo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water and wastewater treatment is a critical service provided for protecting human health and the environment. Over the past decade, increasing attention has been placed on energy consumption in water and wastewater systems for the following reasons: (1) Water and energy are two interrelated resources. The nexus between water and energy can intensify the crises of fresh water and fossil fuel shortages; (2) The demand of water/wastewater treatment services is expected to continue to increase with increasing population, economic development and land use change in the foreseeable future; and (3) There is a great potential to mitigate energy use in …

Investigation Of Various Surface Acoustic Wave Design Configurations For Improved Sensitivity, Greeshma Manohar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Surface acoustic wave sensors have been a focus of active research for many years. Its ability to respond for surface perturbation is a basic principle for its sensing capability. Sensitivity to surface perturbation changes with every inter-digital transducer (IDT) design parameters, substrate selection, metallization choice and technique, delay line length and working environment.

In this thesis, surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors are designed and characterized to improve sensitivity and reduce loss. To quantify the improvements with a specific design configuration, the sensors are employed to measure temperature. Four SAW sensors design configurations, namely bi-directional, split electrode, single phase unidirectional transducer …

Development Of Interatomic Potentials For Large Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations Of Carbon Materials Under Extreme Conditions, Romain Perriot

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this PhD research project is to devise a robust interatomic potential for large scale molecular dynamics simulations of carbon materials under extreme conditions. This screened-environment dependent reactive empirical bond order potential (SED-REBO) is specifically designed to describe carbon materials under extreme compressive or tensile stresses. Based on the original REBO potential by Brenner and co workers, SED-REBO includes reparametrized pairwise interaction terms and a new screening term, which serves the role of a variable cutoff. The SED-REBO potential overcomes the deficiencies found with the most commonly used interatomic potentials for carbon: the appearance of artificial forces due …

Dolphin Sound Production And Distribution On The West Florida Shelf, Peter Simard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an investigation of dolphin sound production and distribution off west central Florida. Although a wealth of information exists on the production of common sounds (whistles, echolocation) made by captive, trained dolphins, far less is known about free-ranging dolphin sound production and of unusual sounds. In addition, while inshore dolphin populations or communities are the subjects of research projects in many locations, dolphins in offshore waters are less commonly studied. The objectives of this dissertation were to contribute information on free-ranging dolphin sounds and continental shelf dolphin distribution.

While echolocation has been rigorously studied in captive, trained dolphins, …

Growth And Characterization Of Functional Nanoparticulate Films By A Microwave Plasma-Assisted Spray Deposition Process, Ted Wangensteen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanoparticle and nanoparticulate films have been grown by a unique approach combining a microwave and nebulized droplets where the concentration and thus the resulting particle size can be controlled. The goal of such a scalable approach was to achieve it with the least number of steps, and without using expensive high purity chemicals or the precautions necessary to work with such chemicals. This approach was developed as a result of first using a laser unsuccessfully to achieve the desired films and particles. Some problems with the laser approach for growing desired films were solved by substituting the higher energy microwave …

Assessment Of Methods To Manipulate Thermal Emission And Evaluate The Quality Of Thermal Radiation For Direct Energy Conversion, Samantha Wijewardane

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Control of spectral thermal emission from surfaces may be desirable in some energy related applications, such as nano-scale antenna energy conversion and thermophotovoltaic conversion. There are a number of methods, from commercially available paints to advanced surface gratings that can be used to modify the thermal emission from a surface. To find out the proper emission controlling technique for a given energy conversion method all the surface emission controlling methods are comprehensively reviewed regarding the emission control capabilities and the range of possible applications. Radiation with high degree of coherence can be emitted using advanced surface emission controlling techniques. …

Assessing The Reuse Potential Of Wastewater For Irrigation: The Removal Of Helminth Eggs From A Uasb Reactor And Stabilization Ponds In Bolivia, Matthew Eric Verbyla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extreme hunger, malnutrition, and the lack of access to sanitation are among the most pressing development challenges, but the world is not on track to meet the targets that have been established by the Millennium Development Goals. The integration of wastewater treatment and food production systems allows for the recovery of resources from wastewater, and can provide an important solution to meet the sanitation needs of growing urban populations and provide periurban farmers with a consistent supply of water and nutrients. Stabilization ponds have been long considered to be an appropriate technology for wastewater reuse systems in developing countries, but …

Prevailing Torque Locking Feature Wear-Out, Adam Joseph Charles Zimandy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides much needed representative sample data for reuse life of fully seated and torqued locknuts. Most national requirements for prevailing torque locking fasteners only specify unseated reuse life. This could create a potentially dangerous situation if unseated is misinterpreted for seated. This thesis provides comparative data for seated verses unseated configuration. Six aerospace, 3 all-metal and 3 nylon insert, and one non-aerospace locknuts were tested at preloads levels of unseated, 66%, 75%, and 85% of yield of bolt. The locknuts tested are MS21043-4, NAS1291-4, NAS1805-4, MS17825-4, MS21044D4, NAS1021N4, and Grade 8. A fixture was created in order to …

Direct Verification Of The Locking Of Liquid Locking Compounds In Threaded Fasteners, Ryan Hunter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The motivation of this research is to explore the viability of a method to directly verify whether or not an anaerobic adhesive within a threaded fastener assembly has cured sufficiently to provide secondary locking. Direct verification was implemented via the application of a test torque in the loosening direction of a fastener assembly with Loctite (given a 24 hour cure time). A three phase test plan was developed with the intent of identifying and utilizing this verification torque value which is unique to a given fastener assembly.

It was proved that the direct verification method, as outlined in the test …

Engineering Of A Knowledge Management System For Relational Medical Diagnosis, Maria Carolina Herrera-Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasingly high costs of health care in the U.S. have led the general public to search for different medical approaches. Since the 1990's, the use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has radically increased in the U.S. due to its approach to treat physical, mental, and emotional causes of illness. In 2009, the National Health Statistics reported the impact of CAM in the U.S. health care economy, with population expenditures of $14.8 billion out-of-pocket on natural Medicine and $12.4 billion out-of-pocket on visits to CAM providers as a complement to Western Medicine care.

CAM interconnects human functions to reach …

A Novel Device And Nanoparticle-Based Approach For Improving Diagnosis And Treatment Of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, Natasha Faith Cover

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) is one of the most common causes of morbidity in women. PID is a polymicrobial infection of the female reproductive tract, and is associated with pelvic pain, abnormal uterine bleeding, and tubal damage that can lead to ectopic pregnancies and infertility. It is curable but the effects of PID can be permanent if not properly diagnosed and treated. PID presents as a spectrum of disease and is often missed at early stages; even acute PID can be difficult to diagnose, as there is no single conclusive diagnostic test. Currently, PID is identified and treated syndromically because …

Determination Of Isotherms Of Enantiomers On A Chiral Stationary Phase Using Supercritical Fluid Chromatography, Wade Newlin Mack Ii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Supercritical fluids provide a robust, tunable environment with favorable transport properties and enhanced solubility. Supercritical carbon dioxide is an environmentally friendly substance that has distinct advantages to traditional solvents used in large scale chemical processing. Ibuprofen is an enantiomeric drug that has been shown to fight prostate cancer and has been used as a mild Alzheimer's disease treatment in the S conformation. Purification of high value products with decreased hazardous material consumption is accomplished by employing supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). Large scale, single enantiomer purification of pharmaceuticals is dependent on scale-up information. Equilibrium isotherms provide the necessary information to scale-up …

Comparative Life Cycle Assessments Of Lignocellulosic And Algae Biomass Conversion To Various Energy Products Through Different Pathways, Maria Juliana Pinilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bioenergy has the potential to reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels, and to decrease the CO2 emissions due to fossil combustion. Lignocellulosic and algae biomass have been presented as promising feedstocks for bioenergy production.

In this study, a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been developed to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with different energy products via different routes across the whole life of algal and lignocellulosic bioenergy. Results were compared per energy basis, the production of 1 million BTU of energy products.

For the development of the comparative algae biomass conversion LCA, algal biomass was converted to liquid …

Investigating The Role Of The Internet In Women And Minority Stem Participation: A Case Study Of Two Florida Engineering Programs, Arland Nguema Ndong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite our awareness of the fascination modern humans have with the Internet, little is known about how and why colleges and universities create and maintain Websites. At the most general level, in this case study, I hypothesize that university Websites serve as communication and marketing tools in attracting students. At the most specific level, I postulate that civil engineering programs with Web pages depicting images of women and minorities would be more successful in recruiting and retaining women and students of color than civil engineering programs with Web pages displaying fewer or no images of women and minorities. The primary …

Determination Of Ibuprofen Isotherm Using Supercritical Fluid Chromatography, Loi Ho

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chromatography is widely used to determine physiochemical properties data including adsorption isotherm. In the separation of enantiomers through sorptive processes, supercritical fluids allow efficient and green alternatives to liquid solvent based systems. The isotherm information is vital in the development of operating policies and design of preparative chromatographic or moving bed separation schemes. Determination of sorption isotherms from experimental chromatographic elution data is automated and compared with different chromatogram model. Procedures were developed and validated for separation of R- and S- ibuprofen with supercritical 〖CO〗_2 and ethanol mixture as the mobile phase over a chiral stationary phase. The isotherms for …

Modeling And Surveillance Of Pandemic Influenza Outbreaks, Diana Prieto

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pandemic outbreaks are unpredictable as to their virus strain, transmissibility, and impact on our quality of life. Hence, the decision support models for mitigation of pandemic outbreaks must be user-friendly and operational, and also incorporate valid estimates of disease transmissibility and severity. This dissertation research is aimed at 1) reviewing the existing pandemic simulation models to identify their implementation gaps with regard to usability and operability, and suggesting research remedies, 2) increasing operability of simulation models by calibrating them via an epidemiological model that estimates infection probabilities using viral shedding profiles of concurrent pandemic and seasonal influenza, and 3) developing …

Cap-And-Trade Modeling And Analysis For Electric Power Generation Systems, Patricio Rocha

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cap-and-trade is the most discussed CO₂ emissions control scheme in the U.S. It is a market-based mechanism that has been used previously to successfully reduce the levels of SO₂ and NO_x emitted by power generators. Since electricity generators are responsible for about 40% of the CO₂ emissions in the U.S., the implementation of CO₂ cap-and-trade will have a significant impact on electric power generation systems. In particular, cap-and-trade will influence the investment decisions made by power generators. These decisions in turn, will affect electricity prices and demand. If the allowances (or emission permits) created by …

Cdte/Cds Thin Film Solar Cells Fabricated On Flexible Substrates, Vasilios Palekis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) is a leading thin film photovoltaic (PV) material due to its near ideal bandgap of 1.45 eV and its high optical absorption coefficient. The typical CdTe thin film solar cell is of the superstrate configuration where a window layer (CdS), the absorber (CdTe) and a back contact are deposited onto glass coated with a transparent electrode.

Substrate CdTe solar cells where the above listed films are deposited in reverse are not common. In this study substrate CdTe solar cells are fabricated on flexible foils.

The properties of the Molybdenum back contact, Zinc Telluride (ZnTe) interlayer and CdTe …

Autonomous Mobility And Manipulation Of A 9-Dof Wmra, William Garrett Pence

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The wheelchair-mounted robotic arm (WMRA) is a 9-degree of freedom (DoF) assistive system that consists of a 2-DoF modified commercial power wheelchair and a custom 7-DoF robotic arm. Kinematics and control methodology for the 9-DoF system that combine mobility and manipulation have been previously developed and implemented. This combined control allows the wheelchair and robotic arm to follow a single trajectory based on weighted optimizations. However, for the execution of activities of daily living (ADL) in the real-world environment, modified control techniques have been implemented.

In order to execute macro ADL tasks, such as a "go to and pick up" …

A Dynamic Hierarchical Web-Based Portal, Matthew James Spaulding

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A dynamic hierarchical web-based portal was created to house a suite of web-based supply chain management applications. The portal was designed in a hierarchical manner to match the structure of large companies. Administrators of the the portal have the ability to form the portal in such a way to mimic the existing structure of their company. Access rights to the applications in the portal may be granted or denied per division and the users of the portal are placed in these divisions based on their duty in the company. In addition, users are granted roles which dictate their ability to …

Heterogeneous Modeling Of Medical Image Data Using B-Spline Functions, Olya Grove

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ongoing developments in the field of medical imaging modalities have pushed the frontiers of modern medicine and biomedical engineering, prompting the need for new applications to improve diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases.

Biomedical data visualization and modeling rely predominately on manual processing and utilization of voxel and facet based homogeneous models. Biological structures are naturally heterogeneous and in order to accurately design and biomimic biological structures, properties such as chemical composition, size and shape of biological constituents need to be incorporated in the computational biological models.

Our proposed approach involves generating a density point cloud based on the intensity …