Engineering Commons^™

Map-Aware Adaptive Automotive Radar, Jae Seung Lee, Nikola Steven Subotic, James Paul Ebling, Helen Kourous-Harrigan

Michigan Tech Patents

A dedicated short range radar system is provided for use with a GPS system. The radar system includes a transmitter which transmits a microwave radio signal. A receiver is coupled to a horizontally scanning receiver antenna array which receives an echo, if present, from the radio signal transmitted by the transmitter. The radio receiver then generates an output signal representative of the echo. A control circuit then receives the output signal from the antenna array as well as the output signal from the GPS system. The control circuit then varies the mode of operation of the receiver and/or the transmitter …

Biological Engineering Faculty Awarded For Cutting-Edge Eye Health Research | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

8/18/2015 - More than six million Americans are affected by age-related macular degeneration and other retinal diseases, and despite the prevalence of these disorders, few methods of prevention and treatment exist today.

Be Sweep Awards At 2015 Ibe Conference | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

LOGAN, Utah – March 10, 2015 – Students from Utah State University’s Biological Engineering department brought home three of eight awards at the Institute of Biological Engineering Annual Conference in St. Louis, Mo, March 5-7. There were a total of about 60 posters, with 37 in the graduate student division and 23 in the undergraduate student division.

Dr. Britt - Wins 2015 Robins Award For Teaching | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Dr. David Britt won the Robins Award for Teacher of the year. If you are unaware the Robins award is the most prestigious award at USU. In our department Dr. Tim Taylor is the only other person to have one.

Engineering News, Summer 2015, School Of Engineering

Engineering News

No abstract provided.

Creating A Data-Based Facebook Engagement Plan For Chabad At Binghamton, Justin Hayet

Capstone Projects 2015-Present

Core Capstone Question: How does Chabad at Binghamton maximize its online Facebook Engagement in a fashion which mirrors the needs of its diverse online stakeholders?

Schmalzbauer (2013) calculated that two thirds of America’s 400,000 Jewish college students attend schools with a Chabad chapter” (p. 120). Binghamton University’s student population is thirty percent Jewish, that is, 3,500 Jewish students (Hillel, 2014). Chabad at Binghamton’s seven full time staff members and student leadership of eighty-seven designated positions seek to engage all 3,500 of those students through weekly programs, Shabbat dinners, large scale programs and individual meetings. Chabad at Binghamton has been serving …

Mount Logan Middle School Students Test Electric Cart | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

On June 12th, students from Mount Logan Middle School test out their electric cart on the EVR (Electric Vehicle & Roadway) track. They will be participating this fall in a Green Power competition at the Bonneville Salt Flats to see how far their car can go on a charge using just two 12 volt batteries. Last we counted, they were over 40 laps and the cart was still going!

High Resolution Doppler Collision Avoidance Radar, Jae Seung Lee, Paul Donald Schmalenberg, Nikola Steven Subotic, James Paul Ebling

Michigan Tech Patents

An example radar apparatus has a transmission frequency modulated by a chirp waveform having three chirp segments, including increasing, decreasing, and a constant frequency segments. The chirp waveform may extend over the full revisit time of the radar beam. The frequency difference between the transmitted and echo signals are determined at least once per chirp segment. Example apparatus include a Doppler radar for vehicle use.

Department Of Energy Announces $18m To Accelerate Ev Development | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

The Department of Energy announced $18M to accelerate development of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and alternative fuels. The funds will be distributed between five different projects across the nation, including $3.9M to PacifiCorp/Rocky Mountain Power. The project will establish an interstate PEV charging network of over 1,500 miles across Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming through installation, operation, and data collection. Target goals include deployment of #200 PEVs to fleet deployment partners, along with #13,000 PEV rentals to be used through on demand rental programs.

Wakeboard Winch, Eric Christensen

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

A wakeboard winch is a stationary device used to tow wakeboard riders through a body of water allowing riders to access locations that may be too shallow for boats or where motorboat restrictions apply. For this instance, the device will be intended to use on a small lake where motorized boats are prohibited but will also possess a transportable design so it may be used in other locations. Winches that can be purchased from manufacturers tend to be expensive and unaffordable for most people while many homemade winches tend to lack the same performance capabilities as manufactured winches. The principal …

Conversion Casting From A36 Steel To Grey Iron, Chris Nichols

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

Conversion castings are used in manufacturing to reduce time and costs of the production of machined parts. This project incorporated a machined production component from a local manufacturer and designed and produced an equivalent component using the casting process. The casting material chosen needed to be able to withstand all tension and compression forces when the component is used in service along with locations and dimensions of holes needed to be in accordance with all specified tolerances. The casting design process had to account for draft issues, shrinkage during material solidification, porosity and internal cavities formed during solidification, and overall …

Victair Mistifier Gearbox: Metal Casted Housing, Gabe Bruno, Casey Mcfarlen, Ricky Skinner

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The current global population is 7.2 billion. It is projected to increase by 1 billion over the next 12 years. There is only 5% of usable farming land left on earth. Food is a resource that humans must consume daily. These facts undeniably lead to a shortage of food in the future. It is essential to mankind survival that farming becomes more efficient and sustainable. This provided the motivation to design a more efficient transmission for the Victair Mistifier (orchard and vineyard sprayer). Victair Mistifiers are designed, engineered, and manufactured by H.F. Hauff Company in Yakima, WA. The Hauff Company’s …

Infant Eye Disease Research At Usu Gets Funding From Knights Templar | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

6/1/2015 - TJ Robertson, right, Grand Commander, Grand Commandery, Knights Templar of Utah, presents Dr. Elizabeth Vargis with eye health research funding alongside College of Engineering Dean Christine Hailey and Robert Bennett, left, Deputy Grand Commander, Knights Templar of Utah.

Branch Cutter Adapter For Electric Impact Gun, Cullen Hubbard

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

There are many homeowners that would like to maintain the trees around their homes but cannot do so. The drive of this project was to develop a 0g mechanism which would provide a senior citizen or an individual with limited upper body strength, with the ability to cut through branches that would otherwise pose challenging. The design would allow the end user to cut a branch by simply pulling a trigger. A branch cutting attachment was designed to attach to the front of a DeWALT cordless impact gun. This attachment will convert the rotational torque and motion from the impact …

Collapsible Wheelchair Wheel Design, Joseph Fischer

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

Portability, convenience, and efficiency are becoming more and more prevalent as technology increases. This is also true with wheelchairs; Wheelchairs are being designed to fold and collapse smaller and smaller with every iteration but there is one parameter that remains constant, the wheel. No matter how small the wheelchair frame folds it is always limited by its’ wheel’s diameter. This project aims to create a collapsible wheel design to accompany a foldable wheelchair in order to make it more portable and storable. Since the diameter of the wheel is the limiting factor in a foldable wheelchair, the relatively small width …

Custom Glasses Cases, Nikolas Ivan Klukas

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The modern market is centralized around technological advances that improve and better everyday life. With approximately 150 million Americans that use corrective eye-ware on a daily basis, the need for improved technology in glasses cases is inevitable. Current glasses cases work to either protect the glasses and are big and bulky, or are made smaller to be more easily transported. The concept is to take any pair of glasses and make a custom case for them. The programs being utilized to complete the project are solidworks and excel. The process is started by making a base layout of the glasses …

Composite Brake Rotor Assembly By Utilizing Replaceable Friction Surfaces, John Evert

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

This project investigated a proof of concept design involving a rotor fabricated from aluminum with replaceable friction surfaces with greater or equal performance characteristics in order to reduce cost and maintenance. The replaceable friction surfaces provide a means to mitigate cost to the end user. The structure is constrained by the dimensions, 11.75” diameter and 1.25” width and serves as a direct replacement rotor for a circle track racecar. Analyses provide a direct comparison in static mass, moments of inertia, and forced convection thermal calculations in order to determine if the concept was viable. Requirements for a successful design were …

Pivoting Motocross Foot Pegs, Michael Leblanc

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The ability to keep a dirt bike rider’s feet in full contact with the foot pegs at all times is something all riders’ face when riding their bike. The foot pegs that come factory and aftermarket today are universally static and non-rotational which prevent the ability for maximum contact to be maintained. During various riding positions, a rider’s foot can partially become disconnected from the peg allowing for a loss of potential control and balance/stability. The solution devised was a set of pegs that have the ability to rotate with the rider’s foot. The rotational ability of the pegs allow …

Instron Tt-C 1055 Redesign For Tensile Testing Lab Use: The Design And Construction Of Tensile Test Gripping Assemblies, Melvin Lee Hortman

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The goal of this project was to design, manufacture, and test a pair of cheap gripping assemblies with mount adapters to the Instron TT-C tensile testing machine, which was currently out of service in the Materials Laboratory of Central Washington University’s Hogue Technology Building, for educational use. The gripping assemblies would enable tensile, or pulling force, tests on tensile specimens up to 20,000 lbs, being able to test high carbon steel. The gripping assemblies and mounting adapters were designed and manufactured completely by a Central Washington University Mechanical Engineering Technology student who used the cumulative knowledge gained from engineering analysis …

Mx Snow Ski, Jordan Olson

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

Living in the Pacific Northwest has many perks when it comes to enjoying the outdoors. All of the seasons can be enjoyed, as well as being completely surrounded by beautiful rolling hills and mountains. Being someone who continuously enjoys the outdoors year-round it’s always fun to try new hobbies. The problem with owning a dirt bike is that most people ride during the dryer and warmer seasons of the year. This project would enable the bike to be ridden even during the snowy winter season. Riding a dirt bike in snow has been recently explored by only a few companies …

Seat Jack, Justin Worden

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

Many people around the world struggle with mobility. One of the biggest obstacles for who may struggle in this area is the simple task of moving from a sitting position to their feet. For some, this is the only thing that keeps them from walking around. Creating a portable device to help move a person from their chair to their feet would extremely aid the efforts of completing this simple task at any given moment. This report provides a proposed solution for this simple reoccurring task that countless people painfully struggle with every day. In order to make this device …

The Phone In The Sky ---- Quad-Copter For Aerial Video, Heng Wei Zhang

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

With the development of aircraft model technology, quadcopters equipped with cameras are used for aerial video more and more frequently. Cell phones, moreover, allow people to share photos online immediately, so many people prefer to take photos or videos by cell phones instead with expensive cameras. Thus, the purpose of this project is to design and build a light weight quadcopter frame and select the system components that allow the quadcopter to fly smoothly while carrying a cell phone for aerial video. The method for creating the quadcopter is separated into three steps: design, build, and test. The design part …

Composite Snowmobile Suspension Assembly, Michael Villarma

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

Snowmobile technology is constantly evolving and incorporating new ideas into products for the consumer to enjoy. After market manufactures are competing among themselves for the top position in suspension technology, yet none have broken the boundaries and really pushed to the next level, until now. The objective of this design was to provide the consumer with a lightweight and simplistic suspension system that would meet the performance demands of the consumer market. In order to meet the strength to weight ratio requirements of this design, composites were implemented to provide the necessary structural strength for the overall system. A one …

Solar Evaporative Fan Coil Unit, Kyle Kluever, Samuel Budnick, Jeremy Dickson

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The purpose of any engineering project is to anticipate a need and meet that need through prediction analysis and design. Over 70% of the nation’s energy is consumed by building infrastructure such as HVAC systems, electrical, etc. HVAC systems use boilers to generate hot water or steam to heat buildings and evaporative chillers to provide air conditioning, much like the central plant on campus. The project included the construction of a solar collector that will heat water to 140F in order to run it through a heat exchanger that can have air passed over it. An evaporative chiller was also …

Plate And Frame Heat Exchanger, Eric Johnson

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

Heat exchangers are a commonly used device in many different industries, with many different applications. The heat exchanger used in the brewing program here at CWU is a brazed plate and frame heat exchanger, so it cannot be taken apart for cleaning. Due to this, the overall efficiency of the heat exchanger will be reduced, causing fouling, because of the buildup of brewing material. In order to effectively combat this fouling, a heat exchanger must be constructed that can be disassembled for cleaning, and then reassembled with ease, while still being able to perform the same amount of heat transfer …

Toyota Disc Brake Conversion Brackets, Geoffrey Gibson

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

A common issue with Toyota pickups from the 1980’s is the factory braking system is not responsive enough for the driver to properly brake during an emergency situation. The cause of the poor response in braking comes from the drum brakes that are on the rear of the vehicle. Aftermarket vendors offered disc brake conversions that change the brakes on the rear axle from drum to disc. The aftermarket brackets that are in the conversion are thick and bulky adding excess weight to the already heavy pickup. These thick brackets in the conversion do not retain the factory emergency brake …

Space Saver Bike Rack, Taylor Johnson

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

Apartment living can be crowded especially for a cyclist. Bicycles are bulky and difficult to store. A device is needed to store two road bikes weighing up to 40 pounds each while saving as much space as possible. To solve this problem many iterations of various free standing and wall-leaning bike rack designs were drawn. Evolution of the design can be traced through the drawings included in the report. The first design analyzed was a free standing rack. After calculations and adjustments this design was going to have to be very bulky in order to achieve the stability requirements. The …

Solar Evaporative Fan Coil Unit, Samuel Budnick, Kyle Kluever, Jeremy Dickson

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The purpose of any engineering project is to anticipate a need and meet that need through prediction analysis and design. Over 70% of the nation’s energy is consumed by building infrastructure such as HVAC systems, electrical, etc. HVAC systems use boilers to generate hot water or steam to heat buildings and evaporative chillers to provide air conditioning, much like the central plant here on campus. The project included the construction of a solar collector that will heat water to 140F in order to run it through a heat exchanger that can have air passed over it. An evaporative chiller was …

Improved Tennis Racquet Stringer, William Ligon Bruno

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

What design change to a conventional ATS Sports model drop-weight stringer can be made to decrease the stringing time for a tennis racquet? To answer this, a detailed analysis on design, manufacturability, and structural integrity was done to design a product that is manufacturable within the timeframe and produces a device which decreases the stringing time. First, an analysis on each vital component was done including the ratcheting components, pressure arm/drop mass, etc. Second, a virtual model was created with auxiliary components to test different designs. Through this analysis and the virtual model it was indicated that a duel stringing …

Dump Bed Lifting Mechanism, Zachary Pate

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The project was motivated by a need to create a device that would cause a small truck or trailer bed to lift up quickly and dump its contents. This would eliminate the need to use manual physical labor, which is both slow and exhausting. Additional design constraints require the stroke and diameter of the cylinder to be 6” x2”. A design was conceived with the intent to incorporate a less costly device onto an existing trailer frame that would lift the bed and dump the load. With this in mind, a scissor lift device would have two basic requirements, first …