Engineering Commons^™

Electrophoretic Deposition Of Gallium With High Deposition Rate, Hanfei Zhang, Yiping Mao, Sunand Santhanagopalan, Dennis Desheng Meng

Michigan Tech Publications

In this work, electrophoretic deposition (EPD) is reported to form gallium thin film with high deposition rate and low cost while avoiding the highly toxic chemicals typically used in electroplating. A maximum deposition rate of ~0.6 μm/min, almost one order of magnitude higher than the typical value reported for electroplating, is obtained when employing a set of proper deposition parameters. The thickness of the film is shown to increase with deposition time when sequential deposition is employed. The concentration of Mg(NO₃)₂, the charging salt, is also found to be a critical factor to control the deposition …

Laparoscopic Devices And Methods Of Using, M. Susan Hallbeck, Jakeb Riggle, Adam De Laveaga, Jake Kaufman

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

A number of improvements to laparoscopic devices are described herein, primarily to improve the ergonomic functionality of the devices. For example, an articulating rod system is described, a gripping mechanism is described, and an end effector is described

A Reversible And Stable Flake-Like Licoo2 Cathode For Lithium Ion Batteries, Tao Wei, Rui Zeng, Yongming Sun, Yunhui Huang, Kevin Huang

Faculty Publications

A dense and thick flake-like cathode structure was demonstrated to have a preferential crystallographic orientation for Li+ migration and a better tolerance to cracking, both of which enable a reversible and stable capacity at moderate rates from 0.1 to 2 C.

Scheduling And Cooperative Control Of Electric Vehicles' Charging At Highway Service Stations, Florida Solar Energy Center, Azwirman Gusrialdi

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This is a re-print version of a publication for the 53rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Los Angeles, California, USA, December 15-17, 2014Due to their limited ranges, electric vehicles (EVs)need to be periodically charged during their long-distance travels on a highway. Compared to the fossil-fuel powered vehicles, the charging of a single EV takes much more time(up to 30 mins versus 2 mins). As the number of EVs on highways increases, adequate charging infrastructure needs to be put in place. Nonetheless waiting times for EVs to get charged at service stations could still vary significantly unless an appropriate scheduling …

Toy Train Group Ii, Track Laying Train, William Andersen, Jordan Zwetchkenbaum, Chiamaka Asinugo

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

No abstract provided.

A Microstructural Constitutive Framework For Injured Ligament, Christina J. Stender, Evan Rust, Raquel J. Brown, Trevor J. Lujan

Biomolecular Research Center Student Presentations

No abstract provided.

Mems 411 Senior Design: Wind Powered Walking Robot, Timothy J. Elliott, Kenna Middleton, Jose Rodes

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Build a ‘Machine That Walks’ using leg like linkages that is only powered by wind. It must walk a minimum of 4 meters to prove that it is capable of walking and at least half of the materials used must be recyclable or reusable within the greater St. Louis area. The machine must not exceed 10 kg and must fit in the volume of 30 cm x 60 cm x 40 cm and must be unable to be easily knocked over.

Evaluation Of The Mass Transfer Effect Of The Stalk Contraction-Relaxation Cycle Of Vorticella Convallaria, Jiazhong Zhou

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Vorticella convallaria is a genus of protozoa living in fresh water. It has a bell-shaped zooid equipped with adoral ciliary bands and a contractile stalk tethering the zooid to a substrate. Vorticella is regarded as a biological spring because its contractile stalk can pull the zooid towards the substrate at a remarkably high speed and then relaxes to its extended state much more slowly. However, reasons for Vorticella’s stalk contraction are still unknown. It is presumed that the flow field induced by the contraction-relaxation cycle of Vorticella would augment mass transfer effect near the substrate. We investigated this hypothesis …

Team Sunflower - Solar Tracker Team 2, Lindsey Warden, Laura Scott, Ethan Glassman, Max Kapczynski

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Our design problem was to create a solar radiation tracking device. The primary goal of this device was to keep a solar panel perpendicular to the solar radiation with 95% efficiency throughout the day. The tracker had to be able to account for the sun’s seasonal angle in St. Louis, and the design would be even better if it could account for the sun’s seasonal angle at any latitude. Another important aspect of the solar tracker design was that it must be able to reset itself each day for the sunrise without human input. Other aspects to consider were weatherproofing …

Toy Train Group 1, Peter A. Szostak, Chris Levin, Chris Haeberle

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Create a toy train that lays its own tracks.

Mems 411 Rc Glider 2.0 Senior Design Project, Armando Gallegos, Sayan Patra, Reggie S. Clark, Diego Alarcon

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Design a radio controlled scale model glider with a true "morphing" wing.

Process Simulation Of Biomass Gasification Integrated With A Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Stack, Wayne Doherty, Anthony Reynolds, David Kennedy

Articles

Biomass gasification-solid oxide fuel cell (BG-SOFC) combined heat and power (CHP) systems are of major interest in the context of climate change mitigation, energy security and increasing energy efficiency. Aspen Plus is employed to simulate various BG-SOFC CHP systems. The aim of the research work is to investigate the technical feasibility of these systems and to study the influence of important operating parameters and examine integration options. Systems based on dual fluidised bed steam gasification and tubular SOFC technologies are modelled. The cathode recycle and electric heater integration options are not attractive in comparison to the base case anode recycle …

Phased Retrofits In Existing Homes In Florida Phase I: Shallow And Deep Retrofits, Florida Solar Energy Center, Danny Parker

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building America program, in collaboration with Florida Power & Light (FPL), is conducting a phased residential energy-efficiency retrofit program. This research seeks to establish impacts on annual energy and peak energy reductions from the technologies applied at two levels of retrofit ' shallow and deep, with savings levels approaching the Building America program goals of reducing whole-house energy use by 40%. Under the Phased Deep Retrofit (PDR) project, we have installed phased, energy-efficiency retrofits in a sample of 56 existing, all-electric homes. End-use savings and economic evaluation results from the phased measure packages and …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Fall 2014, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Heat Transfer Enhancement And Applications Of Femtosecond Laser Processed Metallic Surfaces, Corey M. Kruse

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the present work, functionalized 304 stainless steel metallic surfaces were created with the use of a Femtosecond Laser Surface Processing (FLSP) technique. The laser processing technique produces self-organized micro/nanostructures on the surface. The heat transfer performance of various FLSP functionalized surfaces were characterized through pool boiling and Leidenfrost experiments. Enhancement in both the nucleate and film boiling heat transfer were observed through an increase of the critical heat flux and heat transfer coefficient as well as shifts in the Leidenfrost temperature respectively. For both experiments, a polished reference sample was used as a baseline line to compare against the …

Control Of Responses Of Smart Plate Structures Under Non-Stationary Random Excitations, Xiaojian Yang

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis is concerned with an investigation of the control of responses of plate structures with piezoelectric layers and under complicated excitations modeled as a non-stationary random process. The plate structures and piezoelectric layers are both discretized by the mixed formulation finite element method (FEM).

The investigation consists of three parts. The first part is a literature survey and theoretical development. The second part is the eigenvalue solution and computation of uncontrolled response statistics of laminated plate structures under nonstationary random excitations. The final part is the introduction and application of the stochastic central difference (SCD) method that was presented …

Mega: An Energy Aware Algorithm For Self-Powered Wireless Sensor Networks In Sustainable Smart Infrastructure, Dong Qi, Yu Chen, Shahrzad Towfighian

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Smart infrastructure is attractive for possessing many desirable features, such as uninterrupted monitoring of health conditions, timely response to damages, and human-infrastructure interactions. Embedded sensors that collectinformation are critical for decision making. However, the lifetime of electronic sensors is a constraint to infrastructure lifetime if sensors are physically embedded in the infrastructure at construction time. In this paper, we studied a self-powered wireless sensor network that harvests energy from mechan-ical vibration in the environment. A dynamic, hierarchical algorithm called MEGA is proposed that constructs clusters and elects the cluster head based on residue energy and energy harvest rate. Taking a …

Me-Em Enewsbrief, December 2014, Department Of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics eNewsBrief

No abstract provided.

Flex-16: A Large-Displacement Monolithic Compliant Rotational Hinge, Robert Mcintyre Fowler, Alex Maselli, Peter Pluimers, Spencer P. Magleby, Larry L. Howell

Faculty Publications

This paper describes the design, analysis, and testing of a large-displacement monolithic compliant rotational hinge, called the Flex-16. The Flex-16 achieves 90 of rotation from monolithic construction and is aimed for application as a compliant satellite deployment hinge. Five prototypes were fabricated from three different materials (polypropylene, titanium, and a carbon nanotube framework) on two different size scales (macro and micro). A parametric finite element model was created to rapidly analyze a variety of design identified during a configuration study. Prototypes were tested for their ability to reach 90 of rotation without failure or self collision, and for their nonlinear …

Direct Synthesis Of Methane From Co2-H2O Co-Electrolysis In Tubular Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells, Long Chen, Fanglin Chen, Changrong Xia

Faculty Publications

Directly converting CO₂ to hydrocarbons offers a potential route for carbon-neutral energy technologies. Here we report a novel design, integrating the high-temperature CO₂–H₂O co-electrolysis and low-temperature Fischer–Tropsch synthesis in a single tubular unit, for the direct synthesis of methane from CO₂ with a substantial yield of 11.84%.

Two-Dimensional Scalar Differential Equations For Transversely Varying Thickness Modes In Piezoelectric Plates And Applications In Acoustic Wave Resonator Sensors, Huijing He

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Generalizations are made for three types of well-known and widely used twodimensional scalar differential equations in the literature describing transversely varying thickness modes in piezoelectric plate resonators. They are for singly-rotated quartz plates, doubly-rotated quartz plates, and plates of crystals of class 6mm with the c-axis along the plate thickness, respectively. The purpose of the generalizations is to include the effects of surface mechanical loads such as mass layers or fluids for resonator -based acoustic wave sensor applications. Surface acoustic impedance is introduced to take into account various surface loads in a general manner for time-harmonic motions. Both unelectroded and …

Engineering Analysis In Imprecise Geometric Models, Riccardo Gasparini

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Engineering analysis in geometric models has been the main if not the only credible/reasonable tool used by engineers and scientists to resolve physical boundaries problems. New high speed computers have facilitated the accuracy and validation of the expected results. In practice, an engineering analysis is composed of two parts; the design of the model and the analysis of the geometry with the boundary conditions and constraints imposed on it.

Numerical methods are used to resolve a large number of physical boundary problems independent of the model geometry. The time expended due to the computational process are related to the imposed …

Modular And Cooperative Medical Devices And Related Systems And Methods, Shane M. Farritor, Mark Rentschler, Amy Lehman

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

The various embodiments disclosed herein relate to modular medical devices, including various devices with detachable modular components and various devices with pivotally attached modular components. Additional embodiments relate to procedures in which various of the devices are used cooperatively. Certain embodiments of the medical devices are robotic in vivo devices.

Anisotropic Complementary Acoustic Metamaterial For Canceling Out Aberrating Layers, Chen Shen, Jun Xu, Nicholas X. Fang, Yun Jing

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we investigate a type of anisotropic, acoustic complementary metamaterial (CMM) and its application in restoring acoustic fields distorted by aberrating layers. The proposed quasi two-dimensional (2D), nonresonant CMM consists of unit cells formed by membranes and side branches with open ends. Simultaneously, anisotropic and negative density is achieved by assigning membranes facing each direction ( x and y directions) different thicknesses, while the compressibility is tuned by the side branches. Numerical examples demonstrate that the CMM, when placed adjacent to a strongly aberrating layer, could acoustically cancel out that aberrating layer. This leads to dramatically reduced acoustic …

Movement Effects On The Flow Physics And Nutrient Delivery In Engineered Valvular Tissues, Manuel Salinas

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mechanical conditioning has been shown to promote tissue formation in a wide variety of tissue engineering efforts. However the underlying mechanisms by which external mechanical stimuli regulate cells and tissues are not known. This is particularly relevant in the area of heart valve tissue engineering (HVTE) owing to the intense hemodynamic environments that surround native valves. Some studies suggest that oscillatory shear stress (OSS) caused by steady flow and scaffold flexure play a critical role in engineered tissue formation derived from bone marrow derived stem cells (BMSCs). In addition, scaffold flexure may enhance nutrient (e.g. oxygen, glucose) transport. In this …

Mechanical Engineering News, Georgia Southern University

Mechanical Engineering News (2013-2023)

• Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Distinguished Faculty Advisor Award

Synthesis And Formation Mechanism Of Cuins2 Nanocrystals With A Tunable Phase, Chao Yu, Linlin Zhang, Long Tian, Dan Liu, Fanglin Chen, Cheng Wang

Faculty Publications

Chalcopyrite CuInS₂ (CIS) hierarchical structures composed of nanoflakes with a thickness of about 5 nm were synthesized by a facial solvothermal method. The thermodynamically metastable wurtzite phase CIS would be obtained by using InCl₃ instead of In(NO₃)₃ as In precursor. The effects of the In precursor and the volume of concentrated HCl aqueous solution on the phases and morphologies of CIS nanocrystals have been systematically investigated. Experimental results indicated that the obtained phases of CIS nanocrystals were predominantly determined by precursor-induced intermediate products. The photocatalytic properties of chalcopyrite and wurtzite CIS in visible-light-driven degradation of …

Optimised Integration Of Grid-Connected Renewable Energy Technologies For Domestic Application In Ireland, Zhe Li

Doctoral

The utilisation of renewable energy resources for electricity and thermal generation is extremely important in Ireland due to the lack of indigenous fossil fuel resources and the high dependence on imported fossil fuels. The release of environmentally-damaging greenhouse gases in the combustion of fossil fuels in electricity and thermal generation is also a major issue. In Ireland, the domestic dwelling is recognised as one of the biggest energy consumers. The use of renewable energy technologies to provide electricity, heating and hotwater can effectively offset the usage of fossil fuels. The aim of this research study was to develop a novel …

Spanning The Complexity Chasm: A Research Approach To Move From Simple To Complex Engineering Systems, Vimal Viswanathan, Julie Linsey

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

A multistudy approach is presented that allows design thinking of complex systems to be studied by triangulating causal controlled lab findings with coded data from more complex products. A case study illustration of this approach is provided. During the conceptual design of engineering systems, designers face many cognitive challenges, including design fixation, errors in their mental models, and the sunk cost effect. These factors need to be mitigated for the generation of effective ideas. Understanding the effects of these challenges in a realistic and complex engineering system is especially difficult due to a variety of factors influencing the results. Studying …

Direct Numerical Simulations Of Non-Premixed Ethylene–Air Flames: Local Flame Extinction Criterion, Vivien R. Lecoustre, Paul G. Grias, Somesh P. Roy, Zhaoyu Luo, Dan C. Haworth, Hong G. Im, Tianfeng F. Lui, Arnaud Trouvé

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of ethylene/air diffusion flame extinctions in decaying two-dimensional turbulence were performed. A Damköhler-number-based flame extinction criterion as provided by classical large activation energy asymptotic (AEA) theory is assessed for its validity in predicting flame extinction and compared to one based on Chemical Explosive Mode Analysis (CEMA) of the detailed chemistry. The DNS code solves compressible flow conservation equations using high order finite difference and explicit time integration schemes. The ethylene/air chemistry is simulated with a reduced mechanism that is generated based on the directed relation graph (DRG) based methods along with stiffness removal. The numerical configuration …