Engineering Commons^™

Resource Constraint Evacuation Route Planning A Capacity-Aware Charge-Encoded State-Space Approach, Praveen Borra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emergency Management Information Systems (EMIS) are defined as a set of tools that assist decision-makers in risk assessment and disaster response for significant multi-hazard threats and disasters. Over the past several decades, EMIS have become increasingly important for understanding, managing, and governing transportation systems during large-scale emergency events. One of the primary objectives of EMIS is to efficiently utilize spatial and network datasets to support evacuation planning, identify critical transportation patterns during emergencies, and allocate resources effectively. However, the increasing complexity and scale of modern transportation systems present significant challenges in developing reliable evacuation planning solutions.

One of the most …

Assessing Computer Vision Based Conflict Detection In Uas Traffic Monitoring Under Secure Communication Constraints, Fadjimata Issoufou Anaroua

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The rapid growth of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is creating a new low-altitude airspace ecosystem where drones, air taxis, service suppliers, communication networks, sensors, and ground-based monitoring systems must work together safely. Within this ecosystem, UAS Traffic Management (UTM) is expected to provide a digital framework for coordinating operations beyond traditional air traffic control. However, reliable integration also requires resilient monitoring methods that can detect non-cooperative aircraft, protect communication links, and maintain timely situational awareness under real-world constraints.

This dissertation examines how computer vision can support cooperative monitoring systems such as Remote ID and ADS-B …

Feasibility Of Using Untreated And Treated Rice Straw Fibers As A Modifier For Hot Mix Asphalt, Aditya Chowdhury

Civil Engineering Theses

Flexible pavements are subject to progressive deterioration driven by repeated traffic loading, environmental exposure, and material degradation, which causes distress. This study presents an integrated research framework that combines laboratory performance evaluation of rice straw fiber (RSF)-modified hot mix asphalt with machine learning-based pavement distress prediction to advance sustainable pavements. Three plant-produced HMA mixtures were modified with untreated and alkali-treated RSF at dosage levels of 0.2%, 0.4%, and 0.6% by total mixture weight. FTIR spectroscopic analysis confirmed that alkali treatment induced significant chemical modifications to the fiber surface, increasing hydroxyl group availability and enhancing fiber–binder adhesion. Alkali-treated RSF consistently outperformed …

Direct Measurement Of Stem Position For Gas-Lift Valves While Flowing At High Pressure, Paulo E. Reitz

LSU Master's Theses

The present work challenges the idea of estimating the gas lift valves true dynamic stem position by providing an alternative capable of tracking the real stem position during flow tests. This is of interest for the improvement of performance determination tests and procedures that involve critical safety concerns, complex training and considerable investments, both in time and money. This scenario, together with the strong interest of industry for valve optimization and the scarcity of works available in literature, encouraged this study. An apparatus named Vision System was developed for tracking and measuring the stem position during flow tests. The developed …

Fuel Tank Seismic Stability Program-Informed Displacement Maps Of Portland's Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub, Ana Tijerina Esquino

Dissertations and Theses

Oregon's Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) Hub in northwest Portland contains a large portion of the state's liquid fuel storage and distribution capacity and is located in an area susceptible to liquefaction and earthquake-induced permanent ground deformation during a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. Initial Seismic Vulnerability Assessments submitted under Oregon's Fuel Tank Seismic Stability program provide valuable facility-specific information, but the assessments vary in subsurface characterization, treatment of fine-grained soils, ground motion selection, and deformation estimation methods. This variability complicates interpretation of regional seismic risk and motivates a consistent corridor-scale analysis.

This thesis develops CPT-informed displacement estimates for representative cross sections …

Pseudodifferential Absorbing Boundary Conditions For Waves, Lauren Taylor

Mechanical Engineering Theses

Absorbing boundary conditions (ABCs) are required to truncate the computational domain when performing Finite Element Analyses of exterior acoustic problems where physical domain is unbounded. ABC is applied on a fictitious boundary containing the scatterer and ideally allows outgoing waves to leave without non-physical reflections. Preventing artificial reflections is essential to benefit from the accuracy of the numerical method used. Otherwise, ABC acts as a reflective surface, and artificial reflections distort the solution in the entire domain which is not recoverable by any type of refinement. Pseudodifferential ABCs were used to describe the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map which maps known boundary values …

Policy Analysis Of The Inclusion Of Mitigation Measures In The Re-Design And Construction Of The New Frances Scott Key Bridge, Patrick John O'Connor

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the tragic event of the container ship MV Dali impacting the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, leading to the collapse of the structure and killing six people despite having collision mitigation protections in place. This research examines how late twentieth-century structures are inadequate for current shipping demands and emphasizes that updated mitigation design criteria must accommodate larger modern vessels as governments replace or upgrade these structures. This paper will examine four case studies of different collisions that have similar circumstances to the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse and review National Transportation Safety Board reports …

Fatigue And Healing Performance Of Asphalt Materials Modified With Nanomaterials And High-Polymer Asphalt Binders, Samuel M. Addai

Theses and Dissertations

Fatigue cracking is one of the primary distress mechanisms affecting asphalt pavement durability under repeated traffic loading and environmental aging. Although asphalt binders possess an inherent ability to heal micro-damage during rest periods, this healing capacity is often insufficient to fully counter progressive fatigue damage under field conditions. This thesis investigates the fatigue and self-healing behavior of asphalt binders and mixtures modified with nanomaterials and advanced polymer-based systems. Nanomodified binders were evaluated using Linear Amplitude Sweep (LAS) and Linear Amplitude Sweep with Healing (LASH) tests within the VECD framework to quantify fatigue resistance and healing behavior under different rest periods …

Transport Properties And Microstructural Development Of Co₂-Cured, Co₂-Infused, And Cold-Weather Concrete, Arlene Jane Looc

Theses and Dissertations

This research aims to advance the understanding of durability and transport behavior in emerging CO₂-cured and cold-weather concrete technologies. Limited work has examined long-term durability indicators such as permeability, resistivity, and pore connectivity in these types of concrete. To bridge this gap, the study evaluates transport properties alongside microstructural changes that govern the progression of hydration and the evolution of pore structure. This study measures transport properties, determines correlations between resistivity and fluid ingress, and analyzes the evolution of pore structure. To achieve this, the experimental program evaluated three concrete mixtures for external CO₂ exposure, nine for dry ice infusion, …

Vibro-Seismic Approach For Remediation Of Near-Wellbore Damage, Mounira Ahmed Abdallah

Theses and Dissertations

The research highlights the importance of vibro-seismic technology in the oil and gas industry. The primary objective of this study is to demonstrate how the vibro-seismic method enhances formation properties which are porosity, and permeability. Ultimately, this will lead to improved productivity and its application to remove the wellbore damage.

The research discusses whether or not the formation properties will be enhanced by the optimized acoustic vibration formation parameters. The thesis details laboratory experiments on core plugs, and four key findings are presented. The experimental work first showed that the use of the proper and optimum parameters enhanced the porosity …

Design And Fpga Deployment Of Quantized Convolutional Spiking Neural Networks For Ecg Arrhythmia Classification, Olamilekan Banjo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wearable ECG monitors enable continuous cardiac surveillance, yet most remain limited to basic heart rate metrics or coarse atrial fibrillation detection, relying on cloud-based analysis that introduces latency, connectivity dependence, and battery drain. Deploying advanced multi-class arrhythmia classification directly on-device is constrained by the tight memory, power, and computational budgets of wearable hardware. This dissertation presents a Quantized Convolutional Spiking Neural Network (QCSNN) for real-time ECG arrhythmia detection on edge hardware, developed across three progressive phases.

Phase 1 introduces a separately trained two-stage QCSNN architecture — a binary classifier cascaded with a four-class classifier — trained directly via surrogate gradient …

Prediction Of Satellite Temperature During An Orbit Of A Cubesat, Michael Reynolds

Honors Theses

This thesis develops a thermal-simulation strategy for predicting CubeSat component temperatures, applied to Jag-Sat-1, a CubeSat developed at the University of South Alabama and deployed from the International Space Station in 2022. The orbit was reconstructed from two-line element (TLE) data using simplified general perturbations (SGP4) propagation, and spacecraft attitude was recovered from onboard gyroscope measurements. Sunlight, penumbra, and umbra intervals were computed geometrically, and the external radiative environment — direct solar, Earth infrared, and albedo heat fluxes — was modeled using orientation-dependent view factors. These time-varying fluxes drove a transient finite-element thermal simulation of the full satellite geometry in …

Dc/Dc Converter For A Solar Module, Francine Therese A. Canal, Jesus Cruz, Juan Jose Gonzalez

Electrical Engineering

This project presents the design and implementation of a DC/DC power converter intended for photovoltaic (PV) modules with varying electrical output characteristics. Solar panels experience significant changes in output voltage and power due to variations in sunlight, temperature, and load conditions. To ensure reliable operation across a range of conditions, the proposed converter is capable of both step-up and step-down operation to accommodate solar modules with power ratings from 50 W to 450 W and open-circuit voltages between 10 V and 80 V. The system operates at load currents up to 10 A and provide a user-adjustable output voltage within …

Dc/Dc Converter For A Solar Module, Stella Uribe, Richie Zaragoza, Olivia Grace Tran, Phillip Tyler Rich

Electrical Engineering

This project focuses on the design and validation of a general-purpose DC/DC power converter intended for use with photovoltaic (PV) solar modules operating under variable environmental and loading conditions. Solar panels exhibit significant variation in output voltage, current, and available power due to changes in irradiance, temperature, and operating point, making direct connection to downstream loads impractical. The proposed system addresses this challenge by providing a single, user-adjustable regulated DC output capable of both stepping up and stepping down the solar module voltage. The converter is designed to interface with solar modules rated between 50 W and 400 W, with …

Stationary Bike Power/Efficiency Monitor, Paula J. Diaz, Pilar M. Cook, Danielle Rhind

Electrical Engineering

This project developed a real-time power and efficiency monitoring system for a SportsArt ECO-POWR stationary exercise bicycle. The goal was to measure rider mechanical power and electrical power delivered to the utility grid simultaneously, allowing the overall bike-to-grid efficiency to be calculated and displayed in real time. Rider power was measured using Garmin Rally ANT+ power pedals, while grid power was measured using a Yokogawa WT310E power analyzer. A Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ synchronized both data sources, calculated efficiency, displayed live performance metrics through a graphical user interface, and logged measurement data to CSV files for later analysis. The …

Autonomous Terrain-Mapping Robot For Search And Rescue, Soumil Joshi, Seann Calub

Electrical Engineering

This report documents the design, modular testing, and challenges faced while developing an autonomous terrain-mapping robot intended to navigate to a destination waypoint and deliver a small payload for search-and-rescue applications. The system combines a LiDAR sensor, an IMU sensor, and a Raspberry Pi 3B as the onboard processor, and an ESP32 microcontroller interfacing with motor drivers over a four-wheel chassis. A companion mobile application was developed to enable remote control and monitoring of the robot over a WiFi hotspot connection. A lithium-ion battery pack supplies power to all onboard components, with power budgets verified against component datasheets. Testing progresses …

Direct Ink Writing Of Functional Fiber/Granular Composites, Zhuoyuan Yang

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Direct ink writing provides a versatile manufacturing route for fabricating functional fiber and granular composites with controlled architecture, tunable interfaces, and customized material distributions. Fiber reinforced composites offer high stiffness, strength, fatigue resistance, and functional anisotropy, while granular composites provide scalable access to particle based structures with high material efficiency and broad resource compatibility. However, the additive manufacturing of these composite systems remains challenging. For fiber based composites, precise control of fiber placement, matrix impregnation, interfacial bonding, and freestanding deposition is difficult to achieve during printing. For granular composites, stable particle flow, controllable packing, binder infiltration, and shape retention are …

Cohesive Zone Modelling Of Fiber–Matrix Interface In Composite Materials, Arjun Myadam

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Carbon Fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are widely used in aerospace, automotive, and structural applications due to their high specific strength, stiffness, and design flexibility. Their mechanical performance is critically governed by the fiber–matrix interface which controls stress transfer and directly influences damage initiation, crack propagation, and fracture behaviour. The interface properties are quantified through the Interfacial Shear Strength (IFSS) and fracture energy, both serving as key indicators of composite integrity. Effective interfacial bonding is therefore essential to the composite’s strength. Nanoscale fiber surface modifications provide a promising approach to enhance interfacial bonding and can also impart multifunctionality. These multifunctionalities can …

Classification Of Aircraft Checklist Usability Problems Using Natural Language Processing, Borvorn Kasemtanakul

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The use of checklists has been identified as a recurring issue in aviation accident investigations, highlighting the need for continued improvement in aircraft checklist design. However, existing aviation safety taxonomies do not systematically address checklist usability problems. Therefore, a systematic classification of these problems is needed to support the extension of existing aviation safety taxonomies and to facilitate safety data analysis for checklist design improvements. Furthermore, applications of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques in aircraft checklist research remain underexplored, despite their potential to identify meaningful patterns in textual safety data.

This exploratory research aimed to develop a data-driven classification of …

Compact Cislunar Orbital Representation For Efficient Tracking In Cislunar Space, Mauro Palomo

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Expanding lunar missions require efficient, interoperable orbital tracking where existing methods fail to scale. Two-Line Elements (TLEs) lack applicability beyond geocentric regimes, while high-accuracy Orbit Ephemeris Messages (OEMs) require excessive data volumes and bandwidth to communicate. To support increased lunar traffic, this paper proposes the Compact Cislunar Orbital Representation (CCOR), providing a novel framework that strikes a balance between TLE level efficiency and OEM-level fidelity, ensuring multi-actor communication for missions in the cislunar region. By evaluating the framework across six diverse cislunar trajectories, this study demonstrates the CCOR’s robustness and ability to compress thousands of OEM state vectors into a …

Experimental-Motion-Driven Cfd Investigation Of Slosh Dynamics In Propellant Tanks Of Spacecraft And Launch Vehicles, Priyanshu Savaliya

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Liquid sloshing in partially filled propellant tanks can generate transient forces and moments that affect spacecraft and launch vehicle stability, guidance, and control. This research develops a one-way experimental-to-Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) integration framework to investigate free-surface slosh behavior under realistic excitation conditions.

The overarching goal of this thesis is to develop and evaluate a one-way experimental-motion-driven computational framework for predicting liquid slosh response in a partially filled cylindrical tank. Rather than relying on idealized sinusoidal inputs, this work uses experimentally measured actuator-feedback motion as the prescribed excitation for high-fidelity CFD. The central objective is to establish the experimental and …

A Machine-Learning-Based Systematic Framework For Modeling Compression And Recompression Indices For Florida Soils, Michael Morales

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis develops a machine-learning framework for estimating the compression index and the recompression index of Florida soils from routinely measured index properties, and reports two studies that build it. Consolidation settlement design requires both indices, and both are obtained from the incremental-loading oedometer test, which occupies a specimen for one to two weeks; the index tests that accompany it are complete within hours. Empirical correlations have filled that interval since the 1950s, but their coefficients are calibrated on specific soil populations and transfer poorly between regions. The first study analyzes 376 consolidation tests compiled for the Florida Department of …

Enhancing Virtual Reality Cockpit Procedure Training With Haptic Feedback, Christian K. Jaedicke

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Pilot training is time-consuming and costly, and not all phases require full-flight simulators or actual aircraft. Virtual reality (VR) offers a potential means to reduce cost and duration while supporting practical cockpit procedure training. While prior research in the VR domain suggests that providing haptic feedback can support training of muscular control and increase perceived immersion, it remains unclear whether haptic feedback improves spatial cognition in an unfamiliar VR environment. This study examined whether haptic feedback and cockpit complexity affected response time and position error under limited-visibility, time-constrained conditions in a VR cockpit environment (i.e., a quasi-blindfold cockpit check).

Grounded …

Evaluating The Safety Efficiency Of U.S. Air Traffic Control Tower Operations Using Data Envelopment Analysis, Kenneth James Gilbert Ii

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Air traffic control (ATC) tower safety efficiency remains inadequately measured despite critical workforce challenges, including staffing shortages, training pipeline constraints, and geographic retention difficulties. This mixed-methods study developed and validated a comprehensive framework for measuring tower safety efficiency by integrating subject-matter expert insights with multi-model data envelopment analysis (DEA) across 66 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) tower facilities from 2016 to 2024. Six focus group interviews with experienced professionals (100% with > 20 years of experience), averaging 96.4 minutes, identified critical efficiency factors through systematic coding, achieving substantial inter-rater reliability (Cohen's kappa 𝜅 = .68). Qualitative findings showed that staffing shortages don't …

Noise-Optimized Routes For Air Taxi, Waleed Raza

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Community noise is a primary barrier to the public acceptance and deployment of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) air taxi operations. This dissertation develops a coupled siting, routing, and noise optimization framework that links vertiport placement to its downstream acoustic consequences, demonstrated through a Daytona Beach case study. Candidate vertiports are screened and selected using accessibility, safety, demand, and feasibility criteria, and the selected sites form a directed network of 20 routes. Each trajectory is evaluated with a physics-based acoustic pipeline reporting Lmax, SEL, and EPNL at school, hospital, and residential receptors, showing that received exposure …

Optimal Integrated Cfd-Gnc Model For Drag-Based Reentry Dynamics, Sebastian Lopez

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This research focuses on optimizing the control of a drag-maneuvering, Starship-class re-entry vehicle by closely integrating high-fidelity aerodynamic data derived from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations, specifically using StarCCM+. The aerodynamic models, tailored to the unique geometry of a drag-maneuvering body, are seamlessly incorporated into a guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) framework. This integration enables closed-loop CFD simulations with real-time control feedback, allowing for direct analysis and optimization of vehicle stability, trajectory, and control demands throughout the re-entry process.

Building upon the work of Gaglio and Bevilacqua, this advanced CFD-GNC model introduces high-order aerodynamic effects, such as aerodynamic moments and …

Influence Of Stormwater Flooding Events On The Mobile County School District Student Population, Kadence Kali Johnston

Honors Theses

Mobile County, Alabama, receives among the highest annual rainfall totals in the United States resulting in frequent stormwater flooding that intersects with existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Within the Mobile County Public School System (MCPSS), 77% of students are economically disadvantaged and over 10% experience homelessness, creating heightened risk for educational disruption during flood events. This study investigates how stormwater flooding influences school attendance, closures, and academic performance across MCPSS, providing insight into how climate-driven hazards exacerbate educational inequities. The research integrates flood frequency, school performance metrics, and GIS flood-zone mapping and teacher perceptions to understand how flooding affects student learning opportunities. …

Veribrief: A Multi-Agent Retrieval-Augmented Generation System For Policy Decision Support, Imane Bahji

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

VeriBrief is a multi-agent retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system for evidence-grounded economic policy analysis. The system orchestrates a five-stage LangGraph pipeline, retrieval, research, analysis, synthesis, and critique, to produce cited, structured responses while detecting out-of-scope queries. An empirical evaluation on eight questions drawn from official U.S. macroeconomic releases compared VeriBrief against a single-pass RAG baseline. The multi-agent system achieved 100% refusal precision on unanswerable analytical queries versus 0% for the baseline. Unsupported claims fell substantially on answerable factual questions. A context-propagation defect discovered during evaluation was diagnosed and corrected. Limitations include failure of the evidence gate on policy-counterfactual queries and a …

Study Of Onshore And Offshore Upwind And Downwind Wind Turbine Configurations: Performance Differences And Aerodynamic Characteristics, Ahmed Ismail

Mechanical Engineering Theses

The aerodynamic performance and loading behavior of large- scale wind turbines depend heavily on atmospheric inflow conditions and rotor orientation. While upwind turbines remain the most common design in the industry, recent progress in materials, aeroelastic modeling, and control systems has sparked renewed interest in downwind configurations. This study aims to assess how ABL characteristics and rotor orientation affect the aerodynamic performance of a utility- scale wind turbine. A CFD framework was built in ANSYS Fluent to model the NREL 5 MW Reference Wind Turbine. Transient simulations employed the SST k–ε turbulence model under various inflow conditions: uniform, onshore, and …

Numerical Investigation Of Shock-Induced Deformation Of Bubble-Laden Droplets, Juan Roldan

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Rain impact can be a source of surface erosion on hypersonic vehicles, and the severity of each impact depends on droplet velocity, mass, and final shape, all of which are set by how the droplet breaks up under shock loading. Real droplets are expected to carry entrained non-condensable gas (NCG) nuclei from their formation. This dissertation investigates whether the purely mechanical, pressure-driven response of these nuclei, independent of vaporization, is large enough to measurably alter the internal pressure field and early deformation of a shock-loaded droplet.

The droplet and surrounding gas are modeled with a compressible, diffuse-interface, axisymmetric Eulerian framework …