Engineering Commons^™

An Invariance Transformation Algorithm For Defect Characterization Of Ultrasonic Signals For The Nondestructive Evaluation Of Concrete, Michael Dominic Ciocco

Theses and Dissertations

Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques offer cost-effective strategies for monitoring the integrity of a variety of civil infrastructure, such as natural gas and sewer pipelines, without the need to take the system off-line. However, interpretation of NDE signals in terms of the location, size, and shape of underlying flaws in the material being inspected is fraught with difficulty. Typically, variations in the testing signal due to operational parameters have created a significant challenge for defect characterization. This thesis proposes, develops, and validates a defect characterization algorithm that compensates for operational variables and maps the test signal to a visual defect profile. …

Automated Segmentation Of Radiodense Tissue In Digitized Mammograms Using A Constrained Neyman-Pearson Classifier, Jeremy Thomas Neyhart

Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related mortality among American women. Mammography screening has emerged as a reliable non-invasive technique for early detection of breast cancer. The radiographic appearance of the female breast consists of radiolucent (dark) regions and radiodense (light) regions due to connective and epithelial tissue. It has been established that the percentage of radiodense tissue in a patient's breast can be used as a marker for predicting breast cancer risk. This thesis presents the design, development and validation of a novel automated algorithm for estimating the percentage of radiodense tissue in a digitized mammogram. …

Derivation Of An Expression That Defines The Pulling Forces In Relays With Small Operating Gaps, D. J. Chambega

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This paper derives an expression that defines magnitude of the pulling force developed in relays with small operating gaps, that is, when the length of the operating gap in between the yoke and the armature is small as compared to the area of the poles at the yoke. To obtain the expression, saturation of the core material is not considered. Results from the expression are then compared with those obtained experimentally. The comparison is found to deliver acceptable accuracy.

Discrete Element Modelling Of The Abrasive Dehulling Process Of Sorghum And Millet, E. L. Lazaro

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The abrasive dehulling process of sorghum and millet was modelled using a three-dimensional discrete element model. The model was validated by comparison between experimental and simulation results. Good correlation between experimental and simulation results was obtained. Several numerical experiments were also carried out using the developed model to investigate the influence of mill and grain parameters on dehulling of sorghum and millet. The simulated results correlated well with experimental results from literature. The developed model therefore provides a simple and cheap tool, which can be used to study the dehulling process in more detail than, is currently possible using the …

Optimal Pumping Strategies For Umatilla Chemical Depot Rdx And Tnt Plumes, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

We present optimal pumping strategies to address RDX and TNT plumes at Umatilla Chemical Depot (UCD). We provide strategies for four optimization problem formulations. Each strategy requires constructing 2 wells. New Well U-1 is in the same location for all strategies. The second well location can differ with formulation. The number in a strategy’s name refers to the formulation it addresses. Using optimization in design is normally an iterative process involving interaction between the designer and client after preliminary optimizations are performed. This project does not permit that. To compensate, we present a second strategy for Formulation 1 (Strategy USU1B), …

Effect Of Moisture And Loading Orientation On The Mechanical Properties Of Sorghum And Millet, E. L. Lazaro

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Uniaxial compression properties of sorghum and millet grain at different moisture contents (12–25% dry basis) and at different kernel orientation were investigated. These included: modulus of deformability, maximum compressive force, deformation and toughness at grain break point. Individual grain kernels of two varieties of sorghum, (Dionje and Jumbo) and one variety of pearl millet, (IM) at 12, 15, 20, and 25% moisture content dry basis (mc.db), were quasi-statically loaded using a J.J.universal tensile testing machine to their breaking point. The modulus of deformability, maximum compressive force required to initiate grain rupture and the grain toughness (energy absorbed at break point …

Potential For Use Of Sand In Road Construction In Dar Es Salaam And Coast Regions, Mfinanga A

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Coarse aggregates for use in road construction in Dar es Salaam and Coast regions are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive while sand, which is cheaper, is readily available in the two regions. This research aimed at evaluating the possibility of using quarry sands in the two regions as a major constituent material in bituminous road pavement layers. First, the use of sand in sand-bitumen bases for low and medium trafficked roads was studied. The study then continued with the preliminary evaluation of the possible use of the sands in hot rolled asphalt mixes. Results show that Mbagala sand can be …

Sustainable Data Acquisition Methods For Road Maintenance Management In Developing Countries, N. K.M. Mushule

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Whilst it may be argued that manual methods of pavement data collection are subjective, unsafe, involve high personnel costs and have low repeatability, the initial costs of acquiring automated systems coupled with the technology required to operate and maintain them can be prohibitive for most developing countries. Moreover, automatic measurement of surface distress has proved to be a difficult challenge to instrument designers. In many cases, manual methods are the only ones that can be employed. A research project was carried out to design a sustainable data collection scheme for network level management system for developing countries. A simple procedure …

Properties Of Rice Husk Particle Boards Bonded By A Blend Of Tannin-Cnsl Resin, J. V. Tesha

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

There are vast quantities of agricultural residues available in Tanzania. Rice husk being amongst those residues is reported to have low resistance to alkalis, high silica content, and have short fibres. These factors have made rice husks not attractive raw materials in panels’ production. However, it has been demonstrated that rice husks can be used to develop panel products of low cost and good performance if appropriate indigenous technologies and affordable binders that can bind siliceous materials are used.

This paper provides a summary on the study of the effectiveness of the binding characteristics of a blend of natural adhesive …

Incorporating E-Commerce Technologies Into Small And Medium Manufacturing Industries In Tanzania, M. A.M. Victor

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Businesses worldwide are making use of the new opportunities which have been brought up by the developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), particularly the Internet. Big businesses, especially those multinationals in the developed nations have invested heavily on these technologies and they are reaping their benefits. This paper reports on a study conducted to look at the key issues to be considered in order for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania be able to position themselves technologically in what is termed as E-commerce. Cost and benefits, policy, training and infrastructure issues are looked at in this study.

Electrostatic Particle Separation System, Apparatus, And Related Method, John M. Stencel, John L. Schaefer, James K. Neathery, Heng Ban, Dennis Finseth

Center for Applied Energy Research Faculty Patents

An electrostatic separation apparatus or system is provided for separating a particle mixture into two constituent species. The system includes a distributor for differentially tribocharging the particle species forming the mixture and supplying the charged mixture to a plurality of electrostatic separation cells. Each cell includes at least one separator having an inlet, a separation chamber having an electric field zone for drawing selected charged particles from the particle mixture, a collector, and a transition outlet. The length of the electric field zone is selectively adjustable for varying the charged particle drawing action. A curtain gas flow introduced into the …

Milliwatt Power Deep Ultraviolet Light-Emitting Diodes Over Sapphire With Emission At 278 Nm, J. P. Zhang, A. Chitnis, V. Adivarahan, S. Wu, V. Mandavilli, R. Pachipulusu, M. Shatalov, Grigory Simin, J. W. Yang, M. Asif Khan

Faculty Publications

We report on AlGaN multiple-quantum-well (MQW)-based deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes over sapphire with peak emission at 278 nm. A new buffer layer growth process was used to reduce the number of defects and hence the nonradiative recombination. The improved material quality and carrier confinement resulted in pulsed powers as high as 3 mW at 278 nm and a significantly reduced deep-level-assisted long-wavelength emission.

Chaotic Free-Space Laser Communication Over Turbulent Channel, N. F. Rulkov, Mikhail Vorontsov, L. Illing

Electro-Optics and Photonics Faculty Publications

The dynamics of errors caused by atmospheric turbulence in a self-synchronizing chaos-based communication system that stably transmits information over a ∼5  km free-space laser link is studied experimentally. Binary information is transmitted using a chaotic sequence of short-term pulses as a carrier. The information signal slightly shifts the chaotic time position of each pulse depending on the information bit. We report the results of an experimental analysis of the atmospheric turbulence in the channel and the impact of turbulence on the bit-error-rate performance of this chaos-based communication system.

Seismic Response Study Of Asymmetric Systems With Linear And Nonlinear Fluid Viscous Dampers, Rakesh K. Goel

Civil and Environmental Engineering

This investigation is concerned with application of nonlinear fluid viscous dampers for asymmetric-plan systems. For this purpose, the behavior of nonlinear fluid viscous dampers is summarized first followed by the effects of damper nonlinearity on seismic response of asymmetric systems. It is shown that the peak force in nonlinear damper tends to be smaller compared to linear damper. However, this is true only for values of V / ů_o less that a certain threshold value; for larger values of V / ů_o, the force in nonlinear damper may become larger· than that in the linear damper. While …

Dec 2002, Tractor Museum

Lester F. Larsen Tractor Museum: Planning and Development Documents

Report from Director on Leave Development Projects Liason Report

Computer Simulations And Neutron Reflectivity Of Proteins At Interfaces, Amol A. Mungikar, Daniel Forciniti

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Computer simulations in conjunction with neutron reflectivity is an excellent combination for the study of biological materials at solid-liquid interfaces: Both techniques have excellent resolution levels (Ångströms) and they are mature. A stronger interaction between physicists and biologists will allow the use of these two approaches in topics of biological-biomedical interest.

Monitoring Of Sandstorms With Rocsat-1 Oci Data, Shih-Jen Huang, Gin-Rong Liu, Tsung-Hua Kuo, Tang-Huang Lin, Chih-Kang Liang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The Ocean Color Imager (OCI) onboard the ROCSAT-1 Satellite was employed to demonstrate its capability in monitoring sandstorm events around Mongolia and northwestern China where they have been occurring in great frequency over these past few years. The OCI measures the radiance from the visible to near infrared regions in six spectral channels. The radiance can be used to calculate the aerosol optical depth (AOD) of the atmosphere through an atmospheric correction algorithm. The variation in the AOD during January and February of 2001 is investigated in this study. A set of OCI images covering the Yellow Sea was selected …

Experimental Nonlinear Modeling Of A Rotating Machine With An Oil Film Bearing, Chiou-Fong Chung, Pi-Cheng Tung, Chiang-Nan Chang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In this study the system identification method is applied to obtain a nonlinear equation for an oil film rotating system. The centrifugal force induced by an unbalanced mass is used as the input signal for identification, and the phase between the input signal and the measured output vibration amplitude is calculated to perform the identification. Stability analysis and system performance are evaluated by using the root locus and the Floquet-Liapunov theorem. Based on the model, the oil whirl of the journal bearing can be predicted. A comparison between the simulation results and some experimented data shows the feasibility of the …

Fast Convergence Control Approach For High Dimensional Chaotic Systems, Hsun-Heng Tsai, Chyun-Chau Fuh, Pi-Cheng Tung

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

A simple and efficient method for controlling high dimensional discrete-time chaotic systems is proposed in this paper. This method is implemented similar to the OGY method, and is feasible for practical experiments. The key component is to assign the eigenvalues of a linearized map by using the well-known pole placement technique. According to the Cayley-Hamilton theorem, the trajectory will converge to the desired fixed point after n iterations at most (n is the dimension of the map), if the real trajectory of the chaotic system falls within the neighborhood of the desired fixed point. The proposed approach improves the convergence …

The Influence Of Energy Grouping And Undulation On Sediment Suspension In The Surf Zone, Po-Ching Lin, Hsien-Ter Chou, Jea-Tzyy Juang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of the wave energy grouping and undulating on the sediment suspension in the surf zone at Taichung, Taiwan, in 1995. Instruments were deployed in line with the wave front, including one acoustic current meter, one pressure sensor, and four optical turbidity monitors were arranged in line and perpendicular to the bed. During the experiments the water depth was varied from 0.7 m to 3.6 m due to the tide level variations. The instruments were fixed to the ground to have data collected throughout the surf zone while the relative position of …

Application Of The Force Control On The Working Path Tacking, Sun-Run Wang, Zhi-Zhong Qiao, Pi-Cheng Tung

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

For the application of tracking the path on workpieces, the CCD (Charge Couple Device) identificating system is generally used as one of the popular resolutions. However, the implementation of CCD identificating system is complex and environmental-limited. This study presents a compliant motion controller by using the end-effector installed with a force sensor. This results the smoothly path tracking on a workpiece. By applying the algorithm of Fuzzy into this compliant motion, the compliant control is improved and the path on the workpiece is found more quickly and accurately. A radius compensating method is used to correct the measured data. The …

Atmospheric Transmittance Of Amsu Channels: A Fast Computation Model, Tsung-Hua Kuo, Gin-Rong Liu, Chen-Gen Huang, Tang-Huang Lin, Chung-Chih Liu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In this study, the atmospheric transmittance of individual NOAA AMSU microwave channels was computed into a 40-layer atmospheric line-by-line FASCODE radiation model. Long-term sounding data from 1956 to 1991 collected over the Taiwan area was used to construct a 40-layer standard atmospheric model for the island. The simulated transmittance was also used to establish a regression-based fast-algorithm model to compute the atmospheric transmittance of Taiwan and its surrounding areas for various purposes. Despite the fact that the lower atmospheric layers of channels 14-18 indicated larger errors, the overall results revealed that the absolute value difference between the AMSU pass band-averaged …

A Reversible Three-Phase Step Up/Down Switching Mode Rectifier, Jenn-Jong Shieh

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In this paper, focus on the null space vector duty cycle control, a reversible three-phase step up/down switching mode rectifier is proposed attain clean sinusoidal input current, unity power factor, bidirectional power flow, step up/down output DC voltage and insensitivity for a voltage input. In addition, a precise simulation model is proposed to simulation by using PC software tools. Finally, some simulation and experimental results are presented for verification.

Mathematical Modeling And Prediction Method Of Concrete Carbonation And Its Applications, Ming Te Liang, Wenjun Qu, Chih-Hsin Liang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The carbonation process of concrete is principally a diffusion phenomenon. The penetration rate of carbon dioxide depends mainly on the concrete quality and the exposure condition. Based on both Fick’s first and second laws of linear diffusion equations, the threedimensional equation of conservation of mass is expressed. This equation can be reduced to two- and one- dimensional equations of conservation of mass which can predict the carbonation depth beneath corners and the general surface of concrete structures, respectively. The objectives of this investigation are to measure the depth of carbonation from the free surface of a concrete member and to …

On The Permeability Inside The Granular Media, Chen-Yuan Chen, Chung-Pan Lee, Cheng-Wu Chen

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The permeability and resistance characteristics in porous structures with different grain size and shape have been studied experimentally in the paper. Two materials used in the study are crushed gravels and spherical glass balls with four sizes of 5.2 mm, 7. 4 mm, 12.2 mm, and 31.7 mm for gravels and 13.0 mm, 16.0 mm, 25. 0 mm, and 35.0 mm for balls, respectively. The permeability determined from linear Darcy Law shows a strong dependence on flow velocity in addition to grain sizes and shapes. This is not consistent to the traditional definition of permeability that is only a function …

Buffer Interference Architecture, Vladimir I. Prodanov

Electrical Engineering

An up to 3× breakdown voltage tristate capable integrated circuit CMOS buffer includes a level shifter circuit and a driver circuit. The driver stage includes a series connected n-channel and p-channel cascode stacks, each including at least three transistors. Dynamic gate biasing is provided for the third n-channel and p-channel cascode transistors to prevent voltage overstress of the cascode transistors. The level shifter circuit includes at least one pseudo N-MOS inverter including an input transistor, a protective cascode stack including at least one n-channel cascode transistor, and a load transistor. The level shifter provides at least one voltage shifted input …

Stanford Classes At Nasa Ames, Robert J. Twiggs

Robert "Bob" Twiggs STEM Education Collection

A PowerPoint Presentation created by Professor Bob Twiggs titled "Stanford Classes At NASA Ames" from December 10, 2002.

On-Chip Actuation Of An In-Plane Compliant Bistable Micromechanism, Michael S. Baker, Larry L. Howell

Faculty Publications

A compliant bistable micromechanism has been developed which can be switched in either direction using on-chip thermal actuation. The energy storage and bistable behavior of the mechanism is achieved through the elastic deflection of compliant segments. The Pseudo-Rigid-Body Model was used for the compliant mechanism design, and for analysis of the large deflection flexible segments. To achieve on-chip actuation, the mechanism design was optimized to allow it to be switched using linear motion thermal actuators. The modeling theory and analysis are presented for three design iterations, with two iterations fabricated in the MUMP's process and the third in the SUMMiT …

An Assessment Of Seawinds On Quikscat Wind Retrieval, David Draper, David G. Long

Faculty Publications

The scatterometer ocean wind retrieval process produces several possible solutions or ambiguities at each point, requiring a separate ambiguity selection step to infer a unique wind vector field. An ambiguity selection error occurs when the selected wind vector is not the closest ambiguity to the true wind. The current ambiguity selection routine for SeaWinds is ad hoc, but performs well under most circumstances. Factors such as instrument noise and rain can also cause the estimated wind flow to deviate from the true wind. A quality assurance (QA) analysis is performed to assess the ambiguity selection effectiveness and noise level of …

Novel General Expressions That Describe The Behavior Of The Height Equivalent Of A Theoretical Plate In Chromatographic Systems Involving Electrically-Driven And Pressure-Driven Flows, B. A. Grimes, S. Lüdtke, K. K. Unger, Athanasios I. Liapis

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Novel general expressions are constructed and presented that describe the behavior of the height equivalent of a theoretical plate (plate height), H, as a function of the linear velocity, Vx, along the axis, x, of the column and the kinetic parameters that characterize the mass transfer and adsorption mechanisms in chromatographic columns. Open tube capillaries as well as columns packed with either non-porous or porous particles are studied. The porous particles could have unimodal or bimodal pore-size distributions and intraparticle convective fluid flow and pore diffusion are considered. The expressions for the plate height, H, presented in this work could …