Engineering Commons^™

The Effect Of Long-Term Thermal Exposure At Elevated Temperatures On Microstructures And Mechanical Properties In Centrifugally Casted Iron-Base Alloy, G Lothongkum, N Thaweepornkhasemsukh, P Wangyao

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

This work has an aim to study and investigate the relationship between high temperature exposure conditions on microstructural evolution and mechanical properties in the iron-based alloy, Fe-30.8 Ni - 26.6 Cr alloy, strengthened by carbide precipitation. Two exposure temperatures (900 and 1000°C) with various thermal exposure times are introduced to the as-received alloy. After short-term exposure, it was found that the secondary carbides precipitated early near the primary carbides, which were chromium and niobium/titanium carbide networks. The secondary carbide precipitations were also found in the dendrite cores. The amounts of needle-like carbides and secondary carbide films increased with time and …

Development Of Flame Retardant Polyphosphoric Acid Coating Based On The Polyelectrolyte Multilayers Technique, K Srikulkit, C Iamsamai, S T. Dubas

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

Polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) thin films were deposited on silk by sequential deposition of Chitosan and polyphosphoric acid. This PEM composition takes advantage of synergetic effect of the phosphorus and the nitrogen to provide an efficient coating, which prevents fiber decomposition at high temperature. Prior to the PEM assembly on silk fibers, the growth of the film was initially monitored using an atomic force microscopy (AFM). Films formed on silicon wafer after 10, 20, 30, 40 and 60 layers showed somewhat linear increase, which is consistent with the PEM technique. A total thickness ranging from 10 to 107 nm for the …

Fiber Based Non-Linear Excitation Fluorescence Microscopy, Priyanka Amrita Jillella

Bioengineering Theses - Archive

Non-linear excitation fluorescence microscopy is a high resolution, non-invasive biological imaging technique capable of imaging both in vitro and in vivo at the depths of several hundred microns. The goal of the thesis work is to contribute towards a fiber based non-linear excitation fluorescence microscopy system that we plan to build for our lab, which would later on be integrated with the OCT imaging setup and the DIC microscope. This thesis work involves filling in the key components in the microscopy system. These key components are; femtosecond pulse diagnosis, study of dispersion in optical media, dispersion free femtosecond pulse delivery …

Multivariate Discretization Of Continuous Valued Attributes., Ehab Ahmed El Sayed Ahmed 1978-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The area of Knowledge discovery and data mining is growing rapidly. Feature Discretization is a crucial issue in Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD), or Data Mining because most data sets used in real world applications have features with continuously values. Discretization is performed as a preprocessing step of the data mining to make data mining techniques useful for these data sets. This thesis addresses discretization issue by proposing a multivariate discretization (MVD) algorithm. It begins withal number of common discretization algorithms like Equal width discretization, Equal frequency discretization, Naïve; Entropy based discretization, Chi square discretization, and orthogonal hyper planes. After …

An Analytical Performance Management Framework Enabiling Enterprise Strategy Management, Amr Abu-Suleiman

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Performance management has gained noticeable interest from both researchers and executive in the past two decades. Financial measures are no longer a primary emphasis for researchers and executives. One of the most popular performance management methodologies is the Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard framework facilitates translating strategy into objectives and initiatives across four perspectives. These perspectives are financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. The second component of the balanced scorecard is strategy maps. Strategy maps outline the cause and effect between the four perspectives, and illustrate the value creation process through transforming leading indicators (operational measures) into lagging …

Design Of Novel Experimental Techniques To Investigate The Formation Of Nanoparticle-Based Tribofilms, Corey Thompson

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Nano-engineered lubricant additives such as organically-active nanoparticles of molybdenum disulphide (Hybrid-milled MoS2) are becoming increasingly popular in the fight against harsh friction and wear that occurs during boundary-layer lubrication. A previous paper (Verma, 2007), has reported improvements in both coefficient of friction and wear scar diameter; however, there exists very little data concerning the methods through which this improvement is achieved. Using techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), nanoindentation, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), focused ion beam (FIB), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) as well as tribometery, the chemical and mechanical characteristics of the nanoparticle based tribofilm are characterized. …

Investigation Of Knock In Gaseous Fuels In The Presence Of Diluents, Roshan Ashok Rodrigues

Masters Theses

Recent energy security and environmental concerns have prompted growing interest into utilization of alternative fuels such as, natural gas and landfill gas. These gaseous fuels contain significant amount of diluents in the fuel composition, such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water vapor and other trace gases, which vary by geographical location. Successful engine operation is limited by a phenomenon called "knock", which occurs due to auto-ignition of the end gas ahead of the flame front, and therefore, needs to be investigated with the utilization of these gaseous fuels.

The present contribution discusses the experimental set-up, procedure and results of the investigation …

The Context-Oriented Architecture: Integrating Context Into Semantic Web Services, Aisha Mohamed-Salama Elsafty

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Ac Conductivity Relaxation Processes In Cacu₃Ti₄O₁₂ Ceramics: Grain Boundary And Domain Boundary Effects, Wei Li, Robert W. Schwartz

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The ac conductivity of CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂ ceramics associated with electrical charge carrier motion (ions or vacancies) was investigated as a function of frequency at different temperatures. The long range migration of charge carriers within the ceramic is restricted by two kinds of insulating barriers, namely, grain boundaries and domain boundaries. The potential barriers associated with these boundaries lead to two anomalies in conductivity response and three frequency-dependent contributions to conductivity: long range diffusion of carriers, carrier migration localized within grains, and carrier migration localized within domains.

Novel Capacitance Extraction Method Using Direct Boundary Integral Equation Method And Hierarchical Approach, L. (Lijun) J. Jiang, B. J. Rubin, J. D. Morsey, H. T. Hu, A. Elfadel

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a novel hierarchical capacitance extraction method is introduced. It takes advantage of surface integral equations to have far less unknowns than the volumetric method. It uses the "divide and conquer" strategy to hierarchically solve the dense capacitance matrix efficiently. It partitions the problem into small regions (cells) automatically and each region is analyzed separately. An inverse binary-tree browse procedure is employed to combine cell capacitance matrixes from leafy level of the tree to the root. A global capacitance matrix is obtained at the root without computing charge distribution. Benchmarks using the developed code CSurf are provided to …

The Use Of Fast Integral Equations Solvers For Practical Package And Interconnect Analysis, J. D. Morsey, B. J. Rubin, L. (Lijun) Jiang, L. Shan, L. B. Eisenberg, D. Becker, M. Arseneault

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Fast integral equation methods are now being applied to packaging and other such "low frequency" problems. This paper explores some of the issues surrounding such an application to real, product level packaging and interconnect type structures. Discussed are issues such as low frequency breakdown, mesh aspect ratios, and solver convergence. Finally, integral equation solver examples are presented using the IBM internally developed pre-corrected FFT (PFFT) solver labeled EMSurf[l]. ©2006 IEEE.

Integral Equation Solvers For Real World Applications -Some Challenge Problems, W. C. Chew, I. T. Chiang, C. P. Davis, A. Hesford, M. K. Li, Y. Liu, Z. G. Qian, M. Saville, L. Sun, M. S. Tong, J. Xiong, L. (Lijun) J. Jiang, H. Y. Chao, Y. H. Chu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Monitoring The True Harmonic Current Of A Variable Speed Drive Under Nonsinusoidal Supply Conditions, J. Mazumdar, R. Harley, F. Lambert, T. Habetler, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The increased use of nonlinear devices in industry has resulted in direct increase of harmonic distortion in the industrial power system. Variable speed drives are an example. with the widespread proliferation of nonlinear loads in a power distribution network, the voltage at the point of common coupling is rarely a pure sinusoid. It has become necessary to identify accurately which load(s) is injecting the excessively high harmonic currents. Simply measuring the harmonic currents at each individual load is not sufficiently accurate since these harmonic currents may be caused by not only the nonlinear load, but also by a non-sinusoidal PCC …

A Biologically Plausible System Approach For Noise Robust Vowel Recognition, Ismail Uysal, Harsha Sathyendra, John G. Harris

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Present day commercial automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems still pale in comparison to the human ability to recognize speech. For decades, people tried to mimic biology for machine recognition tasks and ASR is no exception. Widely used and accepted Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients, for example, try to develop better filter banks by looking at the distribution of the hair cells along the basilar membrane. However, all these approaches stem only from topological and anatomical considerations. This research proposes to take this biological inspiration one step further by imitating some of the dynamical computation of our auditory system via describing a …

Development And Implementation Of Optimized Energy-Delay Sub-Network Routing Protocol For Wireless Sensor Networks, James W. Fonda, Maciej Zawodniok, S. Jagannathan, Steve E. Watkins

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The development and implementation of the optimized energy-delay sub-network routing (OEDSR) protocol for wireless sensor networks (WSN) is presented. This on demand routing protocol minimizes a novel link cost factor which is defined using available energy, end-to-end (E2E) delay and distance from a node to the base station (BS), along with clustering, to effectively route information to the BS. Initially, the nodes are either in idle or sleep mode, but once an event is detected, the nodes near the event become active and start forming sub-networks. Formation of the inactive network into a sub-network saves energy because only a portion …

Geometric And Temperature Effects On Time Domain Reflectometry Measurements In Soils, Teresa Eileen Dallinger Ms

Lyles School of Civil Engineering Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Interpretation Of Cone Penetration Tests In Cohesive Soils, Kwang Kyun Kim, Monica Prezzi, Rodrigo Salgado

JTRP Technical Reports

This report focuses on the evaluation of the factors affecting cone resistance measurement during cone penetration in saturated clayey soils and the application of the result to pile shaft capacity analysis. In particular, effects of drainage conditions around the cone tip were studied. Rate effects related to both drainage and shear strength dependence on loading rate were studied. In order to investigate the effects of drainage during penetration, penetration tests were performed with various velocities in the field and in a calibration chamber, and the obtained data were analyzed. For the field tests, two sites which have homogeneous clayey soil …

Multisensor Processing Algorithms For Underwater Dipole Localization And Tracking Using Mems Artificial Lateral-Line Sensors, Saunvit Pandya, Yingchen Yang, Douglas L. Jones, Jonathan Engel, Chang Liu

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

An engineered artificial lateral-line system has been recently developed, consisting of a 16-element array of finely spaced MEMS hot-wire flow sensors. This represents a new class of underwater flow sensing instruments and necessitates the development of rapid, efficient, and robust signal processing algorithms. In this paper, we report on the development and implementation of a set of algorithms that assist in the localization and tracking of vibrational dipole sources underwater. Using these algorithms, accurate tracking of the trajectory of a moving dipole source has been demonstrated successfully.

An Energy Efficient Mac-Phy Approach To Support Distributed Source Coding In Wireless Sensor Network, Wei Wang, Dongming Peng, Honggang Wang, Hamid Sharif, Beata J. Wysocki, Tadeusz A. Wysocki

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications (to 2015)

Distributed Source Coding (DSC) based signal processing applications are ideal candidates for multirate transmissions in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). In this paper, we propose a novel MAC-PHY approach in WSN to achieve energy efficiency using multirate desirable for the DSC based signal processing applications. Our approach is different from the common multirate research in link adaptation, the focus of which is to increase throughput based on rate adaptation derived from variable channel conditions. In the proposed approach, the redundant and inefficient communications are eliminated, yielding significant improvement of energy efficiency in WSN. Here, the minimum desirable transmission power can be …

Capacity Of Single-Radio Ad Hoc Networks For Handling High Bit-Rate Real-Time Internet Applications, Mehran Abolhasan, Tadeusz A. Wysocki, Daniel Franklin, Justin Lipman

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications (to 2015)

Until now, the main focus in ad hoc networking has been improving Routing and Medium Access Control (MAC) Strategies. As a result, a diverse range of routing and MAC protocols have been proposed. To evaluate these protocols, much of the existing research has been based on simulation scenarios which assume ideal channel conditions and low node and traffic densities. Therefore, despite a few studies which have shown the performance limitations of ad hoc networks theoretically, there has not been many simulation studies performed which investigate the performance of ad hoc networks under a high node and traffic density. This paper …

An Exploration Of Several Structural Measurement Techniques For Usage With Functionally Graded Materials, Robert A. Reuter

Theses and Dissertations

Titanium / titanium boride functionally graded 6"x 1"x1" beams were subjected to a four-point beam test in order to critique the value of several measurement techniques. Also, finite element analysis results were compared with experimental values and general observations about the experiment were recorded. Uniform 85% TiB /15% Ti and uniform commercially pure titanium specimens were also subjected to the same loading conditions as a control. Techniques used include digital image correlation, fiber optic strain gauging, strain gauging, and differential infrared thermography techniques. The strain data results were compared with one another and to linear finite element models. It was …

Vision-Based Target Geo-Location Using A Fixed-Wing Miniature Air Vehicle, D. Blake Barber, Joshua D. Redding, Timothy W. Mclain, Randal W. Beard, Clark N. Taylor

Faculty Publications

This paper presents a method for determining the GPS location of a ground-based object when imaged from a fixed-wing miniature air vehicle (MAV). Using the pixel location of the target in an image, with measurements of MAV position and attitude, and camera pose angles, the target is localized in world coordinates. The main contribution of this paper is to present four techniques for reducing the localization error. In particular, we discuss RLS filtering, bias estimation, flight path selection, and wind estimation. The localization method has been implemented and flight tested on BYU’s MAV testbed and experimental results are presented demonstrating …

Information Infrastructure For Integrated Ecohydraulic And Water Resources Modeling And Assessment, R. Wallace, K. Pathak, M. Fife, Norman L. Jones, J. P. Holland, D. Stuart, J. Harris, C. Butler, D. R. Richards

Faculty Publications

Watershed management increasingly requires ecohydraulic modeling and assessment within a regional context, rather than on a project-by-project basis. Such holistic modeling and assessment require evaluation capabilities across multiple temporal and spatial scales. Thus, modeling and assessment tools must be integrated in a scientifically and computationally effective infrastructure. The US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, in concert with the Hydrologic Engineering Center and its academic partners, including Brigham Young University, is establishing a comprehensive set of hydroinformatics modeling and assessment tools for ecohydraulic and water resources management applications, all linked based on a common data and information infrastructure. This paper …

Gridfields: Model-Driven Data Transformation In The Physical Sciences, Bill Howe

Dissertations and Theses

Scientists' ability to generate and store simulation results is outpacing their ability to analyze them via ad hoc programs. We observe that these programs exhibit an algebraic structure that can be used to facilitate reasoning and improve performance. In this dissertation, we present a formal data model that exposes this algebraic structure, then implement the model, evaluate it, and use it to express, optimize, and reason about data transformations in a variety of scientific domains.

Simulation results are defined over a logical grid structure that allows a continuous domain to be represented discretely in the computer. Existing approaches for manipulating …

The Development Of A Design Ontology For Products And Processes, Md Baniamin Sarder

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This research develops a methodology called, Design Knowledge Acquisition Process (DKAP) for creating ontology of product and process design using IDEF5 and to develop a consistency matrix for checking accuracy of captured information. It constructs an ontology of a generic product and process design using the developed DKAP methodology. Designing products and processes is very challenging and vital for manufacturing enterprises to stay in the competitive market. Manufacturers want to launch their products in the market as quickly as possible while satisfying their customers in terms of quality, cost and delivery. In order to lunch the products early and/or to …

Convex Versions Of Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines And Implementations For Complex Optimization Problems, Dachuan Thomas Shih

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) provide a flexible statistical modeling method that employs forward and backward search algorithms to identify the combination of basis functions that best fits the data. In optimization, MARS has been used successfully to estimate the value function in stochastic dynamic programming, and MARS could be potentially useful in many real world optimization problems where objective (or other) functions need to be estimated from data, such as in simulation optimization. Many optimization methods depend on convexity, but a nonconvex MARS approximation is inherently possible because interaction terms are products of univariate terms. In this dissertation, convex …

A Methodology For Evaluating The Performance Of Reverse Supply Chains In Consumer Electronics Industry, Srikanth Sastry Yellepeddi

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Enterprises around the world are employing reverse supply chain practices to generate profit making opportunities while meeting new regulations. As a result of the rapid progress in technology the product lifecycles are shrinking faster than ever. In the face of global competition, heightened environmental regulations and a wealth of additional profits and improved corporate image opportunities, performing the reverse supply chain operations at a world class level is becoming quintessential. These factors in addition to the inherent complexity of reverse supply chains due to the uncertainties associated with the quantity, quality, and timing of returns make returns management very complicated. …

A Fuzzy Logic Controller For Autonomous Wheeled Vehicles, Mohamed Trabia, Linda Z. Shi, Neil Eugene Hodge

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research

Autonomous vehicles have potential applications in many fields, such as replacing humans in hazardous environments, conducting military missions, and performing routine tasks for industry. Driving ground vehicles is an area where human performance has proven to be reliable. Drivers typically respond quickly to sudden changes in their environment. While other control techniques may be used to control a vehicle, fuzzy logic has certain advantages in this area; one of them is its ability to incorporate human knowledge and experience, via language, into relationships among the given quantities. Fuzzy logic controllers for autonomous vehicles have been successfully applied to address various …

The Paperless Factory: A Review Of Issues And Technologies, Manocher Djassemi, James A. Sena

Industrial Technology and Packaging

paper-based data management can be a bottleneck, slowing factory-wide information transfer. This study explores the evolution of paperless communication in a factory environment and reviews some of the key technologies that contribute to the implementation of a paperless system including digital communication, the virtual factory, computer-integrated manufacturing, and web-centric information flow. The challenges facing users of a paperless information system are also discussed.

Mix Design For A Concrete Canoe, Ryan Thomas Christensen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Each year the American Society of Civil Engineers sponsors a concrete canoe competition. This paper details the work performed by Ryan Christensen for the 2006 concrete canoe competition. His primary focus was on formulating a concrete mix to be used for the Utah State University canoe. Basic information regarding the building and design of concrete canoes is also presented. Finally, general competition results for 2006 are presented for the Utah State University canoe team.