Engineering Commons^™

An Application Of The Deming Management Method For Information Technology Projects, Jack T. Marchewka

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Although the ideas and teachings of W. Edwards Deming have been implemented in organizations world- wide for over the past 50 years, only three studies have empirically tested a theoretical model grounded in the Deming Management Method. These studies focused on the manufacturing and services area. Today, quality management continues to be an area of interest both in project management and software engineering. The focus of this study is to test the Deming Management Method in information technology (IT) projects. A survey of 63 IT professionals provides empirical support for the Deming Management Method and its application to IT projects. …

Locally Derived Nonpoint Loading Estimates For The Boeuf River/Bayou Lafourche Watershed, Emerald Purser Roider

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

There is currently a great demand for data and models that can be used to quantify nonpoint source pollutant loads from different land-use types. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) is in the process of implementing management programs for impacted water bodies based on the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of a pollutant. Pollutants of concern include total suspended solids (TSS), nitrogen, and phosphorus. One of the key parameters in determining the TMDL of a water body is the nonpoint source pollutant load from different land-use types. To date, such load estimates in Louisiana are lacking. The primary objective …

Measurement Of Metal Migration In Sediment Caps With X-Ray Fluorescene, Ming Yin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT Sand is often used as a passive barrier to slow release of metals from the sediment and to separate benthic organisms from the sediment. Materials that effectively adsorb metals have the potential to provide significantly greater effectiveness by further retarding metal release. In this thesis, the effectiveness of apatite and Phosphil®, which contain phosphate in a form that can absorb many metals, is evaluated with a series of sorption and migration column experiments using Cr, Cu, Zn and Pb. Langmuir shape isotherms were observed suggesting that the effectiveness of these materials decreases at high concentration. The sorption isotherm experiments …

Self-Consistent Analyses For Potential Conduction Block In Nerves By An Ultrashort High-Intensity Electric Pulse, R. P. Joshi, A. Mishra, Q. Hu, K. H. Schoenbach, A. Pakhomov

Bioelectrics Publications

Simulation studies are presented that probe the possibility of using high-field (>100kV ∕ cm), short-duration (∼50ns) electrical pulses for nonthermal and reversible cessation of biological electrical signaling pathways. This would have obvious applications in neurophysiology, clinical research, neuromuscular stimulation therapies, and even nonlethal bioweapons development. The concept is based on the creation of a sufficiently high density of pores on the nerve membrane by an electric pulse. This modulates membrane conductance and presents an effective "electrical short" to an incident voltage wave traveling across a nerve. Net blocking of action potential propagation can then result. A continuum approach based …

Thermal Characterization Of Microscale Conductive And Nonconductive Wires Using Transient Electrothermal Technique, Jiaqi Guo, Xinwei Wang, Tao Wang

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

In this paper, a transient technique is developed to characterize the thermophysical properties of one-dimensional conductive and nonconductive microscale wires. In this technique, the to-be-measured thin wire is suspended between two electrodes. When feeding a step dc to the sample, its temperature will increase and take a certain time to reach the steady state. This temperature evolution is probed by measuring the variation of voltage over the wire, which is directly related to resistance/temperature change. The temperature evolution history of the sample can be used to determine its thermal diffusivity. A 25.4 µm thick platinum wire is used as the …

Providing A Foundation For Analysis Of Volatile Data Stores, Timothy Vidas

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Current threats against typical computer systems demonstrate a need for forensic analysis of memory-resident data in addition to the conventional static analysis common today. Certain attacks and types of malware exist solely in memory and leave little or no evidentiary information on nonvolatile stores such as a hard disk drive. The desire to preserve system state at the time of response may even warrant memory acquisition independent of perceived threats and the ability to analyze the acquired duplicate.

Tools capable of duplicating various types of volatile data stores are becoming widely available. Once the data store has been duplicated, current …

Validation Of Conjugate Heat-Transfer Capability For Water- Cooled High-Speed Flows, Bruno R. Fletcher

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

A FORTRAN conduction/convection heat transfer module named FOGO (meaning fire in Portuguese) has been developed to perform the conjugate heat transfer analyses with existing flow solvers. In this work, FOGO is coupled with TBD and WIND-US flow solvers. WIND-US is a well validated flow solver developed by NASA, AEDC, and Boeing. TBD is a new flow solver developed at ERAU. TBD is verified for laminar stagnation point heat transfer prediction and turbulent flowfield protection. The FOGO module is verified against an exact solution for transient one-dimensional heat flow in a semi-infinite solid

The coupled TBD-FOGO and WIND-FOGO conjugate heat-transfer solvers …

Lectures In Computational Fluid Dynamics Of Incompressible Flow: Mathematics, Algorithms And Implementations, James M. Mcdonough

Mechanical Engineering Textbook Gallery

From Prologue:

The present lecture notes are written to emphasize the mathematics of the Navier–Stokes (N.–S.) equations of incompressible flow and the algorithms that have been developed over the past 30 years for solving them.

Introductory Lectures On Turbulence: Physics, Mathematics And Modeling, James M. Mcdonough

Mechanical Engineering Textbook Gallery

From Chapter 1:

The understanding of turbulent behavior in flowing fluids is one of the most intriguing, frustrating— and important—problems in all of classical physics.

The problem of turbulence has been studied by many of the greatest physicists and engineers of the 19th and 20th Centuries, and yet we do not understand in complete detail how or why turbulence occurs, nor can we predict turbulent behavior with any degree of reliability, even in very simple (from an engineering perspective) flow situations. Thus, study of turbulence is motivated both by its inherent intellectual challenge and by the practical utility of a …

Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute Annual Technical Report Fy 2006, Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute, University Of Kentucky

KWRRI Annual Technical Reports (USGS’s 104b Grant Program)

The 2006 Annual Technical Report for Kentucky consolidates reporting requirements of the Section 104(b) base grant award into a single techincal report that includes: 1) a synopsis of each student research enhancement project conducted during the period, 2) citations for related reports and presentations, 3) a description of information transfer activities, 4) a summary of student support during the reporting period, 5) notable awards and achievements during the year, and 6) publications from prior projects.

Justice And The Public's Involvement In Infrastructure Planning: An Analysis And Proposal, Ted H. Grossardt, Keiron Bailey

Kentucky Transportation Center Faculty and Researcher Publications

The authors find that there is a gap between expectations and actual results in terms of public involvement processes. They suggest more structured public involvement techniques. A case study of documenting citizen's aesthetic preferences illustrates their suggestions.

The Importance And Influence Of Groundwater Fluctuations In Phytoremediation, Jeff A. Weishaar

Masters Theses

"The primary purpose of this research is to study the relationship between microbial degradation and plant uptake of volatile hydrocarbons, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene. While these compounds are known to biodegrade and are capable of transport into plant tissue, any relationship between the two removal mechanisms remains largely unknown. The goal of this work is to better understand the interactions of these multiple biological processes within a phtytoremediation effort"--Introduction, page 3.

Performance Evaluation Of Existing Analytical Methods To Compute The Shear Contribution Provided By Externally Bonded Frp Sheets In Concrete Structures, Rocio Patricia Tumialan

Masters Theses

"External application of FRP composites has been adopted for strengthening and/or repair of concrete structures in many applications during the last two decades. However, the research into shear strengthening using FRP composites has not been widely conducted as compared to flexural strengthening and axial load capacity increase, and the results obtained thus far are scarce and sometimes controversial. This study presents a review of analytical studies and design guidelines on shear strengthening of concrete structures with externally-bonded FRP laminates, and their assessment with experimental data collected from the literature. The strengths and weaknesses of each model and design guidelines/codes/specifications are …

Modeling And Simulations Of Electrical Breakdown And Thermal Failure In Zinc Oxide And Titanium Dioxide For High-Voltage Dielectric Applications, Guogang Zhao

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The development of transmission lines with higher energy storage capabilities is an important goal for compact pulsed power systems. In this context, ceramic dielectrics are promising candidates from the standpoint of high dielectric constants and breakdown strength. Though such materials look promising, their breakdown response characteristics have not been well studied, nor adequately understood. The electrical response of dielectrics also seems to depend on the internal structure and its granularity. For example, the breakdown strength of nano-crystalline insulators such as titania and zinc oxide have been observed to depend on the internal grain size. In general, the hold-off voltage increases …

Propulsion Enhancement Contributions To The Performance Of Space Launch Vehicles, Russell H. Edwards

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A research effort has been undertaken to investigate critical aspects of launch vehicle performance as affected by variations in specific launch vehicle parameters. The major portion of the study involves liquid propellant systems. However, since solid propellant systems also play a role in today's launch systems, a representative solid-propellant launch vehicle has also been analyzed. The research undertaken determined that the payload capability of a space launch vehicle, or, conversely, the vehicle total liftoff mass, is highly sensitive to the manner in which the space launch vehicle is staged. The research has led to the development and programming of a …

Methodology For Analyzing And Characterizing Error Generation In Presence Of Autocorrelated Demands In Stochastic Inventory Models, Rafael Diaz

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Most techniques that describe and solve stochastic inventory problems rely upon the assumption of identically and independently distributed (IID) demands. Stochastic inventory formulations that fail to capture serially-correlated components in the demand lead to serious errors. This dissertation provides a robust method that approximates solutions to the stochastic inventory problem where the control review system is continuous, the demand contains autocorrelated components, and the lost sales case is considered. A simulation optimization technique based on simulated annealing (SA), pattern search (PS), and ranking and selection (R&S) is developed and used to generate near-optimal solutions. The proposed method accounts for the …

Preparation Of Bioactive Glasses With Controllable Degradation Behavior And Their Bioactive Characterization, Aihua Yao, Deping Wang, Qiang Fu, M. N. Rahaman, Wen-Hai Huang

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Bioactive glasses and ceramics have been widely investigated for bone repair because of their excel-lent bioactive characteristics. However, these biomaterials undergo incomplete conversion into a bone-like material, which severely limits their biomedical application. In this paper, borosilicate bioac-tive glasses were prepared by traditional melting process. The results showed that borosilicate glasses possessed high biocompatibility and bioactivity. In addition, when immersed in a 0.02 mol/L K2HPO4 solution, particles of a borate glass were fully converted to HA. The desirable conversion rate to HA may be achieved through the adjustment of the B2O3/SiO2 ratio. The results of XRD and FTIR analysis indicated …

Three-Dimensional Structure Of Cdx (X= Se, Te) Nanocrystals By Total X-Ray Diffraction, S. K. Pradhan, Z. T. Deng, F. Tang, Y. Ren, Peter Moeck, V. Petkov

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The three-dimensional structure of oleic acid-capped CdSe and thiol-capped CdTe nanocrystals used as quantum dots has been determined by total synchrotron radiationx-ray diffraction and atomic pair distribution function analysis. Both CdSe and CdTe are found to exhibit the zinc-blende-type atomic ordering. It is only slightly distorted in CdSe implying the presence of nanosize domains and very heavily distorted in CdTe due to the presence of distinct core-shell regions. The results well demonstrate the great potential of the experimental approach and thus encourage its wider application in quantum dot research.

Vibration Analysis Of A Boat And Dock, Annicka Gunderson

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

A structure is designed to withstand the maximum force that will be applied. In this case a boat dock is examined as a spring system. This exercise uses a typical design for a lake side boat dock, tires for buoys, and an average fishing boat. Vibration analysis can predict when the highest forces will occur. A solution can be found to graph the motion of the dock. In addition to the analytical solution, the MATLAB program is used to visualize the vibrations. With these tools the magnitude and timing of forces can be verified.

Acl Injuries: Do We Know The Mechanisms?, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert, Scott G. Mclean

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Injuries of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) remain a frequent occurrence in many sports activities. Recent research has identified risk factors, and prevention strategies are being developed based on these findings. There is, however, still a limited understanding of the actual injury mechanisms. In this presentation we will review the current knowledge on ACL injury mechanisms, and identify needs and opportunities for further research.

Local Material Properties Meausrement Using Ultrasonic C-Scan Techniques, Dooheon Kim, Tsuchin P. Chu, Ajay Mohan Mahajan

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research

Mechanical material properties of concrete specimen are evaluated locally and non-destructively using an ultrasonic C-scan system. The time of flight of the sound wave between front surface and back surface for test samples was measured. Local Young's modulus at scanning point and average Young's modulus of entire specimen are calculated. Testing techniques are developed by calibrating the transducer not only to compensate for the time delay but also to control the measurement of properties of interest, such as true density and local thickness. In order to obtain additional mechanical property, such as Poisson's ratio, the transverse velocities of the wave …

Towards Better Utilization Of Nexrad Data In Hydrology: An Overview Of Hydro-Nexrad, Witold F. Krajewski, Anton Kruger, Ramon Lawrence, James A. Smith, A. Allen Bradley, Matthias Steiner, Mary Lynn Baeck, Mohan K. Ramamurthy, Jeffrey Weber, Stephen A. Delgreco, Bong Chul Seo, Piotr Domaszczynski, Charles Gunyon, Radoslaw Goska

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

With a very modest investment in computer hardware and the open-source local data manger (LDM) software from UCAR's Unidata Program Center, an individual researcher can receive a variety of NEXRAD Level III gridded rainfall products, and the unprocessed Level II data in real-time from most NEXRAD radars. Additionally, the National Climatic Data Center has vast archives of these products and Level II data. Still, significant obstacles remain in order to unlock the full potential of the data. One set of obstacles is related to effective management of multi-terabyte data sets: storing, compressing, and backing up. A second set of obstacles, …

Thermal Control Of An Occupied Room: Investigating The Use Of Carbon Dioxide Concentration As An Auxiliary Control Variable, Kevin O'Connell, Aidan O'Dwyer

Conference papers

This paper details the theoretical and experimental work done in the examination of the relationship between human generated carbon dioxide concentration and temperature rise in an occupied room. Generation of carbon dioxide by humans is linked to metabolic rate and heat generation. Therefore, carbon dioxide concentration may be used as an indicator of occupancy in a room. Typically, a heating control system will react slowly to changes in room occupancy if temperature is used as the process variable. The aim of the work was to establish if carbon dioxide concentration in the space could be used as an auxiliary control …

Development Of The Analytical Design Method For Single Stage Phase Lead And Phase Lag Compensators, Aidan O'Dwyer

Conference papers

The design of phase lead and phase lag compensators in the frequency domain, using the Bode diagram, is a commonly used method of designing control systems and is taught in many undergraduate and postgraduate courses in control engineering. The graphical trial and error procedure used may be replaced by an analytical procedure. However, the analytical approach tends to be formulated as a “black-box” approach in textbooks, without engineering insight. This paper presents the full development of the analytical design procedure. The instructional approach has been successfully used by the author over the past two academic years.

Using Controller Tuning Formulae To Improve Performance, Aidan O'Dwyer

Conference papers

The proportional integral derivative (PID) controller is the most dominant form of automatic controller in industrial use today. With this device, it is necessary to adjust the controller parameters according to the nature of the process. Thus, for effective control of a HVDC system, for example, specific values need to be chosen for the P, I and D parameters, which will be different for the values required to control, for example, an induction motor drive. This tailoring of controller to process is known as controller tuning. Controller tuning is easily and effectively performed using tuning rules (i.e. formulae for controller …

Evaluation Of Time Independent Rheological Models Applicable To Fresh Self-Compacting Concrete, Dimitri Feys, Ronny Verhoeven, Geert De Schutter

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Self-Compacting Concrete is a New Type of Concrete Which is More Liquid Compared to Traditional Concrete and Which Does Not Need Any Form of External Compaction. as a Result, This Type of Concrete is Suitable for a New Placing Technique: Pumping SCC from the Bottom in the Formwork and Letting It Rise in the Formwork Due to the Applied Pressure. in Order to Understand the Phenomena Occurring during Pumping Operations, the Rheological Properties of SCC Must Be Investigated and Controlled. Tests Have Been Performed with Two Different Rheometers, Which Are Described in This Paper. for the Tattersall MIk-II Rheometer, a …

Soil Suction And Behavior Of Chemically Treated Clays, Thomas M. Petry, Cheng Ping Jiang

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Expansive clay soils have caused significant damage throughout the world. Chemical stabilizing agents have been used to reduce the swell of expansive clay soils, but the effect of chemical treatment on the matric and osmotic suction of soils has not been investigated previously. Two subject soils were chosen to study soil suction and the behavior of chemically treated clay. One soil, with high swell potential, was from Irving, Texas. the other soil, with moderate swell potential, was from Slater, Missouri. Hydrated lime and KIS (a proprietary solution containing potash and ammonium lignosulfonate) were used as chemical stabilizers. Select physical and …

Noninvasive Quantification Of Fluid Mechanical Energy Losses In The Total Cavopulmonary Connection With Magnetic Resonance Phase Velocity Mapping, Anand K. Venkatachari, Sandra S. Halliburton, Randolph M. Setser, Richard D. White, George P. Chatzimavroudis

Chemical & Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

A major determinant of the success of surgical vascular modifications, such as the total cavopulmonary connection (TCPC), is the energetic efficiency that is assessed by calculating the mechanical energy loss of blood flow through the new connection. Currently, however, to determine the energy loss, invasive pressure measurements are necessary. Therefore, this study evaluated the feasibility of the viscous dissipation (VD) method, which has the potential to provide the energy loss without the need for invasive pressure measurements. Two experimental phantoms, a U-shaped tube and a glass TCPC, were scanned in a magnetic resonance (MR) imaging scanner and the images were …

Meso-Machining Of Miniature Space System Components, Carlos Ramirez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Many industries in engineering and science are focusing more on producing mechanisms and system components of magnitudes smaller than existing products. One of the major technologies associated with these demands is the development of meso scale precision manufacturing systems. Meso scale fabrication involves the scaling down of conventional machining to incorporate the use of familiar materials, such as aluminum, steel, and even titanium for machining miniature components. New techniques in meso scale fabrication allow for the machining of miniature space system components in an efficient manner to meet certain specifications. A description of the processes used to accurately machine a …

The Embodied Transport Energy Analysis Of Imported Wood Pellets, Aidan Duffy, Michael Conroy

Conference Papers

The Irish Government has recently introduced a series of capital grants to boost the uptake of domestic wood-pellet technologies in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These have proved popular and have encouraged a significant number of people to switch from gas- and oil-fired boilers to the cleaner fuel. The demand for wood-pellets has, however, greatly exceeded the national capacity for production. The market for wood pellets elsewhere in Europe is also tight and, consequently, a large proportion of Irish pellets are sourced in Canada. This presents possible problems: the carbon emissions associated with long-distance transport may significantly offset the …