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Undergraduate Education 2010, College Of Engineering, Michigan Technological University

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Engineering Research 2010, College Of Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Michigan Tech Engineering Magazine

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Development Of Advanced Finite Element Material Models For Cable Barrier Wire Rope, John D. Reid, Karla A. Lechtenberg, Cody S. Stolle

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

An improved LS-DYNA model of ¾-in. (19-mm) diameter 3x7 wire rope commonly used in roadside cable guardrail installations has been developed. A Belytschko-Schwer beam element was selected along with material *MAT_166. Numerical noise was reduced using part stiffness damping with a coefficient of 2%, and frequency range damping with a coefficient of 12%. The optimum element length based on timestep, accuracy, and computational cost was determined to be between 0.4 and 0.8 in. (10-20 mm). Dynamic component tests were conducted on wire rope to determine material properties. These tests were simulated and the results compared to the physical tests. The …

Second Generation Precast Deck Panel (Nudeck) System, Maher K. Tadros Ph.D., P.E., Kromel E Hanna, George Morcous Ph.D.

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

The majority of today’s bridge decks are built using cast-in-place concrete construction. This is due to the perceived low initial cost and constructor familiarity with the system. This research report describes the design, details, and construction of an innovative full-depth precast concrete bridge deck system – the Second Generation NUDECK (Nebraska University Deck). The quality of this system is far superior to castin- place construction. Cast-in-place concrete bridge decks experience cracking shortly after construction due to differential creep and shrinkage with the supporting beams. This leads to bridge deck deterioration; a problem that is not experienced with the virtually crack-free …

Safety Climate Of Commercial Vehicle Operation, Linda Ng Boyle Ph.D., Jeffrey Short

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

Enhancing the safety culture within trucking and motor coach industries has become a key area of concern given the potential impact it has on crashes and overall safety. Many organizations recognize that safety is compromised if the culture within their organization does not promote safety. Unfortunately, the specifics of a good safety culture and the methods by which safety culture is fostered are relatively ambiguous. A key reason for this is the general lack of standardization of the highly qualitative term ―safety climate‖ within the trucking and motor coach industries. A survey was completed by 31 organizations within these industries …

Developing A Sustainable Freight Transportation Framework With The Consideration Of Improving Safety And Minimizing Carbon Emissions, Margaret Rita Neff, Yong Bai, Steven Schrock, Thomas E. Mulinazzi

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

Despite the difficulties of the American economy in recent years the transportation sector continues to expand. Freight transportation alone has been projected to increase enormously even if the economy as a whole only manages a very moderate growth. Not only does freight transportation use a large percentage of resources but it contributes significantly to America’s share of carbon emissions and affects the safety of the transportation system and all its users. These problems are only expected to increase as the volume of freight transportation is already reaching the limit of the American transportation infrastructure’s capacity and demand continues to increase. …

Improving Freight Fire Safety: Analysis And Testing Of Real Engine Conditions To Progress Development Of Mist-Controlling Additives For Fire Mitigation, Albert Rathner Ph.D.

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

The formation of a fuel mist resulting from high shear stresses acting on the fuel during violent sloshing and tank rupture under the energy of a crash severely increases the occurrence and intensity of fires in transportation related accidents. In order to minimize such crash-induced fires, adding long chained polymers to diesel fuel was proposed to arrest the break-up of diesel into a fine mist. Such polymers with specifically engineered properties are intended to impart non-Newtonian characteristics to diesel, which would then alter its flow behavior under the applied shear stresses. As a first step in this direction, calculations are …

Mitigating Wind Induced Truck Crashes, Thomas E. Mulinazzi, Steven Schrock Ph.D., P.E.

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

Dangerous weather and high wind in particular, is a common contributing factor in truck crashes. High wind speeds have been documented as a perennial cause of truck crashes in Kansas and other Great Plains states. The possibility of reducing such crashes, combined with the installation of dynamic message signs along Interstate 70, created an opportunity for further research. To this end, crash data were obtained from the Kansas Department of Transportation’s Accident Records System for all heavy vehicle crashes on I-70 that involved strong winds. The data were analyzed to determine the correlations between the vehicle and freight characteristics, crash …

Direct Detection Of Localized Modulation Of On Concentration On An Electrode-Electrolyte Interface, Ravi Saraf, Gaurav Singh

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

The present invention directly measures localized electrochemical processes on a planar electrode using differential interferometry. The ionic charge accumulation at the electrode-electrolyte interface may be directly measured by using differential interferometry as a function of magnitude and frequency (for example, 2-50 kHz) of an external potential applied on an electrode. Methods in accordance with the present invention probe the ion dynamics confined to the electrical double layer. An electric field is applied using a pure AC potential and a superposition of AC and DC-ramp potential to measure ion concentration and detect redox processes.

Computational Design Tool For Bridge Hydrodynamic Loading In Inundated Flows Of Midwest Rivers, Junke Guo, David M. Admiraal, Tian C. Zhang

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

The hydraulic forces experienced by an inundated bridge deck have great importance in the design of bridges. The proper estimation of loading exerted by the flow on the structure is important for design plans and is pertinent for evaluating its vulnerability. During a flood or hurricane highway bridges over the sea or other waterways may become partially or completely submerged. Flood flows add significant hydrodynamic loading on bridges, possibly resulting in the shearing or overturning of the bridge deck and failure of the bridge superstructures. The overall objective of the study was to establish validated computational practice to address research …

East Bay Energy Consortium Joint Committee Workshop At Bristol Town Hall, Burnside Building: Meeting Notes, April 19, 2010, East Bay Energy Consortium

East Bay Energy Consortium Documents

No abstract provided.

Multiscale Transformation Field Analysis Of Progressive Damage In Fibrous Laminates, Yehia Bahei-El-Din, Ritesh Khire, Prabhat Hajela

Centre for Advanced Materials

As part of an ongoing effort to model uncertainty propagation across multiple scales in fibrous laminates, this paper presents a deterministic transformation field analysis for modeling damage progression under membrane forces and bending moments. In this approach, equivalent eigenstresses are computed in the phases and/or plies such that their respective stress components that satisfy the underlying failure criteria are reduced to zero. Superposition of the solutions found for the undamaged laminate under applied loads and under the eigenstress field provide the entire response. Failure criteria are based on stress averages in the fiber and matrix. Damage mechanisms considered are frictional …

Modified Sandwich Structures For Improved Impact Resistance Of Wind Turbine Blades, Yehia Bahei-El-Din, Mostafa Shazly, I. El-Habbal, Y. Elbahy

Centre for Advanced Materials

Wind turbine blades are susceptible to damage due to fatigue as well as impact by flying objects and parts broken off failed blades of nearby wind towers. Localized, permanent compression of the foam core and delamination of the fibrous composite face sheets are typical damage modes and can lead to progressive structural failure. Sandwich structures modified by inclusion of flexible polyurethane (PU) layers within the cross section are examined under both impact and dynamic loads. Finite element models of sandwich structures with conventional and modified designs show that sandwich designs modified with PU interlayes exhibit reduced foam core crushing and …

Link Foundation 2008‐2010 Energy Fellowship Report, Vanessa Schweizer

Link Foundation Energy Fellowship Reports

I completed my PhD in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University in May of 2010. My dissertation, entitled Developing Useful Long-­term Energy Projections in the Face of Climate Change, seeks to identify methods that may calibrate expert judgments for anticipating long--‐term outcomes for energy demand and related greenhouse gas emissions that may not be obvious. The motivation for this research is to move beyond the false dichotomy that currently exists in traditional scenario analysis regarding questions of likelihood. Scenario exercises that aim to explore multiple visions of the future insist that judgments about the likelihood of each alternative …

Merlin.Net Automation Of External Reports Verification Process, Gabriel John Wettlaufer

Master's Theses

Merlin.net Patient Care Network is a St. Jude Medical product that is used for remote patient management. The basic concept of Merlin.net is to allow the physician to view patient device follow-up information as well as general patient and device information on a web application. The Merlin.net system also interfaces with the patient and will send them notification if they miss a follow-up. All device information will be collected automatically while the patient is sleeping. This information is sent through a telephone line to a Merlin.net server to process a report package and display the collected information on the Merlin.net …

Detection And Filtering Of Landmark Occlusions Using Terrain Spatiograms, Damian M. Lyons

Posters

A team of robots cooperating to quickly produce a map needs to share landmark information between team members so that the local maps can be accurately merged. However, a landmark visible to one robot may be partially occluded to another! Terrain Spatiograms are a landmark representation in which the image spatial information relates to the scene rather than the image. This makes it possible to identify and filter potential landmark occlusions. We present an approach to identifying and filtering occlusions using Terrain Spatiograms, and we report experimental results on 20 landmark datasets for varying states of occlusion. We show that …

Synchronizing Real And Predicted Synthetic Video Imagery For Localization Of A Robot To A 3d Environment, Damian M. Lyons, Sirhan Chaudhry, D. Paul Benjamin

Faculty Publications

A mobile robot moving in an environment in which there are other moving objects and active agents, some of which may represent threats and some of which may represent collaborators, needs to be able to reason about the potential future behaviors of those objects and agents. In previous work, we presented an approach to tracking targets with complex behavior, leveraging a 3D simulation engine to generate predicted imagery and comparing that against real imagery. We introduced an approach to compare real and simulated imagery using an affine image transformation that maps the real scene to the synthetic scene in a …

Optimization Strategy For Resonant Mass Sensor Design In The Presence Of Squeeze Film Damping, C. Li, M. H. Miller

Engineering, School of

No abstract provided.

An Mpi-Cuda Implementation For Massively Parallel Incompressible Flow Computations On Multi-Gpu Clusters, Dana A. Jacobsen, Julien C. Thibault, Inanc Senocak

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) with many-core architectures have emerged as general-purpose parallel computing platforms that can accelerate simulation science applications tremendously. While multi-GPU workstations with several TeraFLOPS of peak computing power are available to accelerate computational problems, larger problems require even more resources. Conventional clusters of central processing units (CPU) are now being augmented with multiple GPUs in each compute-node to tackle large problems. The heterogeneous architecture of a multi-GPU cluster with a deep memory hierarchy creates unique challenges in developing scalable and efficient simulation codes. In this study, we pursue mixed MPI-CUDA implementations and investigate three strategies to …

Application Of An Efficient Nonconventional Heterogeneous Catalyst For Biodiesel Synthesis From Pongamia Pinnata Oil, Y. C. Sharma, Bhaskar Singh, John Korstad

College of Science and Engineering Faculty Research and Scholarship

Recycled chicken eggshells after calcination have been used as a nonconventional heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel synthesis from karanja oil from the pongam tree (Pongamia pinnata). The catalyst was characterized on X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and differential thermal analysis/thermogravimetric analysis (DTA/TGA). The formation of the calcium oxide phase was confirmed at 900°C after calcination. A high biodiesel yield of 95.0% and conversion of 97.4% was obtained at an 8:1 (alcohol/oil) molar ratio, 2.5 wt%catalyst, and 2.5 h reaction time at 65±°0.5C. The biodiesel conversion was determined by Fourier transform nuclear magnetic resonance (FTNMR) spectroscopy.

High Yield And Conversion Of Biodiesel From A Nonedible Feedstock (Pongamia Pinnata), Yogesh C. Sharma, Bhaskar Singh, John Korstad

College of Science and Engineering Faculty Research and Scholarship

An efficient approach has been adopted for the synthesis of biodiesel developed from karanja, a nonedible oil feedstock. A two-step reaction was followed for synthesis of biodiesel. Karanja oil possessing a high free fatty acid content was esterified with sulfuric acid, and the product obtained was further converted to fatty acid alkyl esters (biodiesel) by transesterification reactions. A moderate molar ratio of 6:1 (methanol/oil) was efficient for acid esterification with 1.5% v/v H₂SO₄ and 1 h of reaction time at 60 ± 0.5 °C, which resulted in reduction of FFA from 19.88 to 1.86 mg of KOH/g. …

Climate Change Impacts On Water Demand And Salinity In California's Irrigated Agriculture, Gerrit Schoups, Edwin P. Maurer, Jan Hopmans

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

This paper examines potential regional-scale impacts of climate change on sustainability of irrigated agriculture, focusing on the western San Joaquin Valley in California. We consider potential changes in irrigation water demand and supply, and quantify impacts on the hydrologic system, soil and groundwater salinity with associated crop yield reductions. Our analysis is based on archived output from General Circulation Model (GCM) climate projections through 2100, which were downscaled to the 1,400 km2 study area. We account for uncertainty in GCM climate projections by considering two different GCM's, each using three greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Significant uncertainty in projected precipitation creates …

Challenges And Prospects Of Sustainable Groundwater Management In The Indus Basin, Pakistan, Asad Sarwar Qureshi, Peter G. Mccornick, A. Sarwar, Bharat R. Sharma

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

In Pakistan, on-demand availability of groundwater has transformed the concept of low and uncertain crop yields into more assured crop production. Increased crop yields have resulted in food security and improved rural livelihoods. However, this growth has also led to problems of overdraft, falling water tables, and degradation of groundwater quality, and yields generally remain well below potential levels. Over the last three decades, Pakistan has tried several direct and indirect management strategies for groundwater management. However the success has been limited. This paper argues that techno-institutional approaches such as introducing water rights, direct or indirect pricing, and permit systems …

The Challenges Of Wastewater Irrigation In Developing Countries, M. Qadir, D. Wichelns, L. Raschid-Sally, Peter G. Mccornick, P. Drechsel, A. Bahri, P. S. Minhas

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The volume of wastewater generated by domestic, industrial, and commercial sources has increased with population, urbanization, improved living conditions, and economic development. The productive use of wastewater has also increased, as millions of small-scale farmers in urban and peri-urban areas of developing countries depend on wastewater or wastewater-polluted water sources to irrigate high-value edible crops for urban markets, often as they have no alternative sources of irrigation water. Undesirable constituents in wastewater can harm human health and the environment. Hence, wastewater irrigation is an issue of concern to public agencies responsible for maintaining public health and environmental quality. For diverse …

Acuta Enews January 2010, Vol 39, No. 1

ACUTA Newsletters

In this Issue

From ACUTA Headquarters: Seizing Opportunity in a New Decade.... Jeri A. Semer, CAE, Executive Dir.

Where Were You in 2000? Where Will You Be in 2020?

Tech Talk: When Reality Isn't Good Enough, Augment It.......... Kevin, Tanzillo, Dux PR

Multi-Event Discount: Attend More in 2010 and Save More!

DC Update............. Dave Ostron, Washington State Univ. (retired)

Come to New Orleans- Or Bring New Orleans to Your Office

Nominate Now for ACUTA Ruth A Mickalecki Leadership Award

Be a Moderator or Monitor at the Annual Conference

Board Report.......... Jeri A. Semer, CAE, Executive Director

Info Links............. Randy Hayes, …

Effects Of Preparative Parameters On The Structure And Performance Of Ca-La Metal Oxide Catalysts For Oil Transesterification, Shuli Yan, Manhoe Kim, Siddharth Mohan, Steven O. Salley, K.Y. Simon Ng

National Biofuels Energy Laboratory

The effects of preparative parameters on the surface basicity, composition, and transesterification activities of several Ca-La metal oxide catalysts were investigated. Four different preparation methods: ammonia-ethanol-carbon dioxide precipitation, physical mixing, impregnation, and co-precipitation, were studied. It was found that the ammonia-ethanol-carbon dioxide precipitation method resulted in the highest BET specific surface area, base strength and base site concentration. Moreover, catalyst surface composition and basicity are a function of calcination temperature, precipitants, pH, and molar ratio of Ca to La in precursor solution, and storage conditions. XRD, XPS, basicity and BET tests revealed that catalyst structure and dispersion of Ca species …

Some Skepticism About Search Neutrality, James Grimmelmann

Faculty Scholarship

In the last few years, some search-engine critics have suggested that dominant search engines (i.e. Google) should be subject to “search neutrality” regulations. By analogy to network neutrality, search neutrality would require even-handed treatment in search results: It would prevent search engines from playing favorites among websites. Academics, Google competitors, and public-interest groups have all embraced search neutrality.

Despite this sudden interest, the case for search neutrality is too muddled to be convincing. While “neutrality” is an appealing-sounding principle, it lacks a clear definition. This essay explores no fewer than eight different meanings that search-neutrality advocates have given the term. …

Finite Element Modeling Of Stress Urinary Incontinence Mechanics, Thomas A. Spirka

ETD Archive

Stress urinary incontinence is characterized by the involuntary transurethral loss of urine caused by an increase in abdominal pressure in the absence of a bladder contraction that raises the vesical pressure to a level that exceeds urethral pressure. Adult women are most commonly affected by SUI which is believed to be caused in part by injuries to the pelvic floor sustained during childbirth. In spite of the large number of women affected by SUI, little is known about the mechanics associated with the maintenance of continence in women. In theory the mechanics underlying the mechanics of female continence can be …

Fadaptive Backstepping Control Of Active Magnetic Bearings, Silu You

ETD Archive

A new control methodology, adaptive backstepping control (ABC), is applied to a linearized model of an active magnetic bearing (AMB). Our control objective is to regulate the deviation of the magnetic bearing from its equilibrium position in the presence of an external disturbance. The control approach is based on adaptive backstepping control, which is a combination of a recursive Lyapunov controller and adaptive laws. In this thesis, two types of adaptive backstepping methods are used. The first method is based on full-state feedback, for which all three states in the linearized AMB model (velocity, position, and current) are used to …

Biological Treatment Of Milk And Soybean Wastewater With Bioproducts, Tianzhu Bi

ETD Archive

Dairy industries discharge larger amounts of wastewater as compared to other food industries. Wastewater contains high amount of total organic carbon materials and nutrients, such as fat, protein, and lactose. Biological treatment is widely used to treat this kind of wastewater due to the fluctuation of amount and content of dairy wastewater. This study investigated removal of total organic carbon (TOC) from two types of dairy wastewater-milk and soy milk wastewater. The bioproducts used in experiments were baker's yeast, beer's yeast, live liquid microorganism (LLMO), Enforcer Overnite Toilet Care Liquid, and Enforcer Overnite Toilet Care Granular. The parameters included in …