Engineering Commons^™

Cellulose Nanocrystals Properties And Applications In Renewable Nanocomposites, Esteban Urena Benavides

All Dissertations

Development of novel bio-based nanocomposites is fundamental to reduce the dependence on fossil resources and provide a sustainable future. In light of this global problem, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have raised interest due to their remarkable mechanical properties. Adequate design of nanocomposites requires a fundamental understanding of how the structure affects the mechanical properties of the material. However, contradictory results in the literature have revealed a lack of comprehension of this relationship for CNC based composites. Consequently, this work provides an explanation to unusual results for CNC nanocomposites presented in the literature and demonstrates the ability to achieve property enhancements in …

A Methodology For The Analysis Of In-Vehicle Operating Data And Design Of Intelligent Vehicle Systems For Improved Automotive Safety, Matthew Jensen

All Dissertations

Every year global motorization increases as more motor vehicles are manufactured, and the total number of vehicle miles traveled rises. These increased travel opportunities result in higher numbers of injuries, fatalities, and monetary losses associated with traffic-related crashes. In the last decade, hundreds of thousands of people were killed by vehicle collisions in the United States. The World Health Organization has labeled traffic crashes as the ninth leading cause of global disease; by the year 2020, traffic crashes are expected to rise to number three. An opportunity exists to improve global human safety through research and innovation in driver training …

A Decision Support System For Assessing Conveyance Options And Modeling Passenger Flow In Airport Terminals, Ping-Nan Chiang

All Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the use of passenger conveyance systems and modeling passenger flow in airport terminals. The successfully designed airport concourse must perform at a level that meets the needs of its users - the passengers. In this research, we propose a database design methodology that allows key conveyance statistics to be analyzed within specific locations across the airport terminal. Using passenger conveyance observations collected at five North American airports, the database enables airport planners, operators and consultants to assess passenger behavior and conveyance device performance. Results from this section of the research were in direct support of the …

Micro Feature Enhanced Sinter Bonding Of Metal Injection Molded (Mim) Parts To A Solid Substrate, Thomas Martens

All Dissertations

In metal injection molding (MIM), fine metal powders are mixed with a binder and injected into molds, similar to plastic injection molding. After molding, the binder is removed from the part, and the compact is sintered to almost full density.
The obstacle to sinter bonding a MIM part to a conventional (solid) substrate lies in the sinter shrinkage of the MIM part, which can be up to 20%, meaning that the MIM part shrinks during sintering, while the conventional substrate maintains its dimensions. This behavior would typically inhibit bonding and/or cause cracking and deformation of the MIM part. It is …

System Integration For A Novel Positioning System Using A Model Based Control Approach, Chan Yet Wong

All Dissertations

This dissertation presents a model-based approach to perform system integration of a novel positioning sensing method, termed 'Direct Position Sensing.' Direct Position Sensing can actively monitor the planar position changes of motion control devices without the dependency of the conventional position sensor combined with kinematic model to estimate the planar position. Instead, Direct Position Sensing uses the technology of computer vision and digital display to directly monitor the planar position displacement of a motion control device by actively tracking the desired position of the device based on the displayed target showed on the digital screen. The integration of the computer …

Investigation Of Techniques For Reducing Unintentional Electromagnetic Emissions From Electronic Circuits And Systems, Ho-Cheol Kwak

All Dissertations

This dissertation describes three independent studies related to techniques for reducing unintentional electromagnetic emissions from electronic circuits and systems. The topics covered are: low-inductance multi-layer ceramic capacitor for high frequency circuit board decoupling, the application of imbalance difference model to various circuit board and cable geometries, and balanced cable interface for reducing common-mode currents from power inverter.
The first chapter discusses the importance and the meaning of the connection inductance associated with MLCCs and analyzes the effect of plate orientation in MLCCs. It demonstrates that vertically oriented plates have no more or less inductance than horizontally oriented plates when the …

Fluid Dynamics Of Cell Printing, Ping He

All Dissertations

Cell printing is an emerging technology that uses droplets to deliver cells to desired positions with resolution potentially comparable to the size of single cells. In particular, ink–jet based cell printing technique has been successfully used to build simple bio–constructs and has shown a promise in building complex bio–structures or even organs. Two important issues in ink–jet based cell printing are the moderate survival rate of delicate cells and the limited cell placement resolution. Resolving these issues is critical for the ink–jet based cell printing techniques to realize their full potential.
In this work, we use numerical simulations to reconstruct …

Tight Polyhedral Representations Of Discrete Sets Using Projections, Simplices, And Base-2 Expansions, Stephen Henry

All Dissertations

This research effort focuses on the acquisition of polyhedral outer-approximations to the convex hull of feasible solutions for mixed-integer linear and mixed-integer nonlinear programs. The goal is to produce desirable formulations that have superior size and/or relaxation strength. These two qualities often have great influence on the success of underlying solution strategies, and so it is with these qualities in mind that the work of this dissertation presents three distinct contributions.
The first studies a family of relatively unknown polytopes that enable the linearization of polynomial expressions involving two discrete variables. Projections of higher-dimensional convex hulls are employed to reduce …

Probablistic Assessment Of Roof Uplift Capacities In Low-Rise Residential Construction, Bagyalakshmi Shanmugam

All Dissertations

Post hurricane damage investigations of light frame wood residential structures reveal that roof envelope failure induces considerable damage to the structure and its contents. Roof - to - wall (RTW) connection failures though not as common as roof sheathing failure also cause significant structural and material damage. Considerable changes have been made in the ASCE structural loads standard and International Building code (IBC) after hurricane Andrew in order to prevent RTW connection and sheathing failures. That includes not only a substantial increase in the design wind load in the past two decades but also a strict enforcement of tighter nailing …

Implementation Of Delayed-Feedback Controllers On Continuous Systems And Analysis Of Their Response Under Primary Resonance Excitations, Yousef Qaroush

All Dissertations

During the last three decades, a considerable amount of research has been directed toward understanding the influence of time delays on the stability and stabilization
of dynamical systems. From a control perspective, these delays can either have a compounding and destabilizing effect, or can actually improve controllers'
performance. In the latter case, additional time delay is carefully and deliberately introduced into the feedback loop so as to augment inherent system delays and
produce larger damping for smaller control efforts. While delayed-feedback algorithms have been successfully implemented on discrete dynamical systems with
limited degrees of freedom, a critical issue appears in …

Novel Nanofiber Structures And Advanced Tissue Engineering Applications, Vince Beachley

All Dissertations

Extracellular matrix (ECM) nanofibers such as collagen and elastin make up an important component of natural tissues. These structural components serve to impart mechanical strength and provide locations for cell attachment and biomolecule storage. Cells respond to their structural environment in a wide variety of ways beyond physical support, and it has been demonstrated that this environment directly modulates cell behaviors such as, morphology, differentiation, ECM production, attachment, and migration. ECM nanofibers also play an important role as a template for tissue formation during development, remodeling, and regeneration. Nanofiber based tissue engineering strategies aim to mimic the geometry of the …

Decentralized Decision Support For An Agent Population In Dynamic And Uncertain Domains, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, Shih-Fen Cheng, Thi Duong Nguyen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research is motivated by problems in urban transportation and labor mobility, where the agent flow is dynamic, non-deterministic and on a large scale. In such domains, even though the individual agents do not have an identity of their own and do not explicitly impact other agents, they have implicit interactions with other agents. While there has been much research in handling such implicit effects, it has primarily assumed controlled movements of agents in static environments. We address the issue of decision support for individual agents having involuntary movements in dynamic environments . For instance, in a taxi fleet serving …

Discharge Coefficient Performance Of Venturi, Standard Concentric Orifice Plate, V-Cone, And Wedge Flow Meters At Small Reynolds Numbers, Colter L. Hollingshead

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The relationship between the Reynolds number (Re) and discharge coefficients (C) was investigated through differential pressure flow meters. The focus of the study was directed toward very small Reynolds numbers commonly associated with pipeline transportation of viscous fluids. There is currently a relatively small amount of research that has been performed in this area for the Venturi, standard orifice plate, V-cone, and wedge flow meters. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program FLUENT^© was used to perform the research, while GAMBIT^© was used as the preprocessing tool for the flow meter models created. Heavy oil and water were used …

A Rapid And Computationally Inexpensive Method To Virtually Implant Current And Next-Generation Stents Into Subject-Specific Computational Fluid Dynamics Models, Timothy J. Gundert, Shawn C. Shadden, Andrew R. Williams, Bon-Kwon Koo, Jeffrey A. Feinstein, John F. Ladisa

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Computational modeling is often used to quantify hemodynamic alterations induced by stenting, but frequently uses simplified device or vascular representations. Based on a series of Boolean operations, we developed an efficient and robust method for assessing the influence of current and next-generation stents on local hemodynamics and vascular biomechanics quantified by computational fluid dynamics. Stent designs were parameterized to allow easy control over design features including the number, width and circumferential or longitudinal spacing of struts, as well as the implantation diameter and overall length. The approach allowed stents to be automatically regenerated for rapid analysis of the contribution of …

Low-Power, High-Bandwidth And Ultra-Small Memory Module Design, Qawi Ibnzayd Harvard

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The main memory subsystem has become inefficient. The performance gained has come at the expenses of power consumption, capacity, and cost. This dissertation proposes novel module, DRAM, and interconnect architectures in an attempt to alleviate these trends. The proposed architectures utilize low-cost interconnects and packaging innovations to substantially reduce the power, and increase the capacity and bandwidth of the main memory system.

This dissertation develops the theory behind a low-cost packaging technology to create an 8-die and 32-die memory module. The 32-die memory module measures less than 2 cm³.

This dissertation also proposes a 4 Gb DRAM architecture …

Magnetic Field Induced Strain In Polycrystalline Magnetic Shape Memory Foam, Cassie Lynne Witherspoon

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Magnetic shape memory alloys (MSMA) are fascinating materials that show a recoverable shape change in a rotating magnetic field. Single crystalline MSMA’s display magnetic-field-induced strains (MFIS) up to 10%. However, single crystals have inherent drawbacks such as cost and chemical segregation during production. Polycrystalline materials are easier to produce and display chemical homogeneity but display a much smaller MFIS than single crystals. It has been shown recently that adding porosity to polycrystalline Ni-Mn-Ga (i.e. metal foam) can increase MFIS.

Variables that affect the performance of polycrystalline Ni-Mn-Ga foam include phase transformation temperature, pore architecture, spatial distribution of pores, porosity, training, …

A Wireless Sensor Network For Monitoring Physical Activity, Physiological Response, And Environmental Conditions, Michael Leon Pook

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Understanding movement is an important area of research for improving comfort and safety. Data collected from accelerometers and gyros attached to multiple parts of a body can be used to determine the type of physical activity in which an individual is engaging. Correlating this data with the individual's heart rate allows for the verification of the type of activity as well as observation of the amount of physical strain experienced during the activity. Additionally, data on environmental stimuli can be gathered in order to determine their effect on physical strain. Current research in the field has been limited by both …

Non-Blocking Hardware Coding For Embedded Systems, Derek Caleb Klein

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Embedded Systems can be found in devices that people use every day. In the pursuit of faster and smarter devices, more powerful processing units are needed in these embedded systems. A key component of powerful processing units is the supporting software. While the raw processing power of microcontroller has been continually advancing, the improvements in the supporting software for medium scale embedded systems have been lacking. This thesis focuses on improving the software on medium scale systems by discussing the practical application of non-blocking coding techniques. The basic concept of how non-blocking code improves the performance of a system is …

Electrical Switching Studies Of Chalcogenide-Based Ion-Conducting Variable Resistance Devices, Beth Rose Cook

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In this work, ion-conducting devices using layers of chalcogenide materials are explored as potential non-volatile memory devices. This technology is also known in the literature as conductively bridged RAM (CBRAM), programmable metallization cell (PMC), and programmable conductor RAM (PCRAM; not to be confused with the acronym PCRAM as used to denote phase-change memory).

Electrical measurements with five different programming currents at four temperatures have been performed on two-terminal devices comprised of silver with a metal-selenide and germanium-chalcogenide layer. The metal-selenide layer is Sb₂Se₃, SnSe, PbSe, In₂Se₃, or Ag₂Se. The germanium-chalcogenide …

Growth Of Oriented Nickel-Manganese-Gallium Single Crystals Via The Bridgman Method, Douglas Leroy Kellis

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

A Bridgman furnace was designed and built to grow oriented single crystals of nickel-manganese-gallium. The starting alloys were produced from high purity elements. The compositions of the alloys and single crystals were determined with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. Oxygen concentration of the starting elements, the alloys, and single crystal were determined with the LECO combustion method. Starting seeds were produced from single crystal ingots produced at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and from a single crystal grown from these seeds. Crystallographic orientation of the starting seeds and the single crystals were determined with x-ray diffraction. Mechanical testing was performed on a single …

Em Stimulation Of Water For Geotechnical Applications, Harlan Dwight Olson Sangrey

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The task of cleaning soil and/or groundwater contaminated by leakage from aging underground gasoline or petrochemical tanks along with surface spills of gasoline and other hazardous chemicals is of utmost importance for federal and state environmental agencies. Traditional clean up and contaminant removal involves dig-and-treat methods that are costly and impractical for large, contaminated sites. Less disruptive remediation techniques, such as air sparging, have become more attractive in the past decade. Air sparging, bioventing, and other remediation technologies that use air injection into soil can become very effective for non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) removal using volatilization and bioremediation. However, the …

A System Dynamics Approach For Climate Change Impact Analysis In The Snake River Basin, David Jerome Hoekema

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Warming temperatures throughout the Western United States due in part to human-induced climate change caused by the emission of greenhouse gases has been found to be responsible for 60% of the hydrologic change in the Western United States over the last half century. The hypothesis of the research is that climatic change will make planning and management based on historic climate conditions less reliable in the future. Therefore, there is a need for water management planning tools that capture feedback loops within the water-resource system so that management plans are developed that perform optimally under a wide array of inputs. …

Effects Of Inlet Conditions On Diffuser Outlet Performance, Zaccary A. Poots

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Building air distribution terminal system designers and system installers require accurate quantitative information on the performance of the installed system to achieve optimum efficiency and levels of human comfort. This requires field installation adjustment values from published ideal pressure loss, air distribution and sound generation installation performance. This study documents the air output performance of different installation configurations of six types of ceiling diffusers and compares the results to performance when installed according to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 70-2006. A diffuser inlet supply plenum was designed for optimum flow and used to acquire a baseline set of data covering the six types …

Re-Estimating And Remodeling General Aviation Operations, Ryan Black

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this project is to understand the usual or “acceptable” characteristics of general aviation flights and airports so that unusual activity can be detected, analyzed, and resolved. To do this, a quality control model may be built to determine whether an airport is at high risk for a terrorist attack. For an appropriate model to be built there must be an adequate amount of data that describes the general aviation airport and its operations. In order to facilitate this data the general aviation industry must “continue to improve intelligence and information sharing (Homeland Security Advisory Council 2008).” This …

Development Of A Ram Shared Service Tool For The Service Availability Of On-Board And Trackside Systems, Bailey Frazier

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

A decision-support tool designed specifically to be used by technical specialists is an aid that would be helpful to many different companies, departments and projects – regardless of industry. With the intent of making manual processes quicker, less error-prone, and more userfriendly, decision-support tools are becoming more desired as they grow increasingly more common in the business world today.
The decision-support tool created for the purpose of this project is not an exception to any of these reasons. The ALSTOM Transport Information Solutions Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) Shared Service Team bears the burden and tedious process of working with …

Gender And Self-Selection Among Engineering Students, Maci Dickson

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Gender and graduation rates of first time engineering college students have been analyzed as a function of academic and demographic variables in order to investigate the hypothesis that an advantage to women with respect to student success might be attributed to their socioeconomic advantages as a student population. The authors present descriptive, graphical, and model-based evidence to support their ideas about gender and self-selection driven by socioeconomic phenomena that leave a disproportionate number of women out of higher education, but create a group of female students more likely than their male counterparts to succeed.

Incorporating Vertical Travel Into Non-Traditional Cross Aisles For Unit-Load Warehouse Designs, Kirby A. Clark

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

We propose modifications to the travel-time models for non-traditional warehouse layouts, Flying-V Fishbone, by incorporating a vertical travel dimension. The Flying-V model determines a cross aisle intersection for every picking aisle, while the Fishbone model determines a single point where the inserted cross aisle intersects the side of the warehouse. The shape and angle of the cross aisle is unrestricted for the Flying-V layout, while the angle is unrestricted for the Fishbone layout. The resulting non-linear optimization models incorporate Chebychev travel within the picking aisles. We compare both the shape of the aisle and the percent improvement over a traditional …

New Interfacial Nanochemistry On Sensory Bioscaffold-Membranes Of Nanobelts, Feng Chen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanostructured bioscaffolds and biosensors are evolving as popular and powerful tools in life science and biotechnology, due to the possible control of their surface and structural properties at the nm-scale. Being seldom discussed in literature and long-underexploited in materials and biomedical sciences, development of nanofiber-based sensory bioscaffolds has great promises and grand challenges in finding an ideal platform for low-cost quantifications of biological and chemical species in real-time, label-free, and ultrasensitive fashion. In this study, titanate nanobelts were first of all synthesized, from hydrothermal reactions of a NaOH (or KOH solution) with TiO2 powder, to possess underexploited structure and surface …

Gimbaled Permanent Magnet-Based Attitude Control For Pico/Nano-Satellites, Rex Bair

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

As man-made satellites grow continually smaller and smaller, new, lower mass, volume, and power solutions must be devised to give these satellites the same performance capabilities as larger satellites. One subsystem that is especially difficult to shrink is the Attitude Determination and Control System (ADACS), which is used to position the satellite in a given orientation with respect to a specific reference frame. This paper explores a novel mechanism which combines both of these functions into one device. A permanent magnet is used in conjunction with the geomagnetic reference frame to provide magnetic torque to change the spacecraft's attitude. By …

Application Of Existing Appropriate Technology To Small Communities In Honduras's Opalaca Mountains, Adrian Beirise

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In a 2009 trip to the Opalaca Mountain region of Honduras, a need was identified for appropriate technology solutions to three key issues: housing improvements related to Chaga's Disease, indoor smoke reduction, and pure water. Through research regarding the problems, the local area, and candidate solutions, a set of three solutions was found. This includes corrugated steel roofing, vented or simple adobe rocket stoves, and solar disinfection.