Engineering Commons^™

Evaluation Of Alternate Mouthpiece Material Types To Minimize Vibrations And Heat Loss - The Research And Execution Of Prototypes, Kristen Bobuk

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This paper is based on the idea of current horn mouthpieces being made solely out of brass with a limited market of stainless steel and titanium with plating being silver or gold. This is an opportunity to explore alternate materials; specifically steel, cast iron and aluminum for the base material and chrome, copper and nickel for plating materials. Readers will learn about metal properties such as hardness, thermal conductivity and specific heat and learn why certain materials are more beneficial than others.

One-Dimensional Compressibility Of Intermediate Non-Plastic Soil Mixtures, Sean E. Salazar

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The results of high stress, one-dimensional compression testing on intermediate soils are presented. Nevada Sand and silica silt mixtures were subjected to very high vertical stresses (140 MPa) in one-dimensional, monotonic compression. Each soil mixture was tested in a nominally loose condition. A specially designed mold with an integrated sensor array was fabricated to contain the soil during pre-consolidation and loading. The 1-D compression curve was plotted for each mixture in the double-logarithmic void ratio (e), and vertical effective stress (σ’v) space and characteristics of the Limiting Compression Curve (LCC) were identified. Initial and post test grain size distribution curves …

College Football Rankings: An Industrial Engineering Approach, Brent H. Wiles

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In using an industrial engineering approach, we utilize optimization and mathematical modeling techniques to rank college football teams when viewed as a quadratic assignment problem.

Investigation Of The Effects Of Rapid Thermal Annealing On Mbe Grown Gaasbi/Gaas Heterostructures For Optoelectronic Devices, Perry C. Grant

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High efficiency optoelectronic devices rely on high quality materials making up the device structure. The scope of this thesis investigates the effectiveness of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at improving the material quality of GaAsBi/GaAs heterostructures. During the fabrication of a device, the contacts of the device had the rapid thermal annealing process accomplished to produce ohmic contacts and this research explored if this annealing treatment degraded the quantum wells that made up the active region of a device. To investigate these effects, a system to measure the photoluminescence of the material system was constructed utilizing Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. The …

Analytical Solutions For A Large-Scale Long-Lived Rotating Layer Of Fluid Heated Underneath, Pouya Jalilian

Masters Theses

In this work, the system of equations for a large- scale long lived rotating layer of fluid with the deformable upper free surface and non-deformable lower free surface heated underneath has been reviewed and derived. The quasi-geostrophic approximation, the beta effect and the method of multi-scale expansions have been employed to and as a result, an equation governing the evolution of large-scale perturbations, has been derived. The effect of each term present in the upper surface deformation equation has been analyzed and the analytical solutions have been obtained by virtue of employing auxiliary Riccati equation method. The soliton solutions obtained …

Instrumentation Electronics For An Integrated Electrophysiology Data Acquisition And Stimulation System, Donovan Squires

Masters Theses

The Neurobiology Engineering Laboratory at Western Michigan University has need of an electrophysiology instrumentation system combining generation of multiple arbitrary stimulation waveforms and recording of action potentials on multiple channels. Electronics for an instrumentation system with the capability of generating four unique stimulation waveforms and recording action potentials on eight channels were developed and implemented on a printed circuit board. Collaboration with fellow graduate student, Mr. Kyle Batzer, who developed firmware and software for the instrumentation system as described in his thesis, was essential for successful realization of the instrumentation system. Knowledge gained and reported by previous students working in …

Implementation And Analysis Of A 1.4l Turbo Liquid Cooled Cac And Ac Condenser System, Mitchell Zajac

Masters Theses

This project report serves as a continuation and finalization of an overall experience with the design process including working on the development of system components, working with automotive industry leaders, suppliers and dealing with the aspects of business and production feasibility. The development of a dual level cooling concept to apply Centro Richerche Fiat established components on a Chrysler Group vehicle application was the foundation of the design project completed in December 2012 by Matt Cutler and Mitch Zajac. The development of this system aimed to decrease overall vehicle power consumption, minimize overall system packaging space, and to increase vehicle …

Standardized Longitudinal Connection Detail For Decked Precast Prestressed Concrete Girders, Ramzi Muftah Ali Abduallah

Masters Theses

The use of decked precast prestressed concrete girders (DPPCG) is becoming popular in accelerated bridge construction. DPPCGs are assembled and connected on site using grout or concrete longitudinal connections. The durability performance of these connections is a concern. The objective of this research is to document the longitudinal connection behavior with respect to its design parameters, and establish a process for developing a standardized connection detail considering the demands due to live load and temperature gradient (TG) load. In order to demonstrate this process, decked bulb-tee and decked box-beam girders were considered. Finite element models, under various types and levels …

Investigating Crash Frequency And Injury Severity At Freeway Fixed Weigh Stations In Michigan, Fathi Salam Mo. Alkhatni

Masters Theses

At fixed weigh station, the movement of commercial vehicles (CMVs) from and back to the mainline traffic stream could create conflicts in traffic stream in its vicinity. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of presence of weigh stations on injury severity and frequency of crashes on Michigan freeways. A comparison study, which observed crash patterns in the vicinity of 12 fixed weigh stations as compared to crash patterns in the vicinity of 65 rest areas and 77 selected comparison segments, was conducted. The study used eight years (2004 to 2011) crash data recorded in Michigan freeways. …

Firmware And Software For An Integrated Electrophysiology Data Acquisition And Stimulation System, Kyle D. Batzer

Masters Theses

This thesis describes the firmware and software design for a prototype electrophysiology experimentation system. The overall system, built on the work of previous students and developed with fellow graduate student Mr. Donovan Squires, provides eight channels of acquisition and four channel of arbitrary waveform generation for stimulation of biological systems. In order to show the performance of the system, a common electrophysiology experiment was performed on the giant axon of an earthworm and the results were compared to previously validated systems. The developed system is intended to support future work at the Neurobiology Engineering Laboratory at Western Michigan University.

The …

Laminar Flow Hood System Design, Sophie Schneider

Electrical Engineering

In 2011 health care costs for transplants were over 12 billion dollars in the United States for evaluation, procurement, facilities use, physicians, and post-transplant check-ups. In 2012 burns hospitalized 40,000 people and over 17,000 people received organ transplants. Sadly, the number of organ donors greatly lags the number of people on the transplant waiting list and the gap has widened over the decades. While preventative health care is extremely important, researching tissue engineering (TE) to treat patients in fatal condition provides alternatives for replacing or repairing a variety of damaged tissue. These alternative treatments can considerably reduce the supply-demand gap …

Portable Nano-Hydro Power Generator For The Dc House Project, Andrew Aw, James Biggs

Electrical Engineering

This senior project report explains the construction and design of a small, portable water generator that converts kinetic energy flowing in small creeks to electrical energy as a renewable source of energy for the DC House. The DC House, in short, is a project to build a self-sustainable house for Third World countries that utilizes only DC electricity. The system consists of two converters and a charge controller for a 12V lead-acid battery. The first converter converts the hydro generator voltage output to 15 Volts for safe and proper charging of the lead-acid battery by the charge controller. The second …

An Enhanced Mixed-Form Fast Multipole Algorithm Using Rotation Methods, Ling Ling Meng, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the broadband accuracy of the mixed-form fast multipole algorithm (MF-FMA) is improved by applying rotation techniques. Two kinds of rotation methods are employed respectively. One is the coordinate system rotation technique. The other one is the pseudospectral projection based on fast Fourier transform (FFT). Either of them has certain advantages depending on the number of multipoles. Through rotation, translation matrices become very sparse, which enables us to save the storage as well as the CPU time. Hence, we can increase the number of multipoles in the low frequency regime to shift up the transition region of MF-FMA. …

Three Dimensional Polarization Controllable Electromagnetic Cell, Bo Zhu, Weng Cho Chew, Lijun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We demonstrate an electromagnetic (EM) cell that can generate uniform electric field with three dimensional (3D) polarization dynamic control for the EM compatibility/interference (EMC/EMI) testing. 3D orthogonal slotline structures are designed and utilized to build the walls of the EM cell. By feeding the slotlines in phase and terminating them with matching loads, the uniform electric field similar to a standing wave is produced by two slotline modes propagating in opposite directions inside the cell. Microwave switches are integrated into the slotlines so that we can choose the operating slotline dynamically and change its orientation in a 3D manner by …

Co-Simulation Of Distributive And Lumped Systems Using The Discontinuous Galerkin Time Domain Finite Element Method, Ping Li, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The signal integrity and power integrity analysis of 3D integrated circuits or other EMC/EMI systems usually separate the lumped circuit modeling and the distributive system modeling. However, due to the high density of integration, it is not proper to separate them in the modeling process anymore. In this paper, a hybrid electromagnetics (EM)-circuit simulator is proposed for incorporating multiport lumped circuit networks through their admittance matrices into the discontinuous Galerkin time-domain finite element method (DGTDFEM). The admittance matrix in the Laplace-domain can be derived analytically or obtained from network parameters such as S-parameters in the frequency domain. To convert frequency …

Enhanced A-Efie With Calderón Multiplicative Preconditioner, Sheng Sun, Lijun Jiang, Weng Cho Chew

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this work, a Calderón multiplicative preconditioner (CMP) is proposed for the augmented electric field integral equation (A-EFIE) to improve the convergence. To avoid the imbalance between the vector potential and the scalar potential in the traditional EFIE, A-EFIE considers both the charge and the current as unknowns. After implementing the appropriate frequency scaling and the enforcement of charge neutrality, its formulation is also stable in the low-frequency regime and applicable for large-scale and complex problems. Instead of using other preconditioners, Calderón preconditioning converts the first kind integral equations into the second kind, thus improving the spectrum of the original …

Analysis Of The Permeability Spectra Of Spinel Ferrite Composites Using Mixing Rules, Takanori Tsutaoka, Teruhiro Kasagi, Kenichi Hatakeyama, Marina Koledintseva

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Magnetic permeability spectra of composite materials containing spinel ferrites (Ni-Zn or Mn-Zn types) have been studied using a permeability dispersion formula by the numerical analysis. The variation of d.c. permeability and the frequency dispersion parameters due to domain wall and gyromagnetic spin resonances with particle content were evaluated using two mixing rules, Coherent Model Approximation (CMA) and Maxwell-Garnet Approximation (MGA) assuming the isotropic particle shape. The variation of d.c. permeability with particle content for spinel ferrite composite can be predicted by the CMA and MGA using the permeability value of embedded ferrite. The dc susceptibility and resonance frequency of domain …

Analysis Of Waveguides Filled With Uniaxial Media And Metamaterials For Filter Applications Using The Mode Matching Method, Luke Murphy

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation will explore the analysis of waveguide discontinuities for the purpose of dielectric filled waveguide filter analysis and design. The filling media studied are uniaxial media and uniaxial media embedded with metamaterial. A literary search provides numerous methods and numerical techniques for analyzing waveguide class problems, but ultimately the Mode Matching Method (MMM) is chosen as the numerical analysis technique for this dissertation.

An overview of waveguide theory and its application to the Mode Matching Method are presented. The Mode Matching Method is then used to analyze simple cases to confirm the numerical accuracy. Once accuracy is confirmed, Mode …

Retrieval Of Free Space Radiation Patterns Through Measured Data In A Non-Anechoic Environment, Weixin Zhao

Dissertations - ALL

Antenna pattern measurements are usually carried out in an anechoic chamber. However, a good anechoic chamber is very expensive to construct. Previous research has attempted to compensate for the effects of extraneous fields measured in a non-anechoic environment to obtain a free space pattern that would be measured in an anechoic chamber. Existing compensation techniques are like the Test Zone Field compensation method, the Fast-Fourier-Transform-based method, the Matrix Pencil method, and the Antenna Pattern Comparison technique.

This work illustrates and extends a deconvolution methodology which allows the antenna measurement under a non-anechoic test environment and retrieves the free space radiation …

Experimental Investigation Of The Active Flow Control On A Two-Dimensional Wind Turbine Airfoil, Guannan Wang

Dissertations - ALL

Wind turbine blades experience unsteady aerodynamic loading under various off-design conditions. The fatigue loading reduces the operational time of the wind turbine hence leads to an increase in the Cost of Energy (CoE) of the wind power. In this study, active flow control with unsteady blowing actuators was applied to a two-dimensional wind turbine airfoil to alleviate the unsteady aerodynamic loading and improve the aerodynamic performance, particularly under large scale freestream disturbances. A low speed, open jet aeroacoustic wind tunnel was designed and constructed based on an existing anechoic chamber for this investigation. A theoretical analysis based on a Blade …

Wind Tunnel Testing And Numerical Simulation On Aerodynamic Performance Of A Three Bladed Savonius Wind Turbine, Khandakar Niaz Morshed, Mosfequr Rahman, Gustavo Molina, Mahbub Ahmed

Mechanical Engineering: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this research work is to investigate experimentally and computationally the feasibility of improving the performance of the vertical-axis Savonius wind turbine. The authors first performed a series of wind tunnel investigations on semi-cylindrical three-bladed Savonius rotor scale models with different overlap ratios and without overlap. These experiments were conducted in front of a low-speed subsonic wind tunnel at different Reynolds numbers. Pressures around the concave and convex surfaces of each blade, as well as the static torque for the rotor models, were measured. Using these experimental data, the authors calculated aerodynamic characteristics such as drag coefficients, static …

Research: South Dakota State University, Winter 2013, Christie Delfanian, Matt Landwehr

State of Discovery South Dakota State University's Research Magazine

CONTENTS:

South Dakota expertise integral part of Landsat [Page] 1
West Nile: Researchers help public health officials combat West Nile virus [page] 2
Health care: arteries, corticosteroids, concussions, and preemies [Page] 4
Oilseeds [Page] 6
Undergraduate Research [Page] 8
Organ donation key to helping Native Americans on dialysis [Page] 10
Researchers meet challenge of increased competition: 2012 measurements [Page] 11

In-Bottle Wine Aerator, Kevin Kesler, Patrick Lowry, Paul Woolworth

Mechanical Engineering

The proposal for Capitol Cultivators discusses and evaluates the development of an in-bottle wine aerator. It defines the problem and need for an aerator located inside the wine bottle. Additionally, it outlines requirements essential for an effective design and describes the engineering process that will be followed.

Design Of An Automatic Wood Trimming Machine, Van Ho, Nicholas Maskal, Andrew Rutland

Mechanical Engineering

This final design report, prepared for Sunrise Arts by the Cal Poly design team Mahogany Automation, details the year-long process in which the team of three engineering students designed and built an automated wooden -plank edge trimming machine that incorporates anti-jamming and continuous loading features. The team has examined current woodworking machines and features available on the industrial and commercial market, and used these as guides along with device requirements set by the project sponsor, Bruce Palmer. The focus has been on designing the simplest and most cost effective device that allows operators to make production runs of wooden slats …

Peripheral Artery Catheter Tracking System, Chris Blecher, Michael Lashore, Nhan Le

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Rifle And Shotgun Recoil Test System, Benjamin Canfield-Hershkowitz, Trevor Foster, William Meijer

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Trampoline And Bungee Fatigue-Test Machine, Andy Brock, Christopher D'Elia, Ryan Murphy

Mechanical Engineering

JumpSport, a Saratoga based recreational and fitness trampoline company, sponsored this senior project team towards the development of a fatigue-testing machine. The goal of this project was to iterate the previous machine JumpSport used for bungee cord, spring, and trampoline fatigue testing. Since minimal study had been conducted on these specific bungee cords, the fixture was designed to confirm the theoretical correlations for rubber and perform the final tests according to a strict protocol. Operating with a specific test protocol in mind will allow the data from multiple tests to be combined and analyzed statistically. With a design concept in …

Sodhana Environmental - Final Design Report, Eric Taylor, Corissa Bellis, Cody Perez, Cameron Zeller

Mechanical Engineering

A fully designed cost-effective, sustainable, toilet for the developing world.

Otto - The Wall Driving Platform, Cameron Venancio, Eric Mar, Kelvin Lei

Mechanical Engineering

A robotic wall-climbing robot.

Automated Foosball Table Year 1: Final Project Report, Juan David Gutierrez-Franco, John Inlow, Jesse Graham, Larry Huang

Mechanical Engineering

This project is a first iteration of an automated foosball table designed and created using servomotors provided by Yaskawa to create an interactive tradeshow display where guests can play against the algorithms developed in the PLC (programmable logic controller) controlling the servomotors. There will be a second iteration of the project done by a different team directly following this one. The motion components were selected with the intent to be able to surpass the reaction times and speeds of expert human players. There are a total of eight servomotors, four controlling linear actuators for translation of rods, and four controlling …