Engineering Commons^™

Design And Construction Of A Solar Water Purification System Using Ultraviolet Radiation, Bryan Wilson

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Irrigation Drip System Design For A Vineyard, Riley Way

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Energy Harvesting From Exercise Machines: Lt8705 Dc-Dc Conversion For Elliptical Trainers, Braden Burk, Raj Bhula, Nathan Mckay

Electrical Engineering

Cal Poly’s Energy Harvesting from Exercise Machines (EHFEM) program aims to power the grid using human energy harvested from exercise machines in its gym. Doing so could save the school money and increase the total supply of power available on the grid. This document belongs to one of many groups attempting to design a suitable DC-DC conversion system for an elliptical trainer using an LT8705 Four-Switch Buck-Boost converter. Past teams have built other converters and developed system compatibility characteristics such as filtering, safety, and stability for interfacing components. These teams fall into one of two departments in EHFEM: DC-DC Conversion …

Vascular Reactivity In Newly-Formed And Mature Arterialized Collateral Capillaries, Sara K. Hellstrom

Master's Theses

Peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD) is a globally-prevalent cardiovascular disease in which atherosclerotic plaques narrow arterial lumen diameters and restrict blood flow to downstream tissues. The impact of these occlusions can be mitigated by collateral vessels that connect parallel arterial branches and act as natural bypasses to maintain perfusion. In animal models that lack collateral arterioles, capillaries that connect terminal arteriolar segments can arterialize and form functional collaterals following an ischemic event; however, in the early stages of development, vasodilation is impaired. We explored the mechanism of impaired vasodilation in arterialized collateral capillaries (ACCs) and pre-existing collaterals (PECs) by evaluating …

Factors Affecting The Seismic Behavior Of Segmental Precast Bridge Columns, Haitham Dawood, Mohamed Elgawady, Joshua Hewes

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This manuscript discusses the design parameters that potentially affect the lateral seismic response of segmental precast post-tensioned bridge piers. The piers consist of precast circular cross section segments stacked one on top of the other with concentric tendons passing through ducts made in the segments during casting. The bottommost segments of the piers were encased in steel tubes to enhance ductility and minimize damage. An FE model was used to investigate different design parameters and how they influence the lateral force — displacement response of the piers. Design parameters investigated included the initial post-tensioning stress as a percentage of the …

Speaker Dependent Voice Recognition With Word-Tense Association And Part-Of-Speech Tagging, Theodore Philip King Ernst

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Extensive Research has been conducted on speech recognition and Speaker Recognition over the past few decades. Speaker recognition deals with identifying the speaker from multiple speakers and the ability to filter out the voice of an individual from the background for computational understanding. The more commonly researched method, speech recognition, deals only with computational linguistics. This thesis deals with speaker recognition and natural language processing. The most common speaker recognition systems are Text-Dependent and identify the speaker after a key word/phrase is uttered. This thesis presents Text-Independent Speaker recognition systems that incorporate the collaborative effort and research of noise-filtering, Speech …

Run-Time Hev Engine-Generator Power-Speed Optimization For Fuel Consumption And Emissions Reduction, Chester Paul Rowe Ii

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

As fuel economy and emissions standards become more stringent, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) using series architectures are being increasingly explored. Due to the decoupling of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) from the road, the primary control challenge in this architecture is the optimization of an ICE control law. A run-time Genset speed controller is presented for use during the charge-sustaining mode in a Series PHEV to find the optimal operating parameters for a conventional diesel engine coupled to an electric generator in terms of minimized fuel consumption and emissions generation. On board vehicle sensors provide real time data to …

Development, Analysis, And Comparison Of Electromechanical Properties And Electrode Morphology Of Ionic Polymer Metal Composites, Balaji Sivasubramanian

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

With smart materials and adaptive structures being nudged into mainstream technology progressively, the smart composites are donning a predominant role as indispensable structures. Among these, the Ionic Polymer Metal Composites (IPMC), with their large bending deformation and relaxation characteristics at very low voltages are attractive as transducers in many areas of application. The actuation and sensing properties of IPMC have been sought after for various engineering functions. The paper focuses on manufacturing various types of IPMC. Combining the ionic polymer with platinum electrodes, gold sputter coated electrodes and multi-walled carbon nanotube Bucky paper electrodes to create enhanced IPMCs, comparative analysis …

A Study For The Propagation Of Electromagnetic Waves Over Imperfect Ground Planes Based On Schelkunoff Integrals, Walid Mohamed Galal Dyab

Dissertations - ALL

A new formulation for the analysis of propagation of electromagnetic waves over imperfectly conducting planar surfaces is proposed. The classical approach for the analysis of this problem uses the Sommerfeld formulation. In Sommerfeld formulation, the wave function corresponding to a point source is expanded in terms of the propagation constants of the various waves in the radial direction from the source. This gives rise to the well-known Sommerfeld integrals which are highly oscillatory and slowly-decaying in nature, especially when the source is mounted just on top of a planar boundary between two media of arbitrary conductivity. In addition, the nature …

Hypothesis Testing Using Spatially Dependent Heavy-Tailed Multisensor Data, Arun Subramanian

Dissertations - ALL

The detection of spatially dependent heavy-tailed signals is considered in this dissertation. While the central limit theorem, and its implication of asymptotic normality of interacting random processes, is generally useful for the theoretical characterization of a wide variety of natural and man-made signals, sensor data from many different applications, in fact, are characterized by non-Gaussian distributions. A common characteristic observed in non-Gaussian data is the presence of heavy-tails or fat tails. For such data, the probability density function (p.d.f.) of extreme values decay at a slower-than-exponential rate, implying that extreme events occur with greater probability. When these events are observed …

Werc: Solar Brine Concentrator, Sarah K. Haley

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In arid regions of the United States potable water is a valuable resource and is sometimes produced using energy intensive processes by removing salts from brackish water. Task 4 provides a solar option for producing potable water from brackish water; in competing in Task 4, H2OGS has developed a simple, cost effective solar desalination process to provide these regions with necessary, potable water. H2OGS’ design takes into account WERC requirements, including cost, energy usage, worker safety, and easily obtained materials. U.S. government regulatory requirements are also taken into account as the proposed location for this process is Alamogordo, New Mexico. …

Increased Span Length For The Mgs Long-Span Guardrail System, Nicholas A. Weiland, Ronald K. Faller, Robert W. Bielenberg, John D. Reid

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Gesn Devices For Short-Wave Infrared Optoelectronics, Benjamin Ryan Conley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The electronics industry has a large silicon infrastructure for the manufacture of complementary-metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) based electronics. The increasing density of Si based circuits has set a pace that is now pushing the physical limits of connectivity between devices over conventional wire based links. This has driven the increasing interest in Si based optoelectronics and to use the groundwork already established by the electronics industry for lower cost optical communications. The greatest limitation to this effort has been the incorporation of a Si based laser, which requires integration of a direct bandgap material within this CMOS process.

The Ge1-xSnx …

Photoelectric Characterization Of Bacteriorhodopsin Reconstituted In Lipid Bilayer Membrane, Joel Kamwa

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this work was to conduct basic research in biologically inspired energy conversion solutions. A photosynthetic protein (Bacteriorhodopsin) was reconstituted in a bi-layer membrane. Then, when a laser beam was shined on the membrane, the photon energy was used by the protein to pump protons across the membrane. The translocation of protons across the membrane was measured as photocurrent. For this purpose, a system was built to characterize the lipid bilayer membranes and to measure the photocurrent. The lipid bilayer membrane was characterized by its capacitance and resistance. A picoampere photocurrent was observed when Bacteriorhodopsin protein was present …

Atom-Based Geometrical Fingerprinting Of Conformal Two-Dimensional Materials, Mehrshad Mehboudi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The shape of two-dimensional materials plays a significant role on their chemical and physical properties. Two-dimensional materials are basic meshes that are formed by mesh points (vertices) given by atomic positions, and connecting lines (edges) between points given by chemical bonds. Therefore the study of local shape and geometry of two-dimensional materials is a fundamental prerequisite to investigate physical and chemical properties. Hereby the use of discrete geometry to discuss the shape of two-dimensional materials is initiated.

The local geometry of a surface embodied in 3D space is determined using four invariant numbers from the metric and curvature tensors which …

Gesn Light-Emitting Devices, Yiyin Zhou

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Silicon based optoelectronic devices have been investigated for decades. However, due to the indirect band gap nature of Si and Ge, developing of efficient light-emitting source on Si is still a challenging topic. GeSn based optoelectronic devices have the great potential to overcome this deficiency for several reasons. By adding more fraction of Sn into Ge, GeSn band gap could be reduced. The narrowed band gap could be developed for near to mid infrared applications. The alloy can even become the direct band gap material with a large Sn composition (beyond 8%). This feature could enhance the light emission from …

Robust Geotechnical Design - Methodology And Applications, Lei Wang

All Dissertations

This dissertation is aimed at developing a novel robust geotechnical design methodology and demonstrating this methodology for the design of geotechnical systems. The goal of a robust design is to make the response of a system insensitive to, or robust against, the variation of uncertain geotechnical parameters (termed noise factors in the context of robust design) by carefully adjusting design parameters (those that can be controlled by the designer such as geometry of the design). Through an extensive investigation, a robust geotechnical design methodology that considers explicitly safety, robustness, and cost is developed. Various robustness measures are considered in this …

Corrosion Behaviour Of High Phosphorus Containing Cu-Cr Weather Resistant Steel, Gadadhar Sahoo, Anjana Deva, Balbir Singh, Atul Sexena

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

Three steels viz., G22(Fe-0.072C-0.028 Si-0.20Mn-0.19P-0.38Cr-0.24Cu-0.17Ni), G32(Fe-0.072C-0.061 Si-0.23 Mn-0.19P-0.64Cr-0.14Cu) and SCOR (Fe-0.09C-0.37Si-0.42Mn-0.15P-0.37Cr-0.35Cu-0.31Ni) were made through ingot metallurgy route and hot rolled to 3 mm thick sheets. For other steels, similar corrosion rates were observed from the Tafel extrapolation study of freshly ground samples in 3.5% NaCl solution. Other technique employed to evaluate the effect of phosphorus on the formation of protective rust layer was electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) test after exposing the samples in an atmospheric exposure rack for four months on the roof top of a fourth floored building. Results revealed that the polarization resistance or rust resistance of G22 …

Effects Of Poly(Butylene Succinate) And Calcium Carbonate On The Physical Properties Of Plasticized Poly(Vinyl Chloride), Saowaroj Chuayjuljit, Phasawat Chaiwutthinan, Sitthipong Samutthong, Onusa Saravari, Anyaporn Boonmahitthisud

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

In this studypoly(butylene succinate) (PBS) , a polymeric plasticizer, was partially replaced a conventional plasticizer, diisononyl phthalate (DINP) to avoid the plasticizer loss from poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) overtime for various service conditions and to obtain a long-term plasticizer retention in the flexible PVC products. The plasticized PVC samples were prepared by melt mixing on a two roll mill, followed by compression molding. The mechanical properties (tensile properties, tear strength and hardness), thermal stability and morphology of the 20/20 phr (parts by weight per hundred parts of resin) DINP/PBS-plasticized PVC were evaluated and compared with those of the 40 phr DINP-plasticized …

Synthesis Of Porous Silica By Co-Micelle Emulsion Ternplating Technique Using Peg/Acrylamide And 2-(Acryloyloxy)-N,N,N-Trimethylethanaminium Chloride/Acrylamide As Templates, Iman Abdullah, Widyastuti Samadi, Arvinda Widyana, David Chandra Pandapotan, Ridla Bakri

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

Co-micelle emulsion templating (co-MET) technique is a new method to synthesize uniform and ordered porous silica from tetraethylortosilicate precursor using double polymer as templates. In this study, co-MET technique was conducted by varying template type (namely PEG/acrylamide and 2(acryloyloxy)N,N,Ntrimethylethanaminium chloride/acrylamide) and percentage of polymer (2.5%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% for PEG and 0.5%, 1%, 2.5%, 5%, 10% for 2(acryloyloxy)N,N,Ntrimethylethanaminium chloride). The resulting porous silica were then characterized by SEM-EDS, BET and XRD to investigates the pore character and structure of silica. Based on SEM-EDS and BET analysis, it is shown that the amount and the type of polymer gave …

Effect Of Styrene-Methyl Methacrylate/Styrene-Butadiene Rubber On Properties Of Poly(Vinyl Chloride), Buranin Saengiet, Fuangfa Unob, Kawee Srikulkit

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

Generally, poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) without the addition of plasticizer or impact modifiers is rigid and brittle. The aim of this research was to improve the mechanical properties of PVC using styrene-methyl methacrylate/styrene-butadiene compound (SMMA/SBR rubber) as an impact modifier. The compound was obtained commercially. PVC containing SMMA/SBR rubber having SMMA/SBR phrs of 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10 were prepared using two-roll mill set the conditions as follows: 170 oC and 5 min. Then, compression molding was carried out to prepare testing samples. FTIR analysis of SMMA/SBR rubber containing PVC samples showed the absorption band at 1732 cm-1 (C=O stretching), 3025 …

Development Of A Digital Controller For Motor Control Experiments In The Ee472 Lab, Jeffrey David D'Amelio

Master's Theses

A digital motor controller for student lab use is designed, built, and tested. The controller uses an encoder for position measurement, and an H-bridge to drive the electromechanical plant.

A user interface is created to enhance usability of the device. The user interface is able to display key parameters of the control algorithm as well as the state of the system. It is also used to modify the gains and sample rate of the control algorithm.

The design of the system is refined, and 10 units are built for the EE472 Digital Controls Lab. The lab manuals for the first …

Measurement Based Statistical Model For Path Loss Prediction For Relaying Systems Operating In 1900 Mhz Band, Masoud Dao Hamid

Theses and Dissertations

Relays play important role in deployment of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced systems. They are used to enhance coverage, throughput and system capacity. The impact of the relay deployment on the network planning has to be modeled so that the above mentioned goals can be achieved. For successful modeling one needs to predict the path loss on the link between an eNodeB and a relay station. The review of literature shows that there is a general shortage of measured data to help empirical understanding of the propagation conditions in relay environment. This dissertation aims at developing empirical path loss …

Robust Design Of Shield Tunnels ‒ Considering The Longitudinal Variation Of Input Parameters, Wenping Gong

All Dissertations

This dissertation, aimed at developing an improved design methodology for shield tunnels that explicitly considers design robustness against longitudinal variation of input parameters (such as soil parameters). To this end, a new solution model for shield tunnel performance analysis was first developed. In this new model, the random field concept was employed to model the longitudinal variation of input parameters. The input parameters (in the longitudinal domain) that had been generated with Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) were used as inputs for the tunnel longitudinal behavior analysis. Here, the finite element method (FEM) based upon Winkler elastic foundation theory was employed. …

Pmsm Sensorless Speed Control Drive, Youakim Kalaani, Rami J. Haddad, Adel El-Shahat

Electrical & Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM) are very popular in many industrial applications such as in mechatronics, automotive, energy storage flywheels, centrifugal compressors, vacuum pumps, and robotics. This paper proposes Sensorless control for a PMSM speed drive which is based on a closed loop control system using a proportional and integral (PI) controller that is designed to operate in flux weakening regions under a constant torque angle. This Sensorless element was adopted for best estimating the PMSM rotor position based on its performance characteristics eliminating the need for speed sensors which are usually required in such control applications. To achieve this …

Using Greet To Analyze Natural Gas Usage In Municipal Fleets, Bradley E. Gibson

Honors Theses

GREET was used to calculate energy consumption and pollutants emitted from specific fuel/vehicle types when given a specific set of parameters. In this case, the parameters were the type of fuel mix from TVA, the selected vehicle year of 2015, the vehicle weight specified in the heavy-duty vehicle range, and type of simulation technique, which was the Hammersely Sequence Sampling. These inputs, along with seventeen fuel/vehicles mixes, specific pollutants, and cost considerations, were used to investigate the environmental impact of the transition from petrol diesel to natural gas in the municipal fleets of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The energy consumption included coal, …

Georgia's Water Policymaking Process And The Role Of Public Participation: Development And Analysis Of A Water Planning Process Evaluation Framework, Anna Eskridge

All Dissertations

This study analyzes the public's role in the regional water planning process that took place in the State of Georgia from 2009 to 2011. Specifically, this dissertation analyzes the extent to which a 'consensus-based' water planning process occurred by 1) examining the public participation plans that governed how the public was to contribute to the plan and policy formation, and 2) analyzing the public comments that were submitted at public meetings and commenting periods. By examining the participation plans and public comments, this study revealed the institutional, policy, legislative, and planning structures that influenced public participation in the regional water …

The Effect Of Infrastructure Changes On Railway Operations., Martin J.R. Schmidt 1966-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper makes use of standard simulation programs in combination with the tools of applied statistics to simulate railway operations. The purpose of the use of this tool is to evaluate and compare different possible kinds of railway infrastructure, like different types of signaling procedures, different network configuration or operational procedures. A railway system is a logistic network and because of the demand for improved railway operation, much work has been undertaken lately in this scientific field. However the author postulates the hypothesis based on a literature review that in a lot of these works there is a lack of …

Split-Step Approach To Electromagnetic Propagation Through Atmospheric Turbulence Using The Modified Von Karman Spectrum And Planar Apertures, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, Fathi H.A. Mohamed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The impact of atmospheric phase turbulence on Gaussian beam propagation along propagation paths of varying lengths is examined using multiple random phase screens. The work is motivated by research involving generation and encryption of acousto-optic chaos, and the interest in examining propagation of such chaotic waves through atmospheric turbulence. A phase screen technique is used to simulate perturbations to the refractive index of the medium through the propagation path. A power spectral density based on the modified von Karman spectrum model for turbulence is used to describe the random phase behavior of the medium.

In recent work, results for the …

Metal Assisted Nanowire Growth For Silicon Nanowire/Amorphous Silicon Composite Solar Cell, Asmaa Ali Sadoon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Solar cells are photovoltaic devices that convert the energy of light to electricity by the photovoltaic effect. Crystalline silicon-based solar cells are the most dominant solar cells in the market today due to the high efficiency and relatively low cost. However, the cost of such solar cell is still high due to the large amount of material that is consumed in fabricating such a device. Polycrystalline/amorphous thin films and nanomaterial technologies have emerged to reduce the high cost of c-Si based solar cells and increase the efficiency. In this research, we combined these two technologies to propose and fabricate silicon …