Engineering Commons^™

Settlement Analysis Of Drilled Shaft Foundation On Natural And Lime-Treated Compressible Clayey Soil, Abdusemed Kemal Ali

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Drilled shaft foundations are primarily used to support structures such as bridge piers, buildings, and transmission towers. The main advantage of a drilled shaft foundation is that it transfers loads to the stronger subsoil layers or rock strata lying underneath, giving maximum bearing capacity to the overlying structure.This goal of this research is to load bearing capacity of a drilled shaft on both treated and untreated compressible soil. In this study, both analytical and numerical studies were conducted to investigate the effect of lime treatment on the settlement of the drilled shaft. Extensive literature study was conducted on analysis of …

Variability Of As-Constructed Properties Of Hma And Their Relation To Pay Factors And Rutting Resistance: A Case Study, Rosario Tripiana Martinez

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

During the last decade, Texas has under gone a huge reconstruction of its major and strategic highways in order to improve transportation and prepare for future population and traffic growth. The population is estimated to increase by 50% for 2035 for the North Texas Area.Some of those highway reconstruction projects have asphalt pavements, and they utilize significant quantities of asphalt concrete. This study compiles the test results of As-Constructed properties for asphalt mixes for four different projects built in Texas. This data was statistically analyzed to obtain information on the variability of As-Constructed properties and study the effect of the …

Polymeric Nano/ Microparticles For Management Of Pulmonary Diseases, Jyothi Unnikrishna Menon

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Drug delivery via pulmonary route has emerged as an attractive area of study in the past two decades. This method of administration has multiple advantages for both systemic and local drug delivery due to the availability of a large surface area for drug absorption and higher solute permeability in the lung. Most importantly, inhalational drug delivery provides direct accessibility to the lung via a noninvasive route of administration. Recent literature has shown a surge in the use of nano/micro particles for a wide range of pulmonary applications ranging from targeted and controlled drug delivery to drug screening and tissue regeneration. …

Establishing The Method Of Dual-Tensor For Tract Based Analysis (Dtta) And Investigating Human Brain Developmental Connectome With Diffusion Mri, Virendra Radheshyam Mishra

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Diffusion MRI (dMRI) has the unique ability of studying white matter fiber structure in the human brain in-vivo. The trajectory of the white matter fibers inside the brain can be mapped using the tractography techniques and their structural integrity can be assessed with the help of various metrics such as fractional anisotropy (FA) derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). But with typical dMRI in clinical applications, almost half of human brain white matter (WM) voxels has crossing-fiber regions (CFR) where WM microstructural integrity is significantly underestimated with single tensor FA. A technique adapted to WM tract analysis and correcting the …

Ultrasound-Modulated Fluorescence Techniques, Yuan Liu

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Ultrasound-modulated fluorescence (UMF) imaging has been proposed as a novel imaging modality by combining ultrasound and optical imaging techniques for early cancer detection. In UMF, a focused ultrasound beam is used to modulate the diffused fluorescence photons in the acoustic focal region, and by specifically analyzing the modulated photons, one can isolate and quantify the fluorescence properties within the ultrasonic focal area. Therefore, UMF is able to provide fluorescence contrast while maintaining ultrasound resolution in tissue. The major challenge of UMF is to extract the weakly modulated fluorescence signal from a bright and unmodulated background, i.e. the low modulation efficiency. …

Evaluation Of The Performance Of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Pipes Produced By Packerhead Method, Abdelaziz Mohsen

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

This research aimed at evaluating the use of Dramix RC 65/35 CN steel fiber as an alternative to the conventional reinforcement in concrete pipes. The performance of steel fiber reinforced concrete pipes produced by Packerhead pipe production machine was evaluated through an experimental testing of steel fiber reinforced concrete pipes with diameters from 18 to 36 in and different steel fiber dosages.Three-edge bearing tests were carried out according to the ASTM C497 to determine the strength class of each case of pipes. For more detailed image of the tested pipes' performance, load-deflection data were acquired and plots were made to …

Evaluation And Use Of Regenerative Multi Electrode Interfaces In Peripheral Nerves, Vidhi Desai

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Peripheral nerves offer unique accessibility to the innate motor and sensory pathways that can be interfaced with high degree of selectivity for intuitive and bidirectional control of advanced upper extremity prosthetic limbs. Several peripheral nerve interfaces have been proposed and investigated over the last few decades with significant progress made in the area of sensory feedback. However, clinical translation still remains a formidable challenge due to the lack of long term recordings. Prominent causes include signal degradation, eventual interface failures, and lack of specificity in the low amplitude nerve signals. This dissertation evaluates the capabilities of the newly developed Regenerative …

Rainfall Induced Distress In Low Volume Pavements, Mahsa Hedayati

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Annual expenses of distresses caused by volume change of expansive soils induce significant financial burden on maintenance authorities. The problems occur as the expansive soils within the unsaturated zone of the soil experience variation in moisture content. Swelling and shrinkage of the soils causes structural cracks, malfunction of piping and irrigation systems and loss of support for ground slabs. Due to their low stiffness, light loading and extensive construction, pavements are particularly vulnerable to the effects of expansive soils. Accurate understanding of behavior of expansive subgrade, interaction of subgrade pavement structure and incorporation of the results in design processes can …

Development Of A Simplified Analytical Method To Estimate The Seismic Response Of Reinforced Concrete Frames With Solid Masonry Infills, Austin Reese

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis discusses the analysis of the lateral force-vs-drift relation of reinforced concrete (RC) frames with masonry infill panels under in-plane lateral loads. Such structures have been the topic of several studies due to their recurring catastrophic failures during seismic events. Due to the large number of variables that can affect their seismic performance and lead to various possible failure mechanisms there is no widely accepted method for the assessment of the structural behavior of infilled frames under seismic loads. A parametric study was performed here using detailed analytical models which provided insight to the influence of the various design …

Enhancing Effectiveness Of Aashto Type Prestressed Concrete Bridge Girder Through Fiber Reinforced Polymer Strengthening, Farzia Haque

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) are newly used materials by structuralengineers compared to concrete, steel, and wood. One area in which FRP is being used more and more is the strengthening of structurally deficient concrete bridges. FRP strengthening of the bridge girder improves flexural, shear, corrosion, seismic, and impact resistance. ACI 440 committee report outlined design procedure for flexure, shear, axial force, and combined axial and bending forces based on the available research, which are considered to be conservative and also pointed out the areas that still require research. Besides experimental, analytical, and field tests finite element analysis of FRP strengthened structural …

Pavement Performance Monitoring Using Dynamic Cone Penetrometer And Geogauge During Construction, Ahmed Nawal Ahsan

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Proper design life of road network system requires adequate quality control measures during the construction process to ensure proper material quality and sufficient strength in between the materials. Laboratory tests are often time consuming and sometimes, are not practical while the construction work is going on, in-situ techniques can efficiently evaluate the material properties through simple and less time consuming procedures. Dynamic Cone Penetrometer and Geogauge can play a vital role as an in-situ testing equipment because both have the potential to measure the change in material properties through field tests being performed in the field. Both in-situ techniques was …

Development Of Trans-Rectal Ultrasound (Trus) Coupled Diffuse Optical Tomography (Dot) For Prostate Cancer Imaging, Venkaiah Chowdary Kavuri

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes among cancer deaths in men in the United States. A minimally invasive real time searching tool for cancer need to be developed, which can enhance the odds of cancer detection; Current diagnostic techniques such as Trans-rectal ultrasound (TRUS) suffers from low sensitivity and specificity. The goal of the dissertation is to develop a Trans-Rectal Ultrasound (TRUS) coupled Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT) probe that can detect and image prostate cancer. To accomplish the task, an optical clip-on probe has been designed that can incorporate the existing ultrasound probe and can pass through the …

Biliary Tract Differentiation Through Use Of Visible To Nir Hyperspectral Reflectance Imaging, Eleanor F. Wehner

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Cholecystectomies are one of the most common surgeries performed in the United States, and most of the complications which arise from these are injuries to the common bile duct (CBD) resulting from a misidentification of anatomy. Reflectance hyperspectral imaging (HSI) offers a low-cost, non-invasive tool to record superficial chemical spectra of a field of view in many surgical applications. A NIR DLP HSI system is assembled and characterized, and used to gather preliminary CBD reflectance HSI data cubes. NIR hyperspectral imaging (760 nm to 1600 nm) with the DLP HSI system proves ineffectual, so CBD reflectance hyperspectral data collection progresses …

Mri Assessment Of Brain Vascular Reactivity To Physiological Challenges, Binu Panjikattil Thomas

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

With a growing need for specific biomarkers in vascular diseases, the past decade has seen a surging interest in mapping brain vascular reactivity. There is great potential that this CVR mapping can be added to standard clinical MRI protocol, but before this is achieved, we need to better understand the mechanism of BOLD signal change to physiological challenges. A signal increase in the BOLD image is usually seen to CO₂ inhalation, but there are reports of negative CVR as well, i.e. decrease in BOLD signal during inhalation of CO₂ gas. Negative CVR is usually seen in patients with vascular occlusions, …

High Speed Real-Time Embedded System For Pavement Texture Measurements, Sachin Jayaram

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) collects road profile data from the state highway network and processes the same in order to determine the various anomalies on the road surface. These factors can adversely affect the characteristics and performance of the vehicle such as skid, fuel consumption, ride comfort, safety and tire wear. The International Roughness Index (IRI) and Mean Profile Depth (MPD) are the statistics used for quantifying ride and texture. Pavement texture is of particular importance as it can affect skidding in wet weather conditions. This thesis mainly focuses on the development and implementation of a real-time embedded …

Application Of Openmp In Complexity Reduction Of Inter Frame Coding In Hevc, Karthik Suresh

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T), Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) standardization organizations working in a partnership known as the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) came up with the latest video project known as the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. This standard, also known as the H.265 standard, is based on the same architecture as that of the more widely implemented H.264/AVC (Advance Video Coding). The HEVC has incorporated many improvements like increased bitrate reduction, increased coding efficiency [7] and compression efficiency, but, at the cost of increased complexity. The …

Physical Human Robot Interaction Using Model Reference Neuroadaptive Control, Shaikh Md Rubayiat Tousif

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

In this work Physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) related problems are addressed as a part of the research going on in Assistive Robotics in the University of Texas Research Institute (UTARI). A novel model reference Neuroadaptive controller is designed based on existing technology of Lewis et al. Adaptive impedance control is an important method for force/motion control of robotic systems. Most of the work in adaptive impedance control makes the error dynamics of the system to look like a prescribed model. By contrast, this work does not want the error dynamics to be prescribed as an impedance model. It makes the …

Gpio Design, Layout, Simulation And Esd Clamp Placement Calculator, Shiju Abraham

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

Input/Output (IO) circuits enable interface between logic circuitry and the actual or raw information to be processed. They also help to isolate the integrated circuit from the unsafe, unknown and noisy environment. IOs come in many flavors and the General Purpose IO (GPIO) is one among them. GPIOs can operate as an input, output or a bi-directional circuit. The purpose of this work is to design an area optimized industrial quality bi-directional GPIO with separate enable signal for transmitter and receiver which can drive a current of at least 16 mA into the PAD (the circuit point where the capacitive …

Multiplexing And Demultiplexing Hevc Video And Aac Audio And Achieving Lip Synchronization During Playback, Mrudula Balmohan Warrier

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

High efficiency video coding (HEVC) /H.265 , is the latest digital video coding standard which has proven to be superior to earlier standards in terms of compression ratio, quality and error resilience. In order for the end user to understand the video meaningfully, there should be an associated audio with it. Any video is incomplete without a proper audio. Advanced audio coding (AAC) is the digital audio codec standard defined in MPEG-2 and later in MPEG-4 with few changes. The audio quality of an AAC stream is widely used as the audio coding standard in various applications. It would be …

The Evaluation Of Rf Channel Impairments And Co-Channel Interfrence Over Rician Fading Channel, Zhaoheng Luo

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

The mobile network system has evolved into its 4th generation and the demand of faster data rate, higher network coverage and reliable communication has never stop. In order to have more bandwidth and reduce power consumption, more and more new transmitting and receiving devices has been developed to achieve the goal. However, during this evolution, the performance of the system is suffering from effects by the radio-frequency (RF) circuit design, which produces DC offset, in-phase and quadrature (IQ) imbalance and phase noise. Also, in cellular mobile communication system, signals from different sources can be using the same frequency spectrum, and …

Computational Multimedia For Video Self Modeling, Ju Shen

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Video self modeling (VSM) is a behavioral intervention technique in which a learner models a target behavior by watching a video of oneself. This is the idea behind the psychological theory of self-efficacy - you can learn or model to perform certain tasks because you see yourself doing it, which provides the most ideal form of behavior modeling. The effectiveness of VSM has been demonstrated for many different types of disabilities and behavioral problems ranging from stuttering, inappropriate social behaviors, autism, selective mutism to sports training. However, there is an inherent difficulty associated with the production of VSM material. Prolonged …

An Analysis Of Burn Cut Pull Optimization Through Varying Relief Hole Depths, Michael Robert Allen

Masters Theses

"In underground blasting, the pull of the initial cut is the limiting factor for the success of the rest of the round. By improving the pull of the first cut, a critical step is made towards improving the entire round. This project attempted to optimize a burn cut's effective pull by varying the depths of the relief holes in the burn, and then analyzing the results. In testing, relief holes were drilled to depths both shorter and longer than that of the cut's charged holes. The overall objective was to consistently achieve greater pull than in a standard burn, using …

Data Mining Based Hybridization Of Meta-Raps, Fatemah Al-Duoli, Ghaith Rabadi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Though metaheuristics have been frequently employed to improve the performance of data mining algorithms, the opposite is not true. This paper discusses the process of employing a data mining algorithm to improve the performance of a metaheuristic algorithm. The targeted algorithms to be hybridized are the Meta-heuristic for Randomized Priority Search (Meta-RaPS) and an algorithm used to create an Inductive Decision Tree. This hybridization focuses on using a decision tree to perform on-line tuning of the parameters in Meta-RaPS. The process makes use of the information collected during the iterative construction and improvement phases Meta-RaPS performs. The data mining algorithm …

Systems Theory As The Foundation For Understanding Systems, Kevin Macg. Adams, Peggy T. Hester, Joseph M. Bradley, Thomas J. Meyers, Charles B. Keating

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

As currently used, systems theory is lacking a universally agreed upon definition. The purpose of this paper is to offer a resolution by articulating a formal definition of systems theory. This definition is presented as a unified group of specific propositions which are brought together by way of an axiom set to form a system construct: systems theory. This construct affords systems practitioners and theoreticians with a prescriptive set of axioms by which a system must operate; conversely, any set of entities identified as a system may be characterized by this set of axioms. Given its multidisciplinary theoretical foundation and …

A Heuristic For The Analysis Of Truncated Standard Normal Distribution Assemblies, John Walter Ralls, Cesar Ariel Pinto, Shannon R. Bowling, Resit Unal, Charles B. Daniels, S. Long (Ed.), E.H. Ng (Ed.), C. Downing (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The analysis of data sets and process conditions commonly assume the use of standard normal distributions and truncated standard normal distributions (TSND). The use of these distributions has application to various engineering disciplines along with numerous other industries (e.g., financial industries, medical fields, management, etc.). For engineering managers, the use of truncated standard normal distributions has particular relevance when evaluating process conditions commonly associated with assembly tolerances, manufacturing, and associated measures of quality. This article summarizes a heuristic approach for the analysis of assembly-level truncated standard normal distributions and associated research from a recent dissertation (Ralls, 2014). This article provides …

Employee-Task Assignments For Organization Modeling: A Review Of Models And Applications, Cansu Kandemir, Holly A. H. Handley, S. Long (Ed.), E.-H. Ng (Ed.), C. Downing (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

In this study, we present a review of task assignment problems in organizations, an area that has become more important as tasks become more complex and personnel skills become more specialized. The challenge is to design task assignments that meet all requirements and result in the best organizational performance. The consequences of poor design include failed tasks, reduced efficiency, and inability to meet deadlines. Moreover, inequity of workload between employees can cause lack of job satisfaction, loss of motivation and also boredom.

In general, work processes in organizations consist of different tasks, which require different expertise. Personnel usually have various …

Phenol Deoxygenation Over Hydrotreating Catalysts, Madelyn R B Ball

Honors Theses and Capstones

Phenol deoxygenation has been investigated as a model reaction for the deoxygenation of fatty acid methyl esters in biodiesel. Hydrodeoxygenated biodiesel is a drop-in fuel for petroleum diesel, and is a premium diesel with a high cetane number. As the first step in this research, two molybdenum catalysts were prepared, characterized and tested in a small-scale reactor. These catalysts were found to produce small amounts of benzene and cyclohexanol in the product stream, and confirmed the activity of the catalyst. A commercial cobalt molybdenum catalyst (Harshaw HT-400) was also tested and benzene, cyclohexanol, and cyclohexane were identified as products. Future …

Environmental Degradation Of Nano Enhanced Polymers In Low Earth Orbit, Mohammed Jaradat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Development And Validation Of The Structural Health Evaluation (SheTm) Program, Steven Worley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Efficient Similarity Digests Database Lookup -- A Logarithmic Divide And Conquer Approach, Frank Breitinger, Christian Rathgeb, Harald Baier

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Investigating seized devices within digital forensics represents a challenging task due to the increasing amount of data. Common procedures utilize automated file identification, which reduces the amount of data an investigator has to examine manually. In the past years the research field of approximate matching arises to detect similar data. However, if n denotes the number of similarity digests in a database, then the lookup for a single similarity digest is of complexity of O(n). This paper presents a concept to extend existing approximate matching algorithms, which reduces the lookup complexity from O(n) to O(log(n)). Our proposed approach is based …