Engineering Commons^™

Conceptual Design Of Wind Farms Through Novel Multi-Objective Swarm Optimization, Weiyang Tong

Dissertations - ALL

Wind is one of the major sources of clean and renewable energy, and global wind energy has been experiencing a steady annual growth rate of more than 20% over the past decade. In the U.S. energy market, although wind energy is one of the fastest increasing sources of electricity generation (by annual installed capacity addition), and is expected to play an important role in the future energy demographics of this country, it has also been plagued by project underperformance and concept-to-installation delays.

There are various factors affecting the quality of a wind energy project, and most of these factors are …

Gate-Level Timing Analysis And Waveform Evaluation, Chaobo Li

Dissertations - ALL

Static timing analysis (STA) is an integral part of modern VLSI chip design. Table lookup based methods are widely used in current industry due to its fast runtime and mature algorithms. Conventional STA algorithms based on table-lookup methods are developed under many assumptions in timing analysis; however, most of those assumptions, such as that input signals and output signals can be accurately modeled as ramp waveforms, are no longer satisfactory to meet the increasing demand of accuracy for new technologies. In this dissertation, we discuss several crucial issues that conventional STA has not taken into consideration, and propose new methods …

Uncertainty-Integrated Surrogate Modeling For Complex System Optimization, Ali Mehmani

Dissertations - ALL

Approximation models such as surrogate models provide a tractable substitute to expensive physical simulations and an effective solution to the potential lack of quantitative models of system behavior. These capabilities not only enable the efficient design of complex systems, but is also essential for the effective analysis of physical phenomena/characteristics in the different domains of Engineering, Material Science, Biomedical Science, and various other disciplines. Since these models provide an abstraction of the real system behavior (often a low-fidelity representative) it is important to quantify the accuracy and the reliability of such approximation models without investing additional expensive system evaluations (simulations …

Computational Fluid Dynamics Applied To The Analysis Of Blood Flow Through Central Aortic To Pulmonary Artery Shunts, Carey Celestin Jr

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research utilizes CFD to analyze blood flow through pathways representative of central shunts, commonly used as part of the Fontan procedure to treat cyanotic heart disease. In the first part of this research, a parametric study of steady, Newtonian blood flow through parabolic pathways was performed to demonstrate the effect that flow pathway curvature has on wall shear stress distribution and flow energy losses. In the second part, blood flow through two shunts obtained via biplane angiograms is simulated. Pressure boundary conditions were obtained via catheterization. Results showed that wall shear stresses were of sufficient magnitude to initiate platelet …

Automatic Classification Of Fish In Underwater Video; Pattern Matching - Affine Invariance And Beyond, Madhuri Gundam, Madhuri Gundam

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Underwater video is used by marine biologists to observe, identify, and quantify living marine resources. Video sequences are typically analyzed manually, which is a time consuming and laborious process. Automating this process will significantly save time and cost. This work proposes a technique for automatic fish classification in underwater video. The steps involved are background subtracting, fish region tracking and classification using features. The background processing is used to separate moving objects from their surrounding environment. Tracking associates multiple views of the same fish in consecutive frames. This step is especially important since recognizing and classifying one or a few …

Three-Dimensional Ideal Gas Reference State Based Energy Function, Avdesh Mishra

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Energy functions are found to be a key of protein structure prediction. In this work, we propose a novel 3-dimensional energy function based on hydrophobic-hydrophilic properties of amino acid where we consider at least three different possible interaction of amino acid in a 3-dimensional sphere categorized as hydrophilic versus hydrophilic, hydrophobic versus hydrophobic and hydrophobic versus hydrophilic. Each of these interactions are governed by a 3-dimensional parameter alpha used to model the interaction and 3-dimensional parameter beta used to model weight of contribution. We use Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimize the value of alpha, beta and Z-score. We obtain three …

A Balanced Secondary Structure Predictor, Md Nasrul Islam

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Secondary structure (SS) refers to the local spatial organization of the polypeptide backbone atoms of a protein. Accurate prediction of SS is a vital clue to resolve the 3D structure of protein. SS has three different components- helix (H), beta (E) and coil (C). Most SS predictors are imbalanced as their accuracy in predicting helix and coil are high, however significantly low in the beta. The objective of this thesis is to develop a balanced SS predictor which achieves good accuracies in all three SS components. We proposed a novel approach to solve this problem by combining a genetic algorithm …

Photocatalytic Mineralization Of Phenol On Fluidized Titanium Oxide-Coated Silica Gel, Guillermo J. Rincon

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A bench-scale tubular reactor with recirculation was built in order to study the efficiency of the photocatalytic oxidation of phenol on fluidized titanium oxide-coated silica gel beads. A UV-C lamp placed along the central vertical axes of the reactor was used as source of photons. A bed of silica gel beads was fluidized by means of fluid recirculation and forced to follow upward helical flow around the lamp. Anatase was successfully synthetized on silica gel particles of average diameters 224, 357 and 461 µm, as confirmed by scanning electron micrographs, through a sol-gel technique using a titanium (iv)isopropoxide / hydrochloric …

Development Of A Pedestrian Demand Estimation Tool: A Destination Choice Model, Christopher D. Muhs, Kelly Clifton, Patrick Allen Singleton, Robert J. Schneider

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

There is growing support for improvements to the quality of the walking environment, including more investments to promote pedestrian travel. Planners, engineers, and others seek improved tools to estimate pedestrian demand that are sensitive to environmental and demographic factors at the appropriate scale in order to aid policy-relevant issues like air quality, public health, and smart allocation of infrastructure and other resources. Further, in the travel demand forecasting realm, tools of this kind are difficult to implement due to the use of spatial scales of analysis that are oriented towards motorized modes, vast data requirements, and computer processing limitations.

To …

Analysis Of Sedimentation Characteristics Of Dredge Sediment Used In Coastal Restoration And Marsh Creation Projects, Christine M. Mebust

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

There is a demand to reestablish a healthy coastal ecosystem by rebuilding wetlands with river diversion or dredged sediments in coastal Louisiana. Land building projects using dredged sediments from adjacent canals and river beds, can be used to protect the coastal properties and infrastructure systems from flood and storm surges. To predict the sediment’s long term behavior, math models require input parameters based on sediment engineering properties and material characteristics. Proper characterization is critical for accurate design of coastal restoration projects. The dredge material sedimentation characteristics and their effects on the settlement rate of suspended solid particles and underlying foundation …

Development Of A Quantitative Methodology To Forecast Naval Warship Propulsion Architectures, Brian S. Waller

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an investigation into a quantitative selection process of either a mechanical or electrical system architecture for the transmission of propulsion power in naval combatant vessels. A database of historical naval ship characteristics was statistically analyzed to determine if there were any predominant ship parameters that could be used to predict whether a ship should be designed with a mechanical power transmission system or an electric one. A Principal Component Analysis was performed to determine the minimum number of dimensions required to define the relationship between the propulsion transmission architecture and the independent variables. Combining the results of …

Binary Program Integrity Models For Defeating Code-Reuse Attacks, Aravind Prakash

Dissertations - ALL

During a cyber-attack, an adversary executes offensive maneuvers to target computer systems. Particularly, an attacker often exploits a vulnerability within a program, hijacks control-flow, and executes malicious code. Data Execution Prevention (DEP), a hardware-enforced security feature, prevents an attacker from directly executing the injected malicious code. Therefore, attackers have resorted to code-reuse attacks, wherein carefully chosen fragments of code within existing code sections of a program are sequentially executed to accomplish malicious logic. Code-reuse attacks are ubiquitous and account for majority of the attacks in the wild. On one hand, due to the wide use of closed-source software, binary-level solutions …

Crosslinked Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogel Networks Designed As Mechanical Actuators, Pushkar S. Varde

Dissertations - ALL

Bioengineers are in constant pursuit of solutions to problems facing the medical and pharmaceutical field by designing biomaterials that closely mimic the target natural systems. A unique collection of polymers, known as polymeric actuators, have been devised with the ability to convert an external stimulus to a change in shape, size or permeability. The current options within polymeric biomaterials with multi-functionality include matrices that are biocompatible, biodegradable, quick transitioning / shape changing, and mechanically tunable. These properties have been harnessed for application such as stents, valves, semi permeable membranes, and dynamic cell culture substrates. For such applications quick and uniform …

Integration Of Alignment And Phylogeny In The Whole-Genome Era, Hongtao Sun

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

With the development of new sequencing techniques, whole genomes of many species have become available. This huge amount of data gives rise to new opportunities and challenges. These new sequences provide valuable information on relationships among species, e.g. genome recombination and conservation. One of the principal ways to investigate such information is multiple sequence alignment (MSA). Currently, there is large amount of MSA data on the internet, such as the UCSC genome database, but how to effectively use this information to solve classical and new problems is still an area lacking of exploration. In this thesis, we explored how to …

Application-Specific Memory Subsystems, Joseph George Wingbermuehle

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The disparity in performance between processors and main memories has

led computer architects to incorporate large cache hierarchies in

modern computers. These cache hierarchies are designed to be

general-purpose in that they strive to provide the best possible

performance across a wide range of applications. However, such a memory

subsystem does not necessarily provide the best possible performance for

a particular application.

Although general-purpose memory subsystems are desirable when the

work-load is unknown and the memory subsystem must remain fixed,

when this is not the case a custom memory subsystem may be beneficial.

For example, in an application-specific integrated circuit …

Development Of Nanofiber Scaffolds With Controllable Structure And Mineral Content For Tendon-To-Bone Repair, Justin Herrold Lipner

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Rotator cuff tears are common and lead to significant pain and disability. Effective repair of torn rotator cuff tendons requires healing of tendon to bone. Unfortunately, healing does not reproduce the structural and compositional features of the natural tendon-to-bone bone attachment that are necessary for effective load transfer, and surgical repairs often rupture.

Recent efforts for improving tendon-to-bone healing have focused on tissue engineering approaches. Scaffolds, cells, and/or growth factors are implanted at the repair site to guide the healing process and improve outcomes. To that end, a polymer-mineral tissue engineered scaffold was developed for this thesis which mimics two …

Numerical Simulation And Optimization Of Carbon Dioxide Utilization For Enhanced Oil Recovery From Depleted Reservoirs, Razi Safi

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Due to concerns about rising CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel power plants, there has been a strong emphasis on the development of a safe and economical method for Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS). One area of current interest in CO₂ utilization is the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) from depleted reservoirs. In an Enhanced Oil Recovery system, a depleted or depleting oil reservoir is re-energized by injecting high-pressure CO₂ to increase the recovery factor of the oil from the reservoir. An additional benefit beyond oil recovery is that the reservoir could also serve as a long-term storage …

Effects Of Biomass Moisture Content On Volatile Flame Length During Cofiring With Coal, Matthew Pollard

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Cofiring biomass with coal can contribute to meeting Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and reduce pollutant emissions. The physical characteristics and composition of biomass can vary significantly, which can affect the combustion characteristics. When cofiring biomass with coal, these differences can impact the structure of the volatile flame, the region where combustion of volatiles dominates. The length and location of the volatile flame is important to flame stability and determines the location and extent of volatile release. This has an effect on pollutant emissions, such as NOx (nitrogen oxides). Previously, the effects of parameters such as cofiring ratio, particle size, and …

Genetic Algorithm Based Optimization Of Baffle Positions In A Forward Osmosis Draw Channel, James Koch

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Forward Osmosis (FO) driven asymmetric membrane filtration is a developing technology which shows promise for seawater desalination and wastewater treatment. Due to the fact that asymmetric membranes are widely used in conjunction with this technology, internal concentration polarization (ICP), a flow-entrainment effect occurring within such membranes, is a significant if not dominant source of overall osmotic pressure loss across the membrane. Accurate modeling of ICP effects is therefore very critical for accurate Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) modeling of asymmetric membranes. A related, dilutive effect known as external concentration polarization (ECP) also develops on both the rejection and draw sides of …

Utilizing Magnetic Tunnel Junction Devices In Digital Systems, Michael James Hall

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The research described in this dissertation is motivated by the desire to effectively utilize magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) in digital systems. We explore two aspects of this: (1) a read circuit useful for global clocking and magnetologic, and (2) hardware virtualization that utilizes the deeply-pipelined nature of magnetologic.

In the first aspect, a read circuit is used to sense the state of an MTJ (low or high resistance) and produce a logic output that represents this state. With global clocking, an external magnetic field combined with on-chip MTJs is used as an alternative mechanism for distributing the clock signal across …

Light Controlling At Subwavelength Scales In Nanophotonic Systems: Physics And Applications, Yuecheng Shen

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The capability of controlling light at scales that are much smaller than the operating wave-length enables new optical functionalities, and opens up a wide range of applications. Such a capability is out of the realm of conventional optical approaches. This dissertation aims to explore the light-matter interactions at nanometer scale, and to investigate the novel scien-tific and industrial applications. In particular, we will explain how to detect nanoparticles using an ultra-sensitive nano-sensor; we will also describe a photonic diode which gener-ates a unidirectional flow of single photons; Moreover, in an one-dimensional waveguide QED system where the fermionic degree of freedom …

Interfacial Chemistry Of Trace Elements At Mineral Surfaces In Engineered Water Systems, Lin Wang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

This thesis research consists of two independent research projects that both studied interfacial chemical processes affecting trace elements at mineral surfaces.

The objectives of Project 1 were to 1) quantify the impact of water chemistry on As(III) adsorption on lepidocrocite, 2) develop a surface complexation model to describe equilibrium As(III) and As(V) adsorption to lepidocrocite and 3) elucidate the mechanism of Fe(II)-mediated As(III) oxidation at the lepidocrocite-water interface. Arsenic is a regulated element that can be found at high concentrations in groundwater resources that are used as drinking water sources. Iron (oxyhydr)oxides are one of the most abundant groups of …

Potential-Flow Inflow Model Including Wake Distortion And Contraction, Jianzhe Huang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Dynamic wake models have been used in real-time flight simulations for over thirty years. The models have evolved from the earliest, three-degree-of-freedom models (derived from momentum theory) to full finite-state models derived from potential flow theory by a formal Galerkin method. These models are widely used in industry, but still have some drawbacks that need to be remedied. These drawbacks include: 1.) lack of good convergence both on the disk and off the disk (one can use one or the other but not both), 2.) poor results downstream in the limit of shallow skew angles, 3.) poor convergence inside of …

Probing Mechanical Forces In Flagella By Manipulation Of Media Viscosity And Axonemal Structure, Kate Wilson

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Cilia and flagella are subcellular organelles used to generate fluid flow or propel the cell. These long cylindrical structures are composed of cytoskeletal elements activated by the unidirectional motor protein dynein. Cilia and flagella are crucial to a number of physiological functions, yet the specific mechanisms of dynein activation and coordination remain unclear. This work investigates the response of the flagellum of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to increased mechanical loading achieved by variation of media viscosity, and to structural changes achieved by genetic manipulation. Effects of these perturbations are quantified using high spatiotemporal resolution recordings; the results demonstrate mutation-specific changes to the …

Two Correspondence Problems Easier Than One, Aaron Michaux, Zygmunt Pizlo

MODVIS Workshop

Computer vision research rarely makes use of symmetry in stereo reconstruction despite its established importance in perceptual psychology. Such stereo reconstructions produce visually satisfying figures with precisely located points and lines, even when input images have low or moderate resolution. However, because few invariants exist, there are no known general approaches to solving symmetry correspondence on real images. The problem is significantly easier when combined with the binocular correspondence problem, because each correspondence problem provides strong non-overlapping constraints on the solution space. We demonstrate a system that leverages these constraints to produce accurate stereo models from pairs of binocular images …

Maximum Energy Efficiency Cost Effectiveness In New Home Construction, Florida Solar Energy Center, Philip W. Fairey

FSEC Energy Research Center®

EnergyGauge® USA (v.4.0.00) is used to examine the cost effectiveness of high performance homes that are improved to significantly exceed the minimum requirements of the 2015 IECC. The objective of the study is to determine the maximum level of energy efficiency that can be considered cost effective to the consumer. For these purposes, it is the cost effectiveness of the entire package of measures that is considered by the analysis rather than the cost effectiveness of individual measures. Optimization and rank ordering of the individual improvement measures in the package is not considered by the analysis.

One-story 2,000 ft^{2 …}

Portable Polarimetric Fiber Stress Sensor System For Visco-Elastic And Biomimetic Material Analysis, Mark C. Harrison, Andrea M. Armani

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Non-destructive materials characterization methods have significantly changed our fundamental understanding of material behavior and have enabled predictive models to be developed. However, the majority of these efforts have focused on crystalline and metallic materials, and transitioning to biomaterials, such as tissue samples, is non-trivial, as there are strict sample handling requirements and environmental controls which prevent the use of conventional equipment. Additionally, the samples are smaller and more complex in composition. Therefore, more advanced sample analysis methods capable of operating in these environments are needed. In the present work, we demonstrate an all-fiber-based material analysis system based on optical polarimetry. …

Synthesis, Characteristics, And Material Properties Dataset Of Bi:Dyig-Oxide Garnet-Type Nanocomposites, M Nur-E-Alam, Mikhail Vasiliev, Kamal Alameh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The fabrication, annealing crystallization processes, and material properties of (Bi,Dy)3(Fe,Ga)5O12:Bi2O3 nanocomposites are investigated and summarized. The stoichiometry of these nanocomposites is optimized for magnetooptic applications using the approach of stoichiometry adjustment (implemented by means of varying RF power densities applied to the sputtering targets used to prepare the nanocomposite thin films). The crystallization processes for all developed batches of as-deposited films are carried out by annealing runs at different temperatures and process durations. This paper describes the methodologies used to optimize the compositions (by calculating the volumetric fractions of excess bismuth oxide to be mixed with the garnet-stoichiometry species during …

Understanding The Potential Impacts Of Climate Change On Water Resources In Southern California, Brianna Rita Pagan

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Southern California is located in a semi-arid climate with finite natural supplies of water. Precipitation in the area generally occurs in the fall and winter months. Consequently, the region relies on imported water originating primarily from snowpack in northern areas of California and surrounding states including 1) the San-Joaquin River and Tulare Lake basins, 2) the Sacramento River basin, 3) Owens Valley and Mono Lake basins and 4) the Colorado River basin. This study provides an integrated approach to understanding and assessing climate change impacts on the hydrologic cycle for all water supplies to Southern California. A 10-member ensemble of …

Adaptive Motion Pooling And Diffusion For Optical Flow, Naga Venkata Kartheek Medathati, Pierre Kornprobst, Guillaume Masson, Manuela Chessa, Fabio Solari

MODVIS Workshop

We study the impact of local context of an image (contrast and 2D structure) on spatial motion integration by MT neurons. To do so, we revisited the seminal work by Heeger and Simoncelli (HS) [4] using spatio-temporal filters to estimate optical flow from V1-MT feedforward interactions. However, the HS model has difficulties to deal with several problems encountered in real scenes (e.g., blank wall problem and motion discontinuities). Here, we propose to extend the HS model with adaptive processing by focussing on the role of local context indicative of the local velocity estimates reliability. We set a network structure representative …