Engineering Commons^™

Harvesting Of Water From Fog Using Sponges, Jae Jun Lee

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Supervising Professor: Cheng Luo A sponge has porous structures. It is capable of both storing and transmitting water. In this work, we explored the possibility of applying three different types of sponges to collect fog. We also compared their fog-collection efficiencies with that of a typical Raschel mesh that is widely used in the field to collect fog. We found that, for three different fog speeds, the fog-collection efficiencies of three tested sponges were 39% to 93% those of the typical Raschel mesh, indicating that the sponges could serve as alternative fog collectors when well-developed collectors were not available. Sponge …

Framework Of Performance-Based Contracting For Chip Seal And Striping Maintenance Activities, Kishor Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the United States, there are more than four million miles of road network and new roads are being constructed every year. Most of the road networks were constructed more than two decades ago. Therefore, the age of the majority of the pavement inventory has exceeded original design life. This results in increased work load for the maintenance division of the state Departments of Transportation (DOTs). To maintain the road system, state DOTs use In-House or outsource maintenance works to private contractors using Method Based Contracting (MBC), or Performance Based Contracting (PBC), or any combination of these three. Literature reviews …

Rapid, Low-Cost Biosensor For Water-Borne Pathogens In Low-Resource Environments, Kimberly Cribbs

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

When testing water quality, “microbiological results typically require a minimum of 24 hours to complete” due to reliance on the traditional and inexpensive cultivation method. In 2000, an isothermal DNA amplification method termed loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) was invented allowing for microbiological assessments to be performed in less than one hour without the need for an expensive thermocycler. In 2013, the World Health Organization reported LAMP as an “attractive diagnostic platform for resource-poor settings: it is fast [15-40 min], isothermal [requiring only a heat block], robust to inhibitors and reaction conditions that usually adversely affect PCR methods, and it generates …

Agroecosystem And Ecosystem Resiliency To Extreme Hydrometeorological And Climate Events, Katherine M. Werner

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to understand how a large-scale representation of agroecosystems and ecosystems respond to extreme hydrometeorological and climate extreme events (EHCE) within the Platte River Basin. The ability for agroecosystems and ecosystems to adapt to a changing and variable climate is vital for global water, energy, and food security. Two model experiments were performed, the first with a time span from 2000 to 2013 in which a dynamic leaf area index (LAI) MODIS15A2 product was implemented. The second experiment ran from 1950 through 2013 used a climatological fixed seasonal cycle calculated as the average from the …

The Agricultural Growth And Malting Production Of Barley Grains In Northeast Tennessee And Southwest Virginia, Mark Evans Patton Mr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the history and production processes of beer and examines the components that contribute to its brewing. The narrative will provide a timeline of the processes that are required to create the product of beer beginning with the agricultural products and following the brewing processes that result in beer as the finished product. I will also examine the business of agriculture and grain processing and will provide some historical perspectives of grain, beer, and malting. I will also consider whether the growing, processing, and malting of grains in the East Tennessee and Southwest …

Development Of A Simple Handheld Biosensor For Waterborne Pathogens, Bryce C. Jones

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Current methods of detecting waterborne pathogens involve testing strips which take 24-48 hours to yield results, or require expensive equipment in order to function. In minimalist environments, these two technologies are not always applicable to test water quality. With the emergence of a new method of PCR, named LAMP PCR, it is possible to quickly and accurately detect pathogen DNA in a water sample. In order to scale this technique into a simple device, the aspects of the reaction must be accommodated, and a visual detection method chosen. A handheld device which keeps the isothermal LAMP PCR stable for the …

Towards A Fast Reconstruction Paradigm For Urban Environments In Developing Regions Affected By Natural Disasters, Christopher Maestri

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Natural disasters in developing regions often displace people from their homes, into temporary shelters. These temporary shelters often consist of single-story pre-assembled tents designed to provide short-term aid for individual families. Unfortunately, single-story temporary shelters are not sufficient for accommodating large displaced populations in urban settings due to issues of land overcrowding and disruption to utilities providing water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services (along with many other issues).

This study investigates the feasibility of implementing a multi-story steel structure, constructed with multi-use structural members and special end connectors, into future relief efforts. A multi-use structural member is an element whose …

Anaerobic Digestion Process Stability And The Extension Of The Adm1 For Municipal Sludge Co-Digested With Bakery Waste, Morris Elya Demitry

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The anaerobic digestion process is used to treat and convert waste organic matter to biogas (principally methane and carbon dioxide) through biological, chemical and physical reactions. The biogas can be used as a source of energy recovery. In order to increase the biogas production rate, two different kinds of waste (municipal wastewater treatment sludge and bakery waste) were mixed together to enhance the anaerobic process and increase the biogas production in pilot scale reactors. The process succeeded in increasing biogas production and at the same time kept the process of treatment effective when high rates of organics were fed to …

Evapotranspiration Estimation: A Study Of Methods In The Western United States, Clayton S. Lewis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Theoretical water use of well-watered vegetation in the western United States was investigated by comparing a gridded dataset developed from satellite and ground instruments to weather stations representative of irrigated agricultural conditions. Since wetter environments are cooler and therefore subject to lower levels of evaporation than the same scenario with warmer temperatures, models derived from dryland and often populated areas overestimate potential plant needs in semi-arid or arid conditions. Evaluation of the model revealed an acceptable fit for air temperatures and solar radiation but with less confidence in humidity and wind speeds. Ultimately, the last two parameters were minor components …

Development Of Solar Experiments With Remote Laboratory Capability For Engineering Education Of The Future, Otto Kyle Neidert

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Educating future engineers will be handled differently as this modern society has various methods of doing so and a plethora of knowledge to pursue. The availability of computers and internet has changed many things. A subject that is relevant in today’s world but not common to most people and some engineers is solar energy. As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation that was awarded to Louisiana State University (LSU), Florida State University (FSU), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the UNLV Center for Energy Research partnered with them to create solar application based learning modules. …

Causes Of Change Orders And Its Impact On Road Maintenance Contracts, Kabindra Kumar Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Change orders (CO) commonly generate cost-growth, schedule-growth or both, in construction as well as in maintenance contracts. Literature reviews revealed that the causes and impact of CO on new construction contracts had been comprehensively studied, but the causes and impact of CO in maintenance contracts remained neglected. This study collected CO data on road maintenance contracts to determine the amount of CO and the most frequent and high-risk road maintenance activities that had CO. A Delphi study was conducted with 33 maintenance engineers from the state Department of Transportation (DOT) to identify causes of CO and its impact on cost …

Predicting The Market Share Of A New Airport In Multi-Airport Cities: The Case Of Lagos, Samson Oladele Fatokun

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The primary objective of the study was to develop an empirical model that combines the contingent valuation method (CVM) with the isochrone analysis to predict the market shares of new airports in multi-airport cities and to apply the model to the case of Lekki International Airport (LIA), the proposed second airport in Lagos, Nigeria. In addition to predicting the market share that LIA could attain, the study also identified and analyzed the catchment areas as well as the willingness to pay (WTP) of would-be LIA passengers. Furthermore, the research identified the determinants of airport choice in the Nigerian market. The …

Engineering Students Attend International Summit: Engineers Without Borders On Un Sustainable Development Goals, Sarah Brockett

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

2016 - The Twenty-First Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Twenty-first Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 21, 2016. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

A Roadmap To Safe And Reliable Engineered Biological Nano-Communication Networks, Justin W. Firestone

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Synthetic biology has the potential to benefit society with novel applications that can improve soil quality, produce biofuels, grow customized biological tissue, and perform intelligent drug delivery, among many other possibilities. Engineers are creating techniques to program living cells, inserting new logic, and leveraging cell-to-cell communication, which result in changes to a cell's core functionality. Using these techniques, we can now create synthetic biological organisms (SBOs) with entirely new (potentially unseen) behaviors, which, similar to silicon devices, can sense, actuate, perform computation, and interconnect with other networks at the nanoscale level. SBOs are programmable evolving entities, and can be likened …

15th Annual Undergraduate Student Symposium, Farquhar Honors College

Undergraduate Student Symposium

The Undergraduate Student Symposium, sponsored by the Farquhar Honors College, presents student projects through presentations, papers, films, and poster displays. The event serves as a “showcase” demonstrating the outstanding scholarship of undergraduate students at NSU. The symposium is open to undergraduate students from all disciplines. Projects cover areas of student scholarship ranging from the experimental and the applied to the computational, theoretical, artistic, and literary. They are taken from class assignments and independent projects. Project presentations can represent any stage in a concept’s evolution, from proposal and literature review to fully completed and realized scholarly work. As in past symposia, …

Wright State University's Celebration Of Research, Scholarship And Creative Activities Book Of Abstracts From Friday, April 15, 2016, Wright State University Office Of Undergraduate Research And Stemm Activities

Celebration of Undergraduate & Graduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Materials

The student abstract booklet is a compilation of abstracts from students' oral and poster presentations at Wright State University's Annual Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities on April 15, 2016.

Carboncycle And Other Profitable Strategies For Air Capture Of Co2, Deane Little

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

Development of an effective and economically viable strategy for air capture of CO2 would be a game-changing development in the fight against global warming. If widely adopted such a process would allow “chemostatting” the atmosphere at sustainable CO2 levels and might not require widespread social change in how we use fossil fuels. Unfortunately the concept that air capture of CO2 “doesn’t work” has taken hold in academic and policy circles, based on the assumption that such a process is inherently expensive and results in no useful products. In fact, air capture of CO2 can be profitable and offers fundamental advantages …

Fulfilling The Promise Of The Paris Agreement: The Role Of Efficiency And Renewable Energy, Chuck Kutscher

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

Renewable energy, energy policy, energy efficiency, buildings

The rapid large-scale deployment of efficiency and renewable energy technologies is crucial to meeting the goals of the COP21 agreement. Key to achieving this is transitioning to zero-carbon cities comprised of highly efficient buildings powered by renewable electricity. This presentation will survey the current efficiency and renewable energy research underway at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory with special attention paid to zero-carbon buildings and the challenges of developing a renewable energy electric grid.

Development Of The First Internationally Accepted Standard For Geologic Storage Of Carbon Dioxide Utilizing Enhanced Oil Recovery (Eor) Under The International Standards Organization (Iso) Technical Committee Tc-265, Steven Carpenter

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

The Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) industry is lacking standardization and therefore the ability to allow CCUS projects to advance as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or to be considered for any type of carbon management or accounting scheme is also hindered. An international effort between the United States and Canada, funded by the International Performance Assessment Centre for Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide (IPAC-CO2 Research Inc.), and managed by CSA Standards, have developed the first internationally recognized Standard for the geologic storage of carbon dioxide (Z-741). The Z-741 Standard has been adopted by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) …

Emissions And Deforestation Associated With Household Energy Use: A Case Of The Thulamela Local Municipality, South Africa, Se Uhunamure, Ns Nethengwe, A Musyoki

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

Fuel wood is regarded as a major source of energy around the world, particularly in developing nations forming part of the energy mix. Most rural communities around the world, consider forests as the repository of stored energy. The study focused on the role of fuel wood in deforestation and the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the Thulamela local municipality in South Africa. Information regarding the fuel wood consumption was collected during a manual field survey of 200 households in four villages in the municipality using questionnaires and interviews. The carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions were calculated using the …

Conference Program, Engineering Conferences International

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

No abstract provided.

Small Scale Water Filtration Project, Elaine Yang, Lang Ming, Alex Tees, Lauren Galle, Tristan Coffey, Andria Tattersfield, Colin Brock

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Access to clean drinking water is a large problem that our world is facing today. Consuming contaminated water can lead to the spread of water-borne illnesses. Populations without the security of water struggle to develop, as seen predominately in Africa. As Oregonians prepare for life after a major earthquake which could devastate the infrastructure that delivers clean water to our homes, a water filtration system should be part of a family’s emergency preparedness plan.

There are a large variety of processes for achieving fresh water. Combining all of the necessary components to lead to clean water is a complex process, …

Estimating The Probability Of Vegetation To Be Groundwater Dependent Based On The Evaluation Of Tree Models, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) are increasingly threatened by humans’ rising demand for water resources. Consequently, it is imperative to identify the location of GDEs to protect them. This paper develops a methodology to identify the probability of an ecosystem to be groundwater dependent. Probabilities are obtained by modeling the relationship between the known locations of GDEs and factors influencing groundwater dependence, namely water table depth and climatic aridity index. Probabilities are derived for the state of Nevada, USA, using modeled water table depth and aridity index values obtained from the Global Aridity database. The model selected results from the performance …

Engineering News, Spring 2016, School Of Engineering

Engineering News

No abstract provided.

Planning For Climate Change: The Need For Mechanistic Systems-Based Approaches To Study Climate Change Impacts On Diarrheal Diseases, Jonathan E. Mellor, Karen Levy, Julie Zimmerman, Mark Elliott, Jamie Bartram, Elizabeth Carlton, Thomas Clasen, Rebecca Dilingham, Joseph Eisenberg, Richard Guerrant, Daniele Lantagne, James Mihelcic, Kara Nelson

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Increased precipitation and temperature variability as well as extreme events related to climate change are predicted to affect the availability and quality of water globally. Already heavily burdened with diarrheal diseases due to poor access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, communities throughout the developing world lack the adaptive capacity to sufficiently respond to the additional adversity caused by climate change. Studies suggest that diarrhea rates are positively correlated with increased temperature, and show a complex relationship with precipitation. Although climate change will likely increase rates of diarrheal diseases on average, there is a poor mechanistic understanding of the underlying …

Processing And Interpretation Of Three-Component Vertical Seismic Profile Data, Ross Sea, Antarctica, Meltem Akan

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) AND-2A drill hole was drilled, cored and logged in southern McMurdo Sound (SMS) in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica during the austral summer of 2007. A single near-offset, over-sea ice vertical seismic profile (VSP) was collected in the AND-2A drill hole as a part of the logging program. The source for VSP data collection was a Generator Injector (GI) air-gun which was suspended by a cable through a hole made in the sea ice. The reason for selecting a GI air gun was the minimization of the bubble pulse effects which are prevalent in …

The Casualty Transportation Of Ebola Outbreak In Liberia: A Simulation Study, Hyejin Cho

Open Access Theses

In this paper, we have solved the unique problem of casualty transportation problem under Ebola by developing dynamic policies for vehicle routing in order to provide practical decision support. The objective of the proposed model is to minimize the total transmission risk. We describe the problem with real- constraints and parameters based on the empirical data of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia. The casualty transportation problem is a variant of Dynamic Pick-up and Delivery Problems (DPDP), in which a vehicle is dispatched to demand location in real time and it then transports the demands to the aimed area (destination). …

Characterization Of A Continuous-Flow Reactor For Solar Uv Water Disinfection, Margaret M. Busse

Open Access Theses

Lack of access to safe water is a common problem in many developing countries (UNICEF/WHO, 2011). Fortunately, solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation is abundantly available in many of these same areas, and it has been used to accomplish disinfection of drinking water by processes that involve no electrical power, such as solar water disinfection (SODIS). However, conventional SODIS systems are limited by batch processing and exclusion of UVB radiation, which is the most germicidally-active portion of the UV spectrum (Coohill and Sagripanti, 2008). To address these limitations, a continuous-flow solar UV disinfection system was developed to amplify ambient solar UV radiation, …

Transportation And Power Solutions For Africa: The Assessment And Optimization Of The Purdue Utility Platform, Jeremy Patrick Robison

Open Access Theses

The Purdue Utility Platform (PUP) is an off-road utility vehicle that was created to improve agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa by providing appropriate transportation and mobile power solutions. The vehicle design has matured to a level where it now requires more robust engineering tools to perform a rigorous assessment of its function. The assessment will be pursued in two areas: durability of the frame and the roll stability of the vehicle. To assess the durability of the frame, a data acquisition system was installed to collect strain gauge information during the vehicle’s operation. This data was then related to an …