Engineering Commons^™

Nonlinear Vibration Energy Harvesting Based On Variable Double Well Potential Function, Wei Yang, Shahrzad Towfighian

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Converting ambient mechanical energy to electricity, vibration energy harvesting, enables powering of the low-power remote sensors. Nonlinear energy harvesters have the advantage of a wider frequency spectrum compared to linear resonators making them more efficient in scavenging the broadband frequency of ambient vibrations. To increase the output power of the nonlinear resonators, we propose an energy harvester composed of a cantilever piezoelectric beam carrying a movable magnet facing a fixed magnet at a distance. The movable magnet on the beam is attached to a spring at the base of the beam. The spring-magnet system on the cantilever beam creates the …

A Spiral Computer Engineering Lab Framework, Pong P. Chu, Chansu Yu, Karla Hamlen-Mansour

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This development establishes a “spiral” lab framework, in which the key concepts are revisited at increasing levels of sophistication and interconnection, for Computer Engineering curriculum. The development is addressing a serious deficiency – lack of integration skill – in engineering curriculum. The framework connects and integrates the individual courses through a coherent sequence of lab experiments and projects across the entire curriculum. These lab experiments and projects are designed to illustrate and reinforce key theoretical concepts and their complexities and abstraction levels gradually grow as students progress through the curriculum. The framework is based in three cohesive themes: video, audio, …

Development Of Learning Objectives For An Undergraduate Computer-Aided Drafting And Design Animation Using The Delphi Technique, Gavin M. Wilk

Masters Theses

This study reflects on learning objectives created for an advanced computer aided drafting (CAD) learning module(s) or course with the emphasis on simulation and engineering animations. These objectives were derived by using the Delphi technique by access the support of a panel of subject matter experts (SME) from academia and industry that are interested in CAD. The results of this study are intended for the use of creating instructional modules for undergraduate studies.

A panel of experts were chosen through an electronic listserv of engineering and technology supporters. Two rounds of two different Delphi survey instruments were utilized to complete …

Smart Fabrics For Colorimetric Detection, Breland Edwards

Undergraduate Research Posters

Due to the prevalence of chemical warfare, soldiers often carry chemical sensing devices, to warn of oncoming nerve agents. However, these devices are cumbersome. A lightweight, wearable chemical sensing fabric that doubles as a protectant against toxins would be beneficial. This fabric can be created by incorporating (1) organophosphate hydrolase, an enzyme capable of degrading organophosphates and releasing an acidic by product, and (2) polyaniline, a color changing polymer that changes from purple to green in the presence of acid, into nylon or polyvinyl alcohol nanofibers. The first step is to produce fabrics containing polyaniline and demonstrate that the fabrics …

Sensing Using Specialty Optical Fibers, Amy Van Newkirk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fiber optic based sensing is a growing field with many applications in civil and aerospace engineering, oil and gas industries, and particularly in harsh environments where electronics are not able to function. Optical fibers can be easily integrated into structures, are immune to electromagnetic interference, can be interrogated from remote distances, and can be multiplexed for distributed measurements. Because of these properties, specialty fiber designs and devices are being explored for sensing temperature, strain, pressure, curvature, refractive index, and more. Here we show a detailed analysis of a multicore fiber (MCF) for sensing, including its design and optimization in simulation, …

Electrical Parasitic Bandwidth Limitations Of Oxide-Free Lithographic Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers, Xu Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nowadays, Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) are the most popular optical sources in short-reach data communications. In the commercial oxide VCSEL technology, an oxide aperture is created inside resonant cavity in realizing good mode and current confinement, however, high electrical resistance comes along with forming the oxide aperture and the electrical parasitic bandwidth becomes the main limitation in modulation speed. In this report, electrical bandwidths of oxide-free lithographic VCSELs have been studied along with their general lasing properties. Due to the new ways of fabricating the aperture, record low resistances have been achieved in oxide-free lithographic VCSELs with various sizes, while …

Improved Interpolation In Sph In Cases Of Less Smooth Flow, Oddny Brun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We introduced a method presented in Information Field Theory (IFT) [Abramovich et al., 2007] to improve interpolation in Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) in cases of less smooth flow. The method makes use of wavelet theory combined with B-splines for interpolation. The idea is to identify any jumps a function may have and then reconstruct the smoother segments between the jumps. The results of our work demonstrated superior capability when compared to a particular challenging SPH application, to better conserve jumps and more accurately interpolate the smoother segments of the function. The results of our work also demonstrated increased computational efficiency …

The Impact Of Automation Reliability And Fatigue On Reliance, Ryan Wohleber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research is to inform the design of dynamic interfaces to optimize unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operator reliance on automation. A broad goal of the U.S. military is to improve the ratio of UAV operators to UAVs controlled. Accomplishing this goal requires the use of automation; however, the benefits of automation are jeopardized without appropriate operator reliance. To improve reliance on automation, this effort sought to accomplish several objectives organized into phases. The first phase aimed to validate metrics that could be used to gauge operator fatigue online, to understand how the reliability of automated systems influences …

Di2e: Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise, Space Dynamics Laboratory

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

The rising demand for rapid intelligence software solutions combined with limited Government funding has highlighted the need for an organized process to use resources more efficiently. The solution needed to leverage existing capabilities to meet mission needs and ensure that defense intelligence information flows seamlessly across enterprise boundaries. In response, as a Government initiative, the NRO and AFRL developed the Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise (DI2E) framework as a solution to promote intelligence software asset reuse where possible.

Intracellular Ros Mediates Gas Plasma-Facilitated Cellular Transfection In 2d And 3d Cultures, Dehui Xu, Biqing Wang, Yujing Xu, Zeyu Chen, Qinjie Cui, Yanjie Yang, Hailan Chen, Michael G. Kong

Bioelectrics Publications

This study reports the potential of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) as a versatile tool for delivering oligonucleotides into mammalian cells. Compared to lipofection and electroporation methods, plasma transfection showed a better uptake efficiency and less cell death in the transfection of oligonucleotides. We demonstrated that the level of extracellular aqueous reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by gas plasma is correlated with the uptake efficiency and that this is achieved through an increase of intracellular ROS levels and the resulting increase in cell membrane permeability. This finding was supported by the use of ROS scavengers, which reduced CAP-based uptake efficiency. In …

Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian Method Investigation On Fuel Tank Strap Simulation Under Proving Ground Condition, Guangtian Song

Wayne State University Dissertations

The Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) is a hybrid finite element formulation that can alleviate many of the drawbacks from the traditional Lagrangian-based and Eulerian-based finite element simulations, which is developed through combining modern algorithms for Lagrangian hydrodynamics, meshing technology and remap methods developed for high-resolution Eulerian methods. Lagrangian-based finite element formulations is that the computational system moves with the material and main drawback is that it will face severe problems to deal with strong distortions in the computational domain. Eulerian-based finite element formulations is that the computational system is a prior fixed in space and unable to deal easily with fluids …

An Analysis Of Plasticity In The Rat Respiratory System Following Cervical Spinal Cord Injury And The Application Of Nanotechnology To Induce Or Enhance Recovery Of Diaphragm Function, Janelle Lorien Walker

Wayne State University Dissertations

Second cervical segment spinal cord hemisection (C2Hx) results in ipsilateral hemidiaphragm paralysis. However, the intact latent crossed phrenic pathway can restore function spontaneously over time or immediately following drug administration.

WGA bound fluorochromes were administered to identify nuclei associated with diaphragm function in both the acute and chronic C2Hx models. WGA is unique in that it undergoes receptor mediated endocytosis and is transsynaptically transported across select physiologically active synapses. Comparison of labeling in the acutely injured to the chronically injured rat provided an anatomical map of spinal and supraspinal injury induced synaptic plasticity. The plasticity occurs over time in the …

Local Field Enhancement On Demand Based On Hybrid Plasmonic Dielectric Directional Coupler, Kholod Adhem Adhem

Wayne State University Dissertations

The concept of local field enhancement using conductor- gap-dielectric-substrate (CGDS) waveguide structure is proposed. The dispersion equation is derived analytically and solved numerically. The solution of the dispersion equation reveals the anti-crossing behavior of coupled modes. The optimal gap layer thickness and the coupling length of the guided modes are obtained. The mechanism of the CGDS works as follows: Light waves are guided by conventional low-loss dielectric waveguides and, upon demand, they are transformed into highly confined plasmonic modes with strong local field enhancement, and get transformed back into low-loss dielectric modes. As an example, in a representative CGDS structure, …

Stop Identity Cues As A Cue To Language Identity, Paula Lisa Castonguay

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether language membership could potentially be cued by the acoustic-phonetic detail of word-initial stops and retained all the way through the process of lexical access to aid in language identification. Of particular interest were language-specific differences in CE and CF word-initial stops. Experiment 1 consisted of an interlingual homophone production task. The purpose of this study was to examine how word-initial stop consonants differ in terms of acoustic properties in Canadian English (CE) and Canadian French (CF) interlingual homophones. The analyses from the bilingual speakers in Experiment 1 indicate that bilinguals …

Development Of An Elderly Female Torso Finite Element Model For Restraint System Research And Development Applications, Anil Kalra Kalra

Wayne State University Dissertations

Elderly females are found to be one of the most vulnerable segments of population during motor vehicle crashes and their population is increasing in the coming decades. Current design of restraint systems as well as other passive safety measures are designed based on anthropomorphic details of younger population. Developing another dummy representing elderly female population is a costly effort, while a finite element (FE) model of elderly female with similar anthropomorphic details and age- and gender-specific material properties can be a better alternative solution. The current research focuses on the development of a FE model of an elderly female torso, …

Road Scholars For The Western States: Protecting Natural Areas By Improving Road Management Research, Brian Cooke, Charlie Luce, Tom Black, David G. Tarboton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

A poorly placed or unsuitably designed road can result in landslides, flooding, gullies, stream damage, and wildlife habitat destruction. Particularly in natural areas, benefits of roads, such as accessibility and convenience, must be weighed against potential water quality degradation, scenic and wildlife habitat destruction, and hazardous driving conditions.

Scientists at the Rocky Mountain Research Station helped create two free tools—GRAIP (Geomorphic Road Analysis and Inventory Package) and GRAIP-Lite—to help land managers make better decisions about road management in environmentally sensitive areas. GRAIP helps land managers analyze and predict surface erosion, gully risk, landslide risk, stream crossing failure risks, and other …

Experimental Validation Data For Cfd Of Forced Convection On A Vertical Flat Plate, Jeff R. Harris, Blake W. Lance, Barton L. Smith

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

A CFD validation data set for turbulent forced convection on a vertical plate is presented. The design of the apparatus is based on recent validation literature and provides a means to simultaneously measure boundary conditions and system response quantities. All important inflow quantities for RANS CFD are also measured. Data are acquired at two heating conditions and cover the range 40;000 < Rex < 300;000, 357 < Red2 < 813 and 0:02 < Gr/Re2 < 0:232. The data and uncertainties are contained in files in the supplemental material

Modeling, Simulation And Control Of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Drive While Minimizing Energy Input Requirements Using Optimized Gear Ratios, Sanjai Massey

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This project was conducted to analyze (model and simulate) and optimize an electric motor based drive system to propel a typical passenger vehicle in an urban driving environment. Although there are many HEV and EV type systems on the market today, this paper chose the Toyota Prius HEV system as a baseline using a brushless AC motor.

Although a vehicle can be driven many ways, a more standardized Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule, UDDS, was chosen to simulate real driving conditions. This schedule is determined by the US Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and is intended to represent the city driving conditions …

Inhibition Of Bacterial Growth And Prevention Of Bacterial Adhesion With Localized Nitric Oxide Delivery, Julia Osborne

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Bacterial infections continue to be a problem at the site of an indwelling medical device, and over the years, various bacterial strains have become more resistant to current antibiotic treatments. Bacterial infection at an indwelling medical device can be dangerous and affect the performance of the medical device which can ultimately lead to the failure of the device due to bacterial resistance to treatment.

Nitric Oxide (NO) has been shown to possess antibacterial properties to prevent and inhibit bacterial growth. NO releasing coatings on indwelling medical devices could provide a reduction in bacterial infections that occur at the device site …

Effect Of Fiber Orientation On Dynamic Compressive Properties Of An Ultra-High Performance Concrete, Andrew B. Groeneveld

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Casting structural elements with ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) tends to create preferential fiber alignment, which affects the strength and must be accounted for in design. Fiber orientation effects in tension have been studied extensively, but less work has been performed for compression. This work characterizes the fiber orientation occurring in a typical UHPC beam and how that orientation affects compressive behavior at high strain rates. Specimens (36 total) were cored from the beam and their fiber orientations were non-destructively evaluated using x-ray computed tomography (CT). Fibers showed flow-induced alignment along the length of the beam, with orientation angles in the …

Wireless Implantable Magnetoelastic Sensors And Actuators For Biomedical Applications, Andrew Derouin

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Magnetoelastic sensors represent a low-cost wireless and battery-less method for monitoring parameters in embedded or implanted applications; however, some limitations still exist preventing their commercial implementation. Presented in this work are a variety of studies that are aimed at improving the feasibility of magnetoelastic materials for sensing and actuating applications. Magnetoelastic resonant sensors of non-standard geometries were investigated to determine if geometry could play a role on the sensitivity of the sensor response to mass loading. It was shown that a significant increase in sensitivity could be achieved by using triangular sensors rather than standard rectangular strips. A method for …

Probability-Based Hurricane Resilience Evaluation And Retrofitting For Residential Community, Yadong Dong

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Wood residential construction is vulnerable to hurricanes, as evident in recent hurricane events. Many studies indicated that the changing climate may very likely alter hurricane patterns, which could lead to more severe hurricane damage to the wood residential construction that accounts for 90% of the residence in the USA. On the other hand, deterioration of material increases the chance of structural failure by reducing the structural capacity (e.g., corrosion of fasteners in roof panel could significantly reduce the withdrawal capacity of the roofing structure during hurricane events).

Currently, most hurricane damage estimations only focus on direct loss (e.g., structural loss). …

Investigation And Modeling Of Al3(Sc, Zr) Precipitation Strengthening In The Presence Of Enhanced Supersaturation And Within Al-Cu Binary Alloys, Kyle Deane

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Diffuse Al-Sc and Al-Zr alloys have been demonstrated in literature to be relatively coarsening resistant at higher temperatures when compared with commonly used precipitation strengthening alloys (e.g. 2000 series, 6000 series). However, because of a limited strengthening due to the low solubility of scandium and zirconium in aluminum, and owing to the scarcity and therefore sizeable price tag attached to scandium, little research has been done in the way of optimizing these alloys for commercial applications.

With this in mind, this dissertation describes research which aims to tackle several important areas of Al-Sc-Zr research that have been yet unresolved. In …

Finite Element Analysis And Topology Optimization Of Differential Case And Control Arm For Static And Fatigue Loading, Pankaj N. Kalan

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Optimization of the automobile components can result in a significant decrease in vehicle weight, increase in fuel efficiency and reduction in environmental damage. For example, the lightweight vehicle production will save over 4.4×109 GJ of energy and 4.1×108 tons of CO2 over a 10 year period, compared to the current non-light weight vehicles. This equates to 890 billion miles or 42 billion gallons of gas savings (Wu 2016). This study evaluates the weight reduction possible by using manual and automatic (using Optistruct software) topology optimization processes. Optimization of a vehicle differential case done in this study shows that a weight …

Design And Simulation Of A Residential Pv-Battery System, Sevket Burak Ovali

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis provides the design and simulation of a stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) system to ensure the load demands for a single residential in Houghton (MI) and Tucson (AZ). The fundamental activities of this study aim to model for particular stand-alone photovoltaic of components. Entire stand-alone design stages for used load data sets are carried out. Daily irradiance and load data are taken into consideration throughout the design stages. The Simulink program is developed to obtain simulation results to observe PV system and battery behaviors regarding various months which have most various irradiances throughout 30 days. Sizing of PV systems is …

An Assessment Of The Validity Of The Kinetic Model For Liquid-Vapor Phase Change By Examining Cryogenic Propellants, Kishan Bellur

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Evaporation is ubiquitous in nature and occurs even in a microgravity space envi- ronment. Long term space missions require storage of cryogenic propellents and an accurate prediction of phase change rates. Kinetic theory has been used to model and predict evaporation rates for over a century but the reported values of accommodation coefficients are highly inconsistent and no accurate data is available for cryogens. The proposed study involves a combined experimental and computational approach to ex- tract the accommodation coefficients. Neutron imaging is used as the visualization technique due to the difference in attenuation between the cryogen and the metallic …

Mse Annual Report 2016, Department Of Materials Science And Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Annual Reports

Table of Contents

• Faculty and Staff News
• Faculty Research
• Student News
• Senior Design Teams
• Graduate Student News
• Outreach
• Alumni News
• MSE by the Numbers
• Scholarships

Comparison Of Selected Differential Producing, Ultrasonic And Magnetic Flow Meters, Johnny B. Prettyman, Michael C. Johnson, Steven L. Barfuss

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Selecting the best flow meter for a specific application can be challenging because of the many types and designs of flow meters, with each having its own merits and drawbacks. Illustrating these specific benefits and drawbacks can help the buyer select the meter best suited for the desired application. The flow meters investigated in this research include five designs of differential-pressure meters (i.e., differential-producing), a magnetic flow meter, and an ultrasonic flow meter. The differential meters included the Venturi designs, the wedge flow meter, and the V-cone meter. Testing was completed at the Utah Water Research Laboratory to quantify the …

Large Eddy Simulation Of Turbulence And Solute Transport In A Forested Headwater Stream, A. Khosronejad, A. T. Hansen, J. L. Kozarek, K. Guentzel, M. Hondzo, M. Guala, Peter Wilcock, J. C. Finlay, F. Sotiropoulos

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The large eddy simulation (LES) module of the Virtual StreamLab (VSL3D) model is applied to simulate the flow and transport of a conservative tracer in a headwater stream in Minnesota, located in the south Twin Cities metropolitan area. The detailed geometry of the stream reach, which is _135 m long, _2.5 m wide, and _0.15 m deep, was surveyed and used as input to the computational model. The detailed geometry and location of large woody debris and bed roughness elements up to _0.1 m in size were also surveyed and incorporated in the numerical simulation using the Curvilinear Immersed Boundary …

Biom 3110: Medical Physiology (Syllabus), Bradford D. Pendley

Biomedical Engineering Syllabi Archive

Course Description: Basic principles of human physiology and how these are applied in medicine and biomedical engineering problem and devices; physiological principles using appropriate mathematical and engineering models to construct an understanding of how the body works as an integrated system.