Engineering Commons^™

A Workflow For Managing Building Information And Performance Data Using Virtual Reality: An Alternative To Bim For Existing Buildings?, Adam Rysanek, Clayton Miller, Arno Schlueter

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Building information modelling (BIM) has carved a growing niche in the construction industry for the support of new building projects. The same cannot be said for existing buildings, where the prevalence of uncertain data, and unclear information, has been difficult to reconcile with the unambiguous nature of BIM parameterization. An opportunity to alleviate these challenges may have arrived from the recent boon of virtual reality platforms for navigating physical environments. This paper demonstrates how labeling of equirectangular images with data or text widgets is possible using publicly-available software libraries. A prototype is presented and tested on a building in Singapore.

Improving The Floris Wind Plant Model For Compatibility With Gradient-Based Optimization, Jared Thomas, Pieter Gebraad, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

The FLOw Redirection and Induction in Steady-state (FLORIS) model, a parametric wind turbine wake model that predicts steady state wake characteristics based on wind turbine position and yaw angle, was developed for optimization of control settings and turbine locations. This paper provides details on the recent changes made to the FLORIS model to make the model more suitable for gradient-based optimization. Changes to the FLORIS model were made to remove discontinuities and add curvature to regions of non-physical zero gradient. Exact gradients for the FLORIS model were obtained using algorithmic differentiation. A set of three case studies demonstrate that using …

Characterization Of The High Frequency Alternating Current Block In The Rat Sciatic Nerve Using Cuff Electrodes And Macro-Sieve Electrodes, Soumyajit Ray

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Tripolar cuff electrodes were designed, fabricated and non-chronically implanted in the sciatic nerve of two-month-old Lewis rats. A proximal constant current stimulus to the nerve was blocked by applying a high frequency sinusoidal signal to the distally placed tripolar cuff electrode. The frequency voltage characteristic of the blocking signal was obtained. Complete block was not achieved using variants of the tripolar cuff design and bipolar cuff electrodes. Single and dual macro-sieve electrode assemblies were designed, fabricated and chronically implanted in the sciatic nerve of Lewis rats. After a four-month period for regeneration four different electrode configurations were tested to enable …

Impacts Of Rail Transit Investments On Demographics And Land Use: 1990-2010, Aubrey Trinidad

All Theses

This paper studies the changes in land use and population characteristics around station areas following the building of rail transit stations in 14 major cities in the United States from 1990 to 2010. It answers the question: how have investments in US rail transit made since the 1990s affected land use and demographics? It also looks at the specific effects of investments on population density, race, and ethnicity, means of transportation, median housing value, median household income, vehicle access share, occupations, and land use represented by the share of multifamily versus single-family housing. Using block group level US census data …

How To Enhance Interdisciplinary Competence—Interdisciplinary Problem-Based Learning Versus Interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning, Mirjam Brassler, Jan Dettmers

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

Interdisciplinary competence is important in academia for both employability and sustainable development. However, to date, there are no specific interdisciplinary education models and, naturally, no empirical studies to assess them. Since problem-based learning (PBL) and project-based learning (PjBL) are learning approaches that emphasize students’ collaboration, both pedagogies seem suitable to enhance students’ interdisciplinary competence. Based on the principle of constructive alignment and four instructional principles on interdisciplinary learning, this paper proposes that students profit more from interdisciplinary PBL (iPBL) than interdisciplinary PjBL (iPjBL). A pre-post study was conducted with a sample of 95 students participating in iPBL and 183 students …

A Geologic Study To Determine The Potential To Create An Appalachian Storage Hub For Natural Gas Liquids, Kristin M. Carter, Douglas G. Patchen, Jessica P. Moore, Mohammad Fakhari, Gary W. Daft Jr, Michael Solis, Brian J. Dunst, Robin V. Anthony, Katherine W. Schmid, Kyle Metz, Philip Dinterman, Julie M. Bloxson, Erica N. Schubert, John Saucer

Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium

The Marcellus and Utica shale plays continue to lead the way in an ever-expanding shale revolution with average daily production, growing from about 3 billion cubic feet (BCF) in 2010 to more than 24 BCF today. Forecasts suggest that this could grow to as much as 40 BCF in the next 5 years. Fortunately, sweet spots in the Utica in eastern Ohio and in the Marcellus in northern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania are areas of wet gas production, downdip from oil production and updip from dry gas. Production in these regions represents about 40 percent of the total from …

Conference Program, Ulf Olsson, Norman Wagner, Anand Yethiraj

Association in Solution IV

No abstract provided.

Multisequence Algorithm For Coarse-Grained Biomolecular Simulations: Exploring The Sequence-Structure Relationship Of Proteins, Adekunle Aina, Stefan Wallin

Association in Solution IV

Many biologically motivated problems naturally call for the investigation and comparison of molecular variants, such as determining the mechanisms of specificity in biomolecular interactions or the mechanisms of molecular evolution. We consider a generalized ensemble algorithm for coarse-grained simulations of biomolecules which allows the thermodynamic behavior of two or more sequences to be determined in a single multisequence run. By carrying out a random walk in sequence space, the method also enhances conformational sampling. Escape from local energy minima is accelerated by visiting sequences for which the minima are shallower or absent. We test the method on an intermediate-resolution coarse-grained …

Three-Dimensional Printing Of "Green" Fuels For Low-Cost Small Spacecraft Propulsion Systems, Stephen A. Whitmore

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper details the advantages of employing modern additive manufacturing methods to fabricate hybrid rocket fuels for intrinsically safe and green small spacecraft propulsion systems. Using additive manufacturing overcomes multiple issues frequently associated with hybrid propulsion, including poor volumetric efficiency, system ignitability, and low fuel regression rates. When certain three-dimensionally printed thermoplastics are subjected to a high-voltage low-wattage charge, electrostatic arcing along the surface pyrolizes a small amount of material that, with the introduction of an oxidizer, “seeds” combustion and produces immediate and reliable ignition. Thermoplastic fuel grains can be printed with port shapes that enhance burn properties and increase …

Molecular Dynamics Modeling And Simulation Of Bitumen Chemical Aging, Farshad Fallah

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Chemical aging of asphalt binder leads to significant changes in its mechanical and rheological properties, resulting in poor pavement behavior and distress. Various laboratory methods have been used to simulate asphalt aging during the service life of the pavement. However, controversy exists regarding the capability of these methods to predict field aging, as various factors interact with the pavement during service and the mechanism behind aging is not fully understood. The two main outcomes of chemical aging are oxidation of asphalt molecules, and change in asphalt SARA (saturate, aromatic, resin, and asphaltene) fractions. Reaction of oxygen with asphalt components forms …

Prediction Of Graduation Delay Based On Student Characterisitics And Performance, Tushar Ojha

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

A college student's success depends on many factors including pre-university characteristics and university student support services. Student graduation rates are often used as an objective metric to measure institutional effectiveness. This work studies the impact of such factors on graduation rates, with a particular focus on delay in graduation. In this work, we used feature selection methods to identify a subset of the pre-institutional features with the highest discriminative power. In particular, Forward Selection with Linear Regression, Backward Elimination with Linear Regression, and Lasso Regression were applied. The feature sets were selected in a multivariate fashion. High school GPA, ACT …

Ros Based High Performance Control Architecture For An Aerial Robotic Testbed, Christoph Hintz

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The purpose of this thesis is to show the development of an aerial testbed based on the Robot Operating System (ROS). Such a testbed provides flexibility to control heterogenous vehicles, since the robots are able to simply communication with each other on the High Level (HL) control side. ROS runs on an embedded computer on-board each quadrotor. This eliminates the need of a Ground Base Station, since the complete HL control runs on-board the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

The architecture of the system is explained throughout the thesis with detailed explanations of the specific hardware and software used for the …

Decoupling Information And Connectivity In Information-Centric Networking, Hila Ben Abraham, Jyoti Parwatikar, John Dehart, Adam Drescher, Patrick Crowley

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

This paper introduces and demonstrates the concept of Information-Centric Transport as a mechanism for cleanly decoupling the information plane from the connectivity plane in Information-Centric Networking (ICN) architectures, such as NDN and CICN. These are coupled in today's incarnations of NDN and CICN through the use of forwarding strategy, which is the architectural component for deciding how to forward packets in the presence of either multiple next-hop options or dynamic feedback. As presently designed, forwarding strategy is not sustainable: application developers can only confidently specify strategy if they understand connectivity details, while network node operators can only confidently assign strategies …

Optimum Conditions For Eor Using Nanofluids Subjected To Em Waves, Muhammad Kashif, Poppy Puspitasari

Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST)

Today’s major challenge for oil industry is to improve the oil recovery from the reservoir. Various enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods have been applied in the field and the steam injection is one of the most favourable methods. The deep reservoir will result in failure of this method due to excessive heat dissipation. In this situation, generating and injecting steam may be uneconomical due to the tremendous reduction of the recovery. Some methods using nanotechnology have been introduced and elaborated. However, we propose the electromagnetic (EM) method as an alternative due to its long range transmission of the transverse waves. …

Analysis Of Strength Of Glass Fibre Composite Leaf Spring Using Finite Element Method, Andoko Andoko, Poppy Puspitasari, Avita Ayu Permanasari

Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST)

Leaf spring, as one of the main components of the suspension system, serves the function of absorbing road shocks and any wheel vibrations, preventing them from being transmitted directly to the vehicle body. Moreover, it can increase the tire traction as well as support the weight of the vehicle and various kinds of external forces. Various studies on the use of composite materials for leaf springs have shown that the strength of composite leaf spring is similar to steel leaf spring with the same load carrying capacity. However, the composite leaf spring has the added advantage of being more lightweight. …

Factors Affecting The Surface Roughness In Sinking Edm Process, Ahmad Atif Fikri, Maftuchin Romlie, Aminnudin Aminnudin

Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST)

The purpose of this study is to gain insights into the surface quality (smoothness) of sinking EDM machining products. Among other non-conventional machining processes, Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) is the most commonly used process. EDM is a machining process that uses electric sparks created between a workpiece and a tool (electrode). As a manufacturing process, EDM is used for workpieces which have intricate contours and precise dimensions, and works by using electric discharges (sparks) applied in a rapid series of repetitive electrical discharges between the two electrodes, separated by a dielectric fluid, and subject to an electric voltage. Since the …

The Strength Of Moulding Sand Consisting Of A Mixture Of Bentonite, Tapioca Flour, And Sago Flour As A New Binder Formula To Improve The Quality Of Al-Si Cast Alloy, Andoko Andoko, Riana Nurmalasari, M. Alfian Mizar, Retno Wulandari, Poppy Puspitasari, Avita Ayu Permanasari

Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST)

The major factors determining the quality of sand casting products are the base sand and the composition of the sand mould and the binding material. In the foundry industry, the most commonly used binder for creating sand moulds is bentonite. However, the price of bentonite is likely to keep rising. This study aimed at discovering a new binder formula associated with the effect of binder composition i.e. bentonite, tapioca flour, and sago flour on the basis of its mechanical and physical properties. The new formula was expected to be a better binder in the production of sand moulds, resulting in …

Analysis Of Biodegradation Of Bioplastics Made Of Cassava Starch, Nanang Eko Wahyuningtiyas, Heru Suryanto

Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST)

Environmental pollution due to plastic waste taking too long to decompose has become a global problem. There have been numerous solutions proposed, one of which is the use of bioplastics. The use of cassava starch as the main ingredient in the manufacture of bioplastics shows great potential, since Indonesia has a diverse range of starch-producing plants. The aim of the present study is to analyse the effect of glycerol on microbial degradation. This experimental research investigated the use of cassava flour mixed with glycerol plasticizer at various concentrations (0, 2, 2.5, 3%) in the synthesis of bioplastics. The aspects studied …

Effect Of Magnetic Field On Diesel Engine Power Fuelled With Jatropha-Diesel Oil, Sukarni Sukarni, Partono Partono, Deni Krisdianto, Retno Wulandari

Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST)

Jatropha oil has characteristics very close to the diesel fuel, so it has good prospects as a substitute or as a mixture of diesel fuel. Previous research showed that jatropha oil usage in diesel engines caused power to decrease. It was probably owing to the higher viscosity of the Jatropha oil compared to that of diesel oil. Installing the magnetic field in the fuel line of a diesel engine fueled with jatropha-diesel oil is expected to reduce the viscosity of jatropha-diesel oil mixture, hence improve the combustion reaction process. This research aims to know the influence of the magnetic field …

Utilization Of Carbon Nanotubes In Electromagnetic Wave Detectors, Muhammad Hanis Zakariah, Poppy Puspitasari

Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST)

Direct detection of hydrocarbon by an active source using electromagnetic (EM) energy termed seabed logging (SBL) has shown very promising results. However, currently available electromagnetic wave technology has a number of challenges include sensitivity and frequency matching. This paper presents development of the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as electromagnetic wave detector due to outstanding properties of carbon nanotubes. They are currently one of the desired materials for advanced technologies. Two types of detectors were developed in this work, carbon nanotube-based (D1) and without nanotubebased (D2) detectors. Various configuration and arrangement for each type of detector were investigated to determine the one …

Empirical Study On The Accessibility Of Wi-Fi, Computers And Cell Phones In Cuba, Katalina Montalvo

Student Works

This paper reviews the accessibility of technology in Havana, Cuba as it begins to open its borders to the modern world. The technology researched includes cell phones, Wi-Fi, computers, and personal computers. As the embargo on Cuba begins to fade, tourists and new businesses are flocking to this once heavily restricted island. The focus of this paper is to explain the availability of modern technology to the citizens of Cuba. Currently, technology is very limited in Cuba because Wi-Fi is an expensive luxury for the average Cuban. Modern computers are also an expensive purchase, which forces Cubans to put together …

Cement Improved Highly Weathered Phyllite For Highway Subgrades: A Case Study In Shaanxi Province., Xuesong Mao, Carol Jean Miller, Longqi Liu

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research Publications

In a cost-saving move, the soft rocks composed of highly-weathered phyllites available onsite were used to fill the subgrade in the eastern Ankang section of the expressway of Shiyan to Tianshui, China. Cement admixture was used to improve the performance of the weathered phyllites. In order to determine the best mix ratio, values corresponding to compaction performance, unconfined compressive strength, and the California bearing ratio (CBR) were analyzed for variable cement content weight percentages (3%, 4%, 5%, and 6%) using test subgrade plots in the field. Field measurements of resilience modulus and deflection confirmed that the strength of the subgrade …

Structural Vs.. Compositional Disorder In Thermal Conductivity Reduction Of Sige Alloys, Jihui Nie, Raghavan Ranganathan, Zhi Liang, Pawel Keblinski

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We Use Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Determine the Relative Role of Compositional and Structural Disorder in a Phononic Thermal Conductivity Reduction by Studying Three 50-50 SiGe Alloy Structures: Ordered Alloys, Disordered Alloys, and Amorphous Alloys, as Well as Pure Amorphous Si and Ge Structures for Reference. While Both Types of Disorders Significantly Reduce Thermal Conductivity, Structural Disorder is Much More Effective to This Aim. the Examination of Phonon Lifetimes in Disordered Alloys Shows High Values in a Low Frequency Regime Governed by Umklapp Scattering that Are Reduced Rapidly with Increasing Frequency Following Rayleigh Scattering Behavior. the Local Properties Analysis …

Glucose Recovery From Different Corn Stover Fractions Using Dilute Acid And Alkaline Pretreatment Techniques, D. Aboagye, N. Banadda, R. Kambugu, Jeffrey Seay, N. Kiggundu, A. Zziwa, I. Kabenge

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Background: Limited availability of corn stover due to the competing uses (organic manure, animal feed, bio-materials, and bioenergy) presents a major concern for its future in the bio-economy. Furthermore, biomass research has exhibited different results due to the differences in the supply of enzymes and dissimilar analytical methods. The effect of the two leading pretreatment techniques (dilute acid and alkaline) on glucose yield from three corn stover fractions (cob, stalk, and leaf) sourced from a single harvest in Uganda were studied at temperatures 100, 120, 140, and 160 °C over reaction times of 5, 10, 30, and 60 min.

Results: …

An Ensemble Deep Convolutional Neural Network Model With Improved D-S Evidence Fusion For Bearing Fault Diagnosis, Shaobo Li, Guokai Liu, Xianghong Tang, Jianguang Lu, Jianjun Hu

Faculty Publications

Intelligent machine health monitoring and fault diagnosis are becoming increasingly important for modern manufacturing industries. Current fault diagnosis approaches mostly depend on expert-designed features for building prediction models. In this paper, we proposed IDSCNN, a novel bearing fault diagnosis algorithm based on ensemble deep convolutional neural networks and an improved Dempster–Shafer theory based evidence fusion. The convolutional neural networks take the root mean square (RMS) maps from the FFT (Fast Fourier Transformation) features of the vibration signals from two sensors as inputs. The improved D-S evidence theory is implemented via distance matrix from evidences and modified Gini Index. Extensive evaluations …

Visualization Of The Cardiac Excitation And Pvc Arrhythmia On A 3d Heart Model, Pranav Sreedharan Veliyara

Masters Theses

Visualization of the cardiac potential movement is important in understanding the physiology of the human heart. A 3D visualization tool will help the cardiology students and others interested in human physiology to understand the functioning of the heart. In this thesis, such a tool is proposed which helps in the visualization of the cardiac potential movement and Premature Ventricular Contraction (PVC) event on a 3D heart model. The cardiac excitation obtained from a limb lead and a precordial lead of a 12 lead electrocardiograph (ECG) is mapped on a 3D heart model with fixed conduction pathways. The 3D heart model …

What Are The Ultimate Limits To Computational Techniques: Verifier Theory And Unverifiability, Roman V. Yampolskiy

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Despite significant developments in proof theory, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the concept of proof verifiers. In particular, the mathematical community may be interested in studying different types of proof verifiers (people, programs, oracles, communities, superintelligences) as mathematical objects. Such an effort could reveal their properties, their powers and limitations (particularly in human mathematicians), minimum and maximum complexity, as well as self-verification and self-reference issues. We propose an initial classification system for verifiers and provide some rudimentary analysis of solved and open problems in this important domain. Our main contribution is a formal introduction of the notion of …

Hyperelastic Structural Fuses For Improved Earthquake Resilience Of Steel Concentrically-Braced Buildings, Francys López-Mosquera

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Improving structural resilience (i.e., reducing service interruptions and improving rapidity of function restoration) following extreme events is one of the primary contemporary challenges in structural engineering. While massive casualties have successfully been avoided through the adoption of modern building codes, the sole codified performance objective has been limited to the life safety/collapse prevention range of response. Christchurch, NZ, highlighted the insufficiency of this approach, with large sections of the city nonfunctional after a major earthquake, and with subsequent collapses induced by significant aftershocks. Engineering advances to improve building and community resilience are necessary to mitigate hazards from becoming disasters. This …

Data Extraction From Web Tables: The Devil Is In The Details, George Nagy, Sharad C. Seth, Dongpu Jin, David W. Embley, Spencer Machado, Mukkai Krishnamoorthy

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

We present a method based on header paths for efficient and complete extraction of labeled data from tables meant for humans. Although many table configurations yield to the proposed syntactic analysis, some require access to semantic knowledge. Clicking on one or two critical cells per table, through a simple interface, is sufficient to resolve most of these problem tables. Header paths, a purely syntactic representation of visual tables, can be transformed (“factored”) into existing representations of structured data such as category trees, relational tables, and RDF triples. From a random sample of 200 web tables from ten large statistical web …

End-To-End Conversion Of Html Tables For Populating A Relational Database, George Nagy, David W. Embley, Sharad C. Seth

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Automating the conversion of human-readable HTML tables into machine-readable relational tables will enable end-user query processing of the millions of data tables found on the web. Theoretically sound and experimentally successful methods for index-based segmentation, extraction of category hierarchies, and construction of a canonical table suitable for direct input to a relational database are demonstrated on 200 heterogeneous web tables. The methods are scalable: the program generates the 198 Access compatible CSV files in ~0.1s per table (two tables could not be indexed).