Engineering Commons^™

Using Hotspot Analysis And Detection Of Early Season Invasives (Desi) To Analyze The Temporal And Spatial Dynamics Of Invasive Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum)., Tara B.B. Bishop, J. Belnap, S. Munson, R. A. Gill, Sam B. St. Clair

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The invasion of exotic annual grasses during the last century has transformed plant habitats and communities worldwide. Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is a winter annual grass that has invaded over 100 million acres of the western United States (Pellant and Hall, 1994. Pellant, 1996). Cheatgrass quickly utilizes available resources especially after a disturbance to the landscape. A major impact of invasion is the increased frequency in fires (D’Antonio and Vitousek, 1992). As cheatgrass is highly successful at invading open and disturbed landscapes at a rapid pace it increases the frequency and severity of fires in arid landscapes (Brooks, 2005). …

Linking Quantitative Motor Assessments To The Underlying Brian Injury: A Preliminary Report, Paula Johnson, Clay Kincaid, Nathan Muncy, Steven K. Charles

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Using custom software and an inexpensive novel motion capture controller, we adapted and automated traditional subjective motor assessments in an integrated system to develop a quantitative motor assessment (QMA) that is low-cost, and highly sensitive. Twelve participants who have suffered a traumatic brain injury performed the QMA and had MRI scans of their brain. We compared the individual QMA results from the TBI group to normative standards (developed in an earlier work). We also compared the QMA results to measures of damage found in MRI results. Preliminary analysis of a subset of data are reported here.

Acoustic Measurements Of Lithium-Ion Battery Electrode Films, Kathryn L. Dallon, Jing Yao, Dean R. Wheeler, Brian A. Mazzeo

Utah Space Grant Consortium

This research investigates the use of acoustic measurements as an alternative means of non-destructive quality control for Li-ion battery films. The goal of this research is to enable accurate, non-destructive inspection of the battery electrode as it is being manufactured, so that problems can be identified and addressed early on. Here we report on our efforts to distinguish between films with different mechanical properties using acoustic resonances and surface acoustic wave (SAW) velocity. We were able to differentiate between films of various coating thicknesses using resonance measurements. We also used resonance measurements to monitor a material as it dried. SAW …

Desorption Electrospray Ionization (Desi) Mass Spectrometric Imaging Of Spatially Regulated In Vivo Metabolic Rates, Charlotte R. Lewis, Richard H. Carson, Mercede N. Erikson, Anna P. Zagieboylo, Bradley C. Naylor, Kelvin W. Li, John C. Price, Paul B. Farnsworth

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) is an ambient ionization technique used for mass spectrometric imaging of biological samples. When coupled with isotopic ratio measurements of deuterium-labeled tissues, DESI provides a means of measuring metabolic rates on a spatially resolved basis. In vivo metabolic rates are desired to better understand diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s and to study the impact of space travel on muscle tissue growth and wasting. Although DESI has been used to image lipids and metabolites of a variety of tissues and other imaging techniques, such as NIMS, have been used to study kinetic turnover rates, DESI …

Towards Unsupervised Deep Learning Based Anomaly Detection, Trevor Landeen, Jacob Gunther

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Novelty or anomaly detection is a challenging problem in many research disciplines without a general solution. In machine learning, inputs unlike the training data need to be identified. In areas where research involves taking measurements, identifying errant measurements is often necessary and occasionally vital. When monitoring the status of a system, some observations may indicate a potential system failure is occurring or may occur in the near future. The challenge is to identify the anomalous measurements that are usually sparse in comparison to the valid measurements. This paper presents a land-water classification problem as an anomaly detection problem to demonstrate …

Considering Manufacturability In The Design Of Deployable Origami-Adapted Mechanisms, Erica B. Crampton, Spencer P. Magleby

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Primary barriers to greater implementation of deployable origami-adapted mechanisms are their manufacturability and robustness. This paper discusses manufacturability in the design of such mechanisms through presenting and examining three examples. Manufacturability lessons gathered from these examples include the importance of joint-panel interfaces and how techniques and approaches for origami-adapted design can be customized to meet the needs of a specific product. As the manufacturability of deployable origami-adapted products is addressed and improved, their robustness will also improve, thereby enabling greater use of origami-adapted design.

An Optical-Based Aggregate Approach To Measuring Condensation Heat Transfer, Kimberly A. Stevens, Julie Crockett, Daniel R. Maynes, Brian D. Iverson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Condensation heat transfer is significant in many applications such as such as desalination, energy conversion [1], atmospheric water harvesting [2, 3], electronics cooling, and other high heat flux applications [4]. However, condensate on the surface adds a thermal resistance that limits condensation rates. The rate of condensation heat transfer is inversely proportional to the diameter of the condensate drops [5]. In industrial condensing systems, the resistance is minimized by removing the condensate via gravity or a vapor shear, but the minimum size of droplet removal is typically on the order of the capillary length of the condensate, about 2.7 mm …

Electrochemical Sensing With High Aspect Ratio Carbon Nanotube Platforms, Benjamin J. Brownlee, Brian D. Iverson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Increased sensitivity of electrochemical sensors is important for detection of low analyte concentrations. A unique flow-through sensor is demonstrated by depositing nanostructured platinum catalyst onto high aspect ratio, porous membranes of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Convective mass transfer enhancement was shown to improve the platinum-nanowire-coated CNT (PN-CNT) sensor performance in amperometric sensing of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂). Over 90% of the H₂O₂ was oxidized as it passed through the PN-CNT sensor, even for low concentrations in the range of 50 nM to 500 μM. This effective utilization of the analyte in detection demonstrates the …

An Efficient Linear Octree-Based Grid Toward Magnetic Fluid Stimulation, Sean Flynn, Parris Egbert

Utah Space Grant Consortium

An Eulerian approach to fluid flow provides an efficient stable paradigm for realistic fluid simulation. However its reliance on a fixed-resolution grid is not ideal for simulations that exhibit both large and small-scale fluid phenomena. A coarse grid can efficiently capture large-scale effects like ocean waves, but lacks the resolution needed for small-scale phenomena like droplets. On the other hand, a fine grid can capture these small-scale effects, but is inefficient for large-scale phenomena. Magnetic fluid, or ferrofluid, illustrates this problem with its very fine detail centered about a magnet and lack of detail elsewhere. Our new fluid simulation technique …

Targeting Sram Fpga Components Using A Two-Photon Absorption Laser, Matthew Cannon Andrés Pérez-Celis, Michael Wirthlin

Utah Space Grant Consortium

State-of-the-art SRAM FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) are being increasingly considered for use in space applications, due to their reprogrammability and many dedicated resources that implement many common tasks at high speeds. However, the programmable fabric and resources are susceptible to ionizing radiation common in space, causing the device to fail. The radiation effects of all the components need to be known in order to develop effective mitigation techniques. This information, however, is difficult to obtain through typical broadbeam ion testing, due to low observability rates of the components. This paper present the results of a study to use a …

Implementation Of Openfoam For Inviscid Incompressible Aerodynamic Flows, Jackson T. Reid, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Utah Space Grant Consortium

This paper is the description of the Utah State University AeroLab’s Aerodynamic Center Analysis Tool (AeroCAT), which is an implementation of the OpenFOAM CFD toolbox. AeroCAT takes in a user input file, generates a mesh, and solves a steady, inviscid, incompressible flow, automatically repeating the process for a range of angles of attack. It then processes the results to predict the wing’s span-wise locus of aerodynamic centers. The mesh generator used in this tool is GridX, developed by a former PhD student at USU, and the CFD solver is OpenFOAM.

Simultaneous Two-Site Photometry In Attitude Determination Of Resident Space Objects, Arun Bernard, David Geller

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Attitude determination of space objects is difficult due to the non-linearity of the data and sparseness of available measurements. The combination of simultaneous photometry from two observation sites allows for more information to be obtained in a shorter amount of time. The characterization of the parameters necessary to complete this simultaneous two-site photometry are presented along with simulated results.

Learning The Language Of Genes: Representing Global Codon Bias With Deep Language Models, M. Stanley Fujimoto, Paul M. Bodily, Cole A. Lyman, J. Andrew Jacobsen, Mark J. Clement

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Codon bias, the usage patterns of synonymous codons for encoding a protein sequence as nucleotides, is a biological phenomenon that is not well understood. Current methods that measure and model the codon bias of an organism exist for usage in codon optimization. In synthetic biology, codon optimization is a task the involves selecting the appropriate codons to reverse translate a protein sequence into a nucleotide sequence to maximize expression in a vector. These features include codon adaptation index (CAI) [1], individual codon usage (ICU), hidden stop codons (HSC) [2] and codon context (CC) [3]. While explicitly modeling these features has …

Lab-On-A-Chip Biosensor For Interplanetary Life Detection Missions, Thomas Wall

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Space research still consists of the major goal of the successful detection of life on another planet. The 2012 biological and life detection (BOLD) mission to Mars included the ARROW biosensor as one of its main life detection tools for the mission. Although the mission never went forward, the ARROW biosensor remains an obvious choice for interplanetary life detection missions. The sensor is cheap, small, lightweight, and very sensitive. All of these factors helped make it the candidate of choice for the BOLD mission to Mars and still make it a good candidate today. Since 2012, the ARROW biosensor has …

Testing An Oxygen Demand Delivery Device, Kyle M. Burk, Joseph A. Orr

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Anesthesia care providers routinely deliver supplemental O2 during monitored anesthesia care to prevent hemoglobin desaturation. The existing method of delivery, however, contributes to complications including respiratory depression and fire hazard. Patient variability also makes delivering O2 difficult. We have developed a demand oxygen delivery system that only gives oxygen during early inspiration. We designed a volunteer study to evaluate patient monitoring and to compare continuous flow to demand delivery. We hypothesized that ceasing oxygen delivery during expiration will facilitate reliable capnography in non-intubated patients. We also hypothesized that delivering oxygen on demand leads to higher alveolar oxygen concentrations and higher …

Detecting Low Respiratory Rates Using Myriad, Low-Cost Sensors, Sean Ermer, Lara Brewer, Kai Kuck, Joseph Orr

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The underlying problem for two of the three most common patterns of unexpected hospital deaths (PUHD) is hypoventilation¹. Current methods of post-operative respiratory monitoring give delayed signals and have a high false positive rate leading nurses to ignore alarms. We hypothesize there exists a combination of low cost sensors which are capable of providing real time feedback and alarms regarding obstructive sleep apnea and ventilatory depression. Such a monitor would be useful during space travel when monitoring personnel are limited following an injury or if astronauts were to be sedated during extended travel. Methods: Twenty-six subjects were recruited …

A Numerical Study Of The Development Of Inducer Backflow, D. Tate Fanning

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Inducers are used as a first stage in pumps to hinder cavitation and promote stable flow. Inducers pressurize the working fluid sufficiently such that cavitation does not develop in the rest of the pump, which allows the pump to operate at lower inlet head conditions. Despite the distinct advantages of inducer use, an undesirable region of backflow and resulting cavitation can form near the tips of the inducer blades. This backflow is often attributed to tip leakage flow, or the flow induced by the pressure differential across an inducer blade at the tip. We examine backflow of a single inducer …

Internal Wave Generation In The Presence Of A Turning Depth, Allison Lee Julie Crockett

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Internal waves are formed in stably stratified fluids where the natural frequency (N) of the fluid is greater than the excitation frequency (ω). If N < &omega, only evanescent waves form. Evanescent waves, which decay at an exponential rate, can become propagating internal waves if N increases above ω. Experiments were performed to investigate the effects of topography shape, distance between the topography and the turning depth (where N = ω), and the strength of the stratification as measured by the Froude number in both the evanescent and propagating regions. It was found that internal waves with the highest kinetic energy were generated by the medium Gaussian and that decreasing the distance between topography and the turning depth increased the kinetic energy over the entire range of tested values and topographical shapes. However, Fr_evan was a strong influence on kinetic energy for only a portion of the tested values.

Hemispherical Grid Retarding Field Analyzer Redesign For Secondary Electron Emission Studies, Gregory Wilson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

A redesign of the Hemispherical Grid Retarding Field Analyzer is discussed in relationship to multilayer charging models. In order to accurately extend single layer charging models to dynamic multilayer scenarios, precise measurements of electron emission as well as the net surface potential must be made. By learning from the previous design and thinking of future applications, the new instrument will greatly enhance our ability to precisely measure materials undergoing energetic electron bombardment.

The Aerodynamic Center Of Inviscid Airfoils, Orrin Pope

Utah Space Grant Consortium

A method for developing relations for C_L and C_m using general airfoil theory and conformal mapping without applying linearizing approximations such as the need for thin airfoils, small airfoil camber, or small angles of attack is shown. More accurate, and mathematically correct relations for the location of the aerodynamic center are obtained by accounting for the trigonometric and aerodynamic non-linearities lost in the development of traditional relations for the location of the aerodynamic center of airfoils. These more accurate descriptions for the location of the aerodynamic center are shown to be significant when predicting aircraft static stability.

On The “Fate Of Leachables” In Biopharmaceutical Up-Stream And Down- Stream Processes, Armin Hauk, Ina Pahl, Roberto Menzel, Samuel Dorey, Isabelle Uettwiller

Single-use Technologies II: Bridging Polymer Science to Biotechnology Applications

Single use systems (SUS), based on polymeric materials, are widely used in the biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Compounds potentially migrating from the polymeric materials into the production process at various stages as leachables can either negatively influence the production process performance (e.g. inhibit cell growth) or can contribute to process related drug impurities, which may potentially have an effect on product quality and/or patient safety. Today, the concept of investigating leachables is mainly focused on the measurement of extractables under worst case- or simulation-conditions plus their assessment including an interpolation towards potential leachables. In particular, in the frame of this assessment of …

Stochastic Adc Using Digital Standard Cells, Zachary Baltzer

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

No abstract provided.

Stochastic Adc Using Standard Cells: Design, Implementation And Eventual Fabrication Of A 4.7-Bit Adc, Zachary Baltzer

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

As process nodes shrink, analog design increasingly becomes difficult due to space, signal, and noise concerns. With highly synthesized digital design, analog design innovation lags as these specific considerations are to be accounted for. The analog to digital converter, proposed by Weaver et al., is a completely digital design relying on comparator offsets to produce a digital counter that tracks the difference between the input voltage and a reference voltage. To soon be fabricated on GlobalFoundry’s 130 nm CMOS process, the proposed 5-bit ADC uses approximately 90,000 transistors with 1,500 comparators and a full-adder tree consisting of 1,500 adders to …

Large Area Monolayer Doping Development, Brian Novak

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

No abstract provided.

Large Area Monolayer Doping Development, Brian Novak

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

No abstract provided.

Large Area Monolayer Doping Development, Brian Novak

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

One of the challenges facing the semiconductor industry as the scale of transistors shrink into nanometer sizes is the creation of ultra-shallow junctions. Furthermore, device geometry is morphing from planar to 3-dimensional structures which increases the need for conformal ultra-shallow junctions. The industry has relied on ion implantation to push the boundary of semiconductor doping, however effects such as transient enhanced diffusion caused by lattice damaged by implantation have impeded the creation of the desired ultra-shallow junctions. A new technique known as monolayer doping is one strategy to help solve both ultra-shallow junction formation as well as conformal doping. Monolayer …

Ald Of Ferroelectric Hfo2 Thin Films, Casey J. Gonta

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

No abstract provided.

Atomic Layer Of Deposition Of Ferroelectric Hfo2, Casey J. Gonta

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

No abstract provided.

Atomic Layer Of Deposition Of Ferroelectric Hfo2, Casey J. Gonta

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

Ferroelectric (FE) materials exhibit spontaneous polarization making them particularly attractive for non-volatile memory and logic applications. Recently, doped hafnium oxide has shown to be ferroelectric in nature expanding its applications to these areas of interest. Ferroelectricity has been reported in atomic layer deposition (ALD) of HfO2 with Al, Y, or Si dopants. Previous work at RIT demonstrated functional ferroelectric field effect transistors (FeFETs) using silicon doped HfO2 (Si:HfO2) as the gate dielectric.

The new addition of a Savannah ALD system at RIT has made deposition of doped HfO2 films possible. Recipes have been developed for deposition of aluminum doped HfO2 …

Development Of A Lfle Double Pattern Process For Te Mode Photonic Devices, Mycahya Eggleston

Journal of the Microelectronic Engineering Conference

As the popularity of photonic devices and their uses increases, reliable manufacturing processes will need to be developed to make them more cost effective. Many companies still utilize i-line lithography, with very robust processes. Photonic devices require feature sizes often too small to be fabricated on i-line tools, especially for TE mode devices. In order to fabricate these devices, a form of double patterning will need to be developed.

Proposed is a Litho-Freeze-Litho-Etch (LFLE) process that can achieve the feature sizes capable of fabricating TE mode photonic devices. This project encompasses design, development, and characterization of a LFLE process that …