Engineering Commons^™

Electric Vehicle Charging Technologies Analysis And Standards, Florida Solar Energy Center, J. Doug Kettles

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This project has evaluated the technologies and standards associated with Electric Vehicle Service Equipment (EVSE) and the related infrastructure, and the major cost issue related to electric vehicle (EV) charging -- the cost of utility power. The technology assessment report evaluated safety standards for infrastructure, highway and vehicles and the barriers and challenges of deploying an expanded network of EV charging stations. The report also made recommendations to help standardize and expedite EVSE infrastructure and charging network deployment.

Pv-Driven Heat Pump Water Heater Final Report, Florida Solar Energy Center, Carlos Colon

FSEC Energy Research Center®

As part of the effort towards zero energy buildings and high efficiency water heating systems, the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) working under contract with the National Renewable Energy laboratories (NREL) has successfully completed a demonstration of a photovoltaic heat pump water heater (PV-HPWH) concept. The system integrates two 310Wp solar photovoltaics (PV) modules and grid tied micro-inverters with a commercially available 50-gallon HPWH. The project showcases innovative strategies for distributed PV thermal systems that limit grid interaction and provide increased thermal energy storage. The system utilizes a custom appliance control module (ACM) interface to vary thermostat settings (115 °F …

Impact Force Reduction Using Variable Stiffness With An Optimal Approach For Jumping Robots, Juan Manuel Calderon Chavez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Running, jumping and walking are physical activities that are performed by humans in a simple and efficient way. However, these types of movements are difficult to perform by humanoid robots. Humans perform these activities without difficulty thanks to their ability to absorb the ground impact force. The absorption of the impact force is based on the human ability to vary muscles stiffness.

The principal objective of this dissertation is to study vertical jumps in order to reduce the impact force in the landing phase of the jump motion of humanoid robots. Additionally, the impact force reduction is applied to an …

Autonomy At The End Of The Earth, Jeremy P. Bos

TechTalks

Despite press accounts to the contrary, significant challenges remain in the development of true autonomous vehicles. Though these challenges are many and varied my research focuses on two areas. First, operation of autonomous vehicles in inclement weather with emphasis on ice and snow. The other focus is on developing functionally safe mobility solutions. In this talk, I will briefly describe some approaches I am developing to solving these challenges.

Multi-Sensor Fusion On Mobile Platforms, Timothy C. Havens

TechTalks

An important goal for many mobile platforms---terrestrial, aquatic, or airborne---is reliable, accurate, and on-time sensing of the world around them. The PRIME Lab has been investigating multi-sensor fusion for many applications, including explosive hazard detection and infrastructure inspection, from terrestrial vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). New developments in multi-sensor fusion using radars, imaging sensors, and LIDAR will be discussed that encompass advancements from novel signal processing approaches for mobile ground-penetrating radar to more theoretical approaches for optimal fusion of measurements from multi-modal sensors. This talk will explore the area of sensor-fusion both from a practical, application-focused standpoint and also …

Persistent Operation Of Mobile Robots, Nina Mahmoudian

TechTalks

Success of numerous unmanned mobile missions in space, air, ground, and water is measured by the ability of the robots to usefully operate for extended time in dynamic and uncertain environments. This talk will provide an overview of the recent progress towards performing autonomous long-term missions. The approach includes task and energy routing scheduling, efficient path planning and coordination, and low-infrastructure platforms. The goal is to provide practical solutions by lowering deployment and operating costs, while also increasing efficiency, endurance and persistence during complex missions like disaster responses and long-term science discoveries.

Mobility And Safety: Do Drivers Behave As Engineers Want Them To Behave?, Pasi T. Lautala

TechTalks

As engineers, we thrive to provide environment for safe mobility through proper geometric designs, regulations, guidance and warnings. However, safe movements are still heavily dependent on the individual behavior and reactions by the drivers/users (at least for now). Traditionally, understanding drivers’ behavior has been a difficult topic to research, but today we have increasing number of data and tools available to improve that understanding. One of the tools that has recently become available is the Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) database that provides an opportunity to investigate the behavior of almost 3,500 instrumented vehicles and drivers in six different regions of …

Doe Apra-E Nextcar Program On Connected And Automated Vehicles In Collaboration With Gm, Jeffrey D. Naber

TechTalks

Within the $3.5M ARPA-e NEXTCAR program, Michigan Tech in collaboration with GM will development and demonstrate on a fleet of eight 2017 Chevrolet Volts and a mobile connected cloud computing center, a Vehicle Dynamics and Powertrain (VD&PT) model-based predictive controller (MPC) encompassing a real-time VD&PT dynamic model leveraging vehicle conductivity (V2X) with real-time traffic modeling and predictive speed horizons and eco-routing. The objective is to achieve a minimum of 20% reduction in energy consumption (electric + fuel) through the first ever real-time implementation and connection of route planning, powertrain energy management MPC algorithms. Connectivity data from vehicles, infrastructure, GPS, traffic …

Batteries In-N-Out: Multiple Lives Mobility, Lucia Gauchia

TechTalks

As batteries become more extended across all applications, battery second life or re-purposing is gaining traction. This adds another degree of mobility to batteries. Not only do they move with the person/mobile/vehicle during operation, but also after their life in that application ends. Then they can be re-purposed for other less demanding applications, such as residential or buildings. As batteries move in and out of applications as their performance degrades, they show an interesting mobility and life cycle analysis which presents better environmental solutions, lower costs and new opportunities.

Phonon Interference In Crystalline And Amorphous Confined Nanoscopic Films, Zhi Liang, Thomas E. Wilson, Pawel Keblinski

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Using Molecular Dynamics Phonon Wave Packet Simulations, We Study Phonon Transmission Across Hexagonal (H)-BN and Amorphous Silica (A-SiO₂) Nanoscopic Thin Films Sandwiched by Two Crystalline Leads. Due to the Phonon Interference Effect, the Frequency-Dependent Phonon Transmission Coefficient in the Case of the Crystalline Film (Si|h-BN|Al Heterostructure) Exhibits a Strongly Oscillatory Behavior. in the Case of the Amorphous Film (Si|a-SiO₂|Al and Si|a-SiO₂|Si Heterostructures), in Spite of Structural Disorder, the Phonon Transmission Coefficient Also Exhibits Oscillatory Behavior at Low Frequencies (Up to ∼1.2 THz), with a Period of Oscillation Consistent with the Prediction from the Two-Beam …

Webinar: Integrating Explicit And Implicit Methods In Travel Behavior Research: A Study Of Driver Attitudes And Bias, Tara Goddard

TREC Webinar Series

Car crashes are still a leading cause of death in the United States, with vulnerable road users like bicyclists and pedestrians being injured or killed at rates that outpace their mode share.

Planners, engineers, and advocates are increasingly adopting Vision Zero and Tactical Urbanism approaches and trying to better understand the underlying causes of dangerous roadway interactions. However, existing research into crash causation has focused on instrumental factors (e.g. intersection type, vehicle speed) while little research has probed the role of attitudes or socio-cognitive mechanisms in interactions between roadway users.

Social psychology suggests that attitudes and social cognitions can play …

Scitech News Volume 71, No. 1 (2017)

Sci-Tech News

Columns and Reports

• From the Editor 3

Division News

• Science-Technology Division 5
• Chemistry Division 8
• Engineering Division
• Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 9
• Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 11

Reviews

• Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 12

Advertisements

• IEEE 4

Cost Effectiveness Of Energy Efficiency And On-Site Photovoltaic Power For 2015 International Energy Conservation Code Eri (Energy Rating Index) Compliance, Florida Solar Energy Center, Philip W. Fairey

FSEC Energy Research Center®

EnergyGauge® USA v.5.1 is used to simulate the energy use of one-story, three bedroom, 2000 ft², single-family, frame homes in sixteen representative U.S. climates comprising all eight IECC climate zones. The energy use of the Section R406.2 minimum efficiency home (the Baseline Home) is compared against the energy use of homes complying with the prescriptive requirements of Section R402 of the 2015 IECC and against homes complying with the Section R406 Energy Rating Index (ERI) Compliance Alternative. The improvement cost and energy savings of the improved homes relative to the Baseline Home are then used to determine the cost effectiveness …

Side Information In Coded Aperture Compressive Spectral Imaging, Laura Galvis, Henry Arguello, Daniel L. Lau, Gonzalo R. Arce

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Coded aperture compressive spectral imagers sense a three-dimensional cube by using two-dimensional projections of the coded and spectrally dispersed source. These imagers systems often rely on FPA detectors, SLMs, micromirror devices (DMDs), and dispersive elements. The use of the DMDs to implement the coded apertures facilitates the capture of multiple projections, each admitting a different coded aperture pattern. The DMD allows not only to collect the sufficient number of measurements for spectrally rich scenes or very detailed spatial scenes but to design the spatial structure of the coded apertures to maximize the information content on the compressive measurements. Although sparsity …

College Of Engineering News, Georgia Southern University

College of Engineering & Computing: News & Publications (2010-2023)

• Adel El Shahat publishes book on Nano-grids

On The Development Of A One-Time Pad Generator For Personalising Cloud Security, Paul Tobin, Lee Tobin, Michael Mckeever, Jonathan Blackledge

Conference papers

Cloud computing security issues are being reported in newspapers, television, and on the Internet, on a daily basis. Furthermore, in 2013, Edward Snowden alleged backdoors were placed in a number of encryption systems by the National Security Agency causing confidence in public encryption to drop even further. Our solution allows the end-user to add a layer of unbreakable security by encrypting the data locally with a random number generator prior to uploading data to the Cloud. The prototype one-time pad generator is impervious to cryptanalysis because it generates unbreakable random binary sequences from chaos sources initiated from a natural noise. …

Lowest Matric Potential In Quartz: Metadynamics Evidence, Chao Zhang, Yi Dong, Zhen Liu

Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering Publications

The lowest matric potential is an important soil property characterizing the strength of retaining water molecules and a key parameter in defining a complete soil water retention curve. However, the exact value of the lowest matric potential is still unclear and cannot be measured due to the limitation of current experimental technology. In this study, a general theoretical framework based on metadynamics was proposed to determine the lowest matric potential in quartz minerals. The matric potential was derived from partial volume free energy and can be further calculated by the difference between the adsorption free energy and self‐hydration free energy. …

Influence Of The Method And Timing Of The Land Application Of Manure On The Fate And Transport Of Manure Constituents In Soil, Xu Li

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Swine manure has been used as a soil amendment for crop production because it can provide nutrients, increase soil productivity, improve water infiltration, and reduce the potential for soil erosion. It is important to understand how different land application strategies may affect the fate and transport of various manure constituents in the environment. The objective of this project was to determine how the method and timing of swine manure application may impact the levels of multiple manure constituents in soil. The manure constituents included nutrients, antimicrobials, and antimicrobial resistance genes (AMR genes).

A series of plot-scale field experiments were performed. …

Laser Shock Wave Assisted Patterning On Niti Shape Memory Alloy Surfaces, Dovletgeldi Seyitliyev, Peizhen Li, Khomidkhodza Kholikov, Byron Grant, Haluk E. Karaca, Ali O. Er

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

An advanced direct imprinting method with low cost, quick, and less environmental impact to create thermally controllable surface pattern using the laser pulses is reported. Patterned micro indents were generated on Ni₅₀Ti₅₀ shape memory alloys (SMA) using an Nd:YAG laser operating at 1064 nm combined with suitable transparent overlay, a sacrificial layer of graphite, and copper grid. Laser pulses at different energy densities which generates pressure pulses up to 10 GPa on the surface was focused through the confinement medium, ablating the copper grid to create plasma and transferring the grid pattern onto the NiTi surface. Scanning …

Recoverable Stress Induced Two-Way Shape Memory Effect On Niti Surface Using Laser-Produced Shock Wave, Dovletgeldi Seyitliyev, Peizhen Li, Khomidkhodza Kholikov, Byron Grant, Zachary Thomas, Orhan Alal, Haluk E. Karaca, Ali O. Er

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

The surfaces of Ni50Ti50 shape memory alloys (SMAs) were patterned by laser scribing. This method is more simplistic and efficient than traditional indentation techniques, and has also shown to be an effective method in patterning these materials. Different laser energy densities ranging from 5 mJ/pulse to 56 mJ/pulse were used to observe recovery on SMA surface. The temperature dependent heat profiles of the NiTi surfaces after laser scribing at 56 mJ/pulse show the partially-recovered indents, which indicate a "shape memory effect (SME)" Experimental data is in good agreement with theoretical simulation of laser induced shock wave propagation inside NiTi SMAs. …

Danger Below: Socal’S Dams Face Same Risks As Oroville, Char Miller, Frank Connor Lyles '17

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Directed Acyclic Graph Continuous Max-Flow Image Segmentation For Unconstrained Label Orderings, John Sh Baxter, Martin Rajchl, A. Jonathan Mcleod, Jing Yuan, Terry M. Peters

Robarts Imaging Publications

Label ordering, the specification of subset–superset relationships for segmentation labels, has been of increasing interest in image segmentation as they allow for complex regions to be represented as a collection of simple parts. Recent advances in continuous max-flow segmentation have widely expanded the possible label orderings from binary background/foreground problems to extendable frameworks in which the label ordering can be specified. This article presents Directed Acyclic Graph Max-Flow image segmentation which is flexible enough to incorporate any label ordering without constraints. This framework uses augmented Lagrangian multipliers and primal–dual optimization to develop a highly parallelized solver implemented using GPGPU. This …

Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps To Model Policy Issues In The Face Of Uncertainty And Limited Data, Brian Gregor

PSU Transportation Seminars

Planners and policymakers are often faced with the need to make decisions about issues for which there is uncertainty and limited data. For example, transportation planners are now faced with the prospect that new transportation technologies such as autonomous vehicles could greatly alter future transportation system needs. Decisions about these types of issues are difficult to reason about and consequently are likely to be ignored or made on the basis of simplistic logic. Although modeling could be helpful, especially for issues involving complex systems, it is rarely used because models usually require large amounts of data and and handle uncertainty …

Effect Of Sky Conditions On Light Transmission Through A Suspended Particle Device Switchable Glazing, Aritra Ghosh, Brian Norton, Aidan Duffy

Articles

A suspended particle device (SPD) switchable glazing changes its state from opaque to transparent in the presence of a power supply. SPD glazing's near normal transmission varies with incident angle and clearness index. Due to a lower diffuse component, higher glazing transmission ensues at higher clearness indices. Transmittance values for different azimuthal incident angle for a SPD glazing for its “transparent” and “opaque” states have been determined. In Dublin, below 0.5 clearness index, isotropic diffuse transmittance was prevailed while transmission of direct insolation was dominant above 0.5 clearness index. For south facing vertical plane SPD glazing transmittance in its transparent …

Utah Water Research Lab Unveils Latest In Unmanned Aerial Vehicles | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Researchers at Utah State University last week unveiled their newest platform of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Surrogate Modeling Of Ultrasonic Simulations Using Data-Driven Methods, Xiaosong Du, Robert Grandin, Leifur Leifsson

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Ultrasonic testing (UT) is used to detect internal flaws in materials and to characterize material properties. In many applications, computational simulations are an important part of the inspection-design and analysis processes. Having fast surrogate models for UT simulations is key for enabling efficient inverse analysis and model-assisted probability of detection (MAPOD). In many cases, it is impractical to perform the aforementioned tasks in a timely manner using current simulation models directly. Fast surrogate models can make these processes computationally tractable. This paper presents investigations of using surrogate modeling techniques to create fast approximate models of UT simulator responses. In particular, …

Single Molecule-Level Study Of Donor-Acceptor Interactions And Nanoscale Environment In Blends, Nicole Quist, Rebecca Grollman, Jeremy Rath, Alex Robertson, Michael Haley, John E. Anthony, Oksana Ostroverkhova

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Organic semiconductors have attracted considerable attention due to their applications in low-cost (opto)electronic devices. The most successful organic materials for applications that rely on charge carrier generation, such as solar cells, utilize blends of several types of molecules. In blends, the local environment strongly influences exciton and charge carrier dynamics. However, relationship between nanoscale features and photophysics is difficult to establish due to the lack of necessary spatial resolution. We use functionalized fluorinated pentacene (Pn) molecule as single molecule probes of intermolecular interactions and of the nanoscale environment in blends containing donor and acceptor molecules. Single Pn donor (D) molecules …

Analysis Of A Magnetically Geared Lead Screw, Mojtaba Bahrami Kouhshahi, Jonathan Bird

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Linear magnetic gearboxes (LMG) and magnetic lead screws (MLS) have been shown to be capable of operating at significantly higher volumetric force densities than traditional electromagnetic linear actuators (ELA). However in both such devices the linear translator must be made of magnet material and therefore if the stroke length of the translator is long the cost of the MLS and LMG will become prohibitively high. In this paper a magnetically geared lead screw (MGLS) is investigated and its performance capability is compared with the LMG and MLS. The advantage of the MGLS is that the translator does not contain magnets.

In-House Fabrication Of Temperature Sensitive Paint For Turbine Cooling Research, Mayur D. Patel, Mark A. Ricklick

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

The Temperature Sensitive Paint (TSP) is a widely used method in measuring and visualizing flow separation and heat transfer. Compared to the cost and time consumption needed for methods such as pitot tubes, temperature sensitive paint is a cheaper alternative. Due to high usage in College of Engineering research projects, it was determined that in house fabrication of temperature sensitive paint would reduce time and cost limitations. For initial stages, literature research was performed to determine the recipe of intensity based TSP with luminophore and polymer binder that operated optimum at temperatures from 0-100°C. Europium III thenoyltrifluoroacetonate was determined to …

Lake Michigan Wind Assessment Analysis, 2012 And 2013, Charles R. Standridge Ph.D., David Zeitler, Aaron Clark, Tyson Spoelma, Erik E. Nordman, T. Arnold Boezaart, Jim Edmonson, Graham Howe, Guy Meadows, Aline Cotel, Frank Marsik

Peer Reviewed Articles

A study was conducted to address the wind energy potential over Lake Michigan to support a commercial wind farm. Lake Michigan is an inland sea in the upper mid-western United States. A laser wind sensor mounted on a floating platform was located at the mid-lake plateau in 2012 and about 10.5 kilometers from the eastern shoreline near Muskegon Michigan in 2013. Range gate heights for the laser wind sensor were centered at 75, 90, 105, 125, 150, and 175 meters. Wind speed and direction were measured once each second and aggregated into 10 minute averages. The two sample t-test and …