Engineering Commons^™

Renal Specific Rnai Delivery By Fibrillar Nanoparticle Excipients, Sam Wong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

RNA interference (RNAi) is a powerful tool to manipulate the phenotype of an organism by silencing the expression of specific genes and is viewed as a highly promising platform for treating undruggable targets and disorders where small molecule drugs and antibodies would fail. However, development of RNAi based therapies has faced major barriers including cellular and tissue-specific uptake of the Small Interfering RNA (siRNA). Utilizing different nanoparticles as RNAi excipients, cellular uptake and gene silencing potency can be greatly improved. The research in Dr. McDevitt groups has fibrillar carbon nanotubes (CNT) as carriers for siRNA for gene silencing in vitro …

Analysis Of Traffic Crash Data In Kentucky (2014-2018), Eric R. Green, Kenneth R. Agent, Paul A. Ross

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Executive Summary

This report documents an analysis of traffic crash data in Kentucky for the years of 2014-2018. A primary objective of this study was to determine average crash statistics for Kentucky highways. Rates were calculated for various types of highways and for counties and cities. Difference criteria were used for exposure.

Average and critical numbers and rates of crashes were calculated for various types of highways in rural and urban areas. These rates used crashes identified on highways where traffic volumes were available. Improved methods of identifying crash locations have resulted in higher rates for the last couple of …

A Harmless Wireless Quantum Alternative To Cell Phones Based On Quantum Noise, Florentin Smarandache, Robert Neil Boyd, Victor Christianto

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In the meantime we know that 4G and 5G technologies cause many harms to human health. Therefore, here we submit a harmless wireless quantum alternative to cell phones. It is our hope that this alternative

Investigating Inducer Performance Over A Wide Range Of Operating Conditions, David Tate Fanning

Theses and Dissertations

Inducer performance is investigated for a variety of inducer geometries operating at multiple flow conditions using computational fluid dynamics. Inducers are used as a first stage in turbopumps to minimize cavitation and allow the pump to operate at lower inlet head conditions. The formation of inlet flow recirculation or backflow in the inducer occurs at low flow conditions and can lead to instabilities and cavitation-induced head breakdown. Backflow formation is often attributed to tip leakage flow. The performance of an inducer with and without tip clearance is examined. Removing the tip clearance eliminates tip leakage flow; however, backflow is still …

A Comparison Of Lithium-Ion Cathode Vertical Homogeneity As Influenced By Drying Rate And Drying Method, Alexander Jay Smart

Theses and Dissertations

During lithium-ion battery electrode fabrication, slurry drying conditions influence the resulting microstructure of electrodes. It has been found that the drying conditions can result in non-uniform cathode microstructures and material distributions. Accelerated drying, for example, is widely assumed to cause the binder in an electrode to migrate within the slurry, which can contribute to adhesion failure, and ultimately capacity fade and reduced battery life. While there are some conflicting studies regarding the aspects of accelerated drying that cause binder migration, there is not a widely used standard metric for measuring the gradient of binder across the thickness of an electrode. …

The Potential Of Using Micro-Sized Crosslinked Polymer Gel To Remediate Water Leakage In Cement Sheaths, Murad Abdulfarraj, Abdulmohsin Imqam

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Cementing is a major step in the construction and sealing of hydrocarbon wells. During the life cycle of the well, cement is prone to cracking due to a change in downhole conditions. This research investigates the use of micro-sized crosslinked polymer gel as a sealant material to mitigate cracked cement sheaths. Two experimental setups were designed to investigate water leakage through cement. The impact of polymer gel strength on the gel's ability to seal cement cracks was investigated using four gel strengths, including 500 pa, 1200 pa, 1450 pa, and 2440 pa. The impact of the width of the cement …

Rare But Conceivable: Determining The Likelihood Of Meteors And Other Infrequent Events, Michael S. Schmidt, Maria Vega-Westhoff

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the aftermath of a rare but devastating disaster, there is a tendency to overestimate how frequent such an event may be, hence a tendency to overestimate the risk associated with such an event. Those concerned with process safety will acknowledge that though rare, events like meteors, hurricanes, and airplane crashes that can impact chemical plants are conceivable. Typically, though, they have nothing more than feelings to decide whether these events are likely enough to be considered "credible." This compiles data from the literature for several "meteors," both natural and man-made, that often become a cause of general concern after …

Grain Size Effects In Selective Laser Melted Fe-Co-2v, Wesley Everhart, Joseph William Newkirk

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The material science of additive manufacturing (AM) has become a significant topic due to the unique way in which the material and geometry are created simultaneously. Major areas of research within inorganic materials include traditional structural materials, shape memory alloys, amorphous materials, and some new work in intermetallics. The unique thermal profiles created during selective laser melting (SLM) may provide new opportunities for processing intermetallics to improve mechanical and magnetic performance. A parameter set for the production of Fe-Co-2V material with additive manufacturing is developed and efforts are made to compare the traditional wrought alloy to the AM version of …

Reliability-Based Design Optimization Of Load Sharing Systems Using Ssi-Markov Models, Arun Bala Subramaniyan, Rong Pan, Xiaoping Du

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a novel single loop approach to design the components of the load sharing systems by optimally allocating the failure probabilities to each component, thereby satisfying the overall system reliability requirement. The Reliability–Based Design Optimization (RBDO) of load sharing systems is computationally intensive due to the dynamic nature of component failure probabilities, since the failure of one component will vary the failure probabilities of other working components. Many RBDO methods have been successfully utilized to design individual components, however using these methods for handling system level reliability constraints is still a challenging task. This is because of a …

Control Of A Three-Phase Grid-Connected Inverter Under Non-Ideal Grid Conditions With Online Parameter Update, Vikram Roy Chowdhury, Jonathan W. Kimball

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Three-phase grid-connected inverter modeling depends on the equivalent resistance and inductance between the inverter and the grid. However, these parameters are not fixed during the operation of the inverter and vary with the operating conditions. In this paper, a new globally stable adaptive controller is proposed to estimate these values online and update the controller during its operation. A model reference adaptive system (MRAS) based on two fictitious quantities with no physical significance is utilized, namely M = v · i∗ and N = v∗ x i, where v and i are the steady-state values of voltage and current in …

Sensor Development To Utilize Underwater Electric Potential (Uep) Fields To Navigate The Underwater Areas Of Ship Hulls, Caglar Erdogan

Link Foundation Ocean Engineering and Instrumentation Fellowship Reports

Underwater electric potential fields occur due to natural reasons, such as changes in atmosphere, ionosphere, magnetosphere, and movements of water bodies in the ocean, or artificial reasons, such as stray and controlled electric currents, or both. Electric potential fields around ship hulls are mainly generated due to corrosion protection systems and dissimilar materials. The electric field intensity over an impressed current anode of a large cruise ship operating in with seawater with a resistance of 20 0-cm is around 90 mV/cm, whereas it is between 0.4 and 1 mV/cm on a propeller for the same ship. The theoretical field intensities …

Analysis Of An Updated Paleointensity Database (Qpi‐Pint) For 65–200 Ma: Implications For The Long‐Term History Of Dipole Moment Through The Mesozoic, E. V. Kulakov, C. J. Sprain, P. V. Doubrovine, A. V. Smirnov, G. A. Paterson, L. Hawkins, L. Fairchild, E. J. Piispa, A. J. Biggin

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The global paleointensity database for 65–200 Ma was analyzed using a modified suite of paleointensity quality criteria (Q_PI) such that the likely reliability of measurements is assessed objectively and as consistently as possible across the diverse data set. This interval was chosen because of dramatic extremes of geomagnetic polarity reversal frequency ranging from greater than 10 reversals per million years in the Jurassic hyperactivity period (155–171 Ma) to effectively zero during the Cretaceous Normal Superchron (CNS; 84–126 Ma). Various attempts to establish a relationship between the strength of Earth's magnetic field and the reversal frequency have been made …

Bs News September/October

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Minimalistic Peptide-Based Supramolecular Systems Relevant To The Chemical Origin Of Life, Daniela Kroiss

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

All forms of life are based on biopolymers, which are made up of a selection of simple building blocks, such as amino acids, nucleotides, fatty acids and sugars. Their individual properties govern their interactions, giving rise to complex supramolecular structures with highly specialized functionality, including ligand recognition, catalysis and compartmentalization. In this thesis, we aim to answer the question whether short peptides could have acted as precursors of modern proteins during prebiotic evolution. Using a combination of experimental and computational techniques, we screened a large molecular search space for peptide sequences that are capable of forming supramolecular complexes with adenosine …

Variable Rate Irrigation Of Maize And Soybean In West-Central Nebraska Under Full And Deficit Irrigation, J Burdette Barker, Sandeep Bhatti, Derek M. Heeren, Christopher M.U. Neale, Daran Rudnick

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Variable rate irrigation (VRI) may improve center pivot irrigation management, including deficit irrigation. A remote-sensing-based evapotranspiration model was implemented with Landsat imagery to manage irrigations for a VRI equipped center pivot irrigated field located in West-Central Nebraska planted to maize in 2017 and soybean in 2018. In 2017, the study included VRI using the model, and uniform irrigation using neutron attenuation for full irrigation with no intended water stress (VRI-Full and Uniform-Full treatments, respectively). In 2018, two deficit irrigation treatments were added (VRI-Deficit and Uniform-Deficit, respectively) and the model was modified in an attempt to reduce water balance drift; model …

Preference Learning And Similarity Learning Perspectives On Personalized Recommendation, Duy Dung Le

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Personalized recommendation, whose objective is to generate a limited list of items (e.g., products on Amazon, movies on Netflix, or pins on Pinterest, etc.) for each user, has gained extensive attention from both researchers and practitioners in the last decade. The necessity of personalized recommendation is driven by the explosion of available options online, which makes it difficult, if not downright impossible, for each user to investigate every option. Product and service providers rely on recommendation algorithms to identify manageable number of the most likely or preferred options to be presented to each user. Also, due to the limited screen …

Mitigating Reflective Cracking Through The Use Of A Ductile Concrete Interlayer, Qian Zhang, Mohammad Khattak, Adway Das

Publications

Reflective cracking is considered one of the most important issues that causes premature deterioration of composite pavements. Many types of mitigation methods have been studied in the past. However, they are either not effective in delaying the reflective cracking, or they only extend the service life by a few years. To address this critical issue and significantly extend the service life of the composite pavement, in this research, a ductile interlayer made of engineered cementitious composites (ECC) was proposed. It was hypothesized that by adding a thin layer of highly ductile ECC material between the existing pavement and overlay, reflective …

Performance Of Drilled Shaft Under Combination Of Complicated Loads Under Hurricane Event, Jie Huang, Sazzad Bin-Shafique

Publications

This project includes experimental and numerical studies to investigate and assess the impact of vertical loads on a laterally loaded drilled shaft under various conditions. The experimental study includes lab testing and lab-scale load test to examine a drilled shaft subjected to vertical and lateral loads at a reduced scale. With the data obtained from the lab-scale testing, a numerical model was calibrated, which was used to perform a parametric study to scrutinize the effect of many possible factors such as soil stiffness, soil friction angle, and drilled shaft geometry. With all the factors considered in this study, the vertical …

Investigation Of Physical And Dynamic Properties Of High Porous Concrete, Ildar Akhmadullin

Publications

This project pursued two main objectives: (1) providing opportunities to Baton Rouge Community College (BRCC) students to develop hands-on laboratory skills and exposure to the transportation field, and (2) investigating porous concrete properties. Several BRCC student groups performed the work presented within this report; students prepared samples with different porosity and permeability according to standard specifications. The testing of the samples was performed at the Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC) facility under the supervision of LTRC specialists. Findings indicate that the porosity of samples is backward proportional to the compression strength. This function is not linear but can be estimated …

Toward Non-Corrosion And Highly Sustainable Structural Members By Using Ultra-High-Performance Materials For Transportation Infrastructure, Shih-Ho Chao, Ashish Karmacharya

Publications

This research focused on investigating a highly sustainable and efficient reinforced concrete structural member for future infrastructure by utilizing emerging high-performance materials. These materials include ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHP-FRC) and corrosion-resistant high-strength fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars. Four reduced scale UHP-FRC specimens were tested under large displacement reversals to prove the proposed new ductile-concrete strong-reinforcement (DCSR) design concept by fully utilizing these ultra-high-performance materials. Micro steel fibers were incorporated into three specimens and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers were blended into the fourth specimen. One specimen with ASTM A1035 MMFX high-strength steel rebars, one with high-strength glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) …

Evaluating How The Quality Of Pedestrian Infrastructure Affects The Choice To Walk, Gregory Rowangould, Alexis Corning-Padilla

Publications

While the benefits of walking are well understood, the physical design of sidewalks and their maintenance needs generally receive much less attention in both research and practice than the infrastructure used by other modes of transportation. As a result, we know comparatively little about how the design of sidewalks and quality of the overall pedestrian environment affect the decision to walk. In our study we conducted a household travel survey to collect data on walking frequency and attributes related to sidewalk quality and the quality of the walking environment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We used summary statistics and statistical modeling …

Pairing Electrostatic Levitation With Triboelectric Transduction For High-Performance Self-Powered Mems Sensors And Actuators, Mark Pallay, Alwathiqbellah I. Ibrahim, Ronald N. Miles, Shahrzad Towfighian

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Scholarship

We demonstrate that an electrostatic levitation MEMS switch can be operated by applying mechanical pres- sure to a triboelectric generator. The toggling mechanism of the switch draws no current but requires a high actuating voltage, while the generator can supply a high voltage but only produces microwatts of power. The synergistic combination results in an entirely self-powered sensor and switch; the normally-closed MEMS switch can be toggled open by applying a threshold force to the generator without the need for any outside power or supplementary circuitry. A model of the MEMS switch and electrostatic force is validated with experimental data. …

A Low-Cost Soft Robotic Hand Exoskeleton For Use In Therapy Of Limited Hand–Motor Function, Grant Rudd, Liam Daly, Vukica Jovanovic, Filip Cukov

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

We present the design and validation of a low-cost, customizable and 3D-printed anthropomorphic soft robotic hand exoskeleton for rehabilitation of hand injuries using remotely administered physical therapy regimens. The design builds upon previous work done on cable actuated exoskeleton designs by implementing the same kinematic functionality, but with the focus shifted to ease of assembly and cost effectiveness as to allow patients and physicians to manufacture and assemble the hardware necessary to implement treatment. The exoskeleton was constructed solely from 3D-printed and widely available of-the-shelf components. Control of the actuators was realized using an Arduino microcontroller, with a custom-designed shield …

Autonomous And Resilient Management Of All-Source Sensors For Navigation Assurance, Juan D. Jurado

Theses and Dissertations

All-source navigation has become increasingly relevant over the past decade with the development of viable alternative sensor technologies. However, as the number and type of sensors informing a system increases, so does the probability of corrupting the system with sensor modeling errors, signal interference, and undetected faults. Though the latter of these has been extensively researched, the majority of existing approaches have constrained faults to biases, and designed algorithms centered around the assumption of simultaneously redundant, synchronous sensors with valid measurement models, none of which are guaranteed for all-source systems. This research aims to provide all-source multi-sensor resiliency, assurance, and …

Nondestructive Electromagnetic Characterization Of Perfect-Electric-Conductor-Backed Uniaxial Materials, Adam L. Brooks

Theses and Dissertations

As the use of anisotropic materials in electromagnetic applications continues to proliferate, it becomes increasingly important to develop non-destructive evaluation methods for those materials in their installed configuration. In many applications, these materials are permanently affixed onto conducting bodies to reduce unwanted reflections, making it impossible to collect S₂₁ or S₁₂ transmission measurements as used in many techniques based on the well-known Nicolson-Ross-Weir algorithm. It also makes it impractical to reorient the sample to collect orthogonal measurements aligned with the optical axes of the anisotropic material. The goal of this research is to develop a two-reflection coefficient measurement …

Digital Holography Efficiency Experiments For Tactical Applications, Douglas E. Thornton

Theses and Dissertations

Digital holography (DH) uses coherent detection and offers direct access to the complex-optical field to sense and correct image aberrations in low signal-to-noise environments, which is critical for tactical applications. The performance of DH is compared to a similar, well studied deep-turbulence wavefront sensor, the self-referencing interferometer (SRI), with known efficiency losses. Wave optics simulations with deep-turbulence conditions and noise were conducted and the results show that DH outperforms the SRI by 10's of dB due to DH's strong reference. Additionally, efficiency experiments were conducted to investigate DH system losses. The experimental results show that the mixing efficiency (37%) is …

Me-Em Enewsbrief, September 2019, Department Of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering eNewsBrief

No abstract provided.

Competency Based Education: A Framework For A More Efficient And Safer Aviation Industry, Flavio A. C. Mendonca Ph.D., Julius Keller Ph.D., Brian G. Dillman Ph.D.

Publications

Aircraft design and reliability as well as pilots’ education and training have steadily and significantly improved in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, high-profile accidents still occur, even when the aircraft and related systems are operating adequately. Controlled flight into terrain, runway incursions accidents, and loss-of-control-in-flight are examples of mishaps in which inadequate decision-making, poor leadership, and ineffective communication are frequently cited as contributing factors. Conversely, the investigation of accidents (e.g., US Airways Flight 1549, in US, in 01/15/2009) and serious incidents (e.g., JJ 3756, in Brazil, in 06/17/2011) have indicated that flight crews have to be flexible and adaptable, think …

Combining Virtual Reality And Machine Learning For Enhancing The Resiliency Of Transportation Infrastructure In Extreme Events, Supratik Mukhopadhyay, Yimin Zhu, Ravindra Gudishala

Publications

Traffic management models that include route choice form the basis of traffic management systems. High-fidelity models that are based on rapidly evolving contextual conditions can have significant impact on smart and energy efficient transportation. Existing traffic/route choice models are generic and are calibrated on static contextual conditions. These models do not consider dynamic contextual conditions such as the location, failure of certain portions of the road network, the social network structure of population inhabiting the region, route choices made by other drivers, extreme conditions, etc. As a result, the model’s predictions are made at an aggregate level and for a …

Integrated Full-Scale Physical Experiments And Numerical Modeling Of The Performance And Rehabilitation Of Highway Embankments, Navid Jafari, Anand Puppala, Sayantan Chakraborty, Burak Boluk

Publications

The study aimed to fundamentally understand how soil strength and hydraulic properties are impacted by recurring cycles of wetting and drying induced by climate variability, with the practical implication of forecasting the stability of highway embankment slopes. The review of literature on the effects of long-term cyclic wetting-drying phases on hydro-mechanical properties of clayey soils suggests that only a few cycles of wetting and drying can impact the strength and hydraulic conductivity, where the latter can increase several orders of magnitude. Laboratory model-scale experiments of Louisiana and Texas soils are still ongoing and will relate the laboratory test results to …