Engineering Commons^™

Bleeding Out: The Case For Strengthening Healthcare Client Portal Data Privacy Regulations, Matthew D. Mccord

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Centralizing Energy Consumption Data In State Energy Data Centers, Zach Sibley

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Genome-Edited Animals Are Not Transgenic Animals: Moving Toward Responsible Research And Innovation With New Biotechnologies, Yvie Yao

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Evaluations Of Multiple Non-Destructive Techniques On Top And Bottom Surfaces Of A Reinforced Concrete Bridge Deck, Abdullah Alhaj, Hongya Qu, Haibin Zhang, Genda Chen, Neil Lennart Anderson, Evgeniy V. Torgashov

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

This study is intended to assess the integrity of a reinforced concrete bridge deck at the Missouri S&T campus using non-destructive testing (NDT) methods performed at top and bottom surfaces of the bridge deck. These utilized methods are named ground generating radar (GPR), impact echo (IE), and ultrasonic surface waves (USW). GPR was applied using 1.6 GHz and 2.5 GHz antennas to transmit and receive electromagnetic radio waves at embedded concrete reinforcement or distinct contacts between solid and loose concrete materials with different dielectric properties. Due to significant variations of the apparent depth to top of the embedded reinforcing steel …

Microwave High-Resolution 3d Sar Imaging Of Corroded Reinforcing Steel Bars In Mortar Subjected To Accelerated Electrochemical Corrosion, Chao Liu, Stephona Barker, Liang Fan, Mohammad Tayeb Ahmad Ghasr, Genda Chen, R. Zoughi

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Corrosion of reinforcing steel bars (rebars) embedded in concrete is a significant maintenance, rehabilitation and safety issue as it relates to the overall health of concrete structures, particularly those subjected to cyclical chloride attack. Over the years several inspection methods have been used to detect and assess this corrosion with limited success. Wideband microwave imaging, using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques, has shown great potential for producing 3D images of structures containing rebars. Although these investigations have shown great promise, a methodical approach to investigate the overall efficacy of this imaging technique has not yet taken place. Steel corrosion byproduct …

Assessing Moisture Content On The Surface Of Mortar Samples From Hyperspectral Imaging, Liang Fan, Abdullah Alhaj, Hongyan Ma, Genda Chen

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Hyperspectral imaging represents an electromagnetic spectrum for each pixel in the image of a structural surface. The characteristic wavelength of the spectrum at reflectance valleys or absorption peaks can be used as a spectral feature for certain chemical detection. In this study, spectral reflectance characteristics of mortar samples are extracted to assess the reduction of moisture on the surface of mortar samples during the cement hydration process. The test results indicate that the reflectance increases and the absorbance decreases because water is reacted and less light will be absorbed during the hydration process. The average absorbance between 1923 nm and …

Thermally-Stable Passive Wireless Antenna Sensor For Strain Sensing, Dan Li, Yang Wang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Passive wireless antenna sensors have been studied in recent years as a novel approach for strain sensing. Electromagnetic resonance frequency of the antenna sensor, which is bonded on a base structural surface like a strain gage, depends on antenna dimension. When the dimension changes due to strain in the base structure, the wirelessly identified resonance frequency shift can be used to estimate the strain in the structure. Due to the multi-physics nature, both mechanical and dielectric properties of the antenna affect the resonance frequency. One drawback of previous antenna sensors is the relatively large resonance frequency fluctuation due to temperature …

Corrosion Induced Mass Loss Measurement Under Various Strain Levels Through Gr/Agnw-Based, Fe-C Coated Lpfg Sensors, Chanrui Guo, Liang Fan, Genda Chen

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

In this study, three Gr/AgNW-based, Fe-C coated long period fiber gratings (LPFG) corrosion sensors were prepared and tested for corrosion-induced mass loss measurements under various strain levels. Graphene grew on a copper foil using a low pressure chemical vapor deposition, was transferred to the curve surface of each LPFG sensor, and strengthened by silver nanowire (AgNW) for a more robust electroplating process of the Fe-C layer. The three Fe-C coated LPFG sensors were subjected to three different strain levels: 0, 500 and 1000 με. The sensors were immersed up to 72 hours in 3.5% w.t NaCl solution. Both optical transmission …

Uav-Based Smart Rock Positioning For Determination Of Bridge Scour Depth, Haibin Zhang, Zhaochao Li, Alec Reven, Buddy Scharfenberg, Genda Chen, Jinping Ou

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

This study aims to predict the depth of scour hole developed around a bridge pier with one smart rock. A 3-axis magnetometer was assembled on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to measure magnetic fields before and after the smart rock has been deployed as the UAV flew around the bridge pier. A 3-axis high resolution GPS unit was fixed on the UAV to ensure accurate measurements of the latitude, longitude and altitude of the magnetometer. The GPS and the magnetometer measurements were synchronized to output the coordinate and magnetic field intensity correspondingly. A simple optimization algorithm was used to predict …

Considerations For Hose Wielding Uav For Civil Infrastructure Cleaning, Blake Hament, Paul Oh

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

To expand the capabilities of a multi-rotor aerial vehicle, one or several hoses could be mounted to the vehicle. Such hoses could be used to expel compressed air or other fluid for the purpose of cleaning hard-to-reach surfaces. The main challenge in operating a hose mounted on a free-flying aerial vehicle is compensating for the reaction forces and torques the vehicle experiences as fluid leaves the hose. This paper introduces dynamic modeling for a hose mounted on a multi- rotor vehicle. It is shown that safe operating ranges can be defined in terms of hose angle and fluid PSI, with …

Visual Shm For Concrete Infrastructure Using A Wall-Climbing Robot, Liang Yang, Yong Chang, Biao Jiang, Jizhong Xiao

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Concrete structural health monitoring (SHM) is urgently required with more and more severe aging problems happen. Conventional manual inspection approach is labor-intensive and time-consuming. In this paper, we propose a wall-climbing robotic approach for visual inspection of concrete structures using a deep neural network and 3D semantic reconstruction to build a 3D map overlaid with defects. The wall-climbing robot uses a negative pressure module to operate on both vertical and horizontal surfaces. An RGB-D camera is mounted in the robot with an Intel-NUC computer as visual positioning and image processing core to make metric measurement, Our main contribution is the …

Roller Chain-Like Robot For Steel Bridge Inspection, Son Thanh Nguyen, Hung Manh La

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

This paper presents a novel design of steel bridge/structure inspection robot. Compared to most existing robots designed to work on particular surface contour of steel structures such as flat or curving, the proposed roller chain-like robot can implement and transfer smoothly on many kind of steel surfaces. The developed robot can be applied to inspection tasks for steel bridges with complicated structures. The robot is able to carry cameras, sensors for visual and specialized examination. Rigorous analysis of robot kinematics, adhesion force and turn-over failure has been conducted to demonstrate the stability of the proposed design. Mechanical and magnetic force …

A Genetic Algorithm For Minmax K-Chinese Postman Problem With Applications To Bridge Inspection, Siming Liu, Sushil J. Liu, N. Harris, Hung Manh La

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Bridge inspections ensure transportation infrastructure safety and save lives but current manual bridge inspections can be slow and costly. Automated bridge inspection research mitigates these problems and we investigate a multirobot approach to automated bridge inspection by mapping the inspection problem to the well known k-Chinese Postman problem and using multiple robots for faster, more cost-effective, and more standardized bridge inspections. We first show that a genetic algorithm quickly approaches the optimal solution to the 1-postman problem corresponding to a single robot inspecting a bridge. Then, we use the same genetic algorithm to efficiently solve the more difficult, multi-robot, NP-hard, …

Unmanned Aerial And Traversing Robot As Mobile Platform For Bridge Inspections, Alec M. Reven, Clayton A. Fritsche, Genda Chen

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

In this study, a bridge inspection robot deployment system (BIRDS) is designed, prototyped, and tested to facilitate the remote inspection of bridges with nondestructive evaluation tools such as microwave and hyperspectral cameras. The multimodal robotic system utilizes both flying and driving technologies. First, BIRDS as an unmanned aerial vehicle flies to the underside of the bridge to be inspected. When in position, BIRDS is engaged with the bottom flange of a bridge girder with a specifically designed roller clamping system and then traverses the bridge in a stable manner, providing high quality images from cameras. Finally, BIRDS simply detaches from …

Kidney-Related Operations Research: A Review, Mahdi Fathi, Marzieh Khakifirooz

BCoE Publications

Operations research and optimization in healthcare and disease modeling have received significant attention in the last three decades. This article surveys several perspectives of operations research techniques in kidney disease, such as graph theory, queueing theory, Markov chain, and phase-type distribution (PTD). The kidney-related problems include kidney exchange problem, the modeling of kidney disease progression, kidney transplantation, and the complex relationship between chronic kidney disease (gradual loss of kidney function over time) and acute kidney injury (sudden episode of kidney failure in a few hours or a few days). Each section is summarized by some discussion regarding the limitation of …

Irregular Quadrature Amplitude Modulation For Adaptive Physical-Layer Security, Hunter Searle, Marco A. C. Gomes, Joao P. Vilela, Willie K. Harrison

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis propose adding an irregular quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation to a wireless transmission scheme in order to obtain greater control over the signal-tonoise ratio (SNR) required to successfully decode the signal. By altering the separation between adjacent symbols, the minimum required SNR is raised without degradation in the performance of the scheme. This allows the system to adapt to preferable channel conditions for the authorized user, making it harder for eavesdroppers to intercept and decode the transmission, thus making the communication safer. In addition, we show that by overlaying a coset code onto the QAM constellation, a new, …

Investigation Of The Electrode Polarization Effect For Biosensor Applications, Anil Koklu

Mechanical Engineering Research Theses and Dissertations

My research focuses on electrokinetic transport. Particularly, in this dissertation, we focus on fabrication and testing of micro electrodes with nanostructured surfaces to minimize the electrode polarization (EP) effects for biosensor applications. In the first study, electrochemical deposition of gold nanoparticles on to planar gold electrodes was used to generate rough surfaces. Dendritic nanostructures that reduced EP up to two orders of magnitude was obtained by optimizing the deposition conditions. These structures also enhanced dielectrophoresis (DEP) response of our bio-chips, making them usable in physiological buffers. In further studies we discovered a universal scaling of EP in the frequency domain, …

Extreme-Point Tabu Search Heuristics For Fixed-Charge Generalized Network Problems, Angelika Leskovskaya

Operations Research and Engineering Management Theses and Dissertations

While researchers have studied generalized network flow problems extensively, the powerful addition of fixed charges on arcs has received scant attention. This work describes network-simplex-based algorithms that efficiently exploit the quasi-tree basis structure of the problem relaxations, proposes heuristics that utilize a candidate list, a tabu search with short and intermediate term memories to do the local search, a diversification approach to solve fixed-charge transportation problems, as well as a dynamic linearization of objective function extension for the transshipment fixed-charge generalized problems. Computational testings for both heuristics demonstrate their effectiveness in terms of speed and quality of solutions to these …

An Analytical Approach To Ascertain Saturation-Excess Versus Infiltration-Excess Overland Flow In Urban And Reference Landscapes, Ryan D. Stewart, Aditi S. Bhaskar, Anthony J. Parolari, Dustin L. Herrmann, Jinshi Jian, Laura A. Schifman, William D. Shuster

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Uncontrolled overland flow drives flooding, erosion, and contaminant transport, with the severity of these outcomes often amplified in urban areas. In pervious media such as urban soils, overland flow is initiated via either infiltration‐excess (where precipitation rate exceeds infiltration capacity) or saturation‐excess (when precipitation volume exceeds soil profile storage) mechanisms. These processes call for different management strategies, making it important for municipalities to discern between them. In this study, we derived a generalized one‐dimensional model that distinguishes between infiltration‐excess overland flow (IEOF) and saturation‐excess overland flow (SEOF) using Green–Ampt infiltration concepts. Next, we applied this model to estimate overland flow …

Wetting Metamorphosis Of Hydrophobic Fluoropolymer Coatings Submerged In Water And Ultrasonically Vibrated, Matthew Trapuzzano, Nathan B. Crane, Rasim Guldiken, Andrés Tejada-Martínez

Faculty Publications

Many important processes, from manufacture of integrated circuit boards, to an insect’s ability to walk on water, depend on the wetting of liquids on surfaces. Wetting is commonly controlled through material selection, coatings, and/or surface texture. However, wetting is sensitive to environmental conditions. In particular, some hydrophobic fluoropolymer coatings are sensitive to extended water exposure as evidenced by a declining contact angle and increasing contact angle hysteresis. Understanding “degradation” of these coatings is critical to applications that employ them. The durability of a series of fluoropolymer coatings were tested by measuring the contact angle before, during, and after extended submersion …

Modeling Irrigation Behavior In Groundwater Systems, Timothy Foster, Nicholas Brozovic, Adrian P. Butler

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Integrated hydro-economic models have been widely applied to water management problems in regions of intensive groundwater-fed irrigation. However, policy interpretations may be limited as most existing models do not explicitly consider two important aspects of observed irrigation decision making, namely the limits on instantaneous irrigation rates imposed by well yield and the intraseasonal structure of irrigation planning. We develop a new modeling approach for determining irrigation demand that is based on observed farmer behavior and captures the impacts on production and water use of both well yield and climate. Through a case study of irrigated corn production in the Texas …

Laboratory Evaluation Of Cold In-Place Recycling Asphalt Mixtures Using A Balanced Mix Design, Ahmed Saidi

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research study is to present a procedure for designing Cold In-Place Recycling (CIR) mixtures through balancing cracking and rutting for these mixtures. Eight CIR mixtures were prepared using two recycling agents (foamed and emulsified asphalts), then cured for three days at two temperatures (140oF and 50oF), and compacted at two gyration levels (30 and 70 gyrations). The CIR mixtures were prepared at constant dosages of water and cement, 3% and 1%, respectively. Air void of each CIR performance test specimen was determined using the CoreLok device. The rutting susceptibility of these mixtures was then evaluated using …

A Deep Learning Framework For Joint Image Restoration And Recognition, Ruilong Chen, Lyudmila Mihaylova, Hao Zhu, Nidhal Carla Bouaynaya

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

Image restoration and recognition are important computer vision tasks representing an inherent part of autonomous systems. These two tasks are often implemented in a sequential manner, in which the restoration process is followed by a recognition. In contrast, this paper proposes a joint framework that simultaneously performs both tasks within a shared deep neural network architecture. This joint framework integrates the restoration and recognition tasks by incorporating: (i) common layers, (ii) restoration layers and (iii) classification layers. The total loss function combines the restoration and classification losses. The proposed joint framework, based on capsules, provides an efficient solution that can …

Development Of Smart Semiconductor Manufacturing: Operations Research And Data Science Perspectives, Marzieh Khakifirooz, Mahdi Fathi, Kan Wu

BCoE Publications

With advances in information and telecommunication technologies and data-enabled decision making, smart manufacturing can be an essential component of sustainable development. In the era of the smart world, semiconductor industry is one of the few global industries that are in a growth mode to smartness, due to worldwide demand. The important opportunities that can boost the cost reduction of productivity and improve quality in wafer fabrication are based on the simulations of actual environment in Cyber-Physical Space and integrate them with decentralized decision-making systems. However, this integration faced the industry with novel unique challenges. The stream of the data from …

General Nonlinear-Material Elasticity In Classical One-Dimensional Solid Mechanics, Ronald Joseph Giardina Jr

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

We will create a class of generalized ellipses and explore their ability to define a distance on a space and generate continuous, periodic functions. Connections between these continuous, periodic functions and the generalizations of trigonometric functions known in the literature shall be established along with connections between these generalized ellipses and some spectrahedral projections onto the plane, more specifically the well-known multifocal ellipses. The superellipse, or Lam\'{e} curve, will be a special case of the generalized ellipse. Applications of these generalized ellipses shall be explored with regards to some one-dimensional systems of classical mechanics. We will adopt the Ramberg-Osgood relation …

Size Effects In Small Scale Forward Extrusion And Metal Forming, Debabrata Mondal

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Size effects play a significant role in metal processing when the specimen dimensions are reduced. In this study, influence of size effects were investigated on two problem specific processes. First, numerical simulations of a small-scale forward extrusion with varying grain size were performed for both 2D and 3D cases. Here, grains were assigned to non-homogeneous properties in a random fashion. The computational geometry was obtained from Voronoi tessellation in MATLAB, and python-scripting in ABAQUS. Then the effects of size and property non-homogeneity were investigated. Second, a numerical model was simulated to predict final form shapes, punch load requirement, and thickness …

Development Of Experimental And Finite Element Models To Show Size Effects In The Forming Of Thin Sheet Metals, Jeffrey D. Morris

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

An experimental method was developed that demonstrated the size effects in forming thin sheet metals, and a finite element model was developed to predict the effects demonstrated by the experiment. A universal testing machine (UTM) was used to form aluminum and copper of varying thicknesses (less than 1mm) into a hemispherical dome. A stereolithography additive manufacturing technology was used to fabricate the punch and die from a UV curing resin. There was agreement between the experimental and numerical models. The results showed that geometric size effects were significant for both materials, and these effects increased as the thickness of …

Gaussian Conditionally Markov Sequences: Theory With Application, Reza Rezaie

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Markov processes have been widely studied and used for modeling problems. A Markov process has two main components (i.e., an evolution law and an initial distribution). Markov processes are not suitable for modeling some problems, for example, the problem of predicting a trajectory with a known destination. Such a problem has three main components: an origin, an evolution law, and a destination. The conditionally Markov (CM) process is a powerful mathematical tool for generalizing the Markov process. One class of CM processes, called $CM_L$, fits the above components of trajectories with a destination. The CM process combines the Markov property …

Design And Analysis Of Modular Axial Flux Switched Reluctance Motor, Rochak Shiwakoti

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a new modular structure of the axial flux Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM). The design consists of four stator disks with each adjacent disk rotated 30 degrees apart and four rotor disks connected to a common shaft. The proposed design aims to reduce the unwanted radial force, mitigate the torque ripple, and improve the efficiency. The modular structure distributes the radial force and torque strokes along the axial length of the motor, potentially damping the torque pulsation. In addition, the modular structure would deliver the rating power at a lower current level, reducing the overall ohmic loss. Moreover, …

Data-Driven I–V Feature Extraction For Photovoltaic Modules, Xuan Ma, Wei-Heng Huang, Jenny Brynjarsdottir, Jennifer L. Braid, Roger H. French

Faculty Scholarship

In research on photovoltaic (PV) device degradation, current-voltage (I-V ) datasets carry a large amount of information in addition to the maximum power point. Performance parameters such as short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, shunt resistance, series resistance, and fill factor are essential for diagnosing the performance and degradation of solar cells and modules. To enable the scaling of I-V studies to millions of I-V curves, we have developed a data-driven method to extract I-V curve parameters and distributed this method as an open-source package in R. In contrast with the traditional practice of fitting the diode equation to I-V curves individually, …