Engineering Commons^™

Usu Steel Bridge Design, Jordan Browning, Ryan Devitt, Adam Lambert, Beau Petersen, Dallin Polson, Colin Steele, Taylor Vaughn

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Utah State University Steel Bridge (USSB) has designed a bridge to compete at the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Student Steel Bridge Competition. The design process involves the analysis of many bridge alternatives to determine the most cost-effective bridge design. USSB analyzed both an under-span and over-arch bridge design based on weight, number of members, ease of fabrication, ease of construction, and vertical deflection. USSB found the over-arch bridge design to be the recommended alternative because of the minimal deflection it experiences under load compared to an under-span bridge.

USSB completed in-depth analysis using RISA 3D to design two …

A Process, Structure, And Property Study Of Gallium-Based Room Temperature Metallic Alloys, Courtney Lyn Titus

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Amalgamations are a promising replacement for electronic solders, thermal interface materials, and other conductive joining materials. Amalgams are mechanically alloyed materials of a liquid constituent with a solid powder. Unlike traditional solders, these materials are processed at room temperature or slightly above, and can often operate at temperatures near, or beyond, their processing temperatures. Existing bonding processes require an excessive amount of heat, which may cause thermal stress to the electronic components and delaminate the attachment. Amalgams have promising characteristics for thermal interface materials (TIMs) due to being fully metallic, relatively easy of handling, and possessing metallic strength similar to …

Using Homing, Synchronizing And Distinguishing Input Sequences For The Analysis Of Reversible Finite State Machines, Martin Lukac, Michitaka Kameyama, Marek A. Perkowski, Pawel Kerntopf

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A digital device is called reversible if it realizes a reversible mapping, i.e., the one for which there exist a unique inverse. The field of reversible computing is devoted to studying all aspects of using and designing reversible devices. During last 15 years this field has been developing very intensively due to its applications in quantum computing, nanotechnology and reducing power consumption of digital devices. We present an analysis of the Reversible Finite State Machines (RFSM) with respect to three well known sequences used in the testability analysis of the classical Finite State Machines (FSM). The homing, distinguishing and synchronizing …

Machine-Learning Based Three-Qubit Gate For Realization Of A Toffoli Gate With Cqed-Based Transmon Systems, Sahar Daraeizadeh, Shavindra Premaratne, Xiaoyu Song, Marek A. Perkowski, Anne Y. Matsuura

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We use machine learning techniques to design a 50 ns three-qubit flux-tunable controlled-controlled-phase gate with fidelity of >99.99% for nearest-neighbor coupled transmons in circuit quantum electrodynamics architectures. We explain our gate design procedure where we enforce realistic constraints, and analyze the new gate’s robustness under decoherence, distortion, and random noise. Our controlled-controlled phase gate in combination with two single-qubit gates realizes a Toffoli gate which is widely used in quantum circuits, logic synthesis, quantum error correction, and quantum games.

Design And Evaluation Of A Non-Contact Bed-Mounted Sensing Device For Automated In-Home Detection Of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Pilot Study, Clara Mosquera-Lopez, Joseph Leitschuh, John Condon, Chad C. Hagen, Uma Rajhbeharrysingh, Cody Hanks, Peter Jacobs

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We conducted a pilot study to evaluate the accuracy of a custom built non-contact pressure-sensitive device in diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) severity as an alternative to in-laboratory polysomnography (PSG) and a Type 3 in-home sleep apnea test (HSAT). Fourteen patients completed PSG sleep studies for one night with simultaneous recording from our load-cell-based sensing device in the bed. Subjects subsequently installed pressure sensors in their bed at home and recorded signals for up to four nights. Machine learning models were optimized to classify sleep apnea severity using a standardized American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) scoring of the gold …

Aggregation Of Residential Water Heaters For Peak Shifting And Frequency Response Services, Thomas Leighton Clarke, Tylor Slay, Robert B. Bass, Conrad Eustis

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The increased penetration of renewable energy resources poses challenges for grid stability. The stochastic generation of solar and wind power cannot be controlled to follow load. And, the transition away from synchronous generators is reducing the capacity to arrest and recover from frequency disturbances. Smart electric water heaters provide utilities with an appliance that can be remotely controlled and serve as a form of energy storage. They have very fast response times and make up a large amount of residential energy consumption, making them useful for load peak shifting as well as other ancillary grid services. As smart appliances become …

A High Torque Density Halbach Rotor Coaxial Magnetic Gear, Ho Yin Wong, Jonathan Z. Bird, David Barnett, Wesley Williams

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents the design, analysis, and experimental testing results for a 5.67:1 Halbach rotor magnetic gearbox with a ferromagnetic back support. Using 3-D finite element analysis software the Halbach magnetic gearbox was calculated to achieve a volumetric torque density of 284N·m/L with only an active region outer diameter of 120mm. The experimental prototype obtained an active region volumetric torque density of 261.4N·m/L

Rapid Prototyping Of Mixing Elements In Bioreactor System, Angela Clyde, Chris Cooper, Aaron Dryden, Erik Olson, Jaden Markos, Ryan Randall, Spencer Lynch, Mark Smith

Biological Engineering

Emerging technologies, such as 3D printing, have revolutionized the way in which engineers prototype innovative designs. Here, students optimized a procedure for rapidly prototyping mixing elements in a Thermo Fisher Scientific bioreactor, using 3D printing. Impellers were designed using AutoCAD and SolidWorks drafting software, 3D printed on a Fortus 3D printer, and evaluated via application specific bioreactor simulations.

Three different bioreactor applications were modeled – high density cell culture, solid dissolution, and microcarrier cell culture – each with their own impeller designs and testing procedures.

Project Objectives:

• Develop an iterative process for rapid prototyping bioreactor impellers.

• Design and …

3 Day Emergency Dialysis Kit, Luke Fillingim, Aaron Marshall, Brandi Thielman

Biological Engineering

Following natural disasters, dialysis clinics are unable to provide treatment for their patients. Many city facilities and vital services, such as water and power, can remain damaged or unavailable for as many as a few weeks

In one instance, it was reported that after a natural disaster the five leading causes of dialysis clinics becoming inoperable were: damage to reverse osmosis systems, interruption of water supply, failure of electrical power supply, structural damage to buildings and failure of telecommunications³.

Unfortunately, patients with end stage renal disease have the potential to become very sick in a matter of days …

Evaluating The Approach Of Using Nox Control Performance Tracking For On-Board Diagnostics Of Heavy-Duty Diesel Vehicles, Renata Castiglioni

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

egulatory agencies have taken several measures to ensure proper regulation of engine exhaust in response to a yearly rise in urban pollution levels. This is due in no small part to vehicular traffic and resulting air pollution from exhaust.

This study evaluates the NOx Control Performance Tracking (NCPT) Onboard Diagnostic (OBD) parameter proposed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as a tool to assess in-use heavy-duty vehicle performance. It also assesses the various criteria prescribed in the NCPT approach for applicability to real-world vehicle data.

In order to analyze the data, the study also investigated the effect of various …

Intelligent Transportation Systems, Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Powertrain Control, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Model Predictive Control, Hadi Kazemi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Information obtainable from Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) provides the possibility of improving the safety and efficiency of vehicles at different levels. In particular, such information has the potential to be utilized for prediction of driving conditions and traffic flow, which allows us to improve the performance of the control systems in different vehicular applications, such as Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) powertrain control and Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC). In the first part of this work, we study the design of an MPC controller for a Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) system, which is an automated application that provides the drivers …

Improving Solder Joints Formed In Microgravity By Use Of Magnetic Soldering Paste Additives, Aaron Dunkle

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

With the expansion of the space industry, the need for the capability to repair electronics in space grows. Previous researchers have found that soldering in microgravity has yielded joints of poorer quality than those made on Earth, with increased interior porosity. WVU’s microgravity research team (MRT) constructed an experiment to solder onboard a microgravity aircraft to explore this problem and to test a possible solution. MRT’s experiment collected solder samples both in microgravity and a ground test, which were then cross-sectioned to allow the interior porosity of the joints to be studied. This determined that there was an increase in …

Analysis Of User Preference With N95 And Powered Air-Purifying Respirators In A Healthcare Work Environment, Brittany Renee Carver

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

For those working in the healthcare field, personal protective equipment is vital. Healthcare workers are often first responders when it comes to dealing with patients who are infected or when a disease outbreak occurs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires all healthcare operations to provide employee protection against blood borne pathogens. With the increase of life-threatening disease outbreaks, such as SARS in 2003 and Ebola in 2014, it is of the upmost importance to make sure respirators are best suited for users and acceptable for long term use. It has been shown through previous studies that due to …

New Method Of Manufacturing Carbon Foam, Matthew D. Artimez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Carbon foam is a product that has some unique features. Carbon foam is a light weight material that has a high crush strength. It is electrically conductive, but because it is composed of air space between the tendrils, it is not a thermal conductor. Since it contains no volatile content, it is noncombustible. All these features allow carbon foam to have many modern applications. Currently, there are only three methods of producing carbon foam, and all three are not cost- efficient enough to meet the demand of potential new markets.

In this thesis, a new procedure of producing carbon foam …

Evaluation Of Ultra Fine Cigarette Smoke Particles Penetration On 3m 6200 Half Mask Respirators With P-100 Filters, Selcuk Elhan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study was aimed to investigate the effectiveness of half mask respirator with double P-100 filters by determining the penetration of cigarette smoke particles. In this study, faceseal leakage of a breathing manikin donned a 3M 6200 half mask elastomeric respirator with double P-100 filters was determined at various test conditions. A full factorial test conditions of 4 sealing conditions (Non-sealed, only nose sealed, nose and chin sealed, and fully sealed), 2 inspiratory breathing types (Constant, cyclic), 4 flowing rates (15, 30, 50, 85 L/min for cyclic; 15, 30, 50, 80 L/min for constant) were employed and each test condition …

Waste Management Of Highway Right Of Way Areas In Southeast Georgia, David M. Penn Ii

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Maintenance of highway right of way (ROW) areas has become problematic during the last several years due to the high cost, and little to no economic return associated with disposing vegetation waste that is continuously generated on all highways and interstates across the state of Georgia. The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) was interested in evaluating the feasibility of replacing ROW vegetation of highways throughout the state with high-value alternatives such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L. ‘Alamo’), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and woodland sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus). Preliminary objective involved measuring and mapping SOC and soil N concentrations in the highway …

Towards A Framework For Smart Manufacturing Adoption In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Sameer Mittal

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Smart Manufacturing (SM) paradigm adoption can scale production with demand without compromising on the time for order fulfillment. A smart manufacturing system (SMS) is vertically and horizontally connected, and thus it can minimize the chances of miscommunication. Employees in an SME are aware of the operational requirements and their responsibilities. The machine schedules are prepared based on the tasks a machine must perform. Predictive maintenance reduces the downtime of machines. Design software optimizes the product design. Production feasibility is checked with the help of simulation. The concepts of product life cycle management are considered for waste reduction. Employee safety, and …

Time-Dependent Deformation And Associated Failure Of Roof In Underground Mines, Yuting Xue

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In underground coal mines, roof falls are a major contributor to injuries and fatalities. Studies have related the occurrence of roof fall to weak immediate roof, high horizontal stress, entry orientation, etc. An often-neglected factor in studies on this topic has been the influence of time-dependent behavior of the roof rock on roof falls. The time-dependent roof failure activity involves both intact and failed rocks. Numerical simulation techniques are available that include time-dependent behavior; however, they lack constitutive models that consider both the intact and the failed behavior of rock. In addition, input properties for the creep models only include …

Wheelchair Automation And Instrumentation Platform, Brady Houston, Taylor Jones

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Problems

• Powered wheelchairs often fail to communicate their status to their users.
• Every chair is customized to a user’s needs, but this does not always work as it is hard to translate the commands to a different layout.
• Status of the chair is unknown to caretakers/clinicians (has to go to the factory to be analyzed).

Goals

• Provide an interface where one could read off easily basic data about the chair’s environment (altitude, pressure, humidity, etc.).
• Build an API to allow for the interfacing of basic movement of the chair itself; this way alternative methods of control would be easier to …

Tio2-Based Photocatalytic Cementitious Composites: Materials, Properties, Influential Parameters, And Assessment Techniques, Fatemeh Hamidi, Farhad Aslani

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Applications of heterogeneous photocatalytic processes based on semiconductor particles in cement-based materials have received great attention in recent years to enhance the aesthetic durability of buildings and reducing global environmental pollution. Amongst all, titanium dioxide (TiO₂) is the most widely used semiconductor particle in structural materials with photocatalytic activity because of its low cost, chemically stable nature, and absence of toxicity. Utilization of TiO₂ in combination with cement-based materials would plunge the concentration of urban pollutants such as NO_x. In fact, cementitious composites containing TiO₂ have already found applications in self-cleaning buildings, antimicrobial surfaces, …

A Numerical Study Of Axisymmetric Wave Propagation In Buried Fluid-Filled Pipes For Optimizing The Vibro-Acoustic Technique When Locating Gas Pipelines, Ying Liu, Daryoush Habibi, Douglas Chai, Xiuming Wang, Hao Chen

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Buried pipeline systems play a vital role in energy storage and transportation, especially for fluid energies like water and gas. The ability to locate buried pipes is of great importance since it is fundamental for leakage detection, pipeline maintenance, and pipeline repair. The vibro-acoustic locating method, as one of the most effective detection technologies, has been studied by many researchers. However, previous studies have mainly focused on vibro-acoustic propagation in buried water pipes. Limited research has been conducted on buried gas pipes. In this paper, the behavior of gas-dominated wave motion will be investigated and compared against water-dominated wave motion …

Economic And Productivity Evaluation Of Different Horizontal Drilling Scenarios: Middle East Oil Fields As Case Study, Abbas Khaksar Manshad, Milad Ebrahimi Dastgerdi, Jagar A. Ali, Nazir Mafakheri, Alireza Keshavarz, Stefan Iglauer, Amir H. Mohammadi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Development of high-density oil and gas fields presents a great challenge to the energy industry due to the low productivity of individual wells and their high drilling cost. We thus compared the productivity, associated costs and economical revenues gained from two field development scenarios, with multilateral and horizontal drilling, to evaluate the optimal drilling and completion conditions in a giant heavy oil reservoir in the Middle East. Well path design was identified as one of the most complex parameters depending on the well-testing results, field production and reservoir simulation data. The fishbone well of four branches with a length of …

Investigating The Effect Of [C8py][Cl] And [C18py][Cl] Ionic Liquids On The Water/Oil Interfacial Tension By Considering Taguchi Method, Siamak Najimi, Iman Nowrouzi, Abbas Khaksar Manshad, Mehdi Hojjat Farsangi, Ali Zeinolabedini Hezave, Jagar A. Ali, Alireza Keshavarz, Amir H. Mohammadi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Capillary and interfacial forces are of great influences of trapping hydrocarbon in porous media after primary and secondary recovery processes. The trapped crude oil in the reservoir can be mobilized and produced by reducing these forces. Thus, surfactant flooding, as a main enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method, is usually applied to reduce the interfacial tension (IFT) of crude oil–water system in porous medium and improves the oil recovery. This study focused on the effect of [C8Py][Cl] and [C18Py][Cl] ionic liquids (ILs), as a new family of surfactant, in combination with various salts including sodium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium sulfate and …

Effect Of Si And C Additions On The Reaction Mechanism And Mechanical Properties Of Fecrnicu High Entropy Alloy, Hao Wu, Sirui Huang, Huan Qiu, Heguo Zhu, Zonghan Xie

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

FeCrNiCu based high entropy alloy matrix composites were fabricated with addition of Si and C by vacuum electromagnetic induction melting. The primary goal of this research was to analyze the reaction mechanism, microstructure, mechanical properties at room temperature and strengthening mechanism of the composites with addition of Si and C. The reaction mechanism of powders containing (Si, Ni and C) was analyzed, only one reaction occurred (i.e., Si + C → SiC) and its activation energy is 1302.8 kJ/mol. The new composites consist of a face centered cubic (FCC) structured matrix reinforced by submicron sized SiC particles. The addition of …

Residual Trapping Of Co2 In An Oil-Filled, Oil-Wet Sandstone Core: Results Of Three-Phase Pore-Scale Imaging, Stefan Iglauer, Adriana Paluszny, Taufiq Rahman, Yihuai Zhang, Wolfgang Wülling, Maxim Lebedev

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

CO2 geosequestration in oil reservoirs is an economically attractive solution as it can be combined with enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR). However, the effectiveness of the associated three-phase displacement processes has not been tested at the micrometer pore scale, which determines the overall reservoir-scale fluid dynamics and thus CO2-EOR project success. We thus imaged such displacement processes in situ in 3-D with X-ray microcomputed tomography at high resolution at reservoir conditions and found that oil extraction was enhanced substantially, while a significant residual CO2 saturation (13.5%) could be achieved in oil-wet rock. Statistics of the residual CO2 and oil clusters are …

A Hardware-Deployable Neuromorphic Solution For Encoding And Classification Of Electronic Nose Data, Anup Vanarse, Alexander Rassau, Peter Van Der Made

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In several application domains, electronic nose systems employing conventional data processing approaches incur substantial power and computational costs and limitations, such as significant latency and poor accuracy for classification. Recent developments in spike-based bio-inspired approaches have delivered solutions for the highly accurate classification of multivariate sensor data with minimized computational and power requirements. Although these methods have addressed issues related to efficient data processing and classification accuracy, other areas, such as reducing the processing latency to support real-time application and deploying spike-based solutions on supported hardware, have yet to be studied in detail. Through this investigation, we proposed a spiking …

Capacitive Sensor And Its Calibration: A Technique For The Estimation Of Solid Particles Flow Concentration, Usama Abrar, Liu Shi, Nasif R. Jaffri, Qin Li, Mian W. Omar, Hassan R. Sindhu

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The precise and accurate measurement of flow rate in the batch flow of the solid particles is of primary importance in many process industries for the improvement of the efficiency of the system. Many techniques developed for the measurement of mass flow rate. The capacitive sensors has a significance of being non-invasive, higher accuracy and low cost for mass flow measurement despite the fact that many factors adversely affect the performance- including non-uniform flow, multiphase flow, temperature, pressure, and moisture in the solid particles. This paper covers preliminary investigations of the offline estimation of mass flow concentration based upon the …

Initial Field Testing Results From Building-Integrated Solar Energy Harvesting Windows Installation In Perth, Australia, Mikhail Vasiliev, Mohammad Nur-E-Alam, Kamal Alameh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

We report on the field testing datasets and performance evaluation results obtained from a commercial property-based visually-clear solar window installation site in Perth-Australia. This installation was fitted into a refurbished shopping center entrance porch and showcases the potential of glass curtain wall-based solar energy harvesting in built environments. In particular, we focus on photovoltaic (PV) performance characteristics such as the electric power output, specific yield, day-to-day consistency of peak output power, and the amounts of energy generated and stored daily. The dependencies of the generated electric power and stored energy on multiple environmental and geometric parameters are also studied. An …

Numerical Study Of Periodic Magnetic Field Effect On 3d Natural Convection Of Mwcnt-Water/Nanofluid With Consideration Of Aggregation, Lioua Kolsi, Hakan F. Oztop, Kaouther Ghachem, Mohammed A. Almeshaal, Hussein A. Mohammed, Houman Babazadeh, Nidal Abu-Hamdeh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In this paper, a numerical study is performed to investigate the effect of a periodic magnetic field on three-dimensional free convection of MWCNT (Mutli-Walled Carbone Nanotubes)-water/nanofluid. Time-dependent governing equations are solved using the finite volume method under unsteady magnetic field oriented in the x-direction for various Hartmann numbers, oscillation periods, and nanoparticle volume fractions. The aggregation effect is considered in the evaluation of the MWCNT-water/nanofluid thermophysical properties. It is found that oscillation period, the magnitude of the magnetic field, and adding nanoparticles have an important effect on heat transfer, temperature field, and flow structure. © 2019 by the authors.

Particle Size-Dependent Microstructure, Hardness And Electrochemical Corrosion Behavior Of Atmospheric Plasma Sprayed Nicrbsi Coatings, Peng Sang, Liang-Yu Chen, Cuihua Zhao, Ze-Xin Wang, Haiyang Wang, Sheng Lu, Dongpo Song, Jia-Huan Xu, Lai-Chang Zhang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Particle size is a critical consideration for many powder coating-related industries since it significantly influences the properties of the produced materials. However, the effect of particle size on the characteristics of plasma sprayed NiCrBSi coatings is not well understood. This work investigates the microstructures, hardness and electrochemical corrosion behavior of plasma sprayed NiCrBSi coatings synthesized using different-sized powders. All coatings mainly consist of Ni, N3B, CrB, Cr7C3 and Cr3C2 phases. The coatings produced by small particles (50–75 μm) exhibit lower porosity (2.0 ± 0.8%). Such coatings show a higher fraction (15.5 vol.%) of the amorphous phase and lower hardness (700 …