Engineering Commons^™

Electrochemical Technologies For Per- And Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Mitigation In Drinking Water And Water Treatment Residuals, Donald R. Ryan, Brooke K. Mayer, Claire K. Baldus, Sean T. Mcbeath, Yin Wang, Patrick J. Mcnamara

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Water treatment technologies are needed that can convert per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) into inorganic products (e.g., CO₂, F⁻) that are less toxic than parent PFAS compounds. Research on electrochemical treatment processes such as electrocoagulation and electrooxidation has demonstrated proof-of-concept PFAS removal and destruction. However, research has primarily been conducted in laboratory matrices that are electrochemically favorable (e.g., high initial PFAS concentration [μg/L–mg/L], high conductivity, and absence of oxidant scavengers). Electrochemical treatment is also a promising technology for treating PFAS in water treatment residuals from nondestructive technologies (e.g., ion exchange, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis). Future electrochemical …

Chambers, Gene, Collection, 1952-2013, Special Collections, Leonard H. Axe Library

Finding Aids

The Gene Chambers Collection includes personal and professional papers and documents, including work from his time as a professor at Pittsburg State University and consulting work he did on engineering matters.

Benchmarking Unmanned Aerial Systems-Assisted Inspection Of Steel Bridges For Fatigue Cracks, Sattar Dorafshan, Leslie E. Campbell, Marc Maguire, Robert J. Connor

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Inspection agencies have been increasingly implementing Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for bridge inspections. Currently, UAS are typically used for long-range monitoring and surveillance tasks, but bridge managers are hopeful that they may be utilized for detailed inspection, such as condition assessments and the inspection of fracture critical members (FCM) in the near future. As an assistive tool for visual inspections, the accuracy of UAS-assisted inspections is unknown. This study investigates the relationship between the characteristics of the individual inspectors and a set of performance metrics associated with UAS-assisted FCM inspections. Four bridge inspectors used a UAS to inspect a series …

Sliding Mode Control Of A Nonlinear Wave Energy Converter Model, Tania Demonte Gonzalez, Gordon Parker, Enrico Anderlini, Wayne Weaver

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The most accurate wave energy converter models for heaving point absorbers include nonlinearities, which increase as resonance is achieved to maximize the energy capture. Over the power production spectrum and within the physical limits of the devices, the efficiency of wave energy converters can be enhanced by employing a control scheme that accounts for these nonlinearities. This paper proposes a sliding mode control for a heaving point absorber that includes the nonlinear effects of the dynamic and static Froude‐Krylov forces. The sliding mode controller tracks a reference velocity that matches the phase of the excitation force to ensure higher energy …

High Shear Stress Enhances Endothelial Permeability In The Presence Of The Risk Haplotype At 9p21.3, Evan L. Tang, Evan M. Masutami, Benjamin Yeoman, Jessica Fung, Rachel Lian, Brenda Ngo, Aditya Kumar, Jesse K. Placone, Valentina Lo Sardo, Adam J. Engler

Physics & Engineering Faculty Publications

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are exceedingly common in non-coding loci, and while they are significantly associated with a myriad of diseases, their specific impact on cellular dysfunction remains unclear. Here, we show that when exposed to external stressors, the presence of risk SNPs in the 9p21.3 coronary artery disease (CAD) risk locus increases endothelial monolayer and microvessel dysfunction. Endothelial cells (ECs) derived from induced pluripotent stem cells of patients carrying the risk haplotype (R/R WT) differentiated similarly to their non-risk and isogenic knockout (R/R KO) counterparts. Monolayers exhibited greater permeability and reactive oxygen species signaling when the risk haplotype was …

Comparative Study Of Hermitian And Non-Hermitian Topological Dielectric Photonic Crystals, Menglin L.N. Chen, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Shuang Zhang, Ran Zhao, Zhihao Lan, Wei E.I. Sha

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The effects of gain and loss on the band structures of a bulk topological dielectric photonic crystal (PC) with C6v symmetry and the PC-air-PC interface are studied based on first-principal calculation. To illustrate the importance of parity-time (PT) symmetry, three systems are considered, namely the PT-symmetric, PT-asymmetric, and lossy systems. We find that the system with gain and loss distributed in a PT symmetric manner exhibits a phase transition from a PT exact phase to a PT broken phase as the strength of the gain and loss increases, while for the PT-asymmetric and lossy systems, no such phase transition occurs. …

Development Of A Pavement Evaluation Tool Using Aerial Imagery And Deep Learning, Yuhan Jiang, Sisi Han, Yong Bai

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This paper presents the research results of using Google Earth imagery for visual condition surveying of highway pavement in the United States. A screenshot tool is developed to automatically track the highway for collecting end-to-end images and Global Position System (GPS). A highway segmentation tool based on a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) is developed to segment the collected highway images into the predefined object categories, where the cracks are identified and labeled in each small patch of the overlapping assembled label-image prediction. Then, the longitudinal cracks and transverse cracks are detected using the x-gradient and y-gradient from the Sobel …

Physical-Based Training Data Collection Approach For Data-Driven Lithium-Ion Battery State-Of-Charge Prediction, Jie Li, Will Ziehm, Jonathan W. Kimball, Robert Landers, Jonghyun Park

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Data-Driven approaches for State of Charge (SOC) prediction have been developed considerably in recent years. However, determining the appropriate training dataset is still a challenge for model development and validation due to the considerably varieties of lithium-ion batteries in terms of material, types of battery cells, and operation conditions. This work focuses on optimization of the training data set by using simple measurable data sets, which is important for the accuracy of predictions, reduction of training time, and application to online estimation. It is found that a randomly generated data set can be effectively used for the training data set, …

Low–High Orthoimage Pairs-Based 3d Reconstruction For Elevation Determination Using Drone, Yuhan Jiang, Yong Bai

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This paper presents a 3D reconstruction method for fast elevation determination on construction sites. The proposed method is intended to automatically and accurately determine construction site elevations using drone-based, low–high orthoimage pairs. This method requires fewer images than other methods for covering a large target area of a construction site. An up–forward–down path was designed to capture approximately -scale images at different altitudes over target stations. A pixel grid matching and elevation determination algorithm was developed to automatically match images in dense pixel grid-style via self-adaptive patch feature descriptors, and simultaneously determine elevations based on a virtual elevation model. The …

Molecular Dynamics Simulations Of Self-Assemblies In Nature And Nanotechnology, Phu Khanh Tang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nature usually divides complex systems into smaller building blocks specializing in a few tasks since one entity cannot achieve everything. Therefore, self-assembly is a robust tool exploited by Nature to build hierarchical systems that accomplish unique functions. The cell membrane distinguishes itself as an example of Nature’s self-assembly, defining and protecting the cell. By mimicking Nature’s designs using synthetically designed self-assemblies, researchers with advanced nanotechnological comprehension can manipulate these synthetic self-assemblies to improve many aspects of modern medicine and materials science. Understanding the competing underlying molecular interactions in self-assembly is always of interest to the academic scientific community and industry. …

Simulation Modeling Of A Photovoltaic-Green Roof System For Energy Cost Reduction Of A Building: Texas Case Study, Sojung Kim, Burchan Aydin, Sumin Kim

Faculty Publications

This study aims at introducing a modeling and simulation approach for a green roof system which can reduce energy cost of a building exposed to high temperatures throughout the summer season. First, to understand thermal impact of a green roof system on a building surface, a field-based study has been conducted in Commerce, Texas, U.S., where the average maximum temperature in summer is 104 F (40 C). Two types of analyses were conducted: (1) comparison of temperature between different plant type via Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and (2) polynomial regression analysis to develop thermal impact estimation model based on air …

Impact Behavior Of Laminated Composites Built With Fique Fibers And Epoxy Resin: A Mechanical Analysis Using Impact And Flexural Behavior, Julian Rua, Mario F. Buchely, Sergio Neves Monteiro, Gloria I. Echeverri, Henry A. Colorado

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This research analyzes the behavior of natural fiber reinforced laminated polymer composites (NFRPC) under mechanical solicitations. Samples were fabricated with epoxy resin matrix reinforced with a multilayer natural fique fiber in a bi-directional commercial fabric configuration. Different reinforcement contents without additives were prepared taking in the account the simplicity in processing, fabrication cost, and applications in which this material might be used with high performance standards. Charpy notched impact and 3-point bending test were carried out to evaluate the mechanical behavior and the work of fracture, which was improved significatively with the fibers, showing an increase from 5 to 30 …

Resistive Switching Properties Of Zro2 Film By Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition For Non-Volatile Memory Applications, Aleksey A. Sivkov, Yuan Xing, Zoe Minden, Zhigang Xiao, Kuan Yew Cheong, Feng Zhao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Resistive switching properties of nanoscale zirconium dioxide (ZrO₂) thin film deposited by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD) have been investigated. A resistive memory device has been formed with a 10-nm-thick ZrO₂ film as an active switching layer sandwiched between an aluminum top electrode and a silver bottom electrode. Bipolar resistive switching characteristics were demonstrated by current–voltage measurements with a read memory window of 6.6 V, an ON/OFF current ratio of nearly 10⁵ , and a retention time of 10⁴ s. Current conduction at low resistance states follows Ohm's law while at a high-resistance state governed …

Introduction To Prefabrication And Automation In Construction, Luciana Debs, Jiansong Zhang, Yunfeng Chen

Bowen School of Construction Open Educational Resources

New developments and recent advances in construction methods have the potential to change the future of the architecture, engineering and construction industry. Prefabrication, along with modular construction, provides a safe and controlled environment for the production of building construction elements and raises the need for improved collaboration and coordination from design to manufacturing and from transportation to final assembly. Prefabrication also provides relief from the skilled construction labor shortage while opening up new opportunities for mass customization within the building industry. Prefabrication and modular construction automation are emerging expansion routes for the construction industry. In addition, integral to developing the …

Testing And Characterization Of Polymer Laminates For Swelling, Absorption, And Cracking, Matthew W. Carlson

Master's Theses

A polymer laminate consisting of multiple layers of proprietary blends of Ethylene Vinyl Alcohol (EVOH) and Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) and used in the construction of air bladders was evaluated for hygroscopic effects driving delamination and multiple layer fragmentation. These air bladders are observed to suffer delamination during a manufacturing process that involves immersion in an alcohol/water solution. A plausible underlying mechanism is differential swelling and absorption by the laminate constituents. Both room and elevated temperature swelling tests were carried out to find the absorption and swelling coefficients of the constituents. These coefficients served as input into a Finite Element Analysis …

Building Services Engineering September/October 2021

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Laser-Defined Graphene Strain Sensor Directly Fabricated On 3d-Printed Structure, Tyler M. Webb, Twinkle Pandhi, David Estrada

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A direct-write method to fabricate a strain sensor directly on a structure of interest is reported. In this method, a commercial graphene ink is printed as a square patch (6 mm square) on the structure. The patch is dried at 100 °C for 30 min to remove residual solvents but the printed graphene remains in an insulative state. By scanning a focused laser (830 nm, 100 mW), the graphene becomes electrically conductive and exhibits a piezoresistive effect and a low temperature coefficient of resistance of −0.0006 °C⁻¹. Using this approach, the laser defines a strain sensor pattern on …

Neutron Energy Tuning Assemblies For Nuclear Weapon Environment Applications At The National Ignition Facility, Nicholas J. Quartemont

Theses and Dissertations

An energy tuning assembly was developed to spectrally shape the National Ignition Facility deuterium-tritium fusion neutron source to a notional thermonuclear and prompt fission neutron spectrum to fulfill neutron source capability gaps. The experimental neutron environment was characterized with activation dosimetry, neutronics and covariance models, and unfolded to determine the as-fielded neutron spectrum. The first energy tuning assembly was demonstrated to create synthetic spectrally accurate post-detonation fission products, enhancing U.S. technical nuclear forensics capabilities. ATHENA, a second-generation energy tuning assembly, was also optimized to meet similar objectives, but the new platform neutron fluence efficiency was increased by a factor of …

Enterprise Resource Allocation For Intruder Detection And Interception, Adam B. Haywood

Theses and Dissertations

This research considers the problem of an intruder attempting to traverse a defender's territory in which the defender locates and employs disparate sets of resources to lower the probability of a successful intrusion. The research is conducted in the form of three related research components. The first component examines the problem in which the defender subdivides their territory into spatial stages and knows the plan of intrusion. Alternative resource-probability modeling techniques as well as variable bounding techniques are examined to improve the convergence of global solvers for this nonlinear, nonconvex optimization problem. The second component studies a similar problem but …

Which Variables Should I Log?, Zhongxin Liu, Xin Xia, David Lo, Zhenchang Xing, Ahmed E. Hassan, Shanping Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Developers usually depend on inserting logging statements into the source code to collect system runtime information. Such logged information is valuable for software maintenance. A logging statement usually prints one or more variables to record vital system status. However, due to the lack of rigorous logging guidance and the requirement of domain-specific knowledge, it is not easy for developers to make proper decisions about which variables to log. To address this need, in this work, we propose an approach to recommend logging variables for developers during development by learning from existing logging statements. Different from other prediction tasks in software …

Environmental Assessment Of The Impact Of Land-Based Discharges On Marine Water And Sediment Quality In Dubai, Uae, Ayman Fathy Halawa

Theses

The current seawater and Creek – Canal waterway in the Emirate of Dubai, UAE, is under tremendous pressure because of continuous urban water discharges from land-based sources. Therefore, the impact of urban water discharges on marine water and sediment quality in the Emirate requires a thorough assessment. The main objective of this study is to assess the impacts of effluent discharges on the quality of water and sediment in the open sea and Dubai Creek. The land-based sources include the power and desalination plants, industrial sector, sewage treatment plant, and stormwater runoff. To achieve the stated objective, relevant data on …

Progressive Poling Of Large Area, High R33 Electro-Optic Polymer Seo100c, Michael Maurer, Evan Gawron, Christopher Middlebrook

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

SEO100c, an EO-polymer, has been reported of having an r33 in excess of 100 pm/V. Experimental poling research was performed on rib waveguide modulator for device design and development. Reported is the determination of the impact that temperature and voltage have on the poling of a SEO100c waveguide device in order to maximize the r33 while avoiding damage to the device structure ensuring high yield in manufacture. The poling process is shown to have a nonlinear relationship between r33 and poling field aiding in the selection of achievable poling voltages for required r33 values. Device thermal stability is quantified and …

Evaluating Testing Procedures For Openflow Controller Network Re-Provisioning Time, Steven J. Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

Software-Defined Networking promises several advantages over traditional networking architectures, but has seen little adoption. Recently codified controller evaluation methodologies have seen little validation without strong statistical analysis of the results. The research developed an environment testing implementing a published Network Re-provisioning Time methodology to evaluate five OpenFlow controllers. The methodology is strong with required parameters but had issues with some edge cases. Further refinement and adding a convergence metric may close the gaps.

Deep Learning For Weather Clustering And Forecasting, Nathaniel R. Beveridge

Theses and Dissertations

Clustering weather data is a valuable endeavor in multiple respects. The results can be used in various ways within a larger weather prediction framework or could simply serve as an analytical tool for characterizing climatic differences of a particular region of interest. This research proposes a methodology for clustering geographic locations based on the similarity in shape of their temperature time series over a long time horizon of approximately 11 months. To this end an emerging and powerful class of clustering techniques that leverages deep learning, called deep representation clustering (DRC), are utilized. Moreover, a time series specific DRC algorithm …

Stochastic Satellite Air Drag With The Ballistic Coefficient As A Random Variable, Everett B. Palmer Iv

Theses and Dissertations

The drag acceleration caused by the Earth's atmosphere is a significant cause of prediction uncertainty for low Earth orbit satellites. Most existing research has focused on improving deterministic atmospheric density predictions or on density as a random variable. This research investigates a new paradigm and focuses on modeling the uncertainty caused by air drag using the ballistic coefficient, a component of air drag that is independent of the model used to predict atmospheric density. Time series of ballistic coefficient values were calculated and analyzed as random processes. These random processes were then used as the foundation of a stochastic satellite …

A Real-Time Algorithm To Achieve Precise Coordinated Arrival Times In A Time-Variant Environment, Shawn S. Stephens

Theses and Dissertations

The coordinated arrival time problem seeks to control a vehicle's trajectory to achieve some pre-defined final state at a desired arrival time. The persistent monitoring problem is a type of coordinated arrival problem where a stationary or moving ground target must be constantly observed by a group of aircraft. This research simplifies the problem to overfly the target at specific time intervals relative to the other aircraft in the group while increasing the difficulty of the problem by considering aircraft traveling at vastly different airspeeds. The result of this research is a real time guidance algorithm which accurately guides a …

Evaluation Of Additively Manufactured Lattices Under High Strain Rate Impact, Derek G. Spear

Theses and Dissertations

Several additively manufactured lattice designs and configurations were evaluated under compression loads under various strain rates from quasi-static to highly dynamic. These experiments examined how the mechanical behavior of the lattice changed based on the lattice design properties and the applied strain rates. The modulus of elasticity, yield strength, plateau stress, and toughness were observed to decrease with an increase in strain rate, revealing that the lattice designs exhibit a negative strain rate sensitivity. A new lattice flow stress model was developed to account for the mechanical response of the lattice and was incorporated into a computational model for simulation. …

An Examination Of The Fuzzy Inference System On Probabilistic Roadmap Path Planning, Brandon Replogle

Master's Theses

In recent years, multi-robot systems have been widely used in many applications such as warehouse inventory tracking and automatic search and rescue operations. Probability roadmap (PRM) is a typical path planning algorithm that can determine an optimal trajectory once the robot start and goal positions are specified. However, when the number of robots in the system increases, it converges slowly and may even fail to find the solution.

In this thesis, a fuzzy inference system is proposed and combined with the probability roadmap algorithm for robot path planning. Computer simulation results in five different environments show this approach is very …

Autonomous Vehicle Communication Strategies Modeled In Virtual Reality, Nick N. Ferenchak Ph.D

Publications

We sought to better understand how autonomous vehicle (AV) communication strategies impact human road users’ perceptions and behaviors. More specifically, we explored the impact of different external human-machine interface (eHMI) designs on understanding, task load, comfort, trust, acceptance, and reaction time. To accomplish this, we created virtual reality (VR) scenarios where human participants interacted with AVs. Participants experienced biking, driving, and pedestrian simulators and were brought back after initial testing to explore acclimation and learning effects. In terms of perceptions, the presence of an eHMI was the strongest predictor of understanding, comfort, trust, and acceptance outcomes in the statistical models …

Development Of Novel Ultra-High Performance Engineered Cementitious Composites (Uhp-Ecc) For Durable And Resilient Transportation Infrastructure, Gabriel A. Arce, Marwa Hassan, Daniel E. Game

Publications

The objective of this study was to develop novel UHP-ECC materials utilizing readily available ingredients in Region 6 for the construction and repair of transportation infrastructure. Phase one of this study focused on the development of ultra-high strength cementitious matrices by evaluating the effects of ingredient selection and mixture proportioning on the materials’ compressive strength. Variables evaluated included the mass ratios of silica fume to fly ash (SF/FA), supplementary cementitious materials to cement (SCMs/C), and ordinary sand to microsilica sand (OS/MS). Phase two of the study focused on the development of UHP-ECC materials. To this end, based on the knowledge …