Engineering Commons^™

Balsa Wood Bridge, Andrew Harris

All Undergraduate Projects

Faculty at Central Washington University proposed a challenge to mechanical engineering students that could be accomplished in an in-home setting. The goal was to create a balsa wood bridge, weighing no more than 85 grams, that can support a load over an open span and raise above its resting position by means of a mechanical system. To produce a successful solution to the problem, a vertical lift bridge was created consisting of two lifting towers and a load bearing bridge. Using equations of static equilibrium and strength of materials, the required width for each member was determined. Project requirements were …

Abn: Agent-Aware Boundary Networks For Temporal Action Proposal Generation, Khoa Vo, Kashu Yamazaki, Sang Truong, Minh-Triet Tran, Akihiro Sugimoto, Ngan Le

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Temporal action proposal generation (TAPG) aims to estimate temporal intervals of actions in untrimmed videos, which is a challenging yet plays an important role in many tasks of video analysis and understanding. Despite the great achievement in TAPG, most existing works ignore the human perception of interaction between agents and the surrounding environment by applying a deep learning model as a black-box to the untrimmed videos to extract video visual representation. Therefore, it is beneficial and potentially improves the performance of TAPG if we can capture these interactions between agents and the environment. In this paper, we propose a novel …

Level Of Acceptance (Loa) For Scan-To-Bim Creation, William Fulton Ikerd Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents two contributions to the use of Reality Capture and Scan-to-BIM for facility management (FM). The first manuscript proposes a novel construct for accurately defining scope on Scan-to-BIM projects. Combining the concepts of tolerance, accuracy, and density of point cloud measurements, it will aid laser scan usage in new construction as-built validation, help renovation of existing buildings that lack as-built documentation, and support facility managers who lack accurate plans and digital twins of their buildings by helping determine and communicate the appropriate requirement for Scan-to-BIM. In view of making this process more efficient and cost effective, this article …

Observation Of New Particle Formation In The Northern Hemisphere At Altitude From 4 To 20 Km, Mohamed Saad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

New particle formation (NPF) is investigated using measurements of aerosol size distributions and meteorological variables made in two continents, including USA and Europe. Despite the considerably different aerosol particle abundances among the sites, a common relationship was found between the characteristics of NPF events and the air mass convective and/or advective transport. CO and O3 act as tracers of tropospheric and stratospheric air, respectively, their statistical relationship can be used to quantify air mass characteristics and origins. The mixing ratio values of CO increased within the upper troposphere layer before/during NPF events, which may serve as an indicator of occurring …

Distributed Control, Optimization, And State Estimation For Renewable Power System, Qiao Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The traditional power systems are usually centralized systems, in which the control, operation and monitoring are performed by the centralized control center, e.g., SCADA. However, with the development of renewable energy, power systems are getting more and more distributed. So, it becomes necessary to establish the distributed power system operation methods for these power systems. In this research, the distributed techniques for the renewable power systems are proposed based on the consensus protocol technique from graph theory. These techniques cover the three important problems in power systems, i.e., economic dispatch, state estimation, and optimal power flow. First, the Distributed Economic …

Design Of Lower Legs Of Mithra, A High-Performance Backdrivable Humanoid Robot, Drake Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the design of the knee and ankle of Mithra, a new humanoid robot that aims to be an energy-efficient and highly agile machine. Mithra makes use of new optimization metrics for legged robots to develop a system capable of mimicking human movement. A series of low-impedance, high-torque actuator systems were developed with the goal of creating lightweight, powerful, and robust motion. The structure of Mithra's legs mimics the human structure in leg segment length and weight proportions. Detailed design and analysis were conducted in order to allow Mithra to be a robust and maintainable system. Mithra will …

Design, Manufacture, And Test Of A Hybrid Aerial-Ground Robotic Platform, William Garrett Willmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A hybrid aerial-ground robotic platform allows for enhanced functionality combining most of the operational profiles of an aerial and ground vehicle with applications to intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), infrastructure inspection, emergency response, photography, etc. Motivated by this challenge, we designed, developed, and tested a prototype hybrid aerial-ground robotic vehicle capable of guidance, navigation, and control in the air and on the ground. The thesis focus is on the system design. As such, at first, we designed and analyzed the mechanical component to ensure durability. We then designed the electrical component to reduce overall weight and maximize battery life. We developed …

Mechanisms Of Sensory Adaptation In The Primate Visual System, Boris Isaac Peñaloza Rojas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Under ecological conditions, the luminance impinging on the retina varies within a dynamic range of 220 dB. Stimulus contrast can also vary drastically within a scene, and eye movements leave little time for sampling luminance. In addition, the amount of information reaching our visual system far exceeds the brain’s information processing capacity. Given the limited dynamic range of its neurons and its limited capacity in processing visual information in real-time, the brain deploys both structural and functional solutions that work in tandem to adapt to the surroundings. In this work, employing visual psychophysics and computational neuroscience, we study the mechanisms …

Correlating With Local Variation In Collagen Level And Mechanical Properties Of The Heart Tissues, Talayeh Tavangar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The determination of the myocardium's tissue properties is essential in constructing finite element (FE) models of the heart. To obtain accurate results, especially for functionally modeling the heart, we must determine the tissue properties in-vivo. The calculation of the heart tissue properties remains a challenging area as it is categorized as a heterogeneous, anisotropic, nonlinear soft tissue that undergoes large deformation. In this work, we tried to introduce and evaluated a finite element method to determine the mechanical properties of the cardiac tissue. The introduced method combined a finite element modeling with the experimentally obtained images from the left and …

Scaffolding Middle And High School Students’ Engineering Design Experiences: Quality Problem-Scopeing Promoting Successful Solutions, Andrew Hughes, Cameron Denson

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

Highly proficient expert engineers begin the iterative process of design by thoroughly investigating the design problem. Engineering students are often distracted by surface details, leading to a faulty conception of the problem and inappropriate solution strategies. Adequate problem-scoping is arguably the most important step in the design process. To address this issue, the researchers developed an instructional framework to help teachers scaffold students’ cognitive and metacognitive processes during the problem-scoping phase of a design challenge. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate the impact that scaffolded instruction related to the SCOPE process had on students’ solution success during …

The Use Of Tissue Engineering To Fabricate Perfusable 3d Brain Microvessels, Kalpani N Udeni Galpayage Dona, Jonathan Franklin Hale, Tobi Salako, Akanksha Anandanatarajan, Kiet A Tran, Brandon J Deore, Peter Galie, Servio Heybert Ramirez, Allison Michelle Andrews

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

Tissue engineering of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in vitro has been rapidly expanding to address the challenges of mimicking the native structure and function of the BBB. Most of these models utilize 2D conventional microfluidic techniques. However, 3D microvascular models offer the potential to more closely recapitulate the cytoarchitecture and multicellular arrangement of in vivo microvasculature, and also can recreate branching and network topologies of the vascular bed. In this perspective, we discuss current 3D brain microvessel modeling techniques including templating, printing, and self-assembling capillary networks. Furthermore, we address the use of biological matrices and fluid dynamics. Finally, key challenges …

Inspire Newsletter Spring 2021, Missouri University Of Science And Technology. Inspire - University Transportation Center

INSPIRE Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Inspire Newsletter Fall 2021, Missouri University Of Science And Technology. Inspire - University Transportation Center

INSPIRE Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Studying The Relationship Between Indigenous Microbial Communities, Urease Activity, And Calcite Precipitation In Artificial Mixes Of Clay And Sand, Somaye Asghari, Bhaskar C. S. Chittoori, Malcolm Burbank, Nick Hudyma

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microbial-induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) is evolving as a new method of improving the mechanical properties of soil. This environmentally friendly technique is a bio-geo-chemical process where microbes play a key role in increasing soil strength through precipitating calcium carbonate. Past studies at Boise State University have indicated that MICP via bio-stimulation could be a viable alternative for expansive clayey soil treatments. However, these studies raised a new question about the relationship between soil composition, urease activity, and calcite precipitation. To answer this question, batch studies were conducted using autoclaved-sterilized sand mixed with different percentages of non-sterile natural clay and …

Data-Driven Design Of Energy-Shaping Controllers For Swing-Up Control Of Underactuated Robots, Wankun Sirichotiyakul, Aykut C. Satici

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We propose a novel data-driven procedure to train a neural network for the swing-up control of underactuated robotic systems. Our approach is inspired by several recent developments ranging from nonlinear control theory to machine learning. We embed a neural network indirectly into the equations of motion of the robotic manipulator as its control input. Using familiar results from passivity-based and energy-shaping control literature, this control function is determined by the appropriate gradients of a neural network, acting as an energy-like (Lyapunov) function. We encode the task of swinging-up robotic systems through the use of transverse coordinates and goal sets; which …

Moffatt Eddies In Subglacial Mountain Valleys, Emily Martinez

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

Currently, there is a global emphasis in finding the oldest ice in Antarctica, which will give the longest climate record contained within the ice. This is fundamental in the field of climate science because it will give scientists a proper baseline to compare it to sediment cores amongst other proxy records and work to determine a more accurate account of climate change. The most promising place to find the oldest ice is within the thick, slow-moving East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Within this ice sheet, there is a thick region of ice that sits on a mountain range known as the …

Effect Of Cloud Cover On Optimum Orientations Of Fixed Solar Panels For Maximum Yearly Energy Collection, Prethew Prasad

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The amount of cloud cover present in the sky is a significant factor when determining the solar radiation impinging on a solar panel. The optimum tilt required to achieve maximum energy impingement on a surface is also influenced by the amount of cloud cover. This work presents a method for determining the optimum tilt angle for a fixed solar panel when a set amount of cloud cover is present in the sky. Fixed tilt angles that have the most incident solar energy over the course of a year as a function of cloud cover, latitude, and azimuthal angle orientation are …

Leveraging Sequential Nature Of Conversations For Intent Classification, Shree Gotteti

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Conversations are more than just a sequence of text, it is where two or more participants interact in order to achieve their goals. Conversation Understanding (CU) requires all participants to understand each others intent. In the past decade, CU has been extended from automated human-human text processing to build automated conversational agents for human-machine interactions. Despite their popularity, these automated conversational agents (like Siri, Alexa, etc) can't handle more than one or two utterances, and they don't recognize conversations as intents. The development of approaches that extract intents behind an utterance is essential for the advancements of Question Answering (QA) …

Content Adaption And Design In Mobile Learning Of Wind Instruments, Neha Priyadarshani

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

People in today's world seek things that are simple to use. Learning is one of the most crucial aspects of the ongoing digital transformation. Everything is now accessible with a single click on mobile devices, making access to instructional materials faster, easier, and more comfortable. It takes time and effort to build abilities and become an expert in the fields of learning, training, and teaching; and music learning demands a great deal of both practice and mentoring. Initially, music teachers and band directors must maintain a steady attention and devote a significant amount of time to manually teaching materials. This …

Mini Rc Baja Car, Jason Schindler

All Undergraduate Projects

Incorporating each aspect of engineering incorporated into a senior project is difficult. That is why an RC Baja car is a great senior project for Mechanical Engineering students. The approach that students must take to design, construct, and test the car is to set parameters, and to make overall goals that can be easily measured. These goals include, but not limited to things like a $700 budget and the ability to withstand a 1-foot drop to a flat surface on all four wheels simultaneously. First, the design must meet the specifications and rules that are set previously. This ensures that …

Nrj Rc Baja Vehicle Project - Transmission, Suspension, And Body Systems, Jeffrey Ryan Harn

All Undergraduate Projects

Students of Central Washington University’s Mechanical Engineering technology program were tasked with designing, manufacturing, and testing a remote-controlled scale vehicle for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Radio-Controlled (RC) Baja Car Contest sanctioned by Remotely Operated Auto Racers (ROAR). A team of three students was assembled and responsibility over the sections of the RC vehicle were divided amongst the three students. This report focuses on the design, manufacture, testing, and evaluation of the suspension and transmission systems of the RC vehicle. A suspension tower component and transmission housing assembly were conceived to satisfy the RC suspension and transmission systems. …

Intelligent Healthcare Process Discovery And Operational Coordination Using Discrete Event Simulation And Machine Learning, Suleyman Yildirim

Wayne State University Dissertations

The healthcare system in the US is rapidly changing and reshaping to adopt continuously evolving demand for improved operational efficiency and treatment effectiveness from patients and providers in critical health services. Healthcare service systems and clinical treatment operations need to be more predictable to increase operational efficiency through proactive operations management. This research contributes to the literature by discovering clinical processes and calibrating discrete-event simulation models in healthcare service systems using data-driven and process-driven predictive models. Unlike the data-driven predictive approaches such as machine learning and statistical methods, the proposed methodologies in this thesis leverages and focuses on process-based methods …

Medical Surge Capability: Performance Modeling Of Hospital Emergency Departments, Egbe-Etu Emmanuel Etu

Wayne State University Dissertations

Hospitals are faced with significant challenges during and after natural or human-caused disasters. Surge planning is a critical component of every healthcare facility’s emergency plan and response system. The process of managing and allocating scarce resources by tackling the vulnerability inherent to patients means that defining improvement priorities is one of the main challenges healthcare systems face when responding to a medical surge event (e.g., COVID-19). The consequences of these challenges include increased patient mortality, ambulance diversion, long wait times, and unavailability of beds. Previous efforts in hospital operations management have successfully applied operations research techniques in analyzing and optimizing …

Delayed Fast Neutron As An Indicator Of Burn-Up For Nuclear Fuel Elements, Tayfun Akyurek, Shoaib Usman, S. B. Shoaib

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Feasibility study of burn-up analysis and monitoring using delayed fast neutrons was investigated at Missouri University of Science and Technology Reactor (MSTR). Burnt and fresh fuel elements were used to collect delayed fast neutron data for different power levels. Total reactivity varied depending on the burn-up rate of fuel elements for each core configuration. The regulating rod worth was 2.07E-04 Δk/k/in and 1.95E-04 Δk/k/in for T121 and T122 core configurations at 11 inch, respectively. Delayed fast neutron spectrum of F1 (burnt) and F16 (fresh) fuel elements were analyzed further, and a strong correlation was observed between delayed fast neutron emission …

Renewable Energy Production By Solar Chimney: The Influence Of Curved Guide Vanes On The Performance Of A Solar Chimney Using Cfd Simulation, Haokun Xue

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the guide vanes on the efficiency of the turbine of solar chimney power plant using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In this study, a 3-Dimentional CFD simulation of solar chimney power plant based on the Manzanares prototype is performed. The CFD simulation is validated by comparing the experimental data from the Manzanares prototype and simulation data with both 2D and 3D cases. To capture turbulent flow inside the chimney, the SST 𝑘 − 𝜔 turbulence model is used. The first object is to investigate the flow performance under the influence …

An Analysis Of A Hybrid Steel Bridge, Andrew Iglehart

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The American Institute of Steel Construction hosts a competition for graduating college seniors each year. The competition is designing and fabricating a scaled steel bridge within certain parameters. Each year the parameters change to allow different seniors to face similar challenges without copying the previous year’s work. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, a bridge was fabricated as per the rules in the 2020, and the same bridge was used for the 2021 competition. With a bridge already fabricated and being used for the competition, a question arose about analyzing the bridge.

This thesis encompasses the entire analysis of the steel …

A Multi-Agent Semi-Cooperative Unmanned Air Traffic Management Model With Separation Assurance, Yanchao Liu

Industrial and Systems Engineering Faculty Research Publications

This paper presents an air traffic management framework to enable multiple fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles to traverse dense, omni-directional air traffic safely and efficiently. The main challenge addressed here is separation assurance in the absence of full coordination and communication. In this framework, each fleet is independently managed by a routing agent, which progressively plans the non-overlapping move-ahead corridors for vehicles in the fleet by solving a nonlinear optimization model. The model is artfully designed so that agents of different fleets need not engage in complicated multilateral communications or make guesses about external vehicles’ flight intents to maintain effective …

Northeast Florida: A New Hotspot For Hurricane Damage?, William R. Dally, Raphael Crowley, Nick Hudyma

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Until recent Hurricanes Matthew and Irma struck northeast Florida, Hurricane Dora had been the first and only hurricane-strength storm in recorded history to strike the region. The area had gradually become regarded as a safe spot as storms at that latitude generally curved away from Jacksonville and northeast Florida, and turned north to make landfall in the Carolinas. Unknown to most, Vilano Beach had been experiencing steady yet chronic beach erosion and was already in a highly vulnerable state in many places when the recent storms struck. The cause of the ongoing background erosion continues to be a source of …

Feasibility Study Of Serial Hybrid-Electric Systems In Small Aircraft, Kyle Rosenow

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

Three different small aircraft, a Diamond DA40, a Cessna Skyhawk 172S and a Cirrus SR22, are used to assess the feasibility of converting an existing aircraft's power system to a serial-hybrid system or an all-electric system. The serial-hybrid system uses a gasoline engine to generate electricity that can power the main electric motor or charge onboard batteries, while the all-electric system uses batteries only and does not carry a gasoline engine. General system designs are proposed, and a calculation model was developed to allow for analysis of the three different aircraft and their variants. The all-electric and serial-hybrid variants are …

Complex Interactions Between Multiple Goal Operations In Agent Goal Management, Sravya Kondrakunta

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A significant issue in cognitive systems research is to make an agent formulate and manage its own goals. Some cognitive scientists have implemented several goal operations to support this issue, but no one has implemented more than a couple of goal operations within a single agent. One of the reasons for this limitation is the lack of knowledge about how various goals operations interact with one another. This thesis addresses this knowledge gap by implementing multiple-goal operations, including goal formulation, goal change, goal selection, and designing an algorithm to manage any positive or negative interaction between them. These are integrated …