Engineering Commons^™

Door Barricade, Alex Cerino

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

My senior capstone project will be a door barricade. The main idea for the use of the door barricade is for schools in the case of an intruder. The barricade that I will be designing is a solution to the inefficient barricades that I saw at my high school. It could also be used at businesses and homes. My design would be easy to use and have a fail-safe option. The two areas of mechanical engineering technology that my capstone project will focus on are stress analysis and electronics. Every part for my door barricade is drawn in SolidWorks. All …

Light Loaded Automated Guided Vehicle, Marcus Radtka, Nazar Paramashchuk, Lawrence Shevock

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of the locomotion system was to design and implement the mechanical, electrical, and software related functions to ensure the LLAGV had the capability of maneuvering its surroundings. The LLAGV’s motors were represented in an open loop transfer function to utilize RPM feedback and a compensator when needed. The modeled compensator helped control the LLAGV’s speed and acceleration, enabling further control of the LLAGV. The internal circuitry has the means to properly distributed power to all components and allowed the user to control the LLAGV to their desire. The application software within the LLAGV locomotion system (LLAGV-LS) had consideration …

Mini Baja Cvt Optimization, Emily Masa, Alec Bagley, Kyle Fertig, David Gao, Noah Cook

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of this project is to design and optimize an eCVT setup for The University of Akron’s Zips Baja SAE car. The current CVT is a centrifugal CVT which changes its gear ratio through a series of weights and springs, while an eCVT uses a motor to change the gear ratio.The advantage of an eCVT is that the motor can be programmed to adjust in real-time based on the engine rpm. A centrifugal CVT can only be tuned ahead of time. It is necessary to compare the new acceleration performance to a tuned centrifugal CVT to determine if it …

Additive Manufactured Formula Sae Brake Caliper, Auston Obringer, Robert Kucera, Steven Massarelli, Jared John, Michael Finer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In a world where innovation has become the new norm, automobiles can often be found at the forefront of that movement. Each and every year there are new innovations and concepts that push modern day technology to the edge of what is physically possible. This can be seen from every aspect of these automobiles ranging from the conceptual stage all the way to production.

Most of these advancements have been made possible with the new technology that has become available on the manufacturing side of the designs. Instead of being constrained by what is possible on your average 3 to …

Quantifying Mafenide Release From 3d Printed Phenylalanine-Coumarin Copolyester Scaffolds, Jacob Seeh

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project addressed burn wound healing through controlled release of the antibacterial drug mafenide encapsulated by a copolyster into 3D printed scaffolds. Scaffolds were printed at 25^oC and 0.77-1 bar in a cross-hatch pattern with uniform thickness, distance between parallel layers, and diameter then photo-crosslinked. The number of scaffolds available for testing was limited by the amount of polymer that could be synthesized. A high-performance liquid chromatography method was developed specifically for this experiment and used to determine daily release of mafenide from the scaffold into a 2-mL phosphate buffer solution. During the first 24 hours a large …

A Low-Cost Face Mask Detection System, Joshua Curtis, Logan Mospens, David Nelson, Sumner Wilson, Adam Kilo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In this project we approached the problem of developing a computer-based system which can identify whether people in images are wearing masks or not. To do so, we divided the project into two primary research areas: hardware and software. The hardware team inspected camera solutions and data gathering efforts on campus to assist the software training of the machine learning model. The software team learned how to work with machine learning by using TensorFlow and Python to use transfer learning to develop a model that will quickly detect if someone was wearing a mask or not.

Sae Formula Team Carbon Fiber Seat, Sean Turner, Jacob Jaksic

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project is for the Formula SAE Zips Racing team here at the University of Akron. The team includes Jacob Jaksic, Sean Turner, Dovydas Sodys, Mike White, and Sevin Johnson. We are tasked with reducing the weight of their current seat, while remaining comfortable to the driver. Our plan was to do this with a lightweight material, specifically carbon fiber. Many different steps were required when outlining this project: finalizing a design with verification from our Zips racing advisor, completing FEA analysis on finished design, acquiring material to be molded into seat, and finding a company to fabricate out of …

Roundabouts: A Study In Green, Benjamin Shaub

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project was to provide insight on the subject of the implementation of roundabouts as an alternative to traditional intersections. Specifically, this project focuses primarily on intersection improvement projects performed by the City of Green, a municipality local to Akron, Ohio. The report discusses many of the considerations that contributed to roundabout conversion being established as the preferred improvement for the State Route 619-Pickle Rd and State Route 619-Myersville Rd intersections located within the City of Green, along with additional details pertaining to these two public projects (completed in 2018 and 2019 respectively). The intent of this …

Road Racing Aerodynamic Simulation + Testing, Jack Sawyer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

There are multiple goals for this project. The first goal of this project is to design, assemble and simulate additional aerodynamic components. Another goal is to create a product that can analyze various angles of attack of Aerodynamic components. The product will be used on, or off the track to determine the lift coefficients of vehicles at varying speeds. I will be using my 1992 Honda Civic for testing and compare my physical results to my simulated tests.

The project did come with a list of design and manufacturing challenges along with additional finical cost which has resulted in some …

Less Commute Miles. Decreased Tire Wear. What Would You Do?, Dylan Schwarz, Brendon M. Ford, Brandon D. Hadinger, Abbie N. Pearce, Jacinta M. Pikunas

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

With the flagrant recognition of the coronavirus as one of those most impactful viruses in the history of the world, it is important to study how the effects of such a disease can create troublesome ripple effects in the world. Covid-19 has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of individuals and has negatively impacted the lives of American’s all across the country during the nationwide lockdown. Decreased work commuters, minimal road travel, and little need for car repairs hit the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company hard. The University of Akron has teamed up with Goodyear to explore such effects …

Design And Analysis Of One-Piece 10” Carbon Fiber Wheels For Zips Racing Zr20 Formula Sae Racecar, Patrick Kruse, Henry J. Wathen, Jordan J. Hyde, Nicholas D. Dobben, Jordan D. Blake

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Reducing the weight of a vehicle in racing can substantially improve the vehicle dynamics and general performance capabilities. More specifically, the reduction of the unsprung corner weight can provide noticeable performance gains in handling and responsiveness, leading to a quicker, more agile car due to a lower yawing moment of inertia. Unsprung weight reduction also improves the car’s ability to maintain contact between the tires and the road surface for a more consistent grip. In this project we identified the loads that act on the wheel rims according to the data collected from the sensors in the car’s suspension, and …

Tubing/Lines Entanglement Reduction In Healthcare Settings, Abigail Kraft, Amy Beskitt, Grace Elerick, Zachery Steck

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Intravenous (IV) lines used in various healthcare settings pose a risk to patients and their caretakers. A few common risks include IV lines becoming torn out and coming into contact with open wounds. We propose to solve this problem by designing a device that prevents IV and wire entanglement without obstructing patient care. Our objectives in identifying a solution include increasing patient comfort, mobility, and ease of transfer. By solving this issue, other potential benefits include reducing time spent on non-essential tasks and reducing number of personnel needed to transport patients. We intend to validate our product with healthcare employees …

Gene Gun Research Project, Victoria Wargo, Eid Alolayan, Joseph Bader, Feras Alyamani, Connor Nagelkirk

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The motivation behind this project is to design or improve a cheaper gene gun that can help the world. The goal is to design a new low-cost gene delivery system that will allow Dr. Mahajan and University of Akron students conduct new research, with the aim of advancing society in many different fields. A few examples would be improving crops resistances to insects or harsh weather. This could happen by altering their genes to repulse insects or have stronger bases to have better resistance to the wind. In the medical world you could use gene therapy to help fight cancer …

Obstructive Wiring Patterns To Circular Planarity In Electrical Networks, Hannah Lebo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In order for an electrical network to be printed on a flat surface without changing the network’s input or output, it is important to consider if any wires will cross and if this problem can be avoided. If a circular network can be printed so that no wires cross, the network is said to be circular planar. In this paper, we identify a number of wiring patterns that make circular planarity impossible. We find exactly 3 wiring patterns using circular pairs with sets of two nodes, and we find exactly 78 wiring patterns using circular pairs with sets of three …

Tabletop Dome Tester, Dylan Davis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The project for the dome tester stand is a continuation from a group of four that worked on the stand in Spring of 2020. The project itself is based around the Erichsen Cupping test to test the material properties, in our application specifically, observing the forming limits of strain in deep drawing applications of sheet metal. Testing pieces in varying lengths from 4” x 4” squares to 4” x 0.5” strips to the depth that necking begins on the piece to determine the limit before cracks appear using a hemispherical punch to draw the material sample clamped between two dies. …

The Youplanner, Taylor Burgess

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Staying organized can be difficult. A four tier web application was created to help in the endeavor. Utilizing software engineering practices, an online notepad was created where users can add, update, and delete notes. The application was a full stack application. For the backend, MySQL was the language and phpMyAdmin was the server. For the front end, PHP and Bootstrap 5.1 was used.

Flaw Characterization And Depth Profiling Using Sonic Ir Nde, Omar Obeidat

Wayne State University Dissertations

Sonic IR (SIR) is a relatively new thermal NDE method which has received considerable acceptance in the NDE community. SIR has shown the capability of detecting surface and subsurface defects in a wide range of materials including metal alloys, ceramics, and composites. Most of the research conducted aimed to improve the method’s detectability and optimizing the inspection process to improve the inspection outcome; less attention was devoted to extracting further information that would help characterize defects quantitatively.In this study, we developed an analytical model of a subsurface circular heat source that can be used to characterize interplay delaminations in composites. …

Maximizing User Engagement In Short Marketing Campaigns Within An Online Living Lab: A Reinforcement Learning Perspective, Aniekan Michael Ini-Abasi

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

MAXIMIZING USER ENGAGEMENT IN SHORT MARKETING CAMPAIGNS WITHIN AN ONLINE LIVING LAB: A REINFORCEMENT LEARNING PERSPECTIVE

by

ANIEKAN MICHAEL INI-ABASI

August 2021

Advisor: Dr. Ratna Babu Chinnam Major: Industrial & Systems Engineering Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

User engagement has emerged as the engine driving online business growth. Many firms have pay incentives tied to engagement and growth metrics. These corporations are turning to recommender systems as the tool of choice in the business of maximizing engagement. LinkedIn reported a 40% higher email response with the introduction of a new recommender system. At Amazon 35% of sales originate from recommendations, …

Analysis And Dynamic Dispatch Of Energy Storage Systems In Electricity Markets Under Uncertainty, Tingli Hu

Wayne State University Dissertations

With the increasing penetration levels of renewable energy resources in power systems, to realize efficient energy management, energy storage systems have become indispensable. This research aims at analyzing the impact of energy storage systems on electricity markets, especially the impact on electricity prices, and developing strategies to dynamically dispatch the available storage resources for energy management. Marginal generation units as the generators that determine the system-wide electricity prices are theoretically analyzed in this research. The electricity price of any node in the system is approximately an affine combination of the bidding prices of the marginal generation units if the power …

Secure Automatic Speaker Verification Systems, Muteb Aljasem

Wayne State University Dissertations

The growing number of voice-enabled devices and applications consider automatic speaker verification (ASV) a fundamental component. However, maximum outreach for ASV in critical domains e.g., financial services and health care, is not possible unless we overcome security breaches caused by voice cloning, and replayed audios collectively known as the spoofing attacks. The audio spoofing attacks over ASV systems on one hand strictly limit the usability of voice-enabled applications; and on the other hand, the counterfeiter also remains untraceable. Therefore, to overcome these vulnerabilities, a secure ASV (SASV) system is presented in this dissertation. The proposed SASV system is based on …

Arterial Roadway Travel Time Reliability And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Laurence Rilett, Ernest Tufuor, Sean Murphy

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper evaluated the effect of the COVID-19 preventive orders on arterial roadway travel time reliability (TTR). A comparative analysis was conducted to examine average travel time distributions (TTD), and their associated TTR metrics, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel time data for four urban arterial corridors in Nebraska, disaggregated by peak period and direction, were analyzed. It was found that in 2020, the average TTD mean and standard deviation values for all 16 scenarios were reduced by an average of 14.0% and 43.4%, respectively. The travel time index, the planning time index, the level of travel time reliability …

New Travel Time Reliability Methodology For Urban Arterial Corridors, Ernest Tufuor, Laurence Rilett

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

The need for reliable performance measures of urban arterial corridors is increasing because of the rise in traffic congestion and the high value of users’ travel time. Consequently, travel time reliability (TTR), which attempts to capture the day-to-day variability in travel times, has recently received considerable research interest. The basis of all TTR metrics is the underlying travel time distribution (TTD) along the given link or corridor. Estimating and forecasting arterial corridor TTDs for TTR analysis is the focus of this paper. This paper proposes a TTR methodology that addresses some of the limitations of the current U.S. state-of-the-art methodology …

Improving Operational Short- To Medium-Range (Sr2mr) Streamflow Forecasts In The Upper Zambezi Basin And Its Sub-Basins Using Variational Ensemble Forecasting, Rodrigo Valdés-Pineda, Juan B. Valdés, Sungwook Wi, Aleix Serrat-Capdevila, Tirthankar Roy

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

The combination of Hydrological Models and high-resolution Satellite Precipitation Products (SPPs) or regional Climatological Models (RCMs), has provided the means to establish baselines for the quantification, propagation, and reduction in hydrological uncertainty when generating streamflow forecasts. This study aimed to improve operational real-time streamflow forecasts for the Upper Zambezi River Basin (UZRB), in Africa, utilizing the novel Variational Ensemble Forecasting (VEF) approach. In this regard, we describe and discuss the main steps required to implement, calibrate, and validate an operational hydrologic forecasting system (HFS) using VEF and Hydrologic Processing Strategies (HPS). The operational HFS was constructed to monitor daily streamflow …

Testing And Validation Framework For Autonomous Aerial Vehicles, Mustafa I. Akbas

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Autonomous aerial vehicles (AAV) have the potential to have market disruptions for various industries such as ground delivery and aerial transportation. Hence, the USAF has called for increased level of autonomy. There has been a significant progress in artificial intelligence engines, complex and non-deterministic system components, which are at the core of the autonomous aerial platforms. Traditional testing and validation methods fall short of satisfying the requirement of testing such complex systems. Therefore, to achieve highly or fully autonomous capabilities, a major leap forward in the validation is required. The key challenges are the localization of problems, development of object …

Detectability Of Clothing Color By Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems For Search And Rescue Operations, Ryan Blackburn, Robert Joslin

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Search-and-rescue operations are adopting small unmanned aircraft system technology to aid traditional human search parties operating on foot or by vehicle, which can be hindered by challenging terrain and obstacles. This study utilized three camera equipped small unmanned aircraft to collect aerial images of a simulated human torso in a rural/remote desert summer daytime environment. The study compared detection rates for 10 different garment colors using image analysis software. Results indicated that garment color was statistically significant for detection rate. However, the garment colors with the highest detection rates did not correspond with the garment colors recommended by retail outlets, …

Interactive Modules For Flight Training: A Review, Stephanie G. Fussell, Robert Thomas

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

The use of animation and video, combined with auditory and text components, to teach complex subjects can be beneficial to deepen understanding. A review of the literature was conducted to better understand how interactive learning modules can give flight students tools to enhance the learning process outside of traditional instruction. Instructional theories and educational environments were considered through the lens of designing course content for flight students. Several research questions were asked to guide the course of the research, all focused on how students learn a complex subject matter using interactive material. Guidelines and principles are discussed to ensure the …

Analysis Of Bundle Protocol With Turbo Code, Babita Pradhan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bundle protocol is one of the main protocols for data transfer in delay/disruption networking characterized by the long delay, frequent disruption, intermittent connectivity, andhigh error rates. Using a store and forward technique, bundle protocol stores the application data by dividing it into smaller bundles locally at each node and then forwards it to the next node when access is available. Usually, it operates as an overlay network by staying on top of any other networking architecture. As one of the main protocols for delay/disruption networking, many studies have analyzed its performance. This thesis analyzes the bundle protocol’s performance in terms …

Electromagnetic Survey Design Using Artifical Neural Networks, Shariful Islam Sharif

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Acquiring geophysical information requires selection of the geophysical method based upon the defining physical property and a survey design with adequate resolution but cost effective based upon the size of the area to be surveyed. The objective of this study is to use artificial neural nets (ANNs) to design an optimal survey. The developed approach is tested for the case of soil pipe surveying using electromagnetics. Soil pipes are tortuous voids located within 1.5 m depth of the ground surface. They trend perpendicular to the slope and have cross-sectional dimensions on the order of millimeters to tens of centimeters. The …

Nonreciprocity Applications In Acoustics And Microfluidic Systems, Masoud Naghdi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Breaking reciprocity in linear acoustic systems and designing a novel actuator for the nonreciprocal valveless pumps are studied in this dissertation. The first part was started by deriving the acoustic governing equations in a moving wave propagation medium. It was shown thatthe Coriolis acceleration term appears ina cross-product term with the wave vector. It means the main reason for breaking reciprocity in the circular fluid flow is the Coriolis acceleration term. Finally, the governing equations were solved numerically by COMSOL Multiphysics software. Moreover, Green`s second identity was used as a complimentary method to prove breaking reciprocityin such a system with …

Forecasting The Construction Expenditure Cash Flow For Transportation Design-Build Projects With A Case-Based Reasoning Model, Yunping Liang, Baabak Ashuri, Mingshu Li

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Accurately forecasting the construction expenditure cash flow of transportation projects is critical for state departments of transportation (state DOTs) to secure sufficient funding to cover their fiscal obligations throughout the project development timeline. However, there is no quantitative model to assist state DOTs in accurately forecasting expenditure cash flows for design-build projects. At the outset of awarding a typical design-build contract, the design has not been finalized to enable exact quantities for a detailed cost estimate. This issue represents a big difference between design-build and design-bid-build projects that makes estimating the project payouts more difficult for design-build projects. This research …