Engineering Commons^™

Experimental Investigation On Coal Fines Migration Through Proppant Packs: Assessing Variation Of Formation Damage And Filtration Coefficients, Faisal Ur Rahman Awan, Mohsen Farrokhrouz, Hamed Akhondzadeh, Stefan Iglauer, Alireza Keshavarz

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Coalbed methane reservoirs generate coal fines during production that cause irreversible damage to cleat conductivity. In severe scenarios, this can result in temporary closure of recovery operations from the gas well(s). In this work, we simulate the impact of coal fines on proppant conductivity. Four sets of experiments were conducted: effect of salinity – 0 to 3.5 NaCl wt.%, pH – 2 to 11, coal rank - anthracite, high volatile bituminous, and sub-bituminous; and 0.01 wt% additives – Sodium Dodecyl Benzene Sulfonate (SDBS) and Cetrimonium bromide (CTAB) and validated with established analytical models. Moreover, medical computed tomography of three extreme …

Micro-Scale Wettability Of Carbonate Rocks Via High-Resolution Esem Imaging, Khaloud Al-Naimi, Muhammad Arif, Mahmoud Aboushanab, Dalaver Anjum, Mohammed Al Kobaisi, Md Motiur Rahman, Mohamed Mahmoud, Stefan Iglauer

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The wettability of several materials has been traditionally quantified using macro-scale contact angles. However, precise identification of the three-phase contact (TPC) line is often difficult due to the resolution limit of macro-scale setups. Moreover, micro-level surface chemical heterogeneities can have a notable impact on the predicted wetting behavior which limits macro-scale contact angles. Thus, here, we investigate the micro-scale water wettability of condensed micro-droplets on carbonate rock surfaces via a high-resolution Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM). Macro- and micro-scale contact angles were evaluated under three conditions: 1) natural carbonate surfaces, 2) surfaces aged in crude oil, and 3) surfaces aged …

Dual-Site Photoplethysmography Sensing For Noninvasive Continuous-Time Blood Pressure Monitoring Using Artificial Neural Network, Anas Mohmmad Rabab’Ah

Theses

Millions of people worldwide struggle from high blood pressure, often known as hypertension, and it is a major health concern that can lead to serious cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and many other consequences. Blood pressure monitoring that is reliable and accurate is crucial to the detection and management of hypertension. Although invasive techniques, such as arterial catheterization, are considered to be the most accurate means of evaluating blood pressure, they can be painful, time-consuming and carry a risk of complications.
/="/">This thesis presents the development of a real time non-invasive blood pressure monitoring system based on commercially available …

A Numerical Investigation Realizing The Flow Structure And Heat Transfer Performance Of The Potential Impinging Jets, Mohammed Sami Uddin Khan

Theses

The demand for improvement in the performance of gas turbines has led to the consideration of flows at increasingly high temperatures, but this introduces challenges in terms of maintaining their structural integrity and preventing overheating. To respond to these challenges, gas turbine manufacturers have turned to internal cooling, and jet impingement provides an effective solution for cooling the leading edge of the blades of gas turbines. In this study, the author numerically simulated the cooling performance of the leading edge of the blades of a gas turbine under constant heat flux by using five configurations of jet impingement: a steady …

Pattern-Of-Life Modeling With Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (Ads-B), Sarah J. Bolton

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation and research were sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory Layered Sensing Exploitation Branch (AFRL/RYA) to investigate the utility of using the data found within aircraft secondary radar to make predictions about aircraft characteristics and intent. The research focuses on making predictions on aircraft characteristics using only the kinetic data within one type of secondary radar, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), as a surrogate for primary radar. The results from this research provide a means to reduce the reliance on a type of aircraft tracking that is vulnerable to cyber attack and other integrity concerns.

A Review Of Nano And Microscale Heat Transfer: An Experimental And Molecular Dynamics Perspective, Samyabrata Chatterjee, Paras, Han Hu, Monojit Chakraborty

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Significant progress in the development of micro and nanoscale devices has been observed for the past three decades. The thermal transportation in these small-length scales varies significantly, and it is difficult to explain the underlying physics using the pre-existing theoretical formulations. When the bulk dimension of a system is comparable to or smaller than the mean free path (MFP) of the thermal carriers, classical theories, such as Fourier’s Law of heat conduction, are unable to accurately explain the system energy dynamics. The phenomena of energy transit and conversion at the micro to nanoscale is an interesting topic of research due …

Optimally Distributed Receiver Placements Versus An Environmentally Aware Source: New England Shelf Break Acoustics Signals And Noise Experiment, William K. Stevens, Martin Siderius, Matthew J. Carrier, Drew Wendeborn

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article describes the results of the Spring of 2021 New England Shelf Break Acoustics (NESBA) Signals and Noise experiment as they pertain to the optimization of a field of passive receivers versus an environmentally aware source with end-state goals. A discrete optimization has been designed and used to demonstrate providing an acoustic system operator with actionable guidance relating to optimally distributed receiver locations and depths and likely mean source detection times and associated uncertainties as a function of source and receiver levels of environmental awareness. The uncertainties considered here are those due to the imperfect spatial and temporal sensing …

Guar-Based Injectable Hydrogel For Drug Delivery And In Vitro Bone Cell Growth, Humandra Poudel, Ambar R. Rangumagar, Pooja Singh, Adeolu Oluremi, Nawab Ali, Fumiya Watanabe, Joseph Batta-Mpouma, Jin-Woo Kim, Ahona Ghosh, Anindya Ghosh

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Injectable hydrogels offer numerous advantages in various areas, which include tissue engineering and drug delivery because of their unique properties such as tunability, excellent carrier properties, and biocompatibility. These hydrogels can be administered with minimal invasiveness. In this study, we synthesized an injectable hydrogel by rehydrating lyophilized mixtures of guar adamantane (Guar-ADI) and poly-β-cyclodextrin (p-βCD) in a solution of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) maintained at pH 7.4. The hydrogel was formed via host-guest interaction between modified guar (Guar-ADI), obtained by reacting guar gum with 1-adamantyl isocyanate (ADI) and p-βCD. Comprehensive characterization of all synthesized materials, including the hydrogel, was performed using …

Role Of Binder On Yield Strength Of Polycaprolactone/Dimethylsulfone Composites For Bio-Applications, Kyung-Eun Min, Jae-Won Jang, Sung Yi, Cheolhee Kim

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Polycaprolactone (PCL) and dimethylsulfone (DMSO2) composites can tailor the properties of scaffold materials, allowing their use in bone tissue engineering. With an increase in DMSO2 content, the modulus of the material increases but not the yield strength. In order to increase yield strength, a binder was added. However, the optimization of the content and the mixing process of the binder were not optimized in the previous studies. In this study, gamma-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (A-174) was used as a binder to increase the strength of a composite. Four different mixing processes were employed based on the binder mixing sequence. The binders with content …

Modeling Yield Strength Of Austenitic Stainless Steel Welds Using Multiple Regression Analysis And Machine Learning, Sukil Park, Myeonghwan Choi, Dongyoon Kim, Cheolhee Kim, Namhyun Kang

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Designing welding filler metals with low cracking susceptibility and high strength is essential in welding low-temperature base metals, such as austenitic stainless steel, which is widely utilized for various applications. A strength model for weld metals using austenitic stainless steel consumables has not yet been developed. In this study, such a model was successfully developed. Two types of models were developed and analyzed: conventional multiple regression and machinelearning- based models. The input variables for these models were the chemical composition and heat input per unit length. Multiple regression analysis utilized five statistically significant input variables at a significance level of …

Optimizing Mn-Al Permanent Magnet Performance Through Control Of The Phase Transformation, Ternary Element Addition, And Advanced Processing, Thomas R. Keller

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

The growing need for electrical power in machines and vehicles brings with it a growing need for critical materials. The current high-performance permanent magnets (PMs) based on rare-earth (RE) elements Nd and Sm cannot escape the problem of raw material cost, geographic scarcity in the earth’s crust, and lack of circular global supply chains. This poses a problem of industrial ecology: can PMs be made from inexpensive, more abundant materials while still meeting sufficient performance criteria? PMs based on the magnetic τ phase of Mn-Al offer a possible alternative to REPMs. However, years of innovation have not yet achieved real-world …

A Study On Rapidly Exploring Random Tree Algorithms For Robot Path Planning, Sahil Sharma

Master's Theses

Robot path planning is a critical feature of autonomous systems. Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRT) is a path planning technique that randomly samples the robot configuration space to find a path between the start and end point. This thesis studies and compares the performance of four important RRT algorithms, namely, the original RRT, the optimal RRT (also termed RRT*), RRT*-Smart, and Informed RRT* for six different environments. The performance measures include the final path length (which is also the shortest path length found by each algorithm), time to find the first path, run time (of 1000 iterations) for each algorithm, total …

Inéire Report And Policy Recommendations, Arjumand Younus, Simon Caton, Muhammad Atif Qureshi, Mingyeong Jeon, Arefeh Kazemi, Sandra Ruiz Moriana

Articles

Over the years there has been an increased amount of immigration into Ireland leading to the formation of a multicultural society. More recently however immigration has become a controversial issue within Ireland leading to growing anti-immigrant sentiment and political conflict (Costa, 2023) reported as early as 2018 in a report by Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and Economic & Social Research Institute (McGinnity, Grotti, Russell, Fahey, et al., 2018). This project aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the factors behind such sentiment and its consequences by means of collecting comprehensive data on it and performing a quantitative and …

Bilateral Arm Movements Are Coordinated Via Task-Dependent Negotiations Between Independent And Codependent Control, But Not By A “Coupling” Control Policy, Nick M. Kitchen, Jisung Yuk, Andrzej Przybyla, Robert A. Scheidt, Robert L. Sainburg

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Prior research has shown that coordination of bilateral arm movements might be attributed to either control policies that minimize performance and control costs regardless of bilateral symmetry or by control coupling, which activates bilaterally homologous muscles as a single unit to achieve symmetric performance. We hypothesize that independent bimanual control (movements of one arm are performed without influence on the other) and codependent bimanual control (two arms are constrained to move together with high spatiotemporal symmetry) are two extremes on a coordination spectrum that can be negotiated to meet infinite variations in task demands. To better understand and distinguish between …

Pine-Tree Enables Efficient Enrichment Of Prime-Edited Hpscs, Mary S. Jia, Christopher E. Nelson

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Commentary

PINE-TREE enables efficient enrichment of prime-edited hPSCs

Sensitivity Analysis Of The Ideal Ct Test Using The Distinct Element Method, Shadi Saadeh, Maria El Asmar

Mineta Transportation Institute

Cracking is a primary mode of failure for asphalt concrete (AC), resulting in road damage and deterioration, and leading to an increase in road hazards and fatalities. Studying the fracture behavior of AC is an effective way to learn how to best enhance their cracking resistance. To do this, the indirect tensile cracking laboratory test (IDEAL-CT) was developed and used to assess the AC cracking behavior by defining a unique index that allows the ranking of different mixes’ cracking resistance. The sensitivity of the test results to the test parameters is needed to monitor the test’s performance. Several parameters impact …

Contribution Of Implicit Memory To Adaptation Of Movement Extent During Reaching Against Unpredictable Spring-Like Loads: Insensitivity To Intentional Suppression Of Kinematic Performance, Devon D. Lantagne, Leigh A. Mrotek, James B. Hoelzle, Danny G. Thomas, Robert A. Scheidt

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

We examined the extent to which intentionally underperforming a goal-directed reaching task impacts how memories of recent performance contribute to sensorimotor adaptation. Healthy human subjects performed computerized cognition testing and an assessment of sensorimotor adaptation, wherein they grasped the handle of a horizontal planar robot while making goal-directed out-and-back reaching movements. The robot exerted forces that resisted hand motion with a spring-like load that changed unpredictably between movements. The robotic test assessed how implicit and explicit memories of sensorimotor performance contribute to the compensation for the unpredictable changes in the hand-held load. After each movement, subjects were to recall and …

Scour Mitigation At Bridge Abutments Using Spur Dikes, Dina Hamdy Mustafa Mustafa Al Sirtasy, Hossam Abd El-Aziz Ahmed Abd El-Gawad, Mohamed T. Shamaa

Mansoura Engineering Journal

One of the main reasons for bridge failure is local scour at the bridge abutments. Laboratory experiments, under clear water scour condition, were carried out to investigate scour reduction around the vertical bridge abutment by adding one upstream spur dike. Sand with a median and standard deviation of diameter equal to 0.80 mm and 2.173 mm respectively, formed the bed material. Three different stages of spur dikes with varying sets as: 1) distances from the abutment (6 sets), 2) orientation angles (4 sets), and 3) lengths (3 sets), were considered. Effects of all spur dikes are studied with respect to …

Exploring Topological Phonons In Different Length Scales: Microtubules And Acoustic Metamaterials, Ssu-Ying Chen

Dissertations

The topological concepts of electronic states have been extended to phononic systems, leading to the prediction of topological phonons in a variety of materials. These phonons play a crucial role in determining material properties such as thermal conductivity, thermoelectricity, superconductivity, and specific heat. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the role of topological phonons at different length scales.

Firstly, the acoustic resonator properties of tubulin proteins, which form microtubules, will be explored The microtubule has been proposed as an analog of a topological phononic insulator due to its unique properties. One key characteristic of topological materials is the …

Quantifying Balance: Computational And Learning Frameworks For The Characterization Of Balance In Bipedal Systems, Kubra Akbas

Dissertations

In clinical practice and general healthcare settings, the lack of reliable and objective balance and stability assessment metrics hinders the tracking of patient performance progression during rehabilitation; the assessment of bipedal balance plays a crucial role in understanding stability and falls in humans and other bipeds, while providing clinicians important information regarding rehabilitation outcomes. Bipedal balance has often been examined through kinematic or kinetic quantities, such as the Zero Moment Point and Center of Pressure; however, analyzing balance specifically through the body's Center of Mass (COM) state offers a holistic and easily comprehensible view of balance and stability.

Building upon …

Advanced Traffic Video Analytics For Robust Traffic Accident Detection, Hadi Ghahremannezhad

Dissertations

Automatic traffic accident detection is an important task in traffic video analysis due to its key applications in developing intelligent transportation systems. Reducing the time delay between the occurrence of an accident and the dispatch of the first responders to the scene may help lower the mortality rate and save lives. Since 1980, many approaches have been presented for the automatic detection of incidents in traffic videos. In this dissertation, some challenging problems for accident detection in traffic videos are discussed and a new framework is presented in order to automatically detect single-vehicle and intersection traffic accidents in real-time.

First, …

Bacterial Motion And Spread In Porous Environments, Yasser Almoteri

Dissertations

Micro-swimmers are ubiquitous in nature from soil and water to mammalian bodies and even many technological processes. Common known examples are microbes such as bacteria, micro-algae and micro-plankton, cells such as spermatozoa and organisms such as nematodes. These swimmers live and have evolved in multiplex environments and complex flows in the presence of other swimmers and types, inert particles and fibers, interfaces and non-trivial confinements and more. Understanding the locomotion and interactions of these individual micro-swimmers in such impure viscous fluids is crucial to understanding the emergent dynamics of such complex systems, and to further enabling us to control and …

Boundary Integral Equation Methods For Superhydrophobic Flow And Integrated Photonics, Kosuke Sugita

Dissertations

This dissertation presents fast integral equation methods (FIEMs) for solving two important problems encountered in practical engineering applications.

The first problem involves the mixed boundary value problem in two-dimensional Stokes flow, which appears commonly in computational fluid mechanics. This problem is particularly relevant to the design of microfluidic devices, especially those involving superhydrophobic (SH) flows over surfaces made of composite solid materials with alternating solid portions, grooves, or air pockets, leading to enhanced slip.

The second problem addresses waveguide devices in two dimensions, governed by the Helmholtz equation with Dirichlet conditions imposed on the boundary. This problem serves as a …

Colloidal Behavior Of Nanobubbles And Their Application In Enhancing Plant Growth: Mechanisms Of Nanobubble Interactions With Microbial And Soil Species, Shan Xue

Dissertations

Climate change has resulted in increasing uncertainties of water resources and disturbance on agricultural activities. For example, the shortage of water resources, land erosion and pollution from runoff significantly affect agricultural sustainability. This dissertation research focuses on the fundamental studies of nanobubble (NB) water and explores the benefits for irrigation to enhance plant germination and growth. Unlike bulk bubbles, NBs exhibit prolonged stability in water and possess large surface areas that facilitate efficient mass transfer and potential tailored reactions (e.g., disinfection). However, the enhancement mechanisms for NBs on seed germination and plant growth remain elusive.

This research first evaluated the …

Data-Driven 2d Materials Discovery For Next-Generation Electronics, Zeyu Zhang

Dissertations

The development of material discovery and design has lasted centuries in human history. After the concept of modern chemistry and material science was established, the strategy of material discovery relies on the experiments. Such a strategy becomes expensive and time-consuming with the increasing number of materials nowadays. Therefore, a novel strategy that is faster and more comprehensive is urgently needed. In this dissertation, an experiment-guided material discovery strategy is developed and explained using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as instances. The advent of 7r-stacked layered MOFs, which offer electrical conductivity on top of permanent porosity and high surface area, opened up new …

Synergistic Effect Of Air Sparging In Separation Via Nano-Carbon Immobilized Membrane Distillation Process And Optimization, Mitun Chandra Bhoumick

Dissertations

Membrane distillation (MD) has gained significant popularity as a separation and purification technique in diverse domains, such as saline/brackish water treatment, organic recovery, and wastewater treatment. The objective of this research is to advance MD by developing a novel air sparged membrane distillation in treating saline water, recovering solvents, and achieving preconcentration. To optimize the flux and selectivity in membrane distillation, the study also employed a response surface method based on a central composite rotatable design.

In this study, a novel air-sparged membrane distillation (ASMD) is introduced for the treatment of saline water, utilizing a nanocarbon immobilized membrane. The performance …

On Explainability Of Neural Networks, Cem Benar

Dissertations

It is widely reported that deep neural networks outperform most competitors for a range of applications. The state-of-the-art neural networks have built-in inductive bias of architectural choices, regularizations, optimizer types, and initialization methods. Using inductive bias is intuitive to enhance the model approximation. Deep neural networks are mostly dense and heavily overparameterized. They tend to be biased towards low-rank solutions to reduce complexity and improve generalization performance, known as implicit regularization. The implicit regularization as observed in specific architectures and various real-world data sets suggests to overparameterize neural networks judiciously and learn compressed representations (lower rank approximation) with improved performance. …

Toward Smart And Efficient Scientific Data Management, Jinzhen Wang

Dissertations

Scientific research generates vast amounts of data, and the scale of data has significantly increased with advancements in scientific applications. To manage this data effectively, lossy data compression techniques are necessary to reduce storage and transmission costs. Nevertheless, the use of lossy compression introduces uncertainties related to its performance. This dissertation aims to answer key questions surrounding lossy data compression, such as how the performance changes, how much reduction can be achieved, and how to optimize these techniques for modern scientific data management workflows.

One of the major challenges in adopting lossy compression techniques is the trade-off between data accuracy …

Cell Encapsulation In Gelatin Methacryloyl Bioinks Impairs Microscale Diffusion Properties, Elvan Dogan, Christina Holshue, Anant Bhusal, Roshni Shukla, Amir K. Miri

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

Light-assisted bioprinted gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) constructs have been used for cell-laden microtissues and organoids. GelMA can be loaded by desired cells, which can regulate the biophysical properties of bioprinted constructs. We study how the degree of methacrylation (MA degree), GelMA mass concentration, and cell density change mass transport properties. We introduce a fluorescent-microscopy-based method of biotransport testing with improved sensitivity compared to the traditional particle tracking methods. The diffusion capacity of GelMA with a higher MA significantly decreased compared to a lower MA. Opposed to a steady range of linear elastic moduli, the diffusion coefficient in GelMA varied when cell …

Integrated Land Use And Transportation Modeling Considering The Impact Of Autonomous Vehicles, Roksana Asadi

Dissertations

The advent of autonomous urban mobility is expected to effect changes in land use patterns and urban development. A new framework for integrated land use and transportation system models that incorporate Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs) will be needed to investigate the development of transportation and land use plans and policies. This study aims to analyze the impacts of AVs and SAVs on land use changes by defming scenarios that consider different shares of these emerging transportation modes. Also, this study explores the corollary effects of various land use factors by applying them to a case study …