Engineering Commons^™

Enhancing Security At Baxter Arena, Jennifer Davis

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The purpose of this report is to detail two options proposed for enhancing security at Baxter Arena. Both options are focused on metal detection. In this report we will look at the benefits and negatives of metal detection, both handheld and stationery, and how it can be used in enhancing building security.

Battery Design, Construction, And Characterization For Small Motor Use Focusing On Anodic Zinc For Electron Flow, Amber Veach

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the construction, characterization, and application of anodic zinc batteries for powering a small electric motor for the ChemE Car competition. Two zinc galvanic cell batteries were studied: zinc-carbon and zinc-air batteries. Prototype batteries were constructed and tested for voltage, amperage, and power production. In the zinc-carbon trials, a 3:1 mixture of manganese dioxide and graphite was determined to be the best cathode for power production. The size which allowed for sufficient power while maintaining the smallest footprint on the car was a zinc can six cm tall and two cm in diameter. Analysis of paper zinc-air battery …

Interactions And Phenomena Between Disodium Cromoglycate And Polyelectrolytes, Brandon Tipton

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The interactions between polyelectrolytes and oppositely charged macroions have been widely studied, but few reports have been made on the interaction between chromonic mesogens and polyelectrolytes. Here, we report on the formation of liquid crystalline coacervates achieved by the liquid-liquid phase separation of an aqueous solution of negatively charged liquid crystal and polycations. As well as the occurrence of tactoids that form in the absence of these interactions. The liquid crystal that is experimented with is disodium cromoglycate, better known as DSCG. This acts as a negative charge that is paired with a variety of positively charged polyelectrolytes. The first …

Simulating Dielectric Barrier Plasma Actuators With Varying Geometries, Cass Wiederkehr

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The idea of Ionic Wind Propulsion has long been a topic of research for whether or not it can be used as a practical power source for flight. MIT researchers proved in 2018 that a plane with zero moving parts powered by Ionic Wind Propulsion was possible, and sustained flight could work with an internal power supply. However, due to the thin wire electrodes required to generate the ion cloud that made such propulsion possible, large amounts of drag rendered the plane extremely inefficient and impractical. Dielectric Barrier Discharge Devices (DBDs) are being investigated as to whether they can serve …

Characterization And Manipulation Of Double-Stranded Dna Using Atomic Force Microscopy, Lauren Skartvedt

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

An atomic force microscope (AFM) is used to scan high-resolution images on the nano scale. The lambda DNA used for this project are 48,502 base pairs in length and are double-stranded. This project utilizes the NanoSurf Core AFM in order to characterize and manipulate strands of lambda DNA which have been deposited on a mica surface. The deposition process of the DNA on the mica surface was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado - Boulder. The AFM is used in imaging mode to scan the mica surface to locate the DNA. When …

A Systematic Study Into The Design And Utilization Of Burn Wire As A Means Of Tensioning And Releasing Spacecraft Mechanisms Through Applied Joule Heating, Chandler Dye

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The joule heating characteristics of Nichrome burn wires, often used as a thermal cutting device in mechanisms designed to fasten and release CubeSat deployables, are examined in the following thesis. Wires ranging from 0.125 inches to 2 inches long, and diameters of 30 Ga and 40 Ga, are investigated through analytical calculations and thermal simulations based on heat transfer due to joule heating, and through physical circuitry-based experiments. The temperature data is used to generate heating curves to predict the time it takes for Nichrome wires to fail under varying testing parameters. This research aims to catalog a series of …

The Effects Of Social Media On Mental Health And Career Planning, Spencer A. Rowan

Honors Theses

Social media use is prevalent and necessary in society—nearly anything can be accomplished with a mobile device or smartphone. Among the US population, two thirds of American adults admit to using social media (Perrin, 2015) and in 2022, Georgiev (2023) found Americans spent an average of two and a half hours daily on social media. Furthermore, social media use is tied to mental well-being, work confidence levels, and feelings of being an imposter (Johnson et al., 2020; Uram & Skalski, 2022; Hernandez & Chalk, 2021; Myers, 2021; Ramm, 2019).

This project examined the role of social media use among college …

Formulation And Optimization Of Algae-Filled Polylactic Acid Thermoplastic Compounds For Improved Biodegradation, Sydney A. Cole

Honors Theses

Conventional plastics derived from non-renewable petrochemicals – especially from fossil reserves – have become an integral part of human life because their structure can be chemically manipulated to obtain a wide range of properties and geometries necessary in nearly all industries. The volume and rate at which petroleum plastics are produced, used, and discarded has incited several significant issues related to human health, environmental conservation, and ecological biodiversity. To address these issues, many institutions have begun investigating solutions in both the development and end-oflife phases of plastic production and waste. In this thesis, a Chlorella-dominated algae mixture is dried and …

Probing The Structure Of Water On Surfaces: From Water Absorption To Ice Nucleation, Jiarun Zhou

All Dissertations

Water, essential for all life forms, is the most abundant, simple, yet mysterious molecule in the world. This molecule, consisting of only three atoms, behaves in unexpectedly different ways with the change of environment. In the past, studies of water under different conditions (temperature, pressure, on the surfaces, with confinement) have been conducted using experimental and computational methods. However, the influence of a given environment on water properties is yet to be fully understood. This dissertation studies water at complex interfaces (surfaces with various chemistry and physics properties) in both the liquid and crystalline states. Various heterogeneous systems used to …

Modeling And Visualization Of Competing Escalation Dynamics: A Multilayer Multiagent Network Approach, Josh Allen

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Recent advances in military technology, such as hypersonic missiles, which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound and descend quickly into the atmosphere, give world nuclear superpowers a new edge. These advances up the game for nuclear superpowers with an extremely rapid, intense burst of military striking capability to secure upfront gains before encountering potentially overwhelming military confrontation. However, this so-called fait accompli has not been systematically studied by the United States in the perspective of the escalation philosophies of nuclear power competitors, or the mathematical modeling and visualization of multi-modal escalation dynamics. This gap may …

Leveraging Aruco Fiducial Marker System For Bridge Displacement Estimation Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Mohamed Aly

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in construction sites has been widely growing for surveying and inspection purposes. Their mobility and agility have enabled engineers to use UAVs in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications to overcome the limitations of traditional approaches that require labor-intensive installation, extended time, and long-term maintenance. One of the critical applications of SHM is measuring bridge deflections during the bridge operation period. Due to the complex remote sites of bridges, remote sensing techniques, such as camera-equipped drones, can facilitate measuring bridge deflections. This work takes a step to build a pipeline using the state-of-the-art computer …

Sim-To-Real Reinforcement Learning Framework For Autonomous Aerial Leaf Sampling, Ashraful Islam

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Using unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for leaf sampling is contributing to a better understanding of the influence of climate change on plant species, and the dynamics of forest ecology by studying hard-to-reach tree canopies. Currently, multiple skilled operators are required for UAS maneuvering and using the leaf sampling tool. This often limits sampling to only the canopy top or periphery. Sim-to-real reinforcement learning (RL) can be leveraged to tackle challenges in the autonomous operation of aerial leaf sampling in the changing environment of a tree canopy. However, trans- ferring an RL controller that is learned in simulation to real UAS …

Field Application Of A High-Power Density Electromagnetic Energy Harvester To Power Wireless Sensors In Transportation Infrastructures, Anil Agrawal, Mohsen Amjadian, Wai Yan Tun, Hani Nassif, Hongfan Wang

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Finding an efficient source of energy has always been a big challenge for humans on Earth. Fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, have traditionally been considered as major sources of energy. These energy sources are not only nonrenewable but are also harmful to our health and environment. A large portion of this energy is consumed by vehicles moving daily in big cities, causing significant pollution of the environment. However, the motion of vehicles through the transportation infrastructures can also be a significant source of kinetic energy, which can be harvested to power transportation system components, such as sensors, street …

Sealion Cubesat Mission Architecture Using Model Based Systems Engineering With A Docs As Code Approach, Kevin Yi-Tzu Chiu

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

CubeSats are a growing population within the space industry. Every year, universities launch numerous amounts of CubeSats due to their inexpensive cost of development, launch, and deployment. However, this comes with numerous challenges. As the number of university-CubeSats grow, so too do the numbers that fail. With development teams consisting mainly of students with little to no training, proper and yet easy to use tools or methods should be implemented to help ensure mission success. Especially in the critical stages of planning before and during development, a technical approach to quickly track life cycle development of a CubeSat is needed. …

Validation Of Meta Motion Imu Sensors Through Measurement Of Knee Angles During Gait, Kerri Caruso

Biomedical Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The implementation of inertial measurement units (IMU) in the biomechanical field has become increasingly popular due to their robustness, simplicity, accuracy, and the ability to move research out of a lab and into the real world. In this study, the MetaMotion IMU sensors are assessed for validity against a dynamometer and the Vicon motion capture system. Both systems have proven their measuring accuracies in the biomechanics world and are used as the truth source for this validation study. In the first part of this study, the sensors are assessed for various common sensor errors. Individual sensor components of the IMU, …

Roboretrieve--In A Dual Role As A Hand-Held Surgical Robot And A Collaborative Robot End-Effector To Perform Spillage-Free Specimen Retrieval In Laparoscopy, Siqin Dong

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Recent advances in surgical robotics attempt to overcome limitations of manual surgery by augmenting the surgeon’s capabilities while performing suturing, incision, retraction, and retrieval tasks. This dissertation presents novel approaches for spillage-free specimen retrieval in confined spaces, targeted toward the surgical domain of minimally invasive robotic surgery. The retrieval task involves extraction of a resected specimen, residing in the abdominal cavity, completely outside of the patient’s body. A major challenge in this context is the spillage of content being retrieved, which may cause dissemination of malignancy. To address this challenge, this dissertation develops RoboRetrieve, a portable hand-held robot that …

Fabrication Of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Components Using Stereolithography 3d Printing, Hannah Dyer

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Transitioning from fossil fuel supplied energy to renewable technology must meet cost efficient parameters throughout the manufacturing process while possessing the characteristics of a functioning and reliable power source. With a significant demand in renewable energy products, developmental techniques require adaptive approaches and procedures for novel materials in the manufacturing phase. This report proposes how a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), a renewable energy system, can employ additive manufacturing for directly 3D printing its components by utilizing stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing techniques. Fabrication of the printed components from the mixtures were first mixed with varying concentrations of ceramic powder and …

Fusion Bonding Behavior Of 3d Printed Pa6/Cf Composites Via Post Fabrication Compaction, Gonzalo Fernandez Mediavilla

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) is becoming a robust production technology for aerospace, healthcare, and construction industries among others. Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is one of the methods most used to 3D print products. FDM has limitation due to interlayer adhesion and restriction imposed by the printing direction. Specially with AM composites, as reinforced nylon PA6 with short fibers, parts show more strength along the direction of the filament due to the alignment of the carbon fibers, but weaker in other directions. The proposed method to solve this issue is to print parts separately and join them together by fusion bonding. PA6/CF …

Human Psychology Factors Influencing Agile Team Autonomy In Post-Pandemic Remote Software Organizations, Ravikiran Kalluri

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Agile project management methods are gaining in popularity in the software industry as software development teams are being asked to be adaptive to market needs and resilient to change and uncertainty. With increasing market uncertainty, global competition, and time-to-market pressure, it is becoming a challenge to develop an innovative product and deliver it on-time without the opportunity that comes from team autonomy to experiment and learn from failures in a remote workplace. To resolve this challenge, it is critical to understand the myriad human psychological factors in play that influence Agile team autonomy in a remote work environment.

The role …

Opensim-Based Musculoskeletal Modeling: Foundation For Interactive Obstetric Simulator, Bahador Dodge

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The use of mathematical and computational models to understand complex biological systems, such as the human birth process, is a rapidly growing field in medicine. These models can be used to optimize and personalize medical treatments for individual patients, enhance training, and aid in educational efforts. While recent advancements in healthcare, particularly in obstetrics, have improved care for mothers and babies, studies and government reports indicate a rising rate of maternal mortality in the United States.

Despite this rising trend, there is a lack of detailed studies concerning the use of modeling and simulation to develop an interactive obstetrics simulator …

Cardiac Ablation And Stimulation With Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Fields (Nspefs), Federica Serra

Biomedical Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Surgical ablation of cardiac tissue is the definitive treatment for the most common arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation. In current medical practice, myocardial tissue is often ablated by the application of radiofrequency (RF) currents which are delivered through an electrode to create lesions that block the electrical pathways that sustain reentrant arrhythmias and restore the normal heart rhythm. An alternative to RF is cryoablation, during which the endocardial or epicardial tissue is brought in contact with a cryoprobe. Both RF ablation and cryoablation have significant limitations. In RF ablation, tissue is heated in order to ablate it, but it is an open …

State Estimation And Data Fusion With Data-Driven Communication, Xiaolei Bian

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the systemic design of proper estimation as well as fusion techniques and data-driven communication schemes to infer the state of a dynamic discrete-time linear system over a wireless network. The goal is to effectively extract and share key information over networks to enhance estimates of system states. Such co-design research is drawn by the need to leverage limited resources (communication bandwidth, energy and computational power) for a multitude of data and data sources in networked systems.

We first build the overarching structure by synthesizing communication and estimator/fuser, and research the collective behaviors of the system.

In …

Comparison Of Facial Emotion Recognition Models Using Deep Learning, Arsany Hanin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Facial emotion recognition is a widely studied area with applications in diverse domains such as human-computer interaction, affective computing, and social robotics. This thesis aims to improve the accuracy of facial emotion recognition models by incorporating a second neural network trained on original probabilities and probability transformation, while also comparing the performance of different techniques. The thesis begins with a thorough review of available datasets and technologies used for data collection, highlighting the challenges associated with these datasets. A detailed analysis of various facial emotion detection models, including the baseline model and its different architectures, is presented. The thesis also …

Decision Support Issues In Automated Driving Systems, William N. Caballero, David Ríos Insua, David Banks

Faculty Publications

Machine learning and computational processing have advanced such that automated driving systems (ADSs) are no longer a distant reality. Many automobile manufacturers have developed prototypes; however, there exist numerous decision support issues requiring resolution to ensure mass ADS adoption. In the coming decades, it is likely that production ADSs will only be partially autonomous. Such ADSs operate within predetermined conditions and require driver intervention when they are violated. Since forecasts of their 20-year market penetration are relatively low, ADSs will likely operate in heterogeneous traffic characterized by vehicles of varying autonomy levels. Under these conditions, effective decision support must consider …

Effects Of Different Inlet Configurations On The Performance Of Solar Storage Tanks: A Three-Dimensional Unsteady Cfd Simulation, Abdellah Shafieian, Hamid Reza Bahrami, Amin Roostaee, Seyed Sina Feyzi

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

A validated three-dimensional unsteady computational fluid dynamics analysis is performed in this study to investigate the effects of the inlet flow conditions on the thermal performance of solar storage tanks. First, effects of different mass flow rates on the thermal performance of a simple tank (Model 1, single inlet and single outlet) are investigated. The results show that higher mass flow rates deteriorate thermocline and thermal stratification which is desirable. To reduce the unfavorable effects of inlet jet mixing with stagnant fluid, the mass flow rates are divided equally between two inlet ports in the next model (Model 2). The …

Experimental And Numerical Investigation Of The Effect Of Water Cooling On The Temperature Distribution Of Photovoltaic Modules Using Copper Pipes, Mohammad Hassan Shojaeefard, Noor Barzan Sakran, Mohammad Mazidi Sharfabadi, Omar A. Hussein, Hussein A. Mohammed

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

In hot climates, PV efficiency drops dramatically if the surface temperature of the panels rises over a specific limit. Consequently, a cooling system is required to preserve PV modules as close to their operating temperature as feasible. For this purpose, the influence of an increase in PV surface temperature on PV performance was studied experimentally and numerically at the Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) in July. The current study uses a cooling system consisting of rows of copper pipes connected to the PV backside. The experiments are conducted for four distinct scenarios, each with a different input fluid temperature …

Tensile Performance Of Cast-In Headed Anchors In Ambient-Temperature Cured Fly Ash-Based Geopolymer Concretes With Varying Fracture Energies, Trijon Karmokar, Alireza Mohyeddin, Jessey Lee

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The performance of cast-in headed anchors subjected to tensile loading in ambient-temperature cured fly ash-based geopolymer concrete was investigated in this research. Varying sizes of anchors were installed in geopolymer concrete at effective embedment depths ranging between 40 mm and 90 mm. The new experimental results were compared with those of a previous study on the tensile performance of anchors in geopolymer concrete with similar compressive and tensile strengths, but different fracture energy and elastic modulus. The influence on the concrete cone capacity and its angle due to the varying anchor head size ratio and fracture energy were evaluated in …

Demand Prediction And Inventory Management Of Surgical Supplies, Rajon Paul Pantha

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Effective supply chain management is critical to operations in various industries, including healthcare. Demand prediction and inventory management are essential parts of healthcare supply chain management for ensuring optimal patient outcomes, controlling costs, and minimizing waste. The advances in data analytics and technology have enabled many sophisticated approaches to demand forecasting and inventory control. This study aims to leverage these advancements to accurately predict demand and manage the inventory of surgical supplies to reduce costs and provide better services to patients. In order to achieve this objective, a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model is developed to predict the demand for …

The Rapid Increase Of Ransomware Attacks Over The 21st Century And Mitigation Strategies To Prevent Them From Arising, Sanjay Jacob

Senior Honors Theses

Cyber-attacks have continued to become more common throughout the past century as more people are exposed to the Internet. Every year, various studies, reports, and scholarly research is done to emphasis the rapid increase of attacks. In this honors thesis, the student sought to gather further information about the rise of ransomware attacks, various cyber threats, discuss the psychological manipulation that exist, and provided the reader with an ethical complement of cyber-attacks. Additionally, case studies from previous research have been analyzed and mitigation strategies have been explained to provide the reader with practical application. This research emphasizes in on key …

Investigation Of Light Management Strategies And Photochemistry Of Si/Tio2 Tandem Microwire Slurries For Solar Hydrogen Generation., Saumya Gulati

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intermittent nature of the Sun makes it difficult to use it as a primary source of electricity and often needs to be supplemented by electricity from the grid which comes from fossil fuels. This motivates the need for solar energy storage. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water-splitting has been explored as a means to convert solar energy into hydrogen (and oxygen), which can be stored as fuel. The current method of coupling PV and electrolyzer units has been widely commercialized, however, the cost of H₂ generated is far from the target of $1/kg set by the DOE under the Energy EarthShot …