Engineering Commons^™

Air Conditioner Fail Safe Detector, Jonathan Li

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Air Conditioners are essential to human life. In an age of sudden temperature changes, moving systems, particularly HVAC (Heat Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems, are the primary source to physically and financially protect the health of all workers, employees, and students. Air Conditioners are prone to mechanical and electrical malfunction/breakdown due to excessive use. Regular maintenance and service intervals are helpful but do not guarantee free-malfunction systems. When the systems break down, especially commercial systems, the repair cost can be highly expensive and time-consuming. Can we detect early signs of potential problems in the systems to minimize the repair cost …

How Automation Is Making A Positive Impact On The Fast Food Industry, Noah Bullock

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

As the fast food industry has rapidly evolved, so has the use of technology within these businesses. Artificial intelligence is something that is being used in these fast-food restaurants to drive change. With restaurants adding artificial intelligence into their business model, many of their goals have changed. Restaurants are now having the goal of improving their speed and accuracy when it comes to order taking, enhancing the customer experience, and reducing their costs. All of which are attainable through the use of artificial intelligence. Though businesses are now using artificial intelligence; there are many concerns about the downsides that come …

Annual Report 2023, Brandy Mcknight, Estevan Garcia

College of Engineering and Science Annual Reports

As you may already know, Dr. Hisham Hegab retired after serving a decade as Dean of the College of Engineering and Science. He was a tremendous leader throughout his time in the position and still is a true friend and mentor to me. I am grateful for what he has done and is still contributing to the betterment of the College. I will work to follow in his footsteps of steady leadership, and I appreciate Drs. Daniela Mainardi, Teresa Murray, and Mary Caldorera-Moore for serving as Interim Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Interim Academic Director of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering. …

Performance Assessment Of Bioasphalt Mixtures Containing Guayule Resin As An Innovative Biobased Asphalt Alternative, Ahmed Hemida, Magdy Abdelrahman

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Guayule resin was investigated through mixture to assess its role in the field performance. For performance comparisons, conventional asphalt, neat guayule, asphalt-rubber-guayule, and guayule-rubber binders were implied. Field-simulated lab mixtures were made to investigate the major distresses. Modified Lottman, rut, semicircular bending, and disk-shaped compact tension tests were used to assess stripping, rutting, fatigue, and thermal cracking resistances. Stripping and rutting susceptibilities were also assessed by Hamburg wheel-tracking test. The outcomes disclosed that when the modified Lottman test was used, guayule containing a 7% air content was more susceptible to stripping than that containing a 3.5% air content, resulting in …

Estimating Aquifer System Storage Loss With Water Levels, Pumping And Insar Data In The Parowan Valley, Utah, Ryan G. Smith, Jiawei Li, Katherine R. Grote, Jim Butler

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the Parowan Valley of Utah, Groundwater Levels Have Declined by as Much as 30 M over the Past 50 Years with Accompanying Subsidence Rates of Up to 5 Cm/year. Traditional Methods to Estimate Groundwater Storage Change Use a Combination of Groundwater Level and Storativity Estimates, But There is Often Considerable Uncertainty in These. in This Study, We Demonstrate a New Method that Relies on a Combination of Geodetic Data from InSAR, as Well as Groundwater Level and Pumping Data, to Estimate Both the Total Groundwater Storage Loss and the Percentages of Storage Loss in Fine- and Coarse-Grained Layers within …

Dominican Republic Greenhouse Automation, Pedro Alvarenga, Henry Kayser

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The development process involved meticulous engineering and integration of the electrical components, ensuring seamless functionality and performance. The AGS was designed to be affordable, scalable, and easily replicable, with the intention of expanding its implementation beyond the DR to other underserved communities globally. By optimizing resource management, conserving energy, and minimizing the carbon footprint, the AGS promotes environmental sustainability in food production. Overall, this senior design capstone project successfully developed a cost-effective and user-friendly Automated Greenhouse System, addressing food insecurity challenges in the DR. The project demonstrated professional excellence, fulfilled the mission of SCU's School of Engineering, and strengthened the …

Pedestrian Bridge For Discovery & Innovation, Matthew Hale, Dylan Stegman, Jake Porter

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

A new pedestrian bridge was designed adjacent to the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose spanning across the Guadalupe River in the Downtown San Jose area. This design includes structural, geotechnical, and construction components. The architectural aspects of the bridge include two intertwined mass timber arches, galvanized steel cables, and a deck consisting of wide flange I-beams and a proprietary structural glass deck system. These features allow the bridge to seamlessly integrate into the surrounding environment as well as expose structural components of a pedestrian bridge that would otherwise be covered by a traditional bridge deck. All disciplinary components of …

New Braunfels Stormwater Park, Glen Falconio, Judah Foster, Teagan Moore

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

Comal County, located in a region in Texas inundated by a high frequency of floods, has faced over $272 million in flood damages to properties and crops. The largest urban area in the county, New Braunfels has made efforts to increase the quantity of flood mitigation practices in the city through weir construction, stormwater runoff control requirements, and new drainage proposals. Still, there are older parts of the city lacking stormwater management projects. A stormwater park serving the region along the Dry Comal Creek has been conceptualized to manage stormwater, increase water quality in the creek, and provide recreational value …

Finn Hall Community Spaces Redesign, Kaan Euchukanonchai, Kevin Liang, Niko Lopez

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

Carbon emissions negatively impact the environment through climate change, air pollution, and rising sea levels, among many other factors. One large contributor to carbon emissions is industrialization, more specifically, the building sector. Based on Architecture 2030, a non-governmental organization whose primary mission is to build an environment free from carbon emissions, building operations and the construction industry contribute to 40% of carbon emissions (Architecture 2030). As more buildings are being constructed, the need for reducing carbon emissions increases. This senior design project looked at Finn Residence Hall, a dormitory on the premises of Santa Clara University. The current design of …

Highway 17 Wildlife Crossing, Taryn Chisholm, Seema Singh, Justin Uyeno

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

Highway 17 is an essential corridor for people to commute between the Bay Area and the Santa Cruz regions, but this highway also creates a barrier between wildlife territories, fragmenting their habitats and stranding animal populations on either side. The lack of crossing infrastructure along Highway 17 forces wildlife to attempt to cross the highway into oncoming traffic, causing wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) which endangers the lives of motorists and animals alike. In order to address this problem, the team designed a precast, concrete culvert crossing underneath Highway 17 to provide a safer passageway to increase habitat connectivity as well as …

Comparison Of P4 Programmable Software Switches As Wifi Access Points, Kaustubh Pimparkar

Computer Science and Engineering Master's Theses

WiFi wireless access points must adapt to complex network operations as connected devices and their bandwidth requirements continue to rise. The use of software switches supporting Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) in wireless access points has drawn significant attention due to their versatility, flexibility, and potential to overcome the limitations of conventional network designs. T4P4S and BmV2 are the two most widely used P4 programmable software switches, and comparing the performance of these switches allows network operators to select the most suitable switch for specific use cases, such as minimizing latency or maximizing throughput while reducing resource consumption of the …

Discrete-Element Modeling Of Shear-Induced Particle Migration During Concrete Pipe Flow: Effect Of Size Distribution And Concentration Of Aggregate On Formation Of Lubrication Layer, Tooran Tavangar, Masoud Hosseinpoor, Jeffrey S. Marshall, Ammar Yahia, Kamal Khayat

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Paper Seeks to Better Understand the Particulate Mechanics Giving Rise to the Lubrication Layer (LL) in Flows with Wide Particle-Size Distributions (PSD) Typical of Concrete Pumping Applications. the Study Uses a Soft-Sphere Discrete Element Method (DEM) to Simulate the Shear-Induced Particle Migration (SIPM) Mechanism of Formation of the LL. to Provide Realistic Understanding of SIPM and Rheological Heterogeneity of Concrete, Three Wide PSDs (Fine, Medium, and Coarse) and Three Different Concentrations (10 %–40 %) of Five Spherical-Particle Subclasses (1–17 Mm Diameter) Were Investigated. the Radial Evolution of Concentration and Particle Distribution Was Simulated over Time and the LL Formation …

Project Hermes: The Socially Assistive Tour-Guiding Robot, Aly Khater, Justin Sun, Fernando Camou

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

With the reduced amount of availability of a labor force for non-technical tasks, service robotics has grown to be used in place of human labor to handle these tasks. There have been various studies on the impact of using robotics in a sociological context. The use of service robots in a social and labor environment recognizes the need of cohesive Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). In this senior design project, we delve into the thought process of using a service robot in place of a human for tasks that are normally reserved for humans. These tasks outline design considerations when performing emotional-centric …

Theia: The Handheld Eye-Tracking Interface For All, Christian Garcia, Edward Ghazarossian, Pranav Grover

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Eye tracking is a burgeoning technology that has found applications in market research, accessibility, and as an add-on to games. However, this technology still has room to grow in the consumer space, where touchscreens, keyboards, and mice dominate our interactions with technology. Interfaces that are primarily controlled using eye tracking are less common, and are not found in a handheld form factor. This paper explores the possibility of creating a handheld device that is primarily controlled using eye tracking. Our proposed system performs real-time filtering on eye tracking inputs in order to improve the accuracy and usability of the device. …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 64 Number 1 Spring 2023 [Print Issue 62:2], Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

16 - A BRIDGE TO TOMORROW How one university can change the world when it widens the path to opportunity. SCU Staff

22 - THE INTERNET'S LAST TRUE BELIEVER For more than two decades, Law Professor Eric Goldman has been one of the most influential legal voices fighting for the ’net. Chris O’Brien

26 - OPPORTUNITY ON SET Meet five Broncos who scored the opportunity of a lifetime—production assistants on an indie film crew—via Professor Nico Opper. Nicole Calande

28 - SPIRITUAL SOUP With a little bit of this, a dash of that, and a sprinkling of something else, humans …

Cyclic Behavior Of Transitional Fine-Grained Soils In Northern Willamette Valley, Frank Jarman

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

As discussed within studies from Idriss and Boulanger (2008) and Bray and Sancio (2006), the undrained cyclic shear behavior of low-plasticity fine-grained soils will transition between liquefaction (sand-like behavior) to cyclic softening (clay-like behavior) over a narrow range of plasticity index (PI). Despite not being sufficiently understood, the cyclic behavior of low plasticity silts has become an increasingly important field of study due to the significant impact it has on ground deformations and infrastructure failure in areas that are seismically active. Laboratory tests were performed on soils by third party consultants on a site located in the northern Willamette Valley, …

Liquefaction Triggering In Low-Plasticity Silts And Effects Of Liquefaction-Induced Lateral Spreading On A Reinforced-Concrete Pile, Jared A. Martinez

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

Liquefaction triggering and post-liquefaction effects on lateral loading of deep foundations is an emerging area of study. This project presents: the results of cyclic direct simple shear (CDSS) testing on a low-plasticity alluvial silt collected in Portland, Oregon; and analysis of the combined effects of liquefaction-induced lateral spreading on a reinforced-concrete pile using data collected from a shake table test. The former research determines the liquefaction susceptibility and post-liquefaction characteristics of a local transitional soil using stress-controlled CDSS testing, the latter explores the complex lateral loading a reinforced-concrete pile undergoes during seismic loading with liquefaction-induced lateral spreading of the ground …

Ce-Qual-W2 Performance Assessment Modeling 1979 Grh Flume Study, Logan Negherbon

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

In an early review of numerical reservoir hydrodynamic models, the US Army Corps of Engineers developed a physical model at the US Army Waterways Experiment Station to assess the performance of modeling cold water underflow with numerous 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional numerical hydrodynamic models. Within this effort, the precursor for CE-QUAL-W2, the Laterally Averaged Reservoir Model, was defined and applied with limited success in representing the vertical velocity profile and outflow temperatures series collected from the physical model in the General Reservoir Hydrodynamics flume. CE-QUAL-W2 has since been modified from this early form in numerous ways including incorporation of higher order …

Numerical Study Of Turbulent Flow And Heat Transfer In A Novel Design Of Serpentine Channel Coupled With D-Shaped Jaggedness Using Hybrid Nanofluid, Raditun E. Ratul, Farid Ahmed, Syed B. Alam, Md Rezwanul Karim, Arafat A. Bhuiyan

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

This Study Aimed to Examine Numerically the Effects of a Dimpled Surface over a Mini-Channel Heat Exchanger on the Flow Characteristics and Heat Transfer Across a Serpentine Channel with a Uniform Rectangular Cross-Section. the Dimples Were Arranged in Parallel with a Spanwise (Y/d) Distance of 3.125 and Streamwise (X/d) Distance of 11.25 Along Just One Side of the Serpentine Channel's Surface. Turbulent Flow Regime with Reynolds Number Ranging from 5 X 103 to 20 X 103 in the Channel with the Surface Modification Was Studied using Water and Various Volume Concentrations (Φ = 0.1%, 0.33%, 0.75%, 1%) of Al2O3-Cu/water Hybrid …

2023- The Twenty-Seventh Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Twenty-seventh Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 18-21, 2023. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

Supetai Well Filtration System, Nicholas Holtz, Shirley Naranjo, Eduardo Villegas

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

The rural, Maasai community of Ewaso Ngiro lacks a dependable source of clean drinking water. Their well, Supetai Well, pumps out groundwater that has high amounts of fluoride making it unsafe to consume. The team worked with a local kenyan water and power company, Davis & Shirtliff, to design a reverse osmosis system that will remove all contaminants, including fluoride. The reverse osmosis system takes into consideration current water demand and future population growth. The system will include pre-treatment, reverse osmosis membranes, and post treatment. This system will be powered by solar panels. The team will provide a final report …

Sustainable, Environmental Transit Hub (Seth) In Kapolei, Hawai‘I, Rebecca Ridao, Azi Nigmatullin, Andrew Ruiz, Matthew Flores

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

In this report, a detailed design of a Sustainable, Environmental Transit Hub is provided that has the potential to mitigate the overbearing traffic congestion problem on the primary highways of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. The report will consist of a brief description on why the team considered reviewing this issue with an explanation of the problem statement followed by an alternative analysis breakdown, constraints and criteria list, chosen solution with the inclusion of the location, the team’s respective scopes of work, codes and regulations that were followed, ethical considerations, design specifications, and references that were used for information. The primary scopes that …

Sustainable Design Of Reinforced Concrete Beam, Justin Lei, Alyssa Quezada, Juan Ramirez-Daza

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

The need for sustainable methods of construction is continuously rising as heavily populated areas are growing in size and the demand for new construction is expanding. This project aims to identify typical environmental damages associated with the construction of a typical mixed-use building in San Jose, CA, specifically the emissions of greenhouse gasses; carbon dioxide. The project also aims to meet current design standards and requirements set by the American Concrete Institution and the California Building Code to ensure the safety of all users. Lastly, to ensure the design can be implemented in the field, a cost analysis of the …

Colorimetric Redox Reactions To Determine Base Composition In Unknown Monomeric Dna Samples, James T. Dials, Mara J. Stout, Elizabeth M. Thomas

2023 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) codes for proteins using a unique order of four major nitrogenous bases adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. In several biological applications, such as the determination of DNA stability, production of biologic based drugs, and even taxonomic reorganization of species, it becomes necessary to understand the relative amounts of each nucleotide in a DNA sample, regardless of their sequence. However, most assays used to determine base composition use expensive equipment, harsh chemicals, and advanced computer software. In addition, the determination of base composition is an important educational tool in undergraduate laboratories, but these limitations are infeasible for many …

2022-2023 Program And Abstracts: Celebration Of Student Scholarship, Morehead State University. Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program.

2023 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

The 2022-2023 Program and Abstracts for the Celebration of Student Scholarship at Morehead State University held on April 19, 2023. A Showcase of Student Research, Scholarship, Creative Work, and Performance Arts.

Organic Matter Assessment And Paleoenvironmental Changes Of The Middle Jurassic Main Source Rocks (Khatatba Formation) In The North Western Desert, Egypt: Palynofacies And Palynomorph Perspectives, Ahmed Mansour, Sameh S. Tahoun, Aya Raafat, Mohamed S. Ahmed, Francisca Oboh-Ikuenobe, Thomas Gentzis, Xiugen Fu

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Middle Jurassic in the north Western Desert, Egypt, was a time of complex tectonics and increased environmental perturbations attributed to the predominant sedimentation of organic carbon-rich fine siliciclastic and carbonate deposits of the Khatatba Formation. Although some studies have addressed the hydrocarbon potential and source rock characteristics of the Khatatba Formation, a regional-scale investigation of the prevalent paleoenvironmental conditions and organic matter characteristics is still necessary. In this study, the Khatatba Formation is investigated for detailed palynofacies analysis and palynomorph composition to assess organic matter kerogen types and reconstruct the depositional paleoenvironmental patterns on a regional scale. For this …

Feasibility Of Sewer Overflow Treatment Using Chemical Oxidation After Rapid Solids Removal, Paige Peters

Dissertations (1934 -)

Sewer overflows discharge 850 billion gallons of untreated sewage into U.S. lakes and rivers every year during high-intensity precipitation events. Common approaches include storage tanks or rapid solids removal followed by chlorine disinfection. These approaches can be capital intensive and only achieve partial treatment. A decentralized, end-of-pipe sewer overflow treatment system would eliminate detrimental overflow effects while handling highly variable flow and pollutant loading. Specifically, the rapid reaction rate of chemical oxidation can achieve soluble organics removal and disinfection of chlorine-resistant pathogens in a small footprint. To address the overflow issue, an advanced high-rate treatment system (AH-RTS) was developed and …

Algorithm-Architecture-Hardware Co-Design In Computing Systems: From Chip Multicore To The Cloud, Wenkai Guan

Dissertations (1934 -)

The computational demands for training deep learning models doubled every three months recently. However, according to Moore’s Law, the computational power available only doubled every two years. To bridge this demand-supply gap while optimizing energy consumption and carbon emission, through my dissertation, we propose a novel algorithm-architecture-hardware co-design cross-layer approach for computing systems: from chip multicore to the cloud. At the Chip Multicore Level: How can we design high-performance network-on-chip based multiprocessors that are reliable to uncertainty in design parameters? This dissertation answered this question by 1) laying the foundation for uncertainty modeling and robust multi-objective optimization for embedded systems …

Electrocoagulation For Treatment Of Disinfection Byproducts, Organic Matter, And Per-And Polyfluoroalykl Substances., Donald Rockwood Ryan

Dissertations (1934 -)

Technologies are needed to treat contaminants such as disinfection byproducts (DBPs), trace organic compounds (TOrCs), and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water to improve consumer safety and mitigate chronic risk. This dissertation focused on evaluating electrocoagulation (EC) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-enhanced EC (peroxi-electrocoagulation; EC:H2O2) for treatment of these contaminants. The impacts of source water quality (such as natural organic matter [NOM]) on overall performance was assessed and the non-destructive and destructive pathways involved in treatment were evaluated. The first objective focused on EC performance for mitigating the formation of regulated DBPs in water to better substantiate EC’s performance relative …

Templates To Transition: Making Solar-Generated Electricity Accessible For Lagos Residents, Adeola O. Adebajo

Senior Theses

According to the EPA, direct energy production results in at least 25% of the world’s emissions. This refers to emissions produced by burning coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat. With the increasing effects of climate change, sustainable energy is becoming increasingly important as the world shifts away from fossil fuels. However, implementation of renewable energy sources is not as fast or as widespread as necessary. This paper aims to identify feasible solutions to the problem of renewable energy affordability in Nigeria especially in growing megacities like Lagos to ensure long lasting and climatefriendly energy sources. Two major …