Engineering Commons^™

Enabling The “Easy Button” For Broad, Parallel Optimization Of Functions Evaluated By Simulation, Andrew Gibson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Java Optimization by Simulation (JOBS) is presented: an open-source, object-oriented Java library designed to enable the study, research, and use of optimization for models evaluated by simulation. JOBS includes several novel design features that make it easy for a simulation modeler, without extensive expertise in optimization or parallel computation, to define an optimization model with deterministic and/or stochastic constraints, choose one or more metaheuristics to solve it and run, using massively parallel function evaluation to reduce wall-clock times.

JOBS is supported by a new language independent, application programming interface (API) for remote simulation model evaluation and a serverless computing environment …

Yard Layout Optimization For General Cargo Terminal, Zhixiong Liu, Dong Yu, Chunjun Zhang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: Yard layout is an important component of the port yard allocation decision which affects the cargo storage capacity and through capacity for the port yard. As to the general cargo yard, combined with the cargo type and the yard storage strategy, the yard layout optimization model for the general cargo terminal is presented based on the statistical analysis for the production data when the optimization aim is minimizing the total horizontal transport distance of the trailer. The yard layout optimization results are employed by the mathematical tool Gurobi for different storage strategies, and the yard layout optimization results are …

Design Of A Pneumatic Soft Robotic Actuator Using Model-Based Optimization, Mahsa Raeisinezhad

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, the design and optimization process of a novel soft intelligent modular pad (IntelliPad) for the purpose of pressure injury prevention is presented. The structure of the IntelliPad consists of multiple individual multi-chamber soft pneumatic-driven actuators that use pressurized air and vacuum. Each actuator is able to provide both vertical and horizontal motions that can be controlled independently. An analytical modeling approach using multiple cantilever beams and virtual springs connected in a closed formed structure was developed to analyze the mechanical performance of the actuator. The analytical approach was validated by a finite element analysis. For optimizing the …

Optimization Of Organizational Design, Dyin Mabe, Guilherme Esmael, Manoel Burg, Patricia Soares, Leila Halawi

Publications

This study aims to present new techniques that airlines can use to gain efficiency through human resources allocation and keep up on track with the aviation industry’s challenging and constant- moving environment. The classical hierarchical structure that dominates most airlines today is not a prone environment for the proposed changes. The authors explore human resources optimization using the optimization software Lindo, mixed with Agile Methodology concepts and techniques. The authors also utilize evaluation score and talent mapping to develop a model for the best match between a Brazilian airline’s employees and tasks. The model considers productivity and cost.

Predictive Energy Optimization Model For Grid-Interactive Residential Buildings, Patrick J. Mccurdy

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

The consumption and production of energy are more dynamic as distributed energy resources (DER) such as solar photovoltaic (PV) are deployed within the electric distribution system. The traditional energy price at a predetermined rate cannot accommodate these dynamics and can lead to wasted energy and higher costs for both utility companies and consumers. Commercial building and residential energy management systems are usually on a fixed schedule and are not able to respond to changes in energy price instantaneously. There is a need for a real-time pricing structure that can accommodate the fluctuating cost of energy based on supply and demand, …

The Optimization Of Financial Investment In Project Safety Practices, Ryan Stewart Nielsen

Construction Management

This research paper explains the notable benefits to pursing a comprehensive safety plan complete with the most cost-effective safety practices in the industry. Through communication with environmental health and safety professionals within the construction industry, it was determined that certain safety practices are deemed essential on any active jobsite. Enforcing mandatory jobsite safety training to all individuals entering a jobsite serves as the first line of defense when attempting to protect individuals and mitigate risk. This educational and effective safety practice highlights the potential safety concerns of a jobsite while also mitigating contractor liability if an accident were to occur. …

Impact Assessment, Detection, And Mitigation Of False Data Attacks In Electrical Power Systems, Sagnik Basumallik

Dissertations - ALL

The global energy market has seen a massive increase in investment and capital flow in the last few decades. This has completely transformed the way power grids operate - legacy systems are now being replaced by advanced smart grid infrastructures that attest to better connectivity and increased reliability. One popular example is the extensive deployment of phasor measurement units, which is referred to PMUs, that constantly provide time-synchronized phasor measurements at a high resolution compared to conventional meters. This enables system operators to monitor in real-time the vast electrical network spanning thousands of miles. However, a targeted cyber attack on …

An Intelligent Virtual Design Studio (Vds) For Integrative Design Of Green Buildings, Zhaozhou Meng

Dissertations - ALL

The overall goal of the study was to develop a "Virtual Design Studio (VDS)": a software platform for integrated, coordinated and optimized design of green building systems with low energy consumption, high indoor environmental quality (IEQ), and high level of sustainability. My dissertation research was focused on the development of a key VDS component -- an integrated design process and a near-real time performance simulation approach for fast feedbacks at the early stage of the integrated design process.

A design process module "Magic Cube" (MC) was developed for the VDS as the core for the design integration and coordination. It …

Impact Assessment, Detection, And Mitigation Of False Data Attacks In Electrical Power Systems, Sagnik Basumallik

Dissertations - ALL

The global energy market has seen a massive increase in investment and capital flow in the last few decades. This has completely transformed the way power grids operate - legacy systems are now being replaced by advanced smart grid infrastructures that attest to better connectivity and increased reliability. One popular example is the extensive deployment of phasor measurement units, which is referred to PMUs, that constantly provide time-synchronized phasor measurements at a high resolution compared to conventional meters. This enables system operators to monitor in real-time the vast electrical network spanning thousands of miles. However, a targeted cyber attack on …

An Intelligent Virtual Design Studio (Vds) For Integrative Design Of Green Buildings, Zhaozhou Meng

Dissertations - ALL

The overall goal of the study was to develop a “Virtual Design Studio (VDS)”: a software platform for integrated, coordinated and optimized design of green building systems with low energy consumption, high indoor environmental quality (IEQ), and high level of sustainability. My dissertation research was focused on the development of a key VDS component -- an integrated design process and a near-real time performance simulation approach for fast feedbacks at the early stage of the integrated design process.

A design process module “Magic Cube” (MC) was developed for the VDS as the core for the design integration and coordination. It …

Autonomous Optimal Trajectory Planning For Orbital Rendezvous, Satellite Inspection, And Final Approach Based On Convex Optimization, Nicholas Ortolano, David K. Geller, Aaron Avery

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Convex optimization techniques have deterministic convergence properties, are self-starting, i.e., they do not require an initial guess, and have been tested in real-time environments. These optimization techniques are applied to the trajectory planning problem for orbital rendezvous and proximity operations. Spacecraft rendezvous, inspection, and final approach trajectories are considered. Optional trajectory constraints are considered, including approach corridors, keep-out zones, and maximum thrust acceleration levels. Two linear dynamics models are investigated: Clohessy-Wiltshire dynamics to describe the relative motion in a local-horizontal local-vertical frame, and a new relative orbital motion dynamics model to describe the motion relative to a spinning or uncontrolled …

Exploring The Relationship Between Vehicular Emissions And Traffic Operations At Isolated Signalized Intersections, Abiral Dulal

Civil Engineering ETDs

Most roadway transportation modes still run on petroleum fuels. Petroleum fuels are major sources of air pollutants, including hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrogen oxides (NO and NO₂, which are together called NOx), Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), and particulate matter of size(PM10) and2 and BC). Mitigating pollution is a serious issue, and therefore, it is the engineers' and planners' responsibility to study and reduce emissions as much as possible. Emission levels are generally high at street intersections, which are places where vehicles tend to accelerate, decelerate, and idle. Emission levels at intersections are …

A Study Of Deep Reinforcement Learning In Autonomous Racing Using Deepracer Car, Mukesh Ghimire

Honors Theses

Reinforcement learning is thought to be a promising branch of machine learning that has the potential to help us develop an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) machine. Among the machine learning algorithms, primarily, supervised, semi supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning, reinforcement learning is different in a sense that it explores the environment without prior knowledge, and determines the optimal action. This study attempts to understand the concept behind reinforcement learning, the mathematics behind it and see it in action by deploying the trained model in Amazon's DeepRacer car. DeepRacer, a 1/18^th scaled autonomous car, is the agent which is trained …

Ethylbenzene Production Case Study And Optimization, Brandon Borek

Honors Theses

The objective of this project was to investigate the process of producing ethylbenzene from the liquid-phase reaction of ethylene and benzene and perform parametric and topological optimizations to increase the net present value of the production facility. To do so, the base case conditions of the process were modeled and quantified economically followed by an investigation into the existing process to determine conditions that could be altered to improve the economic viability of the project. After optimizing the parametric conditions and topology of the process, the net present value of the project was increased by 305 million dollars to 191 …

Optimizing Garbage Pick-Up In Wahoo, Ne, Andrew Pace

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This project seeks to optimize the garbage pickup routes of Roadrunner Transportation in Wahoo, Nebraska using operations research and optimization tools. Currently, the company has no formal procedure for determining these routes. Roadrunner Transportation would like to expand their operation and to do so in the most efficient manner. To determine efficient routes, the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) is applied, and a solution to this problem is obtained by implementing a simulated annealing heuristic algorithm. Results show that a total distance of approximately 70 miles can be obtained by this implementation using a small subset of the data provided …

A Moving Target Defense For Securing Cyber-Physical Systems, Paul Griffioen, Sean Weerakkody, Bruno Sinopoli

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

This article considers the design and analysis of multiple moving target defenses for recognizing and isolating attacks on cyber-physical systems. We consider attackers who perform integrity attacks on some set of sensors and actuators in a control system. In such cases, it has been shown that a model aware adversary can carefully design attack vectors to bypass bad data detection and identification filters while causing damage to the control system. To counter such an attacker, we propose the moving target defense which introduces stochastic, time-varying parameters in the control system. The underlying random dynamics of the system limit an attacker’s …

Planning A Renewable Power System In Texas As An Introduction To Smart Power Grid, Ghaleb S. Al Duhni

Theses and Dissertations

Design electrical systems from six renewable energy sources: photovoltaic, wind energy, geothermal, concentrated solar energy, biomass energy, and hydropower in addition to a storage system in the state of Texas, This power system converts the electric system in Texas into a 100 % renewable energy power system. Optimization technique has applied to the results to make the system economical and reduce the wasting resources, this system is considered as decentralized as well which is a great advantage for achieving the smart grid technology compared with the conventional plants where the generation parts are deposed in a small part of the …

Sonic Boom Loudness Reduction Through Localized Supersonic Aircraft Equivalent-Area Changes, Troy A. Abraham

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The NASA University Leadership Initiative (ULI) titled “Adaptive Aerostructures for Revolutionary Civil Supersonic Transportation” looks to study the feasibility of distributed structural adaptivity on a supersonic aircraft for maintaining acceptable en-route sonic boom loudness during overland flight. The ULI includes a team of industry and university partners that are working together to develop and implement the systems necessary to accomplish this goal.

The Utah State University Aerolab is a member of this ULI team and has been tasked with developing and using low-fidelity supersonic aerodynamic and sonic boom predictions tools to rapidly study the effects of localized geometry changes on …

Using Blade Element Momentum Methods With Gradient-Based Design Optimization, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

Blade element momentum methods are widely used for initial aerodynamic analysis of propellers and wind turbines. A wide variety of correction methods exist, but common to all variations, a pair of residuals are converged to ensure compatibility between the two theories. This paper shows how to rearrange the sequence of calculations reducing to a single residual. This yields the significant advantage that convergence can be guaranteed and to machine precision. Both of these considerations are particularly important for gradient- based optimization where a wide variety of atypical inputs may be explored, and where tight convergence is necessary for accurate derivative …

Design, Analysis, And Optimization Of A Process To Produce Dimethyl Ether From Methanol, Thomas Mathwig

Honors Theses

The company that the engineering team works for is facing a contract loss with one of its customers of methanol. To avoid economic losses, a process has been proposed for converting the unused methanol to dimethyl ether (DME) through a dehydration reaction. After a preliminary simulation of the base case and optimization of the distillation column, an Equivalent Annual Operating Cost (EAOC) of $140,000 was calculated for the column. The EAOC was the sum of the annualized capital investment and the annual operating cost. Determining the process to be worth pursuing, a Toller was brought in to provide rental equipment …

Optimized Automated Checkout Process For Major Food Retailers, Matthew Ritchie, Tiana Longino, Daniel Garza, Alp Katranci

Senior Design Project For Engineers

There has been a push for automation in countless industries to save time and money, increase customer satisfaction, increase customer purchasing options, increase efficiency, and reduce waste. This design project will focus on optimizing the automated checkout process at major grocery retailers. The goal of the design is to reduce customer wait times at the checkout line, thus increasing customer satisfaction and save the retailer cashier expenses. The design was created using the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) process tool. Customers were surveyed to define if there was a problem, and 52.5% of customers felt the wait times at …

Unified Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm For Energy Efficient Job Shop Scheduling, Hongjong Wei, Shaobo Li, Huageng Quan, Dacheng Liu, Shu Rao, Chuanjiang Li, Jianjun Hu

Faculty Publications

In recent years, people have paid more and more attention to traditional manufacturing’s environmental impact, especially in terms of energy consumption and related emissions of carbon dioxide. Except for adopting new equipment, production scheduling could play an important role in reducing the total energy consumption of a manufacturing plant. Machine tools waste a considerable amount of energy because of their underutilization. Consequently, energy saving can be achieved by switching machines to standby or off when they lay idle for a comparatively long period. Herein, we first introduce the objectives of minimizing non-processing energy consumption, total weighted tardiness and earliness, and …

A Demand-Supply Matching-Based Approach For Mapping Renewable Resources Towards 100% Renewable Grids In 2050, Loiy Al-Ghussain, Adnan Darwish Ahmad, Ahmad M. Abubaker, Mohammad Abujubbeh, Abdulaziz Almalaq, Mohamed A. Mohamed

Mechanical Engineering Graduate Research

Recently, many renewable energy (RE) initiatives around the world are based on general frameworks that accommodate the regional assessment taking into account the mismatch of supply and demand with pre-set goals to reduce energy costs and harmful emissions. Hence, relying entirely on individual assessment and RE deployment scenarios may not be effective. Instead, developing a multi-faceted RE assessment framework is vital to achieving these goals. In this study, a regional RE assessment approach is presented taking into account the mismatch of supply and demand with an emphasis on Photovoltaic (PV) and wind turbine systems. The study incorporates mapping of renewable …

Computational Aerodynamics Of A Wing Mounted Propeller, Sarah Agam

College of Engineering & Technology (Batten) Posters

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a vital component in aerospace engineering. A major use of CFD is analyzing the flow properties to determine outputs like aerodynamic lift and drag over an airfoil or compute engine efficiency. It is more practical to conduct a CFD analysis first before doing experimental work as CFD allows for rapid and diverse testing of propeller shapes at a lower cost. CFD also allows for a wider range of testing parameters; for example, an airfoil can be subjected to steady, unsteady, incompressible, or high velocity flows.

Propellers are extensively used in the aircraft industry, especially in …

A Survey Of Edge Computing Resource Allocation And Task Scheduling Optimization, Wang Ling, Chuge Wu, Wenhui Fan

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: With the rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile terminals, the concept of edge computing arises. By moving the computation and storage capacity to the edge of network, edge computing is able to deal with a large amount of data produced by IoT devices and the responsive request from IoT application. To improve the utility of edge resource, the quality of service and quality of user experience, resource allocation and task scheduling optimization problems under edge computing attract wide attention. It becomes more difficult due to the geographic separated and heterogeneous features of edge computing resource as …

Multi-Objective Optimization For Aircraft Power Systems Using A Network Graph Representation, Damien Lawhorn, Vandana Rallabandi, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

Today, the electrification of flight is more popular than ever, creating a wide array of concept aircraft and associated power system topologies. In order to gain insights into benefits of these varying architectures, this paper introduces the development of a framework for electric aircraft power system (EAPS) optimization. The proposed framework accepts inputs from a designer in the form of component parameters and desired flight mission characteristics. A collective graph representing many possible architectures is formed, from which, subgraphs that describe power system topologies meeting the flight requirements are extracted and analyzed. Optimal EAPS architectures with respect to goals of …

Optimizing Cost And Performance Of Infrastrucure Alternatives At Contingency Bases In A Hub-And-Spoke Network, Kyle J. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

Military contingency bases require substantial resources and funding sustain and are often not connected to an infrastructure grid. Infrastructure assets produce the required outputs for sustainment, but are often expensive and inefficient, producing a significant logistical burden. With the increasing near-peer threats of opposing military forces, there is a need for more self-sufficient contingency bases with alternatives that reduce resources usage and the cost of sustainment. Accordingly, the goal of this research is to develop an optimization model capable of selecting infrastructure alternative combinations that minimize the overall resource usage and cost of sustainment at the contingency base level.

Optimizing A Bank Of Kalman Filters For Navigation Integrity, Luis E. Sepulveda

Theses and Dissertations

Alternative navigation is an area of research which employs a variety of sensor technologies to provide a navigation solution in Global Navigation Satellite System degraded or denied environments. The Autonomy and Navigation Technology Center at the Air Force Institute of Technology has recently developed the Autonomous and Resilient Management of All-source Sensors (ARMAS) navigation framework which utilizes an array of Kalman Filters to provide a navigation solution resilient to sensor failures. The Kalman Filter array size increases exponentially as system sensors and detectable faults are scaled up, which in turn increases the computational power required to run ARMAS in areal-world …

Allocation Of Scarce Healthcare Resources In A Military Treatment Facility During A Pandemic: A Comparison Of Goal Programming And Portfolio Decision Analysis Methods, Donald B. Hale

Theses and Dissertations

In a pandemic, healthcare decisionmakers face the challenge of allocating critical, but scarce healthcare resources in a dynamic, uncertain environment. Their decisions will not only affect the patients coming to the hospital for treatment, but also the Military Treatment Facility's personnel responsible. The decisionmaker must decide how to allocate these resources to achieve multiple, conflicting objectives under multiple constraints. In response, we propose a methodology for the implementation of both Portfolio Decision Analysis and Goal Programming. The steps of this methodology provide a framework with which the decisionmaker can develop optimal allocation of resources. This framework was then applied to …

Optimizing Critical Values And Combining Axes For Multi-Axial Neck Injury Criteria, Ethan J. Gaston

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force employs ejection seats in its high-performance aircraft. While these systems are intended to ensure aircrew safety, the ejection process subjects the aircrew to potentially injurious forces. System validation includes evaluation of forces against a standard which is linked to the probability of injury. The Muti-Axial Neck Injury Criteria (MANIC) was developed to account for forces in all six degrees of freedom. Unfortunately, the MANIC is applied to each of the three linear input directions separately and applies different criterion values for each direction. These three separate criteria create a lack of clarity regarding acceptable neck loading, leading …