Engineering Commons^™

Implications Of Electric Vehicles On Gasoline Tax Revenues, Florida Solar Energy Center, Kevin Schleith

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This report summarizes the results of research conducted to determine if current and near future EV sales will have an impact on gasoline (gas) tax revenues as part of the Federal Highway Trust Fund (HTF). Gasoline taxes account for $31.1 billion or about 87% of the HTF. The project results were accomplished through a review of existing industry and government reports that detail fuel tax revenues and through analysis of EV sales from 2010 to 2015.

How Can We Build A Moral Robot?, Kristen E. Clark

Capstones

Artificial intelligence is already starting to drive our cars and make choices that affect the world economy. One day soon, we’ll have robots that can take care of our sick and elderly, and even rescue us in rescue us in emergencies. But as robots start to make decisions that matter—it’s raising questions that go far beyond engineering. We’re stating to think about ethics.

Bertram Malle and Matthias Scheutz are part of a team funded by the department of defense. It's their job to answer a question that seems straight out of a sci-fi novel: How can we build a moral …

Analysis Of Productivity In Dredging Project : A Case Study In Port Of Tanjung Perak Surabaya – Indonesia, Tiggi P. Hardya

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Influence Of The Substrate Characteristics On The Bond Behavior Of Pbo Frcm-Concrete Joints, Tommaso D'Antino, Lesley H. Sneed, Christian Carloni, Carlo Pellegrino

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Matrix (FRCM) composites can be employed as a valid alternative to Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) composites for strengthening existing reinforced concrete (RC) structures. The weakness of FRCM-concrete joints has been reported to be at the matrix-fiber interface rather than within the concrete substrate, as is usually reported in the case of FRP-concrete joints. The experimental investigations regarding FRCM strengthening available in the literature have been performed by applying the FRCM composite onto a surface that was treated before the application, usually by grinding or sandblasting. However, the role of the substrate characteristics on the failure mechanism of …

Special Issue: Electrochemistry Of Carbon Materials, Wei Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

Carbon materials are traditional electrode materials due to their excellent electrical conductivities, high electrochemical stabilities and wide potential windows. Glassy carbon, graphite, various activated charcoals, carbon fibers etc. have been widely used in electrochemistry serving as electrode substrates or supports. In addition to their applications in basic electrochemistry, carbon materials have also played important roles in electrochemical energy storage and conversion. In recent years, various types of carbon structures, from zero-dimensional carbon nanodots, one-dimensional nanotubes, two-dimensional graphene to three-dimensional porous carbons, have attracted increasing attention in electrochemical field. It has been found that carbon materials have outstanding properties as advanced …

Applications Of Carbon Materials In Electrochemical Energy Storage, Ji Liang, Lei Wen, Hui-Ming Cheng, Feng Li

Journal of Electrochemistry

An electrode material for electrochemical energy storage is one of the key components for high performance devices. In a variety of electrochemical energy storage systems, carbon materials, especially the lately emerged carbon nanomaterials including the carbon nanotube and graphene, have been playing a very important role and brought new vitality to the development and demonstration of the broad application prospects. In this review, we summarize the applications of various carbon materials in the typical electrochemical energy storage devices, namely lithium/sodium ion batteries, supercapacitors, and lithium-sulfur batteries, as well as flexible electrochemical energy storage and electrochemical catalysis. A perspective of novel …

Synthesis Of Porous Carbon Nanosheets And Its Application In Sodium-Ion Battery, Jing-Fei Zhang, Jing Lu, Xiao-Yu Yang, Yun-Di Huang, Lin Xu, Dong-Mei Sun, Ya-Wen Tang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Owning to sodium’s high abundance, relatively low cost, similar chemical properties to Li and very suitable redox potential of E₀(Na⁺/Na) = -2.71 V versus SHE which is only 0.3 V above that of lithium, rechargeable sodium ion battery hold much promise as potential alternatives to current lithium ion batteries for energy storage applications. Carbon material is regarded as the most promising anode candidate for sodium ion battery. Particularly, carbon nanosheet with porous structure and high conductivity is expected to have improved sodium ion storage properties. In this paper, we present a two-step pyrolysis-based method for facile …

Intercalation Of Clo4- Into Hopg Investigated By Ec-Stm, Xiao-Yan Hu, Alice Aliwowe, Jia-Wei Yan, Bing-Wei Mao

Journal of Electrochemistry

The electrochemical intercalation and surface morphology of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) electrode in 2 mol⋅L^-1 HClO₄ were studied by in situ scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). Based on the step-height changes observed before and after the intercalation, the effects of different step sites on intercalation are compared. The feasibility, reversibility and speed of intercalation are discussed. The intercalation ofClO₄^- into HOPG can be divided into three types depending on the number of graphite layers at the step site: When the layers of graphite are more than three, the intercalation becomes feasible; when …

Effect Of Mno2 Content On Electrochemical Capacitance Behavior Of Active Carbon Electrode, Kun Shen, Xian-Liang Zhou, Qi-Shun Duan

Journal of Electrochemistry

In this work, the manganese dioxide (MnO₂) materials were prepared by solution approach at low temperature, thermal decomposition and electrochemical deposition. The actived carbon (AC) and MnO₂composite electrodes were used for aqueous supercapacitors. The morphologies and structures of the prepared materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the electrochemical behaviors were tested by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galanostatic charge-discharge tests. Electrochemical test data show that the maximum specific capacitances of 151, 172 and 141 F•g^-1were obtained with the contents of MnO₂being 70, 60 and 70% in …

Fast And Accurate Evaluation Of Lifepo4 Cathode Materials By Single Particle Microelectrode, Fu-Qing Wang, Yi-Min Wei, Yu-Zhuan Su, Bing-Wei Mao, Kai Wu, Feng-Gang Zhao, Chun-Lei Chen, Xing-Lu Li, Jin Chong

Journal of Electrochemistry

Single particle microelectrode enables to evaluate the electrochemical responses for single particle of active material without binder and conductive agent. Thus, the influences of additive and electrode structure on the electrochemical performance of active materials can be ignored. Furthermore, this technology can be used to evaluate active materials fast. Therefore, single particle microelectrode allows fast and accurate determination of the intrinsic performance of active material. Cyclic voltammogram (CV), cycle performance, and kinetic behavior of LiFePO₄ cathode materials were evaluated by the single particle microelectrode. CV curve of LiFePO₄ particle with a pair of oxidation and reduction peaks was …

Colloidal Ionic Supercapacitors, Kun-Feng Chen, Dong-Feng Xue

Journal of Electrochemistry

Supercapacitors have high power density and long cycle life compared with battery systems, but they still suffer from low energy density at the same time. In order to increase the energy density of supercapacitors, we have developed a new type of pseudocapacitor, called colloidal ion supercapacitor, which can directly use commercial metal salts as electrode materials and form electroactive matter by in-situ electrochemical reactions without the need of additional materials synthesis processes. Colloidal ion supercapacitor can fully utilize the redox reaction of metal cations with multiple oxidation states, which can completely release the stored electrical energy of multiple-valence cations, leading …

Progress Of Self-Supported Supercapacitor Electrode Materials Based On Carbon Substrates, Shui-Jian He, Wei Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

Self-supported electrode materials have been widely used in supercapacitors. Carbon materials are promising substrates in building self-supported electrode materials attributed to their diverse structures, rich resource, relatively low cost and high stability. Combined with our own research in this field, we summarize here the recent progress on the synthesis of self-supported electrode materials and their supercapacitance properties. The overall synthetic strategy could be divided into two categories: “top-down” and “bottom-up”. We hope this review is helpful for the development and application of renewable sources in self-supported electrode materials.

Electrodeposition Of Lanthanum In Deep Eutectic Solvents, Li Wang, You-Jun Fan, Lu Wei, Hai-Xia Liu, Shi-Gang Sun

Journal of Electrochemistry

With the choline chloride/urea deep eutectic solvents (DESs) as the medium, the olive-like lanthanum particles with uniform shape and size were successfully prepared through a potentiostatic deposition method. The prepared samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). At the same time, the effect of deposition potential, temperature and time on the size and morphology of samples was investigated. The results demonstrated that the optimum conditions for the preparation of olive-like lanthanum particles were as follows: deposition potential of -1.7 V, temperature of 80 °C and …

Carbon Aerogel/Nickel Foam As Electrode For High-Performance Supercapacitor, Zhong Wu, Xin-Bo Zhang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Herein, a facile synthesis has been explored to prepare carbon aerogel/Ni foam. Graphene oxide, resorcinol and formaldehyde serve as precursors and polymerize in-situ on the Ni foam after hydrothermal synthesis at 85 ℃. After lyophilization treatment, the carbon aerogel/Ni foam with porous structure can be obtained. Electrochemical investigations reveal that the carbon aerogel/Ni foam exhibits superior performances in both aqueous and organic electrolytes involving high specific capacitance and long-term cycling stability. The excellent properties can be ascribed to the unique formation and porous structure, which allows more effective transportations of electron and electrolyte ion.

Electrochemical Properties Of Graphene/Porous Nano-Silicon Anode, Chun-Li Li, Guang Yang, Ping Zhang, Zhi-Yu Jiang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Porous nano-silicon (Si) was prepared by acid etching Al-Si alloy powder method, and used as an active material for fabricating a grapene/porous nano-Si electrode. The results of SEM and TEM measurements indicated that porous nano-Si powder was uniformly mixed with graphene by emulsification dispersion-ultrasonication method. As an anode for lithium ion battery, the graphene/porous nano-Si electrode presented relatively high performance in 1 mol•L^-1LiPF6/EC:DMC = 1:1(by volume) + 1.5% (by mass) VC solution. At the charge and discharge current densities of 0.5A•g^-1, the first discharge capacity was 1768.6mAh•g^-1with coulombic efficiency of 68.3%. The discharge capacity …

System-Wide Prediction Of General, All-Cause, Preventable Hospital Readmissions, Ken Musselman, Brandon Pope, Steve Witz, Zhiyi Tian, Lingsong Zhang, Linda Leon, Ann Davis

RCHE Publications

Existing studies of hospital readmissions typically focus on specific diagnoses, age groups, discharge dispositions, payer classes, or hospitals, and often use small samples. It is not clear how predictive models generated from such studies generalize across diseases, hospitals, or time periods. In this study, a logistic regression model of readmission risk within 30 days based on hospital administrative data was constructed and validated across hospitals and time periods. The hospitals included both general and specialty hospitals such as long-term care, women’s, and children’s hospitals. The administrative data included information on patient’s demographics, diagnoses, procedures, and discharge disposition. Derivation and validation …

Investigation Of Electromagnetic Signatures Of A Fpga Using An Aprel Em-Isight System, Karynn A. Sutherlin

Theses and Dissertations

Large military platforms have encountered major performance and reliability issues due to an increased number of incidents with counterfeit electronic parts. This has drawn the attention of Department of Defense (DOD) leadership making detection and avoidance of counterfeit electronic parts a top issue for national defense. More defined regulations and processes for identifying, reporting, and disposing of counterfeit electronic parts are being revised to raise awareness for this aggregating issue, as well as enhance the detection of these parts. Multiple technologies are currently employed throughout the supply chain to detect counterfeit electronic parts. These methods are often costly, time-consuming, and …

Optimal Attitude Control Of Agile Spacecraft Using Combined Reaction Wheel And Control Moment Gyroscope Arrays, Cole C. Doupe

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the benefits of combined control moment gyroscope (CMG) and reaction wheel array (RWA) actuation for agile spacecraft. Agile spacecraft are capable of slewing to multiple targets in minimum time. CMGs provide the largest torque capability of current momentum exchange actuation devices but also introduce singularity events in operation. RWAs produce less torque capability than CMGs but can achieve greater pointing accuracy. In this research, a combined RWA and CMG (RWCMG) system is evaluated using analytical simulations and hardware experiments. A closed-loop control scheme is developed which takes advantage of the strengths of each actuator set.The CMGs perform …

Comparison Of Novel Carboneous Structures To Treat Nitroaromatic Impacted Water, Benjamin M. Doane

Theses and Dissertations

Carboneous materials such as carbon nanotube (CNT), granular activated carbon (GAC), and biochar are promising materials for the removal of organic contaminants from aqueous phase solutions. CNTs have astonishing mechanical strength, chemical and thermal stability and high surface area. While biochar, similar to GAC, having an extremely porous structure and high surface area, can be produced in more austere conditions with native materials. In this study, novel CNT-Hybrid structures (CNT-HS), hardwood pellet (HWP) Biochar and standard GAC (F-600 GAC) were used as adsorbents to treat water contaminated by a model nitroaromatic compound, 2,4-dinitrotoluene (DNT).

Design And Implementation Of A Unified Command And Control Architecture For Multiple Cooperative Unmanned Vehicles Utilizing Commercial Off The Shelf Components, Jeremy Gray

Theses and Dissertations

Small unmanned systems provide great utility to military applications due to their portable and expendable design. These systems are, however, costly to develop, produce, and maintain, making it desirable to integrate available commercial off the shelf (COTS) components. This research investigates the integration of COTS components through the development of a modular unified command and control (C2) architecture for heterogeneous and homogeneous vehicle teams to accomplish formation flocking and communication relay scenarios. A vehicle agnostic architecture was developed to be applied across different vehicle platforms, different vehicle combination, and different cooperative missions. COTS components consisting primarily of open source hardware …

Effects Of Automation On Aircrew Workload And Situation Awareness In Tactical Airlift Missions, David R. Meyer

Theses and Dissertations

In tactical aviation, decision superiority brought upon by high situation awareness remains the arbiter of combat effectiveness. The advancement of sophisticated avionics and highly automated cockpits has allowed for the reduction of aircrew size, and in certain platforms, removal of the crew from the aircraft entirely. However, these developments have not reduced the complex and dynamic interaction between situation awareness and crew workload. While many predictive and experimental methods of evaluating workload exist, situation awareness can only be measured by conducting trials with human operators in a functional prototype. This thesis proposes an innovative methodology to predicatively determine situation awareness …

Optimal Uas Assignments And Trajectories For Persistent Surveillance And Data Collection From A Wireless Sensor Network, Nidal M. Jodeh

Theses and Dissertations

This research developed a method for multiple Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to efficiently collect data from a Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). WSN are composed of any number of fixed, ground-based sensors that collect and upload local environmental data to over flying UAS. The three-step method first uniquely assigns aircraft to specific sensors on the ground. Second, an efficient flight path is calculated to minimize the aircraft flight time required to verify their assigned sensors. Finally, sensors reporting relatively higher rates of local environmental activity are re-assigned to dedicated aircraft tasked with concentrating on only those sensors. This work was sponsored …

Pre-Mission Input Requirements To Enable Successful Sample Collection By A Remote Field/Eva Team, Barbara A. Cohen, Darlene S. S. Lim, Kelsey E. Young, Anna Brunner, Richard C. Elphic, Audrey Horne, Mary C. Kerrigan, Gordon O. Osinski, John R. Skok, Steven W. Squyres, David Saint-Jacques, Jennifer L. Heldmann

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

We used a field excursion to the West Clearwater Lake Impact structure as an opportunity to test factors that contribute to the decisions a remote field team (for example, astronauts conducting extravehicular activities (EVA) on planetary surfaces) makes while collecting samples for return to Earth. We found that detailed background on the analytical purpose of the samples, provided to the field team, enables them to identify and collect samples that meet specific analytical objectives. However, such samples are not always identifiable during field reconnaissance activities, and may only be recognized after outcrop characterization and interpretation by crew and/or science team …

Modeling And Experimental Demonstration Of A Hopfield Network Analog-To-Digital Converter With Hybrid Cmos/Memristor Circuits, Xinjie Guo, Farnood Merrikh-Bayat, Ligang Gao, Brian D. Hoskins, Fabien Alibart, Bernabe Linares-Barranco, Luke Theogarajan, Christof Teuscher, Dmitri B. Strukov

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this work was to demonstrate the feasibility of building recurrent artificial neural networks with hybrid complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)/memristor circuits. To do so, we modeled a Hopfield network implementing an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with up to 8 bits of precision. Major shortcomings affecting the ADC's precision, such as the non-ideal behavior of CMOS circuitry and the specific limitations of memristors, were investigated and an effective solution was proposed, capitalizing on the in-field programmability of memristors. The theoretical work was validated experimentally by demonstrating the successful operation of a 4-bit ADC circuit implemented with discrete Pt/TiO_{2− …}

Demonstration Of Inexact Computing Implemented In The Jpeg Compression Algorithm Using Probabilistic Boolean Logic Applied To Cmos Components, Christopher I. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Probabilistic computing offers potential improvements in energy, performance, and area compared with traditional digital design. This dissertation quantifies energy and energy-delay tradeoffs in digital adders, multipliers, and the JPEG image compression algorithm. This research shows that energy demand can be cut in half with noisesusceptible16-bit Kogge-Stone adders that deviate from the correct value by an average of 3 in 14 nanometer CMOS FinFET technology, while the energy-delay product (EDP) is reduced by 38 . This is achieved by reducing the power supply voltage which drives the noisy transistors. If a 19 average error is allowed, the adders are 13 times …

Collecting Unsolicited User-Generated Change Requests, Joseph W. Goldsmith

Theses and Dissertations

Unlike aircrew directly associated with acquisitions, line operators are not fully engaged in the methods to push materiel hardware or software change requests up the chain, to a decision maker, and then to the engineers. The Air Force trains these end users to logically apply expert systems knowledge to execute the mission but has not fully leveraged this resource for properly identifying and correcting operational shortfalls in an aircraft's design. Focusing on the Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) community, the research goal is to determine if the Air Force should establish a formal program for collecting and prioritizing unsolicited user change …

Feature Selection And Classifier Development For Radio Frequency Device Identification, Trevor J. Bihl

Theses and Dissertations

The proliferation of simple and low-cost devices, such as IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee and Z-Wave, in Critical Infrastructure (CI) increases security concerns. Radio Frequency Distinct Native Attribute (RF-DNA) Fingerprinting facilitates biometric-like identification of electronic devices emissions from variances in device hardware. Developing reliable classifier models using RF-DNA fingerprints is thus important for device discrimination to enable reliable Device Classification (a one-to-many looks most like assessment) and Device ID Verification (a one-to-one looks how much like assessment). AFITs prior RF-DNA work focused on Multiple Discriminant Analysis/Maximum Likelihood (MDA/ML) and Generalized Relevance Learning Vector Quantized Improved (GRLVQI) classifiers. This work 1) introduces a …

Continuous Decision Support, Jeremy P. Hendrix

Theses and Dissertations

Organizations are often faced with portfolio construction efforts that require them to select one or more alternatives, subject to resource constraints, with the aim of achieving the maximum value possible. This is a well-defined problem with a number of analytically defensible approaches, provided the entire set of alternatives is known when the decision event takes place. Less well treated in the literature is how to approach this problem when the entire set of alternatives is unknown, as when the alternatives arrive over time. This change in the availability of data shifts the problem from one of identifying an optimal subset …

Creep And Oxidation Of Hafnium Diboride-Based Ultra High Temperature Ceramics At 1500°C, Anthony J. Degregoria

Theses and Dissertations

Ultra high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are leading candidates for aerospace structural applications in high temperature environments, including the leading edges of hypersonic aircraft and thermal protection systems for atmospheric re-entry vehicles. Before UHTCs can be used in such applications, their structural integrity and environmental durability must be assured, which requires a thorough understanding and characterization of their creep and oxidation behavior at relevant service temperatures.

Application Of Executable Architectures In Early Concept Evaluation, Ryan M. Pospisal

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores use of executable architectures to guide design decisions in the early stages of system development. Decisions made early in the system development cycle determine a majority of the total lifecycle costs as well as establish a baseline for long term system performance and thus it is vital to program success to choose favorable design alternatives. The development of a representative architecture followed the Architecture Based Evaluation Process as it provides a logical and systematic order of events to produce an architecture sufficient to document and model operational performance. In order to demonstrate the value in the application …