Engineering Commons^™

Permeable Curbs For Storm Water Pollution, Aldo Hernandez, Drew Johnson, Marcio Giacomoni

Data

One of the problems that increased urbanization poses is storm water pollution. Several control measures exist that are used to treat and reduce pollution in our waterways, one of those being permeable concretes; but these have not been widely adopted. The goal of this project was to develop a permeable curb apparatus that could be used in retrofitting conventional streets. The permeable curb is comprised of a permeable concrete mix with a perforated pipe running through its center, this allows for water to filter through the porous concrete and continue downstream through the perforated pipe which would eventually lead to …

Coupled Situational Awareness System To Improve Transportation Infrastructure Performance During Extreme Events, Hatim Sharif, Samer Dessouky, Md Jobair Bin Alam, Raghava Kommalapati, Hongbo Du Ph.D

Data

The dense road networks and numerous low water crossings throughout Texas may be contributing to the higher recurrence rates of floods that pose a danger to vehicles. A timely issue that should be addressed by researchers is the compounding of disaster. Flooding can be combined with other life-threatening occurrences such as power loss and interruptions of health and emergency services. During these events, rescue requests from the stranded communities overwhelm the emergency response facilities; impassable roadways and the paucity of reliable information on the affected areas and their accessibility hamper emergency response operations, causing several detours and delays that put …

Coupled Situational Awareness System To Improve Transportation Infrastructure Performance During Extreme Events, Hatim Sharif, Samer Dessouky, Md Jobair Bin Alam, Raghava Kommalapati, Hongbo Du Ph.D

Publications

The dense road networks and numerous low water crossings throughout Texas may be contributing to the higher recurrence rates of floods that pose a danger to vehicles. A timely issue that should be addressed by researchers is the compounding of disaster. Flooding can be combined with other life-threatening occurrences such as power loss and interruptions of health and emergency services. During these events, rescue requests from the stranded communities overwhelm the emergency response facilities; impassable roadways and the paucity of reliable information on the affected areas and their accessibility hamper emergency response operations, causing several detours and delays that put …

A Novel Iron Phosphate Cement Derived From Copper Smelting Slag And Its Early Age Hydration Mechanism, Yunlong Luo, Xintao Zhou, Zhongqiu Luo, Hongyan Ma, Yu Wei, Qin Liu

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Copper slag (CS), a by-product of copper smelting, is normally stockpiled, leading to wastes of resource and space as well as environment pollution. It has not been massively reutilized as a supplementary cementitious material in Portland cement due to its low reactivity. In the present study, CS is for the first time utilized as the base component to prepare an iron phosphate cement (IPC) by reacting with ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (ADP) at room temperature. The influence of the raw materials mass ratio (CS/ADP) on the microstructure and performance of IPC pastes are investigated. It is found that the compressive strength …

Analysis Of Traffic Crash Data In Kentucky 2017-2021, Paul Ross, Eric Green, Christopher Blackden, Christopehr Van Dyke, Michael Fields, Riana Tanzen

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Each year the Kentucky Transportation Center publishes Analysis of Traffic Crash Data in Kentucky, a report that reviews state-level crash data from the previous five years. This report summarizes crash data for 2017 through 2021. In addition to presenting a review of crash data, the report also contains safety performance functions (SPFs) for nine roadway types. Because SPFs were derived using 2017-2021 data, the models predict crashes for a five-year period. Users must adjust the model by adding a coefficient of 1/5 to models to avoid overestimating crashes by a factor of five.

Uav Rapidly-Deployable Stage Sensor With Electro-Permanent Magnet Docking Mechanism For Flood Monitoring In Undersampled Watersheds, Corinne A, Smith, Joud Satme, Jacob Martin, Austin Downey, Nikolaos Vitzilaios, Jasim Imran

Faculty Publications

The availability of historical flood data is vital in recognizing weather-related trends and outlining necessary precautions for at-risk communities. Flood frequency, magnitude, endurance, and volume are traditionally recorded using established streamgages; however, the material and installation costs allow only a few streamgages in a region, which yield a narrow data selection. In particular, stage, the vertical water height in a water body, is an important parameter in determining flood trends. This work investigates a low-cost, compact, rapidly-deployable alternative to traditional stage sensors that will allow for denser sampling within a watershed and a more detailed record of flood events. The …

Legacy Airlines’ Monthly Percentage Delays: Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Orlando Y. Gonzalez Fuentes, Chinkyung Lee, Hyungyeong Lee, Brooke Wheeler

Aeronautics Student Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected and caused considerable changes in the aviation industry. This study determined the difference in the monthly percentage of flight delays before and during the pandemic, including United, Delta, and American Airlines. The results showed the percentage of average flight delays was higher for the pre-pandemic period.

Resource Allocation For Mec System With Multi-Users Resource Competition Based On Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach, Bin Qu, Yan Bai, Yul Chu, Li-E Wang, Feng Yu, Xianxian Li

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Mobile edge computing (MEC) is an effective computing paradigm for mobile devices in the 5G era to reduce computing delay and energy consumption. However, in a multi-user resource competition environment, the revenue-driven behavior of edge servers will cause some users to increase delays or fail tasks. Considering this situation, we take the success rate of computation offloading as the trust value of the edge server, and build a system model from the user’s perspective, taking delay and energy consumption as the multi-objective task of joint optimization. In the optimization goal, we consider three factors: offloading delay, energy consumption, and queuing …

Digital Twin For Hvac Load And Energy Storage Based On A Hybrid Ml Model With Cta-2045 Controls Capability, Rosemary E. Alden, Evan S. Jones, Huangjie Gong, Abdullah Al Hadi, Dan Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

Building modeling, specifically heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) load and equivalent energy storage calculations, represent a key focus for decarbonization of buildings and smart grid controls. Widely used white box models, due to their complexity, are too computationally intensive to be employed in high resolution distributed energy resources (DER) platforms without simulation time delays. In this paper, an ultra-fast one-minute resolution Hybrid Machine Learning Model (HMLM) is proposed as part of a novel procedure to replicate white box models as an alternative to widespread experimental big data collection. Synthetic output data from experimentally calibrated EnergyPlus models for three existing …

Mems 411: Frame Redesign For A Dac Machine, Alyssa Bolander, Aaron Lombardi, Harry Hixson

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This report focuses on the redesign of a 3’’ T-slot aluminum DAC frame. This design process focuses on minimizing cost and fasteners as the new frame will be made out of welded square steel tubing.

Mems 411: Torsion Tester Design Report, Ethan Bandick, Sean Wong, Jacob Sandler, Matthew Lorberg

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The goal of this project is to provide the customer, Dr. James Jackson Potter, with a lightweight, inexpensive, and accurate alternative to modern, professional torsion-testing machines. The torsion tester developed by this team will be used in a classroom setting for design competitions on 3-D printed ABS plastic torsion bars; therefore the design also accommodate a range of functions which might be useful to the customer during testing competitions, potentially including automatic stopping at failure, a reset function, and the ability to create custom functions which can integrate into the existing function library.

Mems 411: Racecar Cruise Control, Jonah Spencer, Jacob Wheelock, Amay Kejriwal

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The WashU Racing team is a student group at formula student which annually designs, builds, and tests a 1/3rd scale formula racecar. This project explores the use of an electronically actuated throttle to implement cruise control on the WashU Racing formula student racecar. Through the use of new and existing sensors on the car, in depth engine modeling, and vehicle dynamics, our team was able to make the car accelerate up to and maintain a certain speed

Mems 411: Remotely Operated Rock Collecting Vehicle, Perry Brody, Toby Utterback, Annie Mascot, Bianca Lang

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

We were tasked with designing a remote-controlled vehicle that is capable of collecting and holding “rocks”. The device had to be battery powered and operated by an RC transmitter/receiver. The physical constraints required the vehicle to fit within the designated 5.25’’ diameter and 8.5’’ long cylinder. The goal was to maximize the number of "rocks" collected in 5 minutes.

Mems 411: Group Q Rock-Collecting Rover, William Pohl, Kieran Conjar, Chris Mabley, Major Kc

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Design a remote controlled Rock-Collecting Rover that can store 35 rocks while moving, can navigate a snake-track without hitting the lines in 5 minutes, and can successfully collect 80% of the rocks it approaches.

Mems 411: Graphene Flake Finder, Calvin Ball, Jonathon Hansen, Ivan Jaramillo

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Graphene is an allotrope of carbon, a monolayer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-like structure. It is a zero-gap semiconductor, has a high opacity, has a large thermal conductivity, and has the largest intrinsic tensile strength known to humankind so far. It is not yet utilized in the industry as graphene is not efficient or cost-effective to mass produce. The production of graphene is done by flakes with tape at Dr. Erik Henrikson’s lab. We will make a motorized microscope stage that helps automate the location identification of graphene flakes that have been mechanically exfoliated onto silicon wafer chips. …

Mems 411: Rock Collection Rover, Group, Kyler Schaetzle, Grant Ryals, Griffin Ancipink, Jackson Powell

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The following report has been prepared for MEMS 411 Mechanical Engineering Design Project and contains information pertaining to the selected project, the Rocker Collecting Rover Contest project. The project required the team to construct a battery-powered, remote-controlled rover that is operated with a first-person camera and can collect “rocks” and hold them off the ground without damaging them. The rover will compete in a competition against all other groups to see which group can collect the most rocks in a five-minute period.

Mems 411: T-Shirt Strip Dispenser, Christian Alexander, Joseph Goehring, David / Qifeng Tian, Justin / Jingze Zhou

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

To create a fabric dispenser for Professor Mary Ruppert-Stroescu of the Sam Fox Fashion Design School.

Mems 411: Dog Mobility Aid, Grace Vinson, Amber Griffith, Thomas Liu

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Henry, an 8-year-old dog, suffers from an angular limb deformity. We created a mobility aid for Henry to improve his quality of life. This device functions similarly to a crutch attached to the affected arm to eliminate compressive forces on his metacarpals.

Mems 411 - Prosthetic Arm Group W, Spencer Gladstone, Lila Dickstein, Nate Bloedorn, Matthew Riak

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The customer, Ilana, sought to find a prosthetic arm to replace her current static
prosthetic. She has gotten used to using a prosthetic with no variable grips and
a somewhat heavy weight that can be a burden when dealing with her child or
day to day tasks. The design described in this report is an electronically powered
prosthetic that used a button to change between open and closed grips.

Mems411: We Rock N’ Roverin', Amy L. Xue, Ash Caine, Emily Ma

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The goal of this project is to create a remotely-controlled rover that can reliably collect dice. The customer, Chiamaka Asinugo, requires a device that meets the needs of a potential challenge that the WURocketry Team might face in future “NASA Student Launch” competitions. These needs include the rover being able to fit into a theoretical payload cylinder that is 5.36" in diameter and 8.5" long and the rover weighing less than 3.5 lbs.

Mems 411: Rock-Collecting Rover, Nathan Fetchel, Derek Bivins, Emerson Hatina

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This project was a MEMS 411 Senior Design project completed for a potential future WashU Rocketry Team rover contest. The rover was required to be battery operated, controlled by an RC transmitter/receiver, and utilize micro-servo motors for actuation. The rover was required to be navigated via 1st person camera. The rover needed to weigh less than 3.5 lbs, and able to fit into a 5.36" diameter and 8.5" long cylinder. The "rocks" needed to be stored inside the rover and to be collected without using adhesive.

Mems 411: Asme Student Design Vehicle, Raymond Sullivan, Matthew Spichiger, Daniel Melka

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Design a robot to compete in the 2022 ASME Design Competition

Mems 411: Cnc Fabric Dispenser, Hayato Takai, Lizbet Suarez Mendoza, Jp Bermudez, Jeffrey Dai

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This project aims to help Mary Ruppert-Stroescu with her zero-waste fashion project. The goal of this tool is to help Mary efficiently lay down fabric across a sheet of sticky paper to make a yard of reused fabric. The goal of our team was to create a machine that can work alongside Mary, rather than having her spend all her time at the machine. We wanted to make a machine that can work independently of Mary, so that she can focus her time on other things.

100s of lbs of fabric waste is part of American today. Mary's mission is …

Mems 411: Softball Pitching Machine, Sebastian Laboy, Molly Mcnamara, Thomas Burke

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This report includes our complete final project for MEMS 411 in the Fall 2022 semester. For this project, we chose to fill the need for a pitching machine solely focused on the needs of softball players. For this project, our customer is a collegiate softball player named McKenna Jablonske.

Mems 411: Best Prosthetic Arm, Zhun Cheng, Finn Witt, Alexander Abdulla, Zhuoqun Wang

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Prosthetic is generally used to aid people with disabilities and perform tasks otherwise hard for them. As our senior design project, we designed and built a prototype prosthetic partial forearm for a customer to be used in her daily life and work. The important needs of the customer towards the prosthetic were identified, which were: being lightweight, simply actuatable, aesthetically discrete, easily detachable, resilient, easy to clean, safe for children, and easy to carry.

Mems 411: Fire Temperature Gradient Sensor, Anna-Sophia Eberhardt, Dexter Allen, Christopher Allen, Mikayla Jenkins

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Fire Temperature Gradient Sensor to understand the interaction between prescribed forest floor burns and tick-borne disease ecology.

Effectiveness Of Infrared Thermography For Delamination Detection In Reinforced Concrete Bridge Decks, Eberechi Ichi, Sattar Dorafshan

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents findings of delamination detection using infrared thermography (IRT) in five in-service bridges using an unmanned aerial vehicle system. The authors have used semantically segmented IRT images to evaluate IRT’s effectiveness in detection of deck delamination for the first time. Using an adaptive image processing-based model, sub-surface delaminations were detected by optimizing all user-defined parameters in the model, including threshold values to convert the enhanced IRT images to a binary image. The optimization process has been done selecting iterating the user-defined parameters and their effect on the interaction of a set of sigmoid curves representing the model’s performance …

Fuzzy Logic-Based Charging Strategy For Frequency Control Of An Electric Vehicles-Integrated Weak Grid, Majid Mehrasa, Khaled Hajar, Reza Razi, Antoine Labonne, Ahmad Hably, Seddik Bacha, Daisy Flora Selvaraj, Hossein Salehfar

EERC Publications, Papers, & Presentations

In this paper, a fuzzy logic-based charging strategy is proposed for electric vehicles (EVs) to provide a stable frequency response for a weak grid (WG)-microgrid. Along with the frequency control, another fuzzy charging method is designed for EV to increase the revenue for the EV charging station owner.

Simulation Of A Rapid Compression Machine For Evaluation Of Ignition Chemistry And Soot Formation Using Gasoline/Ethanol Blends, Musharrat Chowdhury

Master's Theses (2009 -)

With the projected decline of demand for gasoline in light duty engines and the advent of ethanol as a green fuel, the use of gasoline-ethanol blend fuels in heavy duty applications are being investigated where the primary mode of combustion is mixing controlled combustion. In mixing controlled combustion, a wide range of mixture conditions (equivalence ratio) exist inside the engine cylinder. The sooting tendencies of light fuels at richer conditions are not well understood. The goal of this research is to model the particulate matter emissions for gasoline/ethanol fuel blends, especially at fuel rich conditions. The computational models can then …

Creating Sustainable Biofuels Using Essential Oil Distillery Leaf Waste Near Vohimana Reserve, Ashley Cohen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Like most of Madagasacar’s population, people around Vohimana Reserve rely on traditional fuels like firewood and charcoal for cooking and heating. As a result, the region is facing deforestation, which poses a threat to biodiversity and the livelihoods of local populations. A local essential oil distillery was created by the NGO L’Homme et L’Environnement as a sustainable income generator to combat deforestation and protect biodiversity. The distillery produces leaf biomass that can be mixed with binding agent(s) and transformed into biofuel as a sustainable alternative to traditional fuels. 14 biofuels were created by combining distillery leaf biomass and various percent …