Engineering Commons^™

Gamma And Neutron Irradiation Effect On Ga-Polar And N-Polar Gan Based Diodes, Farnood Mirkhosravi

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

III-nitride material (GaN) shows a lot of potential for next-generation power electronics. This material is advantageous due to its wide bandgap, high electron mobility, high thermal and mechanical stability, small form factor, and higher radiation tolerance. The higher radiation tolerance makes the GaN-based devices more attractive for harsh-environment applications, like aerospace, nuclear reactor, and fusion facilities, particle accelerators, and post-detonation environments applications.

GaN due to its unique crystal structure can be grown in different orientations and can provide specific advantages in electronic and optoelectronic devices. While the Ga-polar orientation of GaN has been widely investigated for its proprieties, there are …

Optimization Of A Novel Barnes Maze Protocol For Assessing Antioxidant Treatment Of Traumatic Brain Injury, Connor C. Gee

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Current preclinical research into traumatic brain injury focuses heavily upon cellular and molecular testing to determine the effects of injury and potential benefits of neuroprotective treatments. While this may be a useful method, some argue that an increased focus on behavioral testing could lead to better clinical translation as these assays assess the longer term, downstream effects from a brain injury. The most characterized behavioral tests used in traumatic brain injury research are the spatial learning and memory paradigms, Morris Water Maze and Barnes Maze. The Morris Water Maze is the most used of theses paradigms and relies on spatial …

Effect Of Injury Mechanism And Severity On The Molecular Pathophysiology Of Traumatic Brain Injury, Brandon Mcdonald

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) mechanism and severity are heterogenous clinically, resulting in a multitude of physical, cognitive, and behavioral deficits. However, approximately 80% suffer from milder injuries. Thus, examining pathophysiological changes associated with mild TBI is imperative for improving clinical translation and evaluating the efficacy of potential therapeutic strategies. Through this work, we developed models of TBI, ranging in both injury mechanism and severity, using an electromagnetic controlled cortical impact (CCI) device. First, we characterized and optimized a closed head, mild TBI model (DTBI) to determine the clinical translatability and practicality of producing repeated mild injuries. Interestingly, we determined that …

Fifty Shades Of Grey: Automated Stochastic Model Identification Of Building Heat Dynamics, Julien Leprince, Henrik Madsen, Clayton Miller, Palmer Jaume Real, Rik Van Der Vlist, Kaustav Basu, Wim Zeiler

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

To reach the carbon emission reduction targets set by the European Union, the building sector has embraced multiple strategies such as building retrofit, demand side management, model predictive control and building load forecasting. All of which require knowledge of the building dynamics in order to effectively perform. However, the scaling-up of building modelling approaches is still, as of today, a recurrent challenge in the field. The heterogeneous building stock makes it tedious to tailor interpretable approaches in a scalable way. This work puts forward an automated and scalable method for stochastic model identification of building heat dynamics, implemented on a …

Numerical Study Of The Effects Of Injector Geometry On The Performance Of Rotating Detonation Engines, Xavier Roy

Theses and Dissertations

A study of the impact of injector geometry on the performance of rotating detonation engines is performed. A numerical scheme is developed to represent the rotating detonation engine physics. In order to simulate the interaction between the chamber and the injectors, a multizone capability is implemented inside the numerical tool. The model is calibrated to represent a hydrogen-air detonation. The rotating detonation engine annular chamber is unwrapped and studied as a two-dimensional planar domain with a periodic boundary condition. Several numerical experiments are conducted. In particular, injection parameters are examined, such as the injector inflow to channel area ratio, injection …

Analysis Of Factors Affecting Maternal Health Using Data Mining Techniques, Prajina Edayath

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Despite being the most expensive maternity care globally, the US has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among developed countries. Furthermore, maternal mortality (MM) and severe maternal morbidity (SMM) have increased in the US during the past two decades. The poor maternal outcome has several contributors. Several socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors impact poor maternal health outcomes and disparities in (MM) and (SMM). However, 45 - 60% of all maternal deaths and SMM cases are preventable with timely and appropriate care. Thus, maternal health outcomes result from multilevel contributors, which suggests that there are opportunities to improve health service quality. …

Deep Learning-Based Prediction Of Ppb-Level Metal Ions In Drinking Water With Explainable Ai, Shaokun Yu

Master's Theses (2009 -)

In the research on detecting different ppb-level metal ions in drinking water in multiple areas. Through the block loop gap resonator (BLGR), this kind of metal ion sensor can continuously measure the concentrations of different metal ions in the water sample. The BLGR can classify different ions and measure the Cu and Pb ions in different ppb-level water in the city. According to the different magnitude and phases in continuous frequency in the testing. A better model can be trained by using deep learning, the convolution neural network. A neural network is often regarded as a black-box model because its …

Improving The Hardware Security Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Against Side Channel Analysis Using Motor Noise, Timothy Radtke

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This thesis investigates the efficacy of side channel analysis based attacks to recover the encryption key of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) which have become increasingly important internet of things devices in both the public and military sectors. Additionally, this thesis proposes a method based on noise injection to safeguard against side channel analysis based attacks. The proposed method is unique because it is ultra-low power and uses as a noise source the brushless motors of the unmanned aerial vehicle. Verification through experimentation on an in-house build UAV system is presented. Firstly, side channel analysis techniques are overviewed and the correlation …

A Design Process Leveraging Potential Energy In Planar Multistable Mechanisms, Edward Dold

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Planar multistable mechanisms are used throughout engineering to accomplish various tasks, for example residential electrical switching. The design of planar multistable mechanisms can be broken into four areas: determination of topology, geometric parameterization, analysis, and optimization. While topological determination, many analysis techniques, and optimization are well developed, geometric parameterization, which includes defining link lengths and spring stiffness, has largely been left to engineering judgement. This thesis presents a design methodology using potential energy graphs which informs engineering decisions made in choosing mechanism parameters for planar multistable mechanisms, giving designers higher confidence in the design. A kinematic analysis coupled with Lagrange's …

Device Location-Based Link Layer Scheduling For Large-Scale Dense Industrial Iot Networks, Ahmed Ajeena

Master's Theses (2009 -)

A medium access control (MAC) protocol design is proposed in this paper for the industrial internet of things (IIoT) networks with massive connections. Considering a non-fully connected network with multiple access points (APs), we aim to connect a large number of IIoT devices densely populating the network coverage area, achieve low latency, and avoid collisions. To achieve this objective, we adopt a time-slotted carrier sensing-based medium access control design and propose a device location-based time slot assignment scheme for channel access scheduling. The proposed scheme assigns devices to time slots based on their locations to eliminate collisions caused by hidden …

Seismic Performance Comparison Of Ordinary Concentrically Braced Frames In The Western And Central United States, Matthew Waters

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Ordinary concentrically braced frames (OCBFs) are intended to be moderately ductile steel seismic-force-resisting systems and are permitted in low-rise buildings in regions with high seismic hazards. There has been relatively little research to quantify the seismic performance of OCBFs, with most of the previous work emphasizing the role of reserve capacity on performance. To improve the understanding of seismic performance and validate current design provisions, a series of nonlinear response-history analyses were conducted. Two, three-story OCBF study buildings were designed in accordance with ASCE/SEI 7-16 for sites in Seattle, WA and Memphis, TN; the sites have relatively high seismic hazards …

Effect Of Grain Size On The Irradiation Response Of Grade 91 Steel Subjected To Fe Ion Irradiation At 300 °C, Jiaqi Duan, Haiming Wen, Li He, Kumar Sridharan, Andrew Hoffman, Maalavan Arivu, Xiaoqing He, Rinat Islamgaliev, Ruslan Valiev

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Irradiation using Fe ion at 300 °C up to 100 dpa was carried out on three variants of Grade 91 (G91) steel samples with different grain size ranges: fine-grained (FG, with blocky grains of a few micrometers long and a few hundred nanometers wide), ultrafine-grained (UFG, grain size of ~ 400 nm) and nanocrystalline (NC, lath grains of ~ 200 nm long and ~ 80 nm wide). Electron microscopy investigations indicate that NC G91 exhibit higher resistance to irradiation-induced defect formation than FG and UFG G91. In addition, nano-indentation studies reveal that irradiation-induced hardening is significantly lower in NC G91 …

First-Principles Study Of The Thermal Properties Of Zr2c And Zr2co, Yue Zhou, William Fahrenholtz, Joseph T. Graham, Gregory E. Hilmas

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

First-principles calculations of lattice thermal conductivities and thermodynamic properties of Zr2C and Zr2CO were performed using the quasi-harmonic approximation. Oxygen in the lattice gives Zr2CO higher bonding strength than Zr2C. Thus, the mechanical properties of Zr2C are enhanced when the vacancies in its crystal structure are filled with oxygen. Among the critical parameters that determine the lattice thermal conductivity, Zr2C has significantly higher Grüneisen parameters, thus Zr2C has lower lattice thermal conductivity than Zr2CO. In addition, Zr2CO has a higher heat capacity and thermal expansion coefficient than Zr2C at most temperatures. These results indicate that the addition of oxygen has …

Room-Temperature Mechanical Properties Of A High-Entropy Diboride, Alec C. Murchie, Jeremy Lee Watts, William Fahrenholtz, Gregory E. Hilmas

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The mechanical properties of a (Hf,Mo,Nb,Ta,W,Zr)B2 high-entropy ceramic were measured at room temperature. A two-step synthesis process was utilized to produce the (Hf,Mo,Nb,Ta,W,Zr)B2 ceramics. The process consisted of a boro/carbothermal reduction reaction followed by solid solution formation and densification through spark plasma sintering. Nominally, phase pure (Hf,Mo,Nb,Ta,W,Zr)B2 was sintered to near full density (8.98 g/cm3) at 2000°C. The mean grain size was 6 ± 2 µm with a maximum grain size of 17 µm. Flexural strength was 528 ± 53 MPa, Young's modulus was 520 ± 12 GPa, fracture toughness was 3.9 ± 1.2 MPa·m1/2, and hardness (HV0.2) was 33.1 …

Prefabrication And Modular Construction: Cm 214 Residential Construction Learning Module, Matthew V. Keeth

Construction Management

The residential construction industry in the United States has certainly stuck to the conventional methods of stick-built construction nationwide. What if there was a better way? This project seeks to educate future Construction Management students about a smarter, more efficient, and sustainable method of homebuilding: Modular Construction. Distinguishing the difference between prefabrication and modularization is a necessary standard. Prefabrication is defined as the process of manufacturing the essential structural components of a home at a factory off-site. The large scale structural components of a home are then transported to the jobsite for easy installation. In addition, Modular Construction is defined …

Error Estimate Of A Decoupled Numerical Scheme For The Cahn-Hilliard-Stokes-Darcy System, Wenbin Chen, Shufen Wang, Yichao Zhang, Daozhi Han, Cheng Wang, Xiaoming Wang

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We analyze a fully discrete finite element numerical scheme for the Cahn-Hilliard-Stokes-Darcy system that models two-phase flows in coupled free flow and porous media. To avoid a well-known difficulty associated with the coupling between the Cahn-Hilliard equation and the fluid motion, we make use of the operator-splitting in the numerical scheme, so that these two solvers are decoupled, which in turn would greatly improve the computational efficiency. The unique solvability and the energy stability have been proved in Chen et al. (2017, Uniquely solvable and energy stable decoupled numerical schemes for the Cahn-Hilliard-Stokes-Darcy system for two-phase flows in karstic geometry. …

Exploring Passive Flow Control Techniques Applied To A Supersonic Multistream Rectangular Nozzle, Emma Dawn Gist

Dissertations - ALL

Passive control techniques are applied experimentally to examine different aspects of a supersonic multistream rectangular nozzle representing a modern airframe-integrated variable cycle engine. The flow is comprised of a core stream (M = 1.6) and bypass (M = 1.0) that merge behind a splitter plate and exit through a Single Expansion Ramp Nozzle (SERN) onto an aft-deck. Previous efforts for the nominal nozzle configuration have shown that an instability initiated at the splitter plate trailing edge (SPTE) influences the effectiveness of the third stream as a barrier for the aft-deck and persists through the entire do- main due to its …

Fabrication Of Polymeric Microparticles Loaded With Zoledronic Acid To Treat Osteoarthritis, Yohely Maria Espiritusanto

Theses - ALL

Osteoarthritis (OA), a disease caused by wearing and tearing of articular cartilage, affectsover 32.5 million Americans. Synovial inflammation is now recognized as a major contributor to OA progression and pain. Activated synovial macrophages in an OA joint are believed to play a major role in low grade inflammation found in OA. Bisphosphonates such as zoledronic acid (ZA) are known to induce apoptosis specifically in macrophages and several of them are being evaluated as a disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug in clinical trials. However, ZA is rapidly cleared from the joint after systemic or localized direct injection into the joint. In this study …

Building Services Engineering July/August 2022

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Distributed Interdigital Capacitor (Idc) Sensing For Cable Insulation Aging And Degradation Detection, Md Nazmul Al Imran

Theses and Dissertations

Nuclear power plants (NPPs) contain myriad power, control, instrumentation, and other types of cables. The polymer insulation and jacket materials of such cables degrade over time due to operation and environmental conditions e.g., heat, humidity, and radiation. Since the life span of NPPs may extend beyond 40-50 years regular monitoring of cable insulation and jacket polymers is critical to ensure safe and reliable operation. The agingrelated degradation of cables causes changes in the relative permittivity or dielectric constant of the insulation and jacket materials. Capacitor sensors, if properly designed and developed can measure this change and thus can provide an …

Long Non-Coding Rna Pvt1 – An Exploratory Study In Ovarian And Endometrial Cancer, Kevin Tabury

Theses and Dissertations

Gynecological cancers, ovarian and endometrial cancer, are still leading causes of cancer-related death in women worldwide. Early detection methods as well as treatment resistance remain a challenge. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as therapeutic targets with diagnostic and prognostic potential with lncRNA PVT1 being one of them.

Here I test and demonstrate the role of PVT1 in ovarian cancer growth and metastasis. PVT1 is amplified and overexpressed in ovarian cancer and has predictive value for survival and response to targeted therapeutics. We find that expression of PVT1 is regulated by tumor cells in response to cellular stress, particularly loss …

Lightweight Privacy-Preserving Spatial Keyword Query Over Encrypted Cloud Data, Yutao Yang, Yinbin Miao, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rapid development of geographic location technology and the explosive growth of data, a large amount of spatio-textual data is outsourced to the cloud server to reduce the local high storage and computing burdens, but at the same time causes security issues such as data privacy leakage. Thus, extensive privacy-preserving spatial keyword query schemes have been proposed. Most of the existing schemes use Asymmetric Scalar-Product-Preserving Encryption (ASPE) for encryption, but ASPE has proven to be insecure. And the existing spatial range query schemes require users to provide more information about the query range and generate a large amount of …

Finding Top-M Leading Records In Temporal Data, Yiyi Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

A traditional top-k query retrieves the records that stand out at a certain point in time. On the other hand, a durable top-k query considers how long the records retain their supremacy, i.e., it reports those records that are consistently among the top-k in a given time interval. In this thesis, we introduce a new query to the family of durable top-k formulations. It finds the top-m leading records, i.e., those that rank among the top-k for the longest duration within the query interval. Practically, this query assesses the records based on how long …

Electrochemically Induced Amorphous-To-Rock-Salt Phase Transformation In Niobium Oxide Electrode For Li-Ion Batteries, Pete Barnes, Yunxing Zuo, Kiev Dixon, Dewen Hou, Sungsik Lee, Zhiyuan Ma, Justin G. Connell, Hua Zhou, Changjian Deng, Kassiopeia Smith, Eric Gabriel, Yuzi Liu, Olivia O. Maryon, Paul H. Davis, Haoyu Zhu, Yingge Du, Ji Qi, Zhuoying Zhu, Chi Chen, Zihua Zhu, Yadong Zhou, Paul J. Simmonds, Ariel E. Briggs, Darin Schwartz, Shyue Ping Ong, Hui Xiong

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Intercalation-type metal oxides are promising negative electrode materials for safe rechargeable lithium-ion batteries due to the reduced risk of Li plating at low voltages. Nevertheless, their lower energy and power density along with cycling instability remain bottlenecks for their implementation, especially for fast-charging applications. Here, we report a nanostructured rock-salt Nb₂O₅ electrode formed through an amorphous-to-crystalline transformation during repeated electrochemical cycling with Li⁺. This electrode can reversibly cycle three lithiums per Nb₂O₅, corresponding to a capacity of 269 mAh g⁻¹ at 20 mA g⁻¹, and retains a capacity …

Strategies For Controlling The Spatial Orientation Of Single Molecules Tethered On Dna Origami Templates Physisorbed On Glass Substrates: Intercalation And Stretching, Keitel Cervantes-Salguero, Austin Biaggne, John M. Youngsman, Brett M. Ward, Young C. Kim, Lan Li, John A. Hall, William B. Knowlton, Elton Graugnard, Wan Kuang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Nanoarchitectural control of matter is crucial for next-generation technologies. DNA origami templates are harnessed to accurately position single molecules; however, direct single molecule evidence is lacking regarding how well DNA origami can control the orientation of such molecules in three-dimensional space, as well as the factors affecting control. Here, we present two strategies for controlling the polar (θ) and in-plane azimuthal (ϕ) angular orientations of cyanine Cy5 single molecules tethered on rationally-designed DNA origami templates that are physically adsorbed (physisorbed) on glass substrates. By using dipolar imaging to evaluate Cy5′s orientation and super-resolution microscopy, the absolute …

Processing Time, Temperature, And Initial Chemical Composition Prediction From Materials Microstructure By Deep Network For Multiple Inputs And Fused Data, Amir Abbas Kazemzadeh Farizhandi, Mahmood Mamivand

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prediction of the chemical composition and processing history from microstructure morphology can help in material inverse design. In this work, we propose a fused-data deep learning framework that can predict the processing history of a microstructure. We used the Fe-Cr-Co alloys as a model material. The developed framework is able to predict the heat treatment time, temperature, and initial chemical compositions by reading the morphology of Fe distribution and its concentration. The results show that the trained deep neural network has the highest accuracy for chemistry and then time and temperature. We identified two scenarios for inaccurate predictions; 1) There …

Novel Mlr-Rf-Based Geospatial Techniques: A Comparison With Ok, Waqas Ahmad, Khan Muhammad, Hylke Jan Glass, Snehamoy Chatterjee, Asif Khan, Abid Hussain

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Geostatistical estimation methods rely on experimental variograms that are mostly erratic, leading to subjective model fitting and assuming normal distribution during conditional simula-tions. In contrast, Machine Learning Algorithms (MLA) are (1) free of such limitations, (2) can in-corporate information from multiple sources and therefore emerge with increasing interest in real-time resource estimation and automation. However, MLAs need to be explored for robust learning of phenomena, better accuracy, and computational efficiency. This paper compares MLAs, i.e., Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Random Forest (RF), with Ordinary Kriging (OK). The techniques were applied to the publicly available Walkerlake dataset, while the exhaustive …

Understanding The Reaction Kinetics Of Polyurethane Flexible Foam, Caitlin Alma Mckinnon

Theses and Dissertations

Polyurethane flexible foam is used throughout daily life predominantly as cushions for chairs and mattresses. Currently new foams are made through extensive research and development via trial and error. There are many reactions interacting with each other during the polyurethane generation process. The numerous reactions create difficulty in modeling and predicting the physical attributes of a foam. This thesis explores the kinetics associated with each reaction to generate a simple model to understand the reaction kinetics with the addition of some additives. This thesis focused on creating the foams in a real-world environment, including allowing ambient water vapor to be …

Effects Of Surface Topography On Macrophages And Bacterial Cells, Joseph Carnicelli

Theses - ALL

An association has been found between the texture of breast implants and anaplastic large cell lymphoma, which led to some textured implants to be withdrawn from the market in 2019. There is evidence that these cancers are associated with the harboring of bacteria on the surfaces of the textured implants. It is possible that specific topographic features hinder the removal of attached bacteria by inhibiting macrophage phagocytosis or promoting biofilm formation. Here we examine how bacteria and macrophages interact with recessive surface topographies as analogs to the surfaces seen on textured breast implants. Changes in bacteria morphology were observed among …

Microkinetic Modeling Of Acetone Hydrogenation Over Different Metal Surfaces With And Without Lateral Interactions In Julia, Emir Hadzic

Theses - ALL

Biomass conversion into near net zero carbon emission fuels as well as intermediates for other products is just one of the technologies that will help reduce the use of fossil fuels. When biomass is being converted to useful products the intermediate steps are often oxygen rich with carbonyl groups. These are further processed using metal catalysts such as platinum and ruthenium. Microkinetic modeling allows for these catalysts to be studied under various operating conditions. Previously hydrogenation of acetone over platinum and ruthenium was studied using algebraic models without lateral interactions with step 3 and 4 being rate determining for Pt …