Engineering Commons^™

Functional Optimization Of Carbon Nanotubes, Taylor Davis, Sr. Brian Iverson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The objective of this project was to create, characterize, and optimize carbon nanotube (CNT) films as a surface functionalization strategy through modifying the growth, infiltration, and patterning during fabrication.

Carbon nanotubes have drawn attention in various disciplines in the scientific community because of their incredible strength, hardness, wettability (hydrophobicity), as well as their kinetic and electrical properties. At BYU specifically, they are being used in diverse applications including fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces and interdigitated electrode biosensors.

Carbon nanotubes can be delicate with a diameter of only a few nanometers when grown. However, the process of carbon infiltration can be used …

Measuring Up: Engineering Stronger And Faster Cardiomyocytes, Kaitlyn Mcentire, Dr. Alonzo Cook

Journal of Undergraduate Research

If a heartbeat connotes life, then cardiomyocytes are the life givers. When heart disease results in cardiomyocyte death, however, these life-giving, beating cells are unable to reproduce, and portions of the heart irreversibly die. Despite modern technology and developments in heart disease treatment and prevention, heart disease remains the number one cause of death in America. With an inability to meet an ever-increasing demand for heart transplants, any potential alternative must be pursued.

Sunflowers, Solar Panels, And Beeswax: Improving Solar Power For The Developing World, Ivyann Oveson Running, Dr. John Salmon

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Inspired by the mechanics of how sunflowers follow the sun, we designed a system to increase output from solar panels by only using simple mechanics and beeswax. Solar power is becoming increasingly popular even in developing countries. We wanted to create a way to increase the power output of solar panels in such areas that lack technical support for current panel rotating mechanisms. When temperatures increase, beeswax expands, and we harness the motion by filling a piston with the beeswax. We use this motion to cause solar panels to turn, following the sun throughout the day and increasing electrical output.

A New Twist On Archimedes’ Screw | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

At the Utah Water Research Lab, engineers are conducting full-scale tests on a unique water-powered turbine that will provide new solutions to distributed energy needs.

Differentiation Of Kidney Progenitors Using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells And Conditioned Media Of Renal Cortical Tubular Epithelial Cells, Steven Passey, Dr. Alonzo Cook

Journal of Undergraduate Research

According to the National Kidney Foundation, 26 million American adults have kidney disease, 47,000 Americans died from kidney disease in 2013, and over 100,000 people await kidney transplants. Current treatment of kidney failure includes dialysis and kidney transplant. Unfortunately, those undergoing dialysis may experience fatigue and other complications. In addition, there is a vast shortage of available kidneys for transplant.

Oxygen And Silver-Oxygen Defects In Ge2se3 Electrochemical Metallization Bridge Memristors, Jau-Tzuoo Chen

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

We present density functional theory (DFT) calculations of oxygen and silver defects in a crystalline model of amorphous Ge₂Se₃. We studied defects arising from atomic oxygen and dioxygen, as well as interstitial silver and silver displacing germanium, following Campbell's conjecture on the mechanism of dendrite formation. For oxygen defect concentrations below 2%, we show that O₂ dissociates in Ge₂Se₃, oxygen atoms are immobile, and oxygen atoms do not cluster. Within this model, the most preferred oxygen defect in intrinsic Ge₂Se₃ is Ge-O-Ge bridge. We conclude that oxygen defects …

Equilibration Of Chloride Ions In Concrete Bridge Decks After Rehabilitation Using Hydro-Demolition And Concrete Overlay, Elizabeth Newbill, Dr. Spencer Guthrie

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In cold regions like northern Utah, harsh winters can lead to decreases in the service life of concrete bridge decks. Chloride-based deicing salts, which are commonly used to remove snow and ice from the surface of concrete bridge decks during winter months, are of particular concern. Even in uncracked concrete, chloride ions can diffuse into the bridge deck and eventually lead to corrosion of the embedded reinforcing steel. When chlorides corrode the steel, expansive rust forms, which causes cracks to form in the deck. These cracks allow for greater chloride ingress, accelerating the corrosion and deterioration processes within the bridge …

Engineering Metal-Ligand Interface For Selective Electrochemical Carbon Dioxide Reduction, Yuxin Fang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Unsustainable exploitation of fossil fuel and its massive greenhouse gas emission necessitates the development in alternative energy sources. Chemical fuels (CH₃OH or C₂H₅OH) outperform other choices, such as batteries for their high energy densities, which is key to portability. Electrochemical reduction of CO₂is capable of producing a wide range of valuable fuels (Syngas, formic acid, methane and methanol, etc.). Converting CO₂into carbon-based fuels further closes the carbon neutral cycle, which contributes to the effort in reducing global CO₂emission. Integration of organic ligands with transition metals shows great potential …

In Vivo Brainstem Imaging In Alzheimer’S Disease: Potential For Biomarker Development, David J. Braun, Linda J. Van Eldik

Neuroscience Faculty Publications

The dearth of effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the largest public health issues worldwide, costing hundreds of billions of dollars per year. From a therapeutic standpoint, research efforts to date have met with strikingly little clinical success. One major issue is that trials begin after substantial pathological change has occurred, and it is increasingly clear that the most effective treatment regimens will need to be administered earlier in the disease process. In order to identify individuals within the long preclinical phase of AD who are likely to progress to dementia, improvements are required in biomarker development. …

Analysis Of Isotruss Joints, Robert Thompson, Dr. David Jensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to identify how different winding patterns of composite tow affects the strength of interwoven joints, like those that exist in IsoTruss and other composite lattice structures. Three different winding configurations were analyzed to compare and determine how the pattern of carbon fiber strand layup would affect the strength of the joints on an IsoTruss member.

Hips Turbulent Flow Modeling For High Schmidt Number Flow A Novel Approach To An Old Problem, Joshua Frei, Dr. David Lignell

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The whorls and vortices of smoke plumes, churning waterfalls, and crashing waves have a captivating sense of mystery about them. This chaotic, seemingly random fluid motion is known as turbulent flow, and it is ubiquitous both in day-to-day life and in engineering problems. Despite the many advances in technology, much of turbulence remains a mystery. It has been called the most important unsolved problem in physics [1].

Estimating Joint Configuration For Soft Robots, Jacob Olson, Dr. Marc Killpack

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Soft robotics are still a relatively new technology. As seen in Figure 1, they are made entirely from compliant materials that use pressurized fluid for both structure and actuation. These robots have great potential in the world of robotics. Soft robots can excel in many areas where rigid robots fall short due to their incredible compliance and low inertia. As soft robotic technologies develop, robots will be much less limited in the scope of what they can do without risk of human injury. They will be able to do tasks working more closely with humans in current industries, and be …

Hierarchal Parcel Swapping (Hips) A Comprehensive Multiscale Subgrid Model For Turbulent Reacting Flow, Justin Ward, Dr. David Lignell

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project is to address the unmet need for a comprehensive, multiscale, regime- and fuel-independent turbulent reacting model by using a novel, physics-based strategy called Hierarchal Parcel Swapping (HiPS). Turbulent flow has been called the most important unsolved problem of classical physics. Modeling turbulent flow is extremely important due to the fact that nearly all flows in the real world are turbulent. Though the exact details of turbulent flow are not of great importance to an engineer, the effect turbulence has on chemical reactions and the overall chemical properties is vital. The solution to the turbulence problem …

Hand-Powered Washing Machine For The Developing World, Chris Bailey, Sean Larson, Megan Peffer, Sarah Ann Skousen, Judith Westwood, Dr. Randy Lewis

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Many countries still hand wash all their clothing. The community of the Uros Islands in Peru is no exception. Our goal was to develop a hand powered washing machine that will be useful to and improve the quality of life of the Uru people. The washing machine must be built out of materials that are inexpensive and readily available to the community. It must also be simple enough for the people to perform any necessary repairs. Furthermore, the final washing machine system could be implemented any developing area with similar needs.

An Ultra-Low Power Analog-To-Digital Converter For Neural Signal Recording: Comparator Research, Alexander Petrie, Dr. Shiuh-Hua Wood Chiang

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Brain diseases, such as depression and strokes, affect an ever-increasing number of the human population. Much scientific research has been devoted to finding ways towards alleviating the negative symptoms of these diseases. However, much more research must be conducted before these maladies are no longer a problem. Neural implantable devices are an essential part of such research. These tiny, electronic devices monitor electrical brain activity and wirelessly transmit the collected data to computers so scientists can analyze it. A common issue with these neural recording devices is battery life. Current technology allows for a battery to last only 3-5 years. …

Static And Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance For Small Uav, Michael Farrell, Dr. Tim Mclain

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are becoming increasingly prevalent in society today. One of the most important problems for such vehicles is obstacle avoidance. Common applications for small UAV require them to navigate through an environment containing many obstacles, both static and dynamic. As part of the 2017 SUAS-AUVSI undergraduate competition, this common problem was simulated with several virtual stationary and moving objects that were to be avoided during flight. The purpose of this research project was to develop a robust obstacle avoidance algorithm to be demonstrated during the mission demonstration of the 2017 SUAS-AUVSI competition.

Floating Active Baffles, System And Method Of Slosh Damping Comprising The Same, Dae Won Kim, Rudy L. Baum, Vijay Santhanam, Balaji Sivasubramanian, Sathya Gangadharan

Publications

This disclosure provides a system for damping slosh of a liquid within a tank, a baffle for use in the system, and a method of damping slosh using the system. The system includes a plurality of baffles. Each baffle has a body configured to substantially float upon the liquid. Each baffle also has an activation material received along at least a portion of the body. The activation material is magnetically reactive provided in a quantity sufficient to enable the body to be manipulated in the presence of a magnetic field (M). The system further includes an actuator configured to pro­vide …

Telemetry Subsystem With Higher Access Duration For Leo Satellites, Jose L. Garcia

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Jose L. Garcia on September 10, 2018.

Spectrum- And Energy-Efficient Radio Resource Allocation For Wireless Communications, Shengjie Guo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Wireless communications has been evolved significantly over the last decade. During this period, higher quality of service (QoS) requirements have been proposed to support various services. In addition, due to the increasing number of wireless devices and transmission, the energy consumption of the wireless networks becomes a burden. Therefore, the energy efficiency is considered as important as spectrum efficiency for future wireless communications networks, and spectrum and energy efficiency have become essential research topics in wireless communications. Moreover, due to the exploding of number mobile devices, the limited radio resources have become more and more scarce. With large numbers of …

A Biomechanical Comparison Of A Low-Profile Mesh Plate Contrasted With Tension Band Wiring Treatment Of Olecranon Fractures And Osteotomies, Jasmin Regalado

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Olecranon fractures are common upper extremity injuries caused by direct trauma to the elbow. Open reduction and internal fixation is the current standard for olecranon fractures that exceed a 2 mm fragment displacement. The tension band wire (TBW) technique is the current standard of care for treating olecranon fractures due to its positive clinical results. However, the complication rate due to prominent hardware is reported to be upwards of 50\%. This research aims to biomechanically test and compare the stiffness and fracture gap of the traditional TBW technique to a low-profile titanium mesh plate (TMP) for chevron-type fractures and osteotomies …

Rapid Biosensor Screening Blood And Urine, Rebecca Whitney Bills, Dr. Bradley Bundy

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) have led to worldwide health problems, including cancers, developmental disorders, and reproductive disorders. A recent study estimates that annual health and economic costs caused by EDCs in the European Union is $200 Billion and that the costs are even greater in the US (1). This is largely due to the extensive number of undetected Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) that we come into contact with on a daily basis. EDCs have been found in dietary, environmental, and household chemicals. Despite this only a handful of EDCs have been characterized. The purpose of this project is to optimize …

Refining Statistical Magnesium Models Via Machine Learning, Andrew Orme, Dr. David Fullwood

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Magnesium is a potential replacement for steels and aluminum in strength applications. Despite desirable strength and weight properties, magnesium is costly to manufacture. To reduce manufacturing costs, extensive research has been done on is a phenomenon called twinning, where a large group of magnesium atoms collectively reorient from a base orientation to a new orientation. This reorientation caused by twinning has the potential to enable easier material deformation, allowing for less costly manufacturing. Our research group pursued a novel approach to twinning research by using data mining and machine learning algorithms. Data collected from samples of magnesium using a scanning …

Investigating The Agricultural Applications Of Acryl Amide Based Hydrogel, Hany A. Elazab Dr

Chemical Engineering

Hydrogel is classified as one of the most effective materials due to its widely used applications either in tissue or agriculture engineering. This scientific research aims to investigate the potential applications of hydrogels in the field of desert agriculture in dry places. In this research hydrogel was prepared under several conditions in order to evaluate and optimize the conditions. The research included optimiz-ing several factors including cross-linking agent, water temperatures and pH. The potential agricultural applications of hydrogel were also investigated.

End-To-End Convolutional Neural Network Model For Gear Fault Diagnosis Based On Sound Signals, Yong Yao, Honglei Wang, Shaobo Li, Zhongnhao Liu, Gui Gui, Yabo Dan, Jianjun Hu

Faculty Publications

Currently gear fault diagnosis is mainly based on vibration signals with a few studies on acoustic signal analysis. However, vibration signal acquisition is limited by its contact measuring while traditional acoustic-based gear fault diagnosis relies heavily on prior knowledge of signal processing techniques and diagnostic expertise. In this paper, a novel deep learning-based gear fault diagnosis method is proposed based on sound signal analysis. By establishing an end-to-end convolutional neural network (CNN), the time and frequency domain signals can be fed into the model as raw signals without feature engineering. Moreover, multi-channel information from different microphones can also be fused …

Pfix: Fixing Concurrency Bugs Based On Memory Access Patterns, Huarui Lin, Zan Wang, Shuang Liu, Jun Sun, Dongdi Zhang, Guangning Wei

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Concurrency bugs of a multi-threaded program may only manifest with certain scheduling, i.e., they are heisenbugs which are observed only from time to time if we execute the same program with the same input multiple times. They are notoriously hard to fix. In this work, we propose an approach to automatically fix concurrency bugs. Compared to previous approaches, our key idea is to systematically fix concurrency bugs by inferring locking policies from failure inducing memory-access patterns. That is, we automatically identify memory-access patterns which are correlated with the manifestation of the bug, and then conjecture what is the intended locking …

Self-Cleaning Nanocomposite Membranes With Phosphorene-Based Pore Fillers For Water Treatment, Joyner Eke, Katherine Elder, Isabel Escobar

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Phosphorene is a two-dimensional material exfoliated from bulk phosphorus and it possesses a band gap. Specifically, relevant to the field of membrane science, the band gap of phosphorene provides it with potential photocatalytic properties, which could be explored in making reactive membranes that can self-clean. The goal of this study was to develop an innovative and robust membrane that is able to control and reverse fouling with minimal changes in membrane performance. To this end, for the first time, membranes have been embedded with phosphorene. Membrane modification was verified by the presence of phosphorus on membranes, along with changes in …

Coal With Carbon Capture And Sequestration Is Not As Land Use Efficient As Solar Photovoltaic Technology For Climate Neutral Electricity Production, James Gunnar Groesbeck, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Avoiding climate destabilization caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, requires climate-neutral electricity sources. It has been proposed that the GHG emissions from coal-fired power plants can be offset by carbon capture and sequestration or bio-sequestration. However, solar photovoltaic (PV) technology has recently declined so far in costs it now offers both technical and economic potential to offset all of coal-fired electricity use. PV only emits GHGs during fabrication and not during use. To determine which technical solution to climate-neutral electricity generation should be preferred, this study aggregates and synthesizes life cycle analysis studies for exergy, GHG emissions and land transformation …

Hydrodeoxygenation Of Aqueous Phase Catalytic Pyrolysis Oil To Liquid Hydrocarbons Using Multi-Functional Nickel Catalyst, Hossein Jahromi, Foster A. Agblevor

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Herein we investigated the hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of aqueous phase pinyon-juniper catalytic pyrolysis oil (APPJCPO) using a new multifunctional red mud-supported nickel (Ni/RM) catalyst. The organic liquid yield after HDO of APPJCPO using 30 wt. % Ni/RM at reaction temperature of 350 °C was 47.8 wt. % with oxygen content of 1.14 wt. %. The organic liquid fraction consisted of aliphatics, aromatics, and alkylated aromatic hydrocarbons as well as small amounts of oxygenates. The RM support catalyzed ketonization of carboxylic acids. The Ni metal catalyzed partial reduction of oxygenates that underwent carbonyl alkylation with aldehydes and ketones on the RM. Catalyst …

The Adoption Of A Design Build Approach In Retrofit Projects – A Descriptive Case Study, Lloyd Scott

Conference papers

The delivery Design Build projects across the built environment in Ireland has begun to take significant shape. There are many examples of the traditional are moving towards more collaborative practices. There exists support for the integration of a design build project approach in the retrofit realm where designer, client and developer can work collaboratively. As with the regular design build process the intent behind this collaborative approach is to encourage those associated with the built environment to consider how retrofit design and construction can contribute positively to addressing elements of climate change and the design build process. The opportunity to …

Individualized Clinical Practice Guidelines For Pressure Injury Management: Development Of An Integrated Multi-Modal Biomedical Information Resource, Kathie M. Bogie, Guo-Qiang Zhang, Steven K. Roggenkamp, Ningzhou Zeng, Jacinta Seton, Shiqiang Tao, Arielle L. Bloostein, Jiayang Sun

Institute for Biomedical Informatics Faculty Publications

Background: Pressure ulcers (PU) and deep tissue injuries (DTI), collectively known as pressure injuries are serious complications causing staggering costs and human suffering with over 200 reported risk factors from many domains. Primary pressure injury prevention seeks to prevent the first incidence, while secondary PU/DTI prevention aims to decrease chronic recurrence. Clinical practice guidelines (CPG) combine evidence-based practice and expert opinion to aid clinicians in the goal of achieving best practices for primary and secondary prevention. The correction of all risk factors can be both overwhelming and impractical to implement in clinical practice. There is a need to develop practical …