Engineering Commons^™

Surrogate Affine Approximation Based Co-Optimization Of Transactive Flexibility, Uncertainty, And Energy, Hongzing Ye

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This study presents an approach to co-optimization of transactive flexibility, energy, and optimal injection-range of Variable Energy Resource (VER). Flexibility receives immense attention, as it is the essential resource to accommodate VERs in modern power systems. With a novel concept of transactive flexibility, the proposed approach proactively positions the flexible resources and optimizes the demand of flexibility. A surrogate affine approximation (SAA) method is proposed to solve the problem with variable infinite-constraint range in polynomial time. It is shown that SAA is more optimistic than the traditional affine policy in the power literature. The SAA method is also applicable to …

Design And Characterization Of A Plunge-Capable Friction Stir Welding Temperature Feedback Controller, Jonathan David Erickson

Theses and Dissertations

Temperature control in friction stir welding (FSW) is of interest because of the potential to improve the mechanical and microstructure characteristics of a weld. Two types of active temperature control have been previously implemented for steady-state friction stir welding conditions: PID Feedback Control and Model Predictive Control. The start-up portion of a weld is an obstacle for these types of active control.To date, only minimal exploratory research has been done to develop an active temperature controller for the start-up portion of the weld. The FSW temperature controller presented in this thesis, a Position-Velocity-Acceleration (PVA) controller implemented with gain-scheduling, is capable …

Body Armor Shape Sensing With Fiber Optic Sensors, Frederick Alexander Seng

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, the rate of the BFD during body armor impact is characterized with fiber Bragg gratings for the first time ever. The depth rate is characterized using a single fiber optic sensor, while the entire shape rate can be characterized using multiple fiber optic sensors. This is done with a final depth accuracy of less than 10% and a timing accuracy of 15% for BFDs as deep as 50 mm and impact event of less than 1 millisecond. The shape sensing method introduced in this dissertation is different from traditional fiber optic sensor shape reconstruction methods in the …

An Empirical Path Loss Model For Wireless Sensor Network Deployment In A Library Environment, Thomas John Misilo

Theses and Dissertations

Wireless networks are becoming more commonplace which has necessitated the know-how to optimally place the devices. There have been studies using wireless sensor networks inside of libraries and museums. However, extensive research has not been completed on propagation modeling for use in the library environment. The main aim of this research is to provide a propagation path loss model for a typical library environment, while comparing two types of antennas (wire and small dipole antenna). This research develops path loss models for a peer-to-peer 2.4 GHz system, where both the transmitter and the receiver are located at the same elevated …

Catalytic Augmentation Of An Arc-Ignited Hydrogen Peroxide/Abs Hybrid Rocket System, Stephen A. Whitmore, Christopher J. Martinez

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

The authors have collaborated with an industry partner to develop a prototype upper stage for a dedicated nano-launch vehicle. In addition to providing sufficient impulse for orbit insertion, the unique motor system also provides capability for multiple restarts; allowing operation as an orbital maneuvering thruster. The hybrid motor design uses 85%-90% hydrogen peroxide solution and 3-D printed ABS as propellants. In the original system design the peroxide catalyst bed was completely removed and a patented arc-ignition system thermally ignited the propellants. The thermal ignition system was effective but resulted in a combustion latency of approximately 1-second, reducing overall performance and …

Privacy-Preserving Mining Of Association Rule On Outsourced Cloud Data From Multiple Parties, Lin Liu, Jinshu Su, Rongmao Chen, Ximeng Liu, Xiaofeng Wang, Shuhui Chen, Ho-Fung Fung Leung

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It has been widely recognized as a challenge to carry out data analysis and meanwhile preserve its privacy in the cloud. In this work, we mainly focus on a well-known data analysis approach namely association rule mining. We found that the data privacy in this mining approach have not been well considered so far. To address this problem, we propose a scheme for privacy-preserving association rule mining on outsourced cloud data which are uploaded from multiple parties in a twin-cloud architecture. In particular, we mainly consider the scenario where the data owners and miners have different encryption keys that are …

Optimizing Dynamic Range For Micro-Electro-Mechanical Resonators, Douglas John Schoeller

Theses and Dissertations

The performance of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) is a topic that attracts attention from the scientific community due to their diverse applications. The use of MEMS has been applied to areas of medicine, timing, sensing, and microfluids to name a few. This work seeks to enhance the performance of a MEM resonator by optimizing its linear dynamic range (LDR) through the idea of combining the mixed nonlinear effects that stem from mechanical and electrostatic forces. The modeling procedure in this work incorporates the third-order Duffing model and includes an electrostatic effect that is expanded to the fifth order nonlinearity. When involving …

Systems Engineering Analysis For Optimum Selection Protocol For Thermal Expansion Measurement Of A Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composite Tube, Ronald Uchimiya

LMU Theses and Dissertations

A material’s Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) is a valuable physical property, particularly for structural fiber reinforced composites that are routinely used in satellite/aerospace applications. Satellite space structures are routinely designed with a high degree of dimensional and thermal stability. Designing and verifying for near zero CTE performance is a common design requirement. The CTE is routinely a physical property with known values for common materials. However, the strength, stiffness and CTE properties on a multi-ply graphite fiber reinforced laminate composite can be tailored to specific engineering requirements. Because of this, a method of verification (testing) is routinely performed to …

Multi-Objective Design Optimization Of Reverse Total Shoulder Arthroplasty To Maximize Range Of Motion And Joint Stability, Josie A. Elwell

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Reverse total shoulder arthroplasty was developed to restore range of motion (ROM) and joint stability to patients with pre-operative conditions that are not addressed by conventional replacements. Although reverse total shoulder arthroplasty is the current gold standard for treating a range of indications, the effects of varying its design on functional outcomes of the procedure are still not well understood.

To that end, it is not yet clear which configurations, in terms of both design and surgical placement parameters, maximize range of motion and stability of the joint. It was hypothesized that there is trade-off between the two. These types …

Inference Framework For Model Update And Development, Xiao Lin

Theses and Dissertations

Computational models play an important role in scientific discovery and engineering design. However, developing computational models is challenging, since the process always follows a path contaminated with errors and uncertainties. The uncertainties and errors inherent in computational models are the result of many factors, including experimental uncertainties, model structure inadequacies, uncertainties in model parameters and initial conditions, as well as errors due to numerical discretizations. To realize the full potential in applications it is critical to systematically and economically reduce the uncertainties inherent in all computational models.

Assessing The Tensile And Fatigue Behavior Of Aerosol Jet Printed Nano Silver Particle Traces On Polyimide Substrates, Roshan Muralidharan

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Flexible interconnects are integral to flexible hybrid electronics. Aerosol jet, inkjet or screen printing offer various advantages and disadvantages compared to electroplating, but the behavior of printed metal traces under various types of loading is very different and not yet well understood. This thesis presents an assessment of the electromechanical behavior of aerosol jet printed Nano silver particles on two common polyimide substrates, Upilex and Kapton.

There are many different aspects to electromechanical testing of flexible interconnects, but this work focuses on the effects of tension and cyclic loading. In comparison to the much more widely researched electroplated copper or …

Development Of Collagen-Based Scaffolds For Differentiation Of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Siteng Fang

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Collagen hydrogel has been broadly studied and applied in engineering 3D scaffold materials in tissue engineering. A collagen hydrogel can provide cells with a porous and soft environment to proliferate and differentiate. However, lacking mechanical stiffness and shrinkage resistance made it a challenge to sustain shape and size during a long stem cell differentiation process. In addition, a cytocompatible scaffold for human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-laden culture has not been fully investigated. The goal of this study is to develop stable and biocompatible collagen-based scaffolds that are suitable for direct seeding and lineage progression of iPSCs. In this work, …

Experience Constructing The Artifact Genome Project (Agp): Managing The Domain's Knowledge One Artifact At A Time, Cinthya Grajeda, Laura Sanchez, Ibrahim Baggili, Devon R. Clark, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

While various tools have been created to assist the digital forensics community with acquiring, processing, and organizing evidence and indicating the existence of artifacts, very few attempts have been made to establish a centralized system for archiving artifacts. The Artifact Genome Project (AGP) has aimed to create the largest vetted and freely available digital forensics repository for Curated Forensic Artifacts (CuFAs). This paper details the experience of building, implementing, and maintaining such a system by sharing design decisions, lessons learned, and future work. We also discuss the impact of AGP in both the professional and academic realms of digital forensics. …

A Framework And Exploration Of A Cybersecurity Education Escape Room, Justin Charles Snyder

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a review of educational-escape-room literature followed by a design-oriented framework (the Snyder Escape Room Framework or SERF) and demonstrates the potential efficacy of escape-rooms in cybersecurity education. Several authors have proposed frameworks and guidelines for game and educational design regarding escape rooms. This work coalesces some of those ideas into a more substantial and comprehensive framework (SERF) that designers can use when developing educational escape rooms. The Snyder Escape Room Framework provides heuristics for goals and objectives, players, activities, context, trajectory design, and evaluation. Additionally, this work describes and analyzes the novel prototyped BYU GCC escape room …

Fundamental Investigation Of Magnesium Corrosion Using Experiments And Simulation, Dila Ram Banjade

Theses and Dissertations

Magnesium (Mg) is the lightest of all structural metals and has tremendous potential for applications in the lightweight industry. However, the corrosion of Mg is a significant barrier towards its wider use. Despite years of research, the fundamental understanding of Mg corrosion still remains short. The enhanced hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with anodic polarization, the modeling of galvanic corrosion and the impact of hydrogen bubbles for galvanically coupled Mg are important aspects of Mg corrosion that need to be understood before any mitigation measures can be taken. The results presented in this work provide a key step in that direction. …

Evaluating Opportunities And Barriers To Improving The Energy Efficiency Of Small Nebraska Wastewater Treatment Plants, Matthew J. Thompson

Department of Environmental Engineering: Theses and Other Student Research

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP)s account for about 0.8% of U.S. electricity use. Small WWTPs serving communities of populations less than 10,000 accounts for 95% of treatment plants in Nebraska. These plants are significantly less efficient compared to large systems and thus improving their energy efficiency (E2) is a growing focus in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with their operation. Energy use of plant unit operations was evaluated for several plants and included analysis of energy for space heating. Specific infrastructure and/or operational changes reported by operators following an E2 benchmarking project were evaluated by quantifying the change in …

Interface Structure And Deformation Mechanisms Of Mg/Nb Multilayers, Xinyan Xie

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Magnesium (Mg) and its alloys, as the lightest structural materials, are very attractive for a range of weight sensitive applications, such as aircraft engine, transportation industry and so on. However, their further applications are limited due to the weak properties, such as the low strength and poor ductility. In recent years, advanced techniques aiming at the modification of the microstructures, have been developed to promote the properties of Mg and its alloys, such as modifying the texture, refining the grain size, forming the intermetallic phase, and introducing the interfaces or stacking faults into the systems. Constructing Mg/Nb multilayers, which introduces …

Characterizing Common And Domain-Specific Package Bugs: A Case Study On Ubuntu, Xiaoxue Ren, Qiao Huang, Xin Xia, Zhenchang Xing, Lingfeng Bao, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Ubuntu is an open source software platform that runs everywhere from the smartphone, the tablet and the PC to the server and the cloud. In Ubuntu, there are many self-contained or third-party software packages for different use, and a bug report in Ubuntu could affect one or more packages simultaneously. Identifying the common package bugs in Ubuntu can help both developers and users better understand the packages they are developing or using, and also provide further guidelines to developers of similar packages in the future. In this paper, we perform a large-scale empirical study of common package bugs on Ubuntu …

Compositional Reasoning For Shared-Variable Concurrent Programs, Fuyuan Zhang, Yongwang Zhao, David Sanan, Yang Liu, Alwen Tiu, Shang-Wei Lin, Jun Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Scalable and automatic formal verification for concurrent systems is always demanding. In this paper, we propose a verification framework to support automated compositional reasoning for concurrent programs with shared variables. Our framework models concurrent programs as succinct automata and supports the verification of multiple important properties. Safety verification and simulations of succinct automata are parallel compositional, and safety properties of succinct automata are preserved under refinements. We generate succinct automata from infinite state concurrent programs in an automated manner. Furthermore, we propose the first automated approach to checking rely-guarantee based simulations between infinite state concurrent programs. We have prototyped our …

Dynamics Of Spacecraft Orbital Refueling, Casey Clark

Theses and Dissertations

A quantitative collation of relevant parameters for successfully completed experimental on-orbit fluid transfers and anticipated orbital refueling future missions is performed. The dynamics of connected satellites sustaining fuel transfer are derived by treating the connected spacecraft as a rigid body and including an internal mass flow rate. An orbital refueling results in a time-varying local center of mass related to the connected spacecraft. This is accounted for by incorporating a constant mass flow rate in the inertia tensor. Simulations of the equations of motion are performed using the values of the parameters of authentic missions in an endeavor to provide …

Human-Centered Design Of A 3d-Augmented Strategic Weather Management System For The Aviation Community, Sébastien Léonce Paul Boulnois

Theses and Dissertations

Convective weather is one of the main causes of accidents in the National Airspace System according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The purpose of this research, aligned with current NextGen research efforts, was to determine how weather information, presented in 2D and/or 3D, and associated with interaction features, could impact airline pilots’ weather-related situation awareness and decision-making capabilities. Human-Centered Design principles, along with Design Thinking, were used and led to the design of a 3D-Augmented Strategic Weather Management System aiming to satisfy this research question. The system is called “Onboard Weather Situation Awareness System” (OWSAS) in the scope of this …

Evaluation And Design Improvement Of An Augmentative And Alternative Communication Tool For Children With Autism, Moez Lidinallah Fessi

Theses and Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorder treatment is a real challenge in our society. In an attempt to manage this, Augmentative and Alternative Communication devices became more and more prevalent in the form of software installed on portable devices such as tablets. These mobile applications help individuals with autism to enhance their communication capabilities. Some of the concerns pertaining to the success these systems are the efficacy and the capability, the ease of use, and the user engagement. The research described in this thesis focuses on the usability of a particular application named Livox. This usability evaluation consisted of a threefold approach: (1) …

A Unified Approach To Route Planning For Shared Mobility, Yongxin Tong, Yuxiang Zeng, Zimu Zhou, Lei Chen, Jieping Ye, Ke Xu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

There has been a dramatic growth of shared mobility applications such as ride-sharing, food delivery and crowdsourced parcel delivery. Shared mobility refers to transportation services that are shared among users, where a central issue is route planning. Given a set of workers and requests, route planning finds for each worker a route, i.e., a sequence of locations to pick up and drop off passengers/parcels that arrive from time to time, with different optimization objectives. Previous studies lack practicability due to their conflicted objectives and inefficiency in inserting a new request into a route, a basic operation called insertion. In this …

Throughput And Yield Improvement For A Continuous Discrete-Product Manufacturing System, Md Shahriar J. Hossain

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A seam-welded steel pipe manufacturing process has mainly four distinct major design and/or operational problems dealing with buffer inventory, cutting tools, pipe sizing and inspection-rework facility. The general objective of this research is to optimally solve these four important problems to improve the throughput and yield of the system at a minimum cost.

The first problem of this research finds the optimal buffer capacity of steel strip coils to minimize the maintenance and downtime related costs. The total cost function for this coil feeding system is formulated as a constrained non-linear programming (NLP) problem which is solved with a search …

Soa Maturity Influence On Digital Banking Transformation, Alan Megargel, Venky Shankararaman, Terence P. C. Fan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Digital Banking is an evolution of online banking, where the banks attempt to further enhance customer experience by integrating digital technologies such as mobile technology, social media and analytics. Traditional banks have the highest barriers to entry into the digital banking market due to the presence of legacy core banking systems. These legacy systems while still high performing and reliable, are inflexible to change and are not easily integrated to the modern application systems needed for delivering digital banking services across multiple online banking channels. One solution that is widely adopted in the industry to overcome this obstacle is the …

Tornado And Hurricane Hazards: Reconnaissance, Structural Analysis And Vulnerability Modeling, Fernando Simon Plaz

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is composed of three main projects which are directly linked to wind engineering. Hazards such as tornadoes and hurricanes are natural disasters which causes human and economic losses. First, the study consists on a forensic analysis made to a Tornado that hit Funing and Sheyang counties, in the Jiangsu Province of China. 21 villages, mostly rural, experienced important damages to different type of structures. The work will describe field observations and structural analyses made to communication towers. Preliminary estimates of wind speeds will be given based on the observations and the analysis as well as recommendations to reduce …

Employees Attitudes Toward Safety Risk Management And Safety Performance At U.S. Airports, Umut Oztekin

Theses and Dissertations

Increasing air transportation traffic around the world initiated authorities to take new safety measures into consideration. In 2010, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to introduce Safety Management Systems (SMS) to the airport community (FAA, 2016). Throughout the years, the FAA has introduced SMS as a 4-pillar system for airports to provide a systematic approach to identify hazards, mitigate risks, increase safety performance, enhance reporting systems, and increase communication systems. It is advised by the FAA that airport employees should confidently speak up and report safety related incidents for further development of airport safety. The …

Design And Simulation Of An Intelligent Self-Adaptive System For A Smart Home, Basman M. Hasan Alhafidh

Theses and Dissertations

Home automation and control systems as basic elements of smart cities have played a key role in the development of our homes environments . They have a wide range of applications in many fields at home such as security and monitoring, healthcare, energy, and entertainment applications. The improvement of humans’ living standards make people keep trying to delegate many of their needs to a home automation system. Such a system has been built with capabilities of predicting what the user intends to do in smart home environment. However, there are many issues that need more investigation and solutions, such as: …

Isru Thermal-Driven Processes On Interplanetary Surfaces And Characteristics On Production Of Commodities, Jesus A. Dominguez

Theses and Dissertations

Extraterrestrial In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is a primary area of interest to enable successful exploration, mining, and human settling in space missions. Native extraterrestrial conditions, such as vacuum conditions and low gravity are challenging as their effects on workable-scale ISRU operations are basically unknown. This dissertation research work studied three thermal-driven properties on JSC-lA lunar regolith simulant at pilot-plant-­scale under vacuum (a native ambient condition on the moon and asteroids): (1) gasification and decomposition of regolith's components that have the potential of generating gaseous oxygen, metals, and alloys without the necessity of terrestrial precursors, (2) vacuum void formation during the …

Sponsored Libre Research Agreements To Create Free And Open Source Software And Hardware, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

As a growing number of companies reject intellectual property (IP) monopoly-based business models to embrace libre product development of free and open source hardware and software, there is an urgent need to refurbish the instruments of university-corporate research partnerships. These partnerships generally use a proprietary standard research agreement (PSRA), which for historical reasons contains significant IP monopoly language and restrictions for both the company and the university. Such standard research agreements thus create an artificial barrier to innovation as both companies using a libre model and universities they wish to collaborate with must invest significantly to restructure the contracts. To …