Engineering Commons^™

Prove Endurance Car Front Suspension, Lauren A. Williams, Logan Simon, Justine G. Kwan

Mechanical Engineering

This document details the collaborative Mechanical Engineering Senior Project with Cal Poly PROVE Lab on PROVE Lab’s Project 2; an electric vehicle designed to travel 1000 miles on a single charge. Logan Simon, Justine Kwan, and Lauren Williams are given the challenge of designing an innovative proof of concept front suspension suspension for this vehicle.

After detailed research of new suspension systems, it was determined that the innovative nature could be in the form of unique manufacturing methods, materials use, or mechanical design. At this point in time, this vehicle is a purely conceptual design with no concrete requirements. Therefore …

Developing An Integrated Model For The Corn, Ethanol, And Beef Systems Using A Loosely Coupled Web Framework, Ryan Anderson

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

With the global population approaching 9 billion people by the year 2050, the world’s food, energy, and water (FEW) resources must be used more intelligently to provide for everyone. While we understand how individual FEW systems behave using modeling, we cannot understand the full environmental and production impacts of decisions in each system without understanding how they are all linked together. An approach to coupling these systems is starting with identifying a few highly interconnected FEW systems. The corn, ethanol, and beef systems are large economic and agricultural drivers in the Midwest United States and are highly linked. Many individual …

Powering A Biosensor Using Wearable Thermoelectric Technology, Anneliese Bals, Noah Barnes, Rafael Bravo, Nicolas Garcia, Joseph O'Bryan, Dylan Santana

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Wearable medical devices such as insulin pumps, glucose monitors, hearing aids, and electrocardiograms provide necessary medical aid and monitoring to millions of users worldwide. These battery powered devices require battery replacement and frequent charging that reduces the freedom and peace of mind of users. Additionally, the significant portion of the world without access to electricity is unable to use these medical devices as they have no means to power them constantly. Wearable thermoelectric power generation aims to charge these medical device batteries without a need for grid power.

Our team has developing a wristband prototype that uses body heat, ambient …

The Vessel For Autonomous Research Underwater (The Varuna), Tyler Briles, Shae Connor, Erin Guthrie, Anthony Jackson, Madeleine Peauroi

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Humans are intimately connected to the Earth’s ocean, and yet only 5% of it has been explored. Learning more about marine life and ocean chemistry can only improve our stewardship efforts. The addition of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle to the Santa Clara University Robotic Systems Laboratory’s collection of marine robots will contribute to this quest for knowledge. It will assist researchers by providing a low-cost, easy-to-use, portable, reliable, and safe alternative to operator-controlled vehicles. This report describes our motivations for this project, the decisions we made in the design and manufacturing of the VARUNA, and tradeoff analyses of possible options. …

Urinalysis Screening For Rural Communities, Dana Bren-Cardali, Lilian Dao, Jeffrey Destruel, Ryan Fernandez

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Access to medical care and health screenings is a necessity for patients around the globe, but it can be difficult to provide this without screenings becoming costly or convoluted. In rural and underdeveloped areas, patients are often disadvantaged when it comes to finding reliable and affordable healthcare. The isolation provided by their location and the rising costs of physicians makes it impossible for most impoverished communities to attain personalized care. Because of this, treatable diseases often go unaddressed, allowing diseases to progress to a critical condition. Mortality rates have shown to be higher in communities located in rural areas and …

Enhancing Mobility And Independence Of Wheelchair Users, Briar Blake, Paul Nauleau

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Conditions as simple as a leg fracture or more severe impairments such as paralysis and stroke may confine a person to a wheelchair. Wheelchairs help people with limited mobility transport themselves to different locations, but do not help the person leave the wheelchair. Users would need to do this to enter a car, use the restroom, take a shower, and sit at a table comfortably with family. The following design is a wheelchair attachment that serves to provide the user with increased mobility and independence. Wheelchair users struggle to get into and out of their chairs due to the unassisted …

The Human Keyboard, Derek Char, Thomas Chung, Alexander Mckee, Allen Pai

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Most products that implement features for user interactions utilize buttons or switches for the user to command to select actions to perform. Such designs are typically controlled with direct motions, such as touch or voice and are seldom designed in consideration of those unable to utilize direct control. In this project, we designed technology that reads naturally occuring biosignals from the body, which then can be apply those signals with any interface. For our specific application in this project, we decided to implement a keyboard. Instead of teaching the fingers how to type on a mechanical keyboard, the body can …

Cervis: Cervical Cancer Early Response Visual Identification System, Evangelia Bouzos, Ivy Fernandes, Marina Predovic

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Our goal is to make a positive impact in the cervical cancer diagnostic space through the development of an accurate, cost effective solution that enables women in low resource settings to test for cervical cancer on a frugal and effective platform. In developed countries, we rely on regular preventive care, such as pap smears, to identify any cellular abnormalities that may indicate the disease state. However, due to the high cost and laboratory requirements of this procedure, women in low resource settings typically do not have access to this procedure. Since they are not regularly screened and often have little …

Engineered Living Nanoparticles For The Treatment Of Inflammatory Diseases, Annie Brown, Alex Campanelli, Adarsh Tantry

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a widespread, debilitating autoimmune disease characterized by painful inflammation of the joints. Current treatments for RA are either ineffective, expensive, or have undesirable effects, such as an adverse immune response. To mitigate these effects, we have designed an exosome-based treatment for inflammation. We chose to utilize exosomes for their longer half-life in the body, better penetrative capacity, and biocompatibility, thus improving upon previous RA treatments. To do this, we created a stable cell line to produce exosomes modified at the surface to express a tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR), which possesses the ability to act as …

Meshr: A Modular, Economical Skin Graft Hand Roller, Maggie Alt, Josée Fournier, Madeline Krenek, Will Paton

Bioengineering Senior Theses

In South Africa and around the world, the rates of severe burns are a significant health issue. Skin grafts are used to improve the function and appearance of the burned area and reduce the amount of time a patient is in the hospital. To minimize the amount of skin needed and maximize the coverage of the graft, the harvested sample is meshed in a lattice pattern so it can expand and graft a much larger surface area. Unfortunately, the current methods and devices used in both high and low-income countries have been optimized for hospitals with larger budgets and more …

Reserved Optimisation: Handling Incident Priorities In Emergency Response Systems, Muralidhar Konda, Supriyo Ghosh, Pradeep Varakantham

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Emergency (medical, fire or criminal) Management Systems(EMSs) are crucial for ensuring public safety and security. Typically in many cities, less than 20% of the cases received by EMSs belong to the extremely serious category and require immediate help. Rest of the incidents typically are less serious and thereby allow more flexibility in response time. Therefore, for efficient management of EMS requests, several EMSs now categorise an incoming emergency request into apriority level based on well studied “triaging” methods. Leading research on optimising emergency response has either focussed on data-driven models for settings with homogenous incidents or on generic heuristics (that …

Negative Electron Transfer Dissociation Sequencing Of 3-O-Sulfation-Containing Heparan Sulfate Oligosaccharides, Jiandong Wu, Juan Wei, John D. Hogan, Pradeep Chopra, Apoorva Joshi, Weigang Lu, Joshua Klein, Geert Jan Boons, Cheng Lin, Joseph Zaia

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Among Dissociation Methods, Negative Electron Transfer Dissociation (NETD) Has Been Proven the Most Useful for Glycosaminoglycan (GAG) Sequencing Because It Produces Informative Fragmentation, a Low Degree of Sulfate Losses, High Sensitivity, and Translatability to Multiple Instrument Types. the Challenge, However, is to Distinguish Positional Sulfation. in Particular, NETD Has Been Reported to Fail to Differentiate 4-O- Versus 6-O-Sulfation in Chondroitin Sulfate Decasaccharide. This Raised the Concern of Whether NETD is Able to Differentiate the Rare 3-O-Sulfation from Predominant 6-O-Sulfation in Heparan Sulfate (HS) Oligosaccharides. Here, We Report that NETD Generates Highly Informative Spectra that Differentiate Sites of O-Sulfation on Glucosamine …

Augmented Design Capabilities For Origami Tessellations, Janette Darlene Herron

Theses and Dissertations

Applying engineering principles to tessellation origami-based designs enables the control of certain design properties, such as flexibility, bending stiffness, mechanical advantage, shape conformance, and deployment motion. The ability to control these and other properties will enable augmented design capabilities in environments which currently limit the design to specific materials, including space, medicine, harsh environments, and scaled environments (such as MEMS applications). Other applications will be able to achieve more complex motions or better satisfy design and performance requirements.This research demonstrates augmented design capabilities of origami tessellations in engineering design in rigid-foldable and non-rigid-foldable applications. First, a method to determine Poisson's …

Suitability Of The Kalina Cycle For Power Conversion From Pressurized Water Reactors, Jack Ryan Webster

Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of this work is to determine the Kalina cycle's suitability for thermal power conversion from a pressurized water reactor. Several previous papers have examined this application, but these either lack proof of concept or make unfeasible assumptions. This work expands current knowledge by simulating the Kalina cycle and comparing it to current pressurized water reactor Rankine cycles in order to identify which is more efficient. Prerequisite to the modeling is a simulation tool capable of modeling the thermodynamics of ammonia/water mixtures. Instead of using an existing program, a new one called Clearwater is used. This tool is …

Mgsnn2: A New Eco-Friendly Wide Band Gap Semiconductor, Krystal R. York

Masters Theses

Materials having a wide band gap (above 2 eV) can provide new alternatives for existing light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and other opto-electronic devices. Currently, many such devices are comprised of low-earth-abundant elements, such as gallium and indium, which are harmful to the environment to extract and difficult to recycle. Alternatively, MgSnN2 is an unexplored material comprised of earth abundant elements which benefit from a mature recycling infrastructure. This material has a predicted band gap of 3.43 eV, indicating that it could be a viable substitute for GaN (band gap of 3.4 eV), which is commonly used in LEDs and other device …

Leave The Features: Take The Cannoli, Jonathan Joseph Catanio

Master's Theses

Programming languages like Python, JavaScript, and Ruby are becoming increasingly popular due to their dynamic capabilities. These languages are often much easier to learn than other, statically type checked, languages such as C++ or Rust. Unfortunately, these dynamic languages come at the cost of losing compile-time optimizations. Python is arguably the most popular language for data scientists and researchers in the artificial intelligence and machine learning communities. As this research becomes increasingly popular, and the problems these researchers face become increasingly computationally expensive, questions are being raised about the performance of languages like Python. Language features found in Python, more …

Relative Sea Level, Tides, And Extreme Water Levels In Boston Harbor From 1825 To 2018, Stefan Talke, A. C. Kemp, J. Woodruff

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using newly-discovered archival measurements, we construct an instrumental record of water levels and storm tides in Boston (MA) since 1825. After ascertaining the 19th century datum and correcting for a 0–0.03 m bias in the modern tide-gauge record, we show that local, decadally-averaged relative sea level (RSL) rose by 0.2860.05 m since 1826, with an acceleration of 0.02360.009 mm/yr2. Tide range decreased by 5.5% between 1830 and 1910, due in large part to dredging and filling of Boston Harbor, and trended slightly upward thereafter. An evaluation of storm events since 1825 suggests that trends in flood risk are driven by …

Assessment Of The Potential Of Proposed Stations Of The California High-Speed Rail As Major Hubs For Physical And Economic Development, Seitu Akira Coleman

Master's Theses

This study investigated the potential for development of station catchment areas around the proposed California High-Speed Rail System. The study was prompted by a review of practices of Japanese railway company groups that engage not only in train operations, but also in business diversification and property development within the station areas of their lines. These actions allow the company groups to diversify their revenues streams, increase ridership on their lines, and operate as a whole with net profits. This is in contrast to transit agencies in the United States, which only focus on transporting passengers along their lines and do …

Human Knee Fea Model For Transtibial Amputee Tibial Cartilage Pressure In Gait And Cycling, Gregory Lane

Master's Theses

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a debilitating disease affecting roughly 31 million Americans. The incidence of OA is significantly higher for persons who have suffered a transtibial amputation. Abnormal cartilage stress can cause higher OA risk, however it is unknown if there is a connection between exercise type and cartilage stress. To help answer this, a tibiofemoral FEA model was created. Utilizing linear elastic isotropic materials and non-linear springs, the model was validated to experimental cadaveric data. In a previous study, 6 control and 6 amputee subjects underwent gait and cycling experiments. The resultant knee loads were analyzed to find the maximum …

Differential Power Analysis In-Practice For Hardware Implementations Of The Keccak Sponge Function, Nathaniel Graff

Master's Theses

The Keccak Sponge Function is the winner of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) competition to develop the Secure Hash Algorithm-3 Standard (SHA-3). Prior work has developed reference implementations of the algorithm and described the structures necessary to harden the algorithm against power analysis attacks which can weaken the cryptographic properties of the hash algorithm. This work demonstrates the architectural changes to the reference implementation necessary to achieve the theoretical side channel-resistant structures, compare their efficiency and performance characteristics after synthesis and place-and-route when implementing them on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), publish the resulting implementations under the …

Vehicle Pseudonym Association Attack Model, Pierson Yieh

Master's Theses

With recent advances in technology, Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) have grown in application. One of these areas of application is Vehicle Safety Communication (VSC) technology. VSC technology allows for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications that enhance vehicle safety and driving experience. However, these newly developing technologies bring with them a concern for the vehicular privacy of drivers. Vehicles already employ the use of pseudonyms, unique identifiers used with signal messages for a limited period of time, to prevent long term tracking. But can attackers still attack vehicular privacy even when vehicles employ a pseudonym change strategy? The major contribution …

Artificial Neural Network-Based Robotic Control, Justin Ng

Master's Theses

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are highly-capable alternatives to traditional problem solving schemes due to their ability to solve non-linear systems with a nonalgorithmic approach. The applications of ANNs range from process control to pattern recognition and, with increasing importance, robotics. This paper demonstrates continuous control of a robot using the deep deterministic policy gradients (DDPG) algorithm, an actor-critic reinforcement learning strategy, originally conceived by Google DeepMind. After training, the robot performs controlled locomotion within an enclosed area. The paper also details the robot design process and explores the challenges of implementation in a real-time system.

Corridor Navigation For Monocular Vision Mobile Robots, Matthew James Ng

Master's Theses

Monocular vision robots use a single camera to process information about its environment. By analyzing this scene, the robot can determine the best navigation direction. Many modern approaches to robot hallway navigation involve using a plethora of sensors to detect certain features in the environment. This can be laser range finders, inertial measurement units, motor encoders, and cameras.

By combining all these sensors, there is unused data which could be useful for navigation. To draw back and develop a baseline approach, this thesis explores the reliability and capability of solely using a camera for navigation. The basic navigation structure begins …

Thermal Vacuum Chamber Refurbishment And Analysis, Adrian Michael Williams

Master's Theses

Spacecraft are subject to different environments while on orbit around the Earth and beyond. One of the most critical of these environments that must be counteracted is the thermal environment. Each spacecraft has an operating temperature that is specified in the mission requirements. The requirement stems from internal component operating temperatures that are critical to mission success. Prior to placing the spacecraft in orbit, engineers must be sure that the spacecraft will survive or risk losing the mission entirely.

The primary way to mitigate this risk is to use a thermal vacuum chamber (TVAC). The chamber is designed to resemble …

The Design And Implementation Of A Supersonic Indraft Tube Wind Tunnel For The Demonstration Of Supersonic Flows, Daniel Kenneth Johnson

Master's Theses

Historically, the endeavor of scale testing flight vehicles at supersonic Mach numbers, especially for long durations, has required the development of closed-loop wind tunnels, which are extremely expensive both to build and operate due to the high complexity and incredible power required to drive such a system. The intermittent blowdown wind tunnel, indraft tunnel, and shock tunnel have alleviated many of these cost requirements to some degree, whilst facilitating testing at very high Mach numbers and enthalpies; however, these systems require the handling of gases at pressures and temperatures that can be prohibitive for many university settings. The Ludwieg tube …

N-Slope: A One-Class Classification Ensemble For Nuclear Forensics, Justin Kehl

Master's Theses

One-class classification is a specialized form of classification from the field of machine learning. Traditional classification attempts to assign unknowns to known classes, but cannot handle novel unknowns that do not belong to any of the known classes. One-class classification seeks to identify these outliers, while still correctly assigning unknowns to classes appropriately. One-class classification is applied here to the field of nuclear forensics, which is the study and analysis of nuclear material for the purpose of nuclear incident investigations. Nuclear forensics data poses an interesting challenge because false positive identification can prove costly and data is often small, high-dimensional, …

Assessing The Photoprotective Effects Of Fluorescent Sphingomyelin Against Uvb Induced Dna Damage In Human Keratinocytes, Rebecca Marie Kandell

Master's Theses

Non Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC) affects 3.3 million Americans each year and results from Ultra Violet Radiation (UVR) damage to DNA in the form of pyrimidine dimers and photoproducts [1]–[5]. Cells directly detect the damage and initiate apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, or DNA repair by modulating p53 and p21 levels [6]–[9]. Current methods of photoprotection include sunscreen, but controversy over safety of some active ingredients necessitates research into more natural alternatives [10]–[12]. In particular, 24 hour incubation with bovine milk sphingomyelin (BSM) has demonstrated photoprotective potential by reducing p21 and p53 levels in keratinocytes (KRTs) after UV radiation [13], [14]. …

Extended-Use Ecg Monitor, Daniel Aaron Soski

Master's Theses

In this thesis, a prototype ECG monitor was developed that is integrated into an elastic shirt and takes a 3-lead ECG for over 5 days. The high-quality measurements can be used to identify markers indicative of various detrimental heart conditions. Measurements recorded by the device are encrypted and stored onto a micro-SD card. Current Holter monitors are expensive and have functional lives less than 48 hours; however, extended duration monitoring has been proven more useful in diagnosis. The device designed demonstrates that ECG measurements can be taken over longer durations without sacrificing quality, comfort, or device cost.

Determining Feasibility Of A Propulsionless Microsatellite Formation Flight Mission, Aaron Levis

Master's Theses

Benefits of developing missions with multiple formation flying spacecraft as an alternative to a traditional monolithic vehicle are becoming apparent. In some cases, these missions can lower cost and increase flexibility among other situational advantages. However, there are various limitations that are imposed by these missions that are centered on the concept of maintaining the necessary formation. One such limitation is that of the propulsion system required for each spacecraft. To mitigate the complexity and mass of the onboard propulsion, the pairing of electromagnetic actuators and differential drag to replace the functionality of a propulsive system is investigated. By using …

Mechanical Characterization Of Selectively Laser Melted 316l Stainless Steel Body Centered Cubic Unit Cells And Lattice Of Varying Node Radii And Strut Angle, Christopher James Hornbeak

Master's Theses

An experimental study of several variants of radius and strut angle of the body centered cubic unit cell was performed to determine the mechanical properties and failure mechanisms of the mesostructure. Quasi static compression tests were performed on an Instron® universal testing machine with a 50kN load cell at 0.2mm/min. The test samples were built using a SLM Solutions 125 selective laser melting machine with 316L stainless steel. Test specimens were based on 5mm cubic unit cells, with a strut diameter 10% of the unit cell size, with skins on top and bottom to provide a cantilever boundary constraint. Specimens …