Engineering Commons^™

Wear-Resistant Extrusion Auger For The Production Of Charcoal Briquettes From Agricultural Waste, Maureen O’Neill, Aaron Wagner

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Ugandan social enterprise AEST makes and sells agricultural waste charcoal briquettes. The extrusion auger used wore down quickly, hampering production. The team worked to find a better material or heattreatment process to improve the auger's lifetime. The team built a custom pin-on-disk testing apparatus and used it along with optical microscopy to analyze the wear mechanism. The team then heat-treated and tested additional samples to find the best treatment. The team suggested improving AEST’s current case hardening process by increasing the case depth to 0.04 in (0.1016 cm) and using oil quenching.

Exploration Of Sortase A-Inhibitor Binding Mechanisms Through Isothermal Titration Calorimetry, Eddy Liu

Bioengineering Master's Theses

The enzyme Sortase A plays a critical role in the virulence of gram-positive bacteria, facilitating their ability to attach to and infect host tissues. Because of its accessible location on the surface of bacteria and in light of the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains, Sortase A has become an important target for novel drugs and their associated research. Here we investigate the thermodynamic characteristics and binding mechanism of Sortase A and inhibitors using isothermal titration calorimetry. The results support a two-step, sequential binding mechanism involving induced fit and conformational change. We recommend that further studies involving other small molecule inhibitors …

Carbon Nanotubes On Graphene: Electrical And Interfacial Properties, Richard Senegor, Zachary Baron

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

An integrated circuit (IC) consists of copper (Cu) and tungsten (W) interconnects to facilitate conduction among its components such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors. As the minimum feature size in IC technology continues to scale downward into the sub-20 nm regime, interconnects are faced with performance and reliability challenges arising from increased resistance and electromigration, respectively [1]. To partially mitigate such challenges, our project aims at studying a structure as a potential replacement for Cu and W, formed by growing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) directly onto graphene, and investigating the resulting electrical and interfacial properties. Various CNT/Graphene structures are fabricated using …

Phosphate Contaminant Detection In Water Through A Paper-Based Microfluidic Device, Brandon Miura, Alex Wagner, Philip Wu

Bioengineering Senior Theses

This report describes a project aimed at developing a low-cost, portable, on-site, user-friendly system for detecting different concentrations of phosphate in drinking water. Phosphate is a natural chemical, but toxic in large concentrations; detection is therefore important to avoid drinking contaminated water. Despite this fact, no cheap, and/or nontoxic system for phosphate detection is yet on the market.

The detection system utilizes a paper-based microfluidic device to automate the electrochemical detection process, which normally requires expert use of lab equipment. When combined with a portable potentiostat that works with a mobile app, the device will allow untrained users to determine …

Fiber-Optic Sensor For Strain-Insensitive Temperature Measurements, Ming Han

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

An in-line fiber-optic temperature sensor is disclosed. In an implementation, the in-line fiber-optic temperature sensor includes an optically transmissive fiber, a reflector, a microstructured fiber defining a channel therein for receiving a fluid, and a Fabry-Perot cavity in fluid communication with the micro structured fiber. The micro structured fiber can be retained between the optically transmissive fiber and the reflector. The Fabry-Perot cavity defined by a material and configured to receive a gas having an index of refraction that changes in a known way with temperature and pressure changes in fluid communication with the channel of the micro structured fiber. …

Effects Of Passive And Active Training Paradigms On Bone And Muscle Recovery After Spinal Cord Injury, Brittany Lynn King

Theses and Dissertations

The effects spinal cord injury (SCI) has have been studied in both human and animal models. Specifically in incomplete SCI, the bone degradation and muscle atrophy seen in the lower limbs has been documented, along with the effects of different training paradigms on bone and muscle loss. This study implemented a clinically relevant animal model of a moderate spinal contusion injury at the T9--T10 level, along with active body weight supported treadmill training (BWSTT) and passive bike training, to compare the effects such training methods have on the bone microstructure properties and muscle masses in the lower limbs of rats. …

The Development Of A Platform Interface With The Use Of Virtual Reality To Enhance Upper-Extremity Prosthetic Training And Rehabilitation, Ashley D. Knight

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the investigation and development of an effective prosthetic training and rehabilitation platform with the use of virtual reality to facilitate an effective process to return amputees to the highest level of independence and functioning possible.

It has been reported that approximately 10 million people live with a limb loss worldwide, with around 30% being an upper-extremity amputee. The sudden loss of a hand or arm causes the loss of fine, coordinated movements, reduced joint range of motion (ROM), proprioceptive feedback and aesthetic appearance, all which can be improved with the use of a prosthesis and proper …

Autonomous Speed Control For Kia Optima, Andrew J. Combs, Kyle Fugatt, Kevin Mcfall

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

The standard method for speed control is the cruise control system built into most modern vehicles. These systems employ a PID controller which actuates the accelerator thus, in turn, maintains the desired vehicle speed. The main drawback of such a system is that typically the cruise control will only engage above 25 mph. The goal of this paper is to describe a system which we used to control vehicle speed from a stop to any desired speed using an Arduino microcontroller and a CAN BUS shield, from where autonomous features can be built upon. With this system, we were able …

Impact Of Threshold Clipping On Bit Error Rate In Ofdm-Like Systems, Felipe Hoshino, Theodore Grosch

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

In wireless communications, 3GPP LTE is one of the solutions to meet the greater transmission data rate demand. One issue inherent to this technology is the PAPR (Peak-to-Average Power Ratio) of OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) modulation. This high PAPR affects of the efficiency of power amplifiers. One approach to mitigate this effect is the Crest Factor Reduction (CFR) technique. In this work we simulate the impact of Hard Limited Clipping Crest Factor Reduction technique on BER (Bit Error Rate) in OFDM based Systems. In general, the results showed CFR has more effect on higher digital modulation schemes, as expected. …

Jump Linear Quadratic Control For Energy Management Of An Isolated Microgrid, Nathaniel Tucker

Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's Theses

Energy security and the aging grid infrastructure in the United States are two important subjects at the crossroads between politics and technology. One proposed solution to these two issues revolves around the concept of an isolated microgrid. Isolated microgrids are becoming increasingly popular combining multiple energy generation and storage systems to diversify and secure their private energy portfolios. The work presented in this thesis applies jump linear quadratic control to the energy management of an isolated microgrid operating with solar generation, fuel cell, and battery energy storage system. A continuous finite state Markov chain is used to model the intermittent …

Poly Pelletizer: Recycled Pet Pellets From Water Bottles, Logan Costa-Smith, Ian Maltzer, James Martino

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Plastic water bottles comprise a large amount of waste worldwide. The goal of the Poly Pelletizer project is to create a system that will turn water bottles into polyethylene terephthalate (PET) pellets compatible with extruders to produce 3-D printer lament, along with other recycling applications.The system promotes a sustainable solution to plastic pollution by giving manufactures, particularly in developing nations, the means to produce their own bulk materials using waste plastic. Shrinking industrial recycling processes to a workbench scale gives individuals the ability to convert excess bottles into seemingly limitless products. The system works by using a dual heating and …

Beta: Bioprinting Engineering Technology For Academia, Max Abrams, Jeffrey Barone, Cynthia Le, Jacob Ososke, Franz Plum, Emily Takimoto, Josie Warren

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Higher STEM education is a field of growing potential, but too many middle school and high school students are not testing proficiently in STEM subjects. The BETA team worked to improve biology classroom engagement through the development of technologies for high school biology experiments. The BETA project team expanded functionality of an existing product line to allow for better student and teacher user experience and the execution of more interesting experiments. The BETA project’s first goal was to create a modular incubating Box for the high school classroom. This Box, called the BETA Box was designed with a variety of …

Characterizing The Viscoelastic Behavior Of Pdms/Pdps Copolymers, Mark E. Small

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Viscoelasticity is the property of materials that exhibits both viscous and elastic characteristics when undergoing deformation. In polymeric materials, the mechani- cal behavior is dominated by this viscoelastic phenomenon. Creating computational models for these materials can be quite complicated due to their frequency depen- dent and temperature dependent material properties. The research presented in this paper will use state of the art methods to fully develop a material model for a filled polydimethylsiloxane-polydiphenynlsiloxane (PDMS/PDPS) copolymer foam that has yet to be characterized. Mechanical properties of PDMS/PDPS copoly- mers are currently being studied to assess engineering performance, and to provide accurate …

Material Effects On Strawbale Wall Seismic Capacity, Margaret Ackerson, Mckenna Williams

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

Strawbale construction is a sustainable, viable alternative to conventional building practices. As a newly introduced appendix to the International Residential Code (IRC), the strawbale construction requirements may benefit from further evaluation and possible refinement. Such evaluation and refinement may lead towards code change proposals that will improve the provisions and make strawbale construction safer and more accessible to the general public. This seismic test series addressed the effect of mesh wire type on ductility and the validity of the existing wall slenderness limits. The tests focused on slender walls dominated by flexural deformations. Welded wire mesh wall performed better than …

Human Biomechanics Ii Course Project, Abdelaziz Mohammad

Best Integrated Writing

Mohammad tested Human Arm Module PASCO ME-6807A, in order to determine some of the biomechanical characteristics, such as force, tension, instantaneous angular velocity, and acceleration vs. angular position required for various movements and arm positions in space.

Powerplaylist: A Collaborative Web Application That Aims To Give Everyone A Voice, Sara Cassella, Alexander Polatnick, Kristen Ronhovde

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

PowerPlaylist is a client-server based online collaborative playlist that allows guests of a party to have private access to the hosts playlist. Guests can access the queue of songs, request songs, or up-vote or down-vote songs already requested by other guests. Before PowerPlaylist, there was no musical platform that allowed guests at an event to express his or her opinions on what music should be played without distracting the host or DJ. This web application platform solves that problem while requiring little authentication, and not requiring any software downloads in order to be used. PowerPlaylist aims to give every guest …

Virtual Reality Rhythm Game, Joshua Yi, Jordan Lai

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Virtual reality headsets such as the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift bring robust virtual reality technology in the hands of consumers. However, virtual reality technology is still a very new and unexplored domain with a dearth of compelling software that takes advantage of what virtual reality has to offer. Current rhythm games on the virtual reality platform lack a sense of immersion for the player. These games also require players to remain stationary during gameplay. Our solution is a game where players have to hit musical notes that appear in a trail around them. The trail will move in different …

Droplet-Microfluidic Device For The Characterization Of Perfluorinated Emulsions, Daniel Horvath, Nam Ahn Tran

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Microfluidics is being used throughout academia and industry today to perform large numbers of experiments with extremely small volumes of fluids. By doing this, those that study microfluidics hope to raise through-put, lower cost and limit the environmental impact of scientific research.2 Complementing the increased use of microfluidics, the use of perfluorinated emulsions in the field of droplet-based microfluidics is also experiencing large growth.3 However, many of the products available today are either proprietary and/or poorly understood. While some chemical structures are known, some of the most scientifically intriguing perfluorinated oils and surfactants do not have their chemical structures or …

Engineering Synthetic Antibody By Expanded Genetic Code, Elizabeth Batiuk, Tracy Nguyen, Casey Kiyohara

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Antibodies are extensively used in research for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes because of their unrivaled specificity and biomarker binding strengths.1 Currently, monoclonal antibodies are most commonly used because of their production consistency and purity.1 However, there are significant ethical and economic challenges associated with producing monoclonal antibodies.¹ Synthetic antibodies provide a promising alternative to monoclonal antibodies in both clinical and research applications.²

Our proposed synthetic antibody system incorporates 3,4-dihydroxy-l-phenylalanine (L-DOPA), an unnatural amino acid used to increase binding affinity, into a peptide sequence specific for the prostate specific antigen (PSA), a biomarker for prostate cancer. This addition is …

Design Of A Single Family Home And Rooftop Rainwater Catchment System In Nepal Using Earthbag Technology, Makena Wong, Olivia Carreon, Nabila Farah Franco

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

After the devastating April 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal, entire villages were destroyed and remain unbuilt. In addition, rural subsistence farmers in the village of Takure, Nepal are struggling to provide for their families due to a long seasonal dry season from October to May.8 In order to address this crisis, this team designed and implemented a simple earthbag house with a rooftop rainwater catchment system for homeless villagers in Takure. This single-family house design aimed to address Takure’s most urgent needs by being seismically-resistant, locally sourced, economically feasible, and sustainable. The project also created valuable benefits for the Takure …

Method Of Inhibiting Nitrosation Of An Aqueous Amine Solution Used In A Process Of Removing Carbon Dioxide From A Flue Gas, Joseph Eugene Remias, Payal Chandan, Kunlei Liu

Center for Applied Energy Research Faculty Patents

A method is provided for inhibiting nitrosation of an aqueous amine solution used in a process of removing carbon dioxide from a flue gas. That method includes a step of adding an effective amount of an antioxidant to the aqueous amine solution being circulated between an absorber and a stripper of a carbon dioxide capture system.

Intuitive Error Space Exploration Of Medical Image Data In Clinical Daily Routine, Christina Gillmann, Pablo Arbeláez, José Tiberio Hernández Peñaloza, Hans Hagen, Thomas Wischgoll

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Medical image data can be affected by several image errors. These errors can lead to uncertain or wrong diagnosis in clinical daily routine. A large variety of image error metrics are available that target different aspects of image quality forming a highdimensional error space, which cannot be reviewed trivially. To solve this problem, this paper presents a novel error space exploration technique that is suitable for clinical daily routine. Therefore, the clinical workflow for reviewing medical data is extended by error space cluster information, that can be explored by user-defined selections. The presented tool was applied to two real-world datasets …

Vital Sensory Kit For Use With Telemedicine In Developing Countries, Alejandra Pacheco, Jose Hernandez, Antonio Maldonado-Liu, Natalie Arrizon

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

In many developing countries, a large percentage of the population lacks access to adequate healthcare. This is especially true in India where close to 70% of the population lives in rural areas and has little to no access to hospitals or clinics. People living in rural India often times cannot afford to pay to see a doctor should they need to make the journey to a hospital. Telemedicine, a breakthrough in the past couple decades, has broken down the barrier between the patient and the physician. It has slowly been implemented in India to make doctors more available to patients …

Front Dynamics Of Elliptical Gravity Currents On A Uniform Slope, S. J. Zhu, ‪Nadim Zgheib, S. Balachandar, A. Ooi

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

In the present investigation, we report data from direct numerical simulations of elliptical, finite release, Boussinesq gravity currents propagating down a uniform slope. The study comprises a series of simulations of elliptical gravity currents on a range of slope angles. The shape parameters are varied to study the effects of the initial cross-sectional aspect ratio (Λ0) and mean height to lock radius ratio (Γ) on the dynamics of the gravity current. It is found that the long-time development of the current spatial mass distribution is influenced by its initial shape at smaller slope angles (θ=5∘ and 10∘) whereas the long-time …

Design And Implementation Of A Direct/Indirect Hybrid Trust Model For Secure Authentication In A Mobile Ad Hoc Network, Immanuel Amirtharaj, Eric Bonilla, Parker Newton

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

We investigated the problem of cryptographic key authentication in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET). Using the theory of digital trust, we propose an authentication scheme for MANETs that includes a hybrid trust model between the direct and indirect approaches. Our hybrid trust model supplies trust data to a decentralized web of trust in order to authenticate nodes in a MANET. We ran some simulations of our authentication scheme to verify its security and investigate potential trust threshold values. Also, we designed and implemented a proof-of-concept iOS application that implements our authentication scheme. Some future work includes investing several implications …

Ehras: Electronic Healthcare Record Management For Ad Hoc Settlements, Jack Kingsman, Evan Paul, Max Werner

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Providing reliable and accurate healthcare to refugees in an ad hoc setting can be challenging for a variety of reasons, and most settlements currently utilize little to no record keeping for patients. EHRaS, our mobile-first electronic healthcare record management system, can provide an inexpensive electronic healthcare record (EHR) solution that is flexible in last-mile applications where infrastructure and technical support is at a minimum. By utilizing NFC technology, novel caching practices, and an extensible interface, our system not only securely identifies patients and authorizes staff to access sensitive medical data, but generally provides a competitive, low-overhead alternative to other open …

Reactive Stepping With Functional Neuromuscular Stimulation In Response To Forward-Directed Perturbations, Alexander J. Hunt, Brooke M. Odle, Lisa M. Lombardo, Musa L. Audu, Ronald J. Triolo

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Implanted motor system neuroprostheses can be effective at increasing personal mobility of persons paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. However, currently available neural stimulation systems for standing employ patterns of constant activation and are unreactive to changing postural demands. Methods: In this work, we developed a closed-loop controller for detecting forward-directed body disturbances and initiating a stabilizing step in a person with spinal cord injury. Forward-directed pulls at the waist were detected with three body-mounted triaxial accelerometers. A finite state machine was designed and tested to trigger a postural response and apply stimulation to appropriate muscles so as to produce …

Cmag: Iot Baby Monitor, Xiaoting Liu, Kyle Takeuchi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as SIDS, is the leading cause of mortality in infants from one month to one year of age. We propose a video-based baby monitoring system with Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities to help shorten the response time of SIDS cases. Using a video amplification technique developed at MIT dubbed “Eulerian Magnification” to amplify subtle movements we can compare pixel color differences in frames for breathing detection in a recorded video of a baby. In the event that abnormal movement is detected from the baby an alarm will be generated to notify the parents or …

Optimal Charging Scheduler For Electric Vehicles On The Florida Turnpike, Florida Solar Energy Center, Zhihua Qu

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This project developed a methodology to simulate and analyze roadway traffic patterns and expected penetration and timing of electric vehicles (EVs) with application directed toward the requirements for electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) siting and purchasing/leasing at turnpike plazas. The project also developed a wireless-communication-based driver-assistance application that would optimize the location and timing of charging for individual drivers as well as efficiency of the overall charging network. The first steps of the project were to develop the systematic methodology for analyzing expected penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) and their impacts on the overall transportation infrastructure. An analytical model consisting …

Pro-Resume: The Infographic Resume Builder, Ivy Wu, Kyra Wayne, Sanika Lakka, Tanisha Rai

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Scoring an interview is a challenge for any job seeker these days, thus having a unique and well-organized resume is crucial to grab a recruiter’s attention. Online resume builders such as ResumeNow and VisualizeMe have been created to help users build resumes; however, their templates are lacking in quantity, customizability, and in some instances, even legibility. Thus, our team set out to create an infographic online resume builder, a web application that allows its users to build, organize, and beautify their resumes to aid them in their job search. Our system allows for easy integration with their LinkedIn profiles so …