Inspire E-News 08-09 2016, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

• New students travel Parkview campus with "passports" in hand
• Auto lab upgrades make it a premier teaching and research facility
• Brueshaber awarded prestigious NASA fellowship
• Sunseeker team looking forward to showcasing new solar car

Acoustic Management Of Library Fishbowls, Zachary J. Lilley

Materials Engineering

The purpose of this project is to aid the Cal Poly Robert E. Kennedy library in modifying the “fishbowl” study spaces to more effectively maintain the desirable sound that is generated within the fishbowls while avoiding the entrance and exit of excess noise to and from the fishbowls. A collaboration between the Materials Engineering Department and the Architecture Department provided the combined expertise needed to design, test, and install a prototype acoustic treatment in fishbowl 216-R in consultation with the Cal Poly Library as the voice of the customer. The fishbowl’s undesirable acoustic properties can be attributed to the hard …

On The Feasibility Of Carbon Nanotube Windings For Electrical Machines — Case Study For A Coreless Axial Flux Motor, Vandana Rallabandi, Narges Taran, Dan M. Ionel, John F. Eastham

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

The latest developments in carbon nanotube (CNT) wires and yarns attract great interest for potential application to electromagnetic devices, such as electrical machines and transformers. The CNT material properties are largely different from copper and aluminum in terms of electrical conductivity, mass density, and thermal transfer, creating a new design paradigm for which the traditional rules and device topologies no longer apply. This paper proposes a brushless permanent magnet multidisc axial flux construction with coreless stator and special windings and minimal rotor back iron, as a suitable topology for CNT winding application. Specific analytical closed-form sizing equations, as a function …

Towards Efficient Resource Provisioning In Mapreduce, Peter Nghiem, Silvia M. Figueira

Computer Science and Engineering

The paper presents a novel approach and algorithm with mathematical formula for obtaining the exact optimal number of task resources for any workload running on HadoopMapReduce. In the era of Big Data, energy efficiency has become an important issue for the ubiquitous Hadoop MapReduce framework. However, the question of what is the optimal number of tasks required for a job to get the most efficient performance from MapReduce still has no definite answer. Our algorithm for optimal resource provisioning allows users to identify the best trade-off point between performance and energy efficiency on the runtime elbow curve …

Flexible Residential Test Facility: Impact Of Infiltration And Ventilation On Measured Cooling Season Energy And Moisture Levels (2016), Florida Solar Energy Center, Danny Parker

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Originally published in January 2014, this revision of the report clarifies and corrects references to Standard 62.2 as the 2013 version (62.2-2013), and it corrects the total CFM requirement for the subject buildings under the standard. Further, two plots have been updated to distinguish between the mechanical CFM and the total CFM required for the subject buildings under Standard 62.2-2013.

Final Report: Cooling Seasonal Energy And Peak Demand Impacts Of Improved Duct Insulation On Fixed-Capacity (Seer 13) And Variable-Capacity (Seer 22) Heat Pumps, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Previous phase 1, 2, and 3 research identified that duct conductive losses to an attic environment imposed greater relative energy losses for the variable-capacity systems compared to the fixed-capacity systems (Cummings and Withers 2011) because of the longer dwell time of conditioned air in the ducts. The purpose of the Phase 4 experiments reported here was to see if duct R-value enhancement would benefit the overall operating efficiency of the variable-capacity system relatively more than the fixed-capacity system. The current Phase 4 experiments (the primary focus of this report) found that this was a secondary effect.

Evaluation Of The Impact Of Slab Foundation Heat Transfer On Heating And Cooling In Florida, Florida Solar Energy Center, Danny Parker

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The U.S. Department of Energy's Building America Partnership for Improved Residential Construction (BA-PIRC) performed experiments in the Florida Solar Energy Center's Flexible Residential Test Facility intended to assess for the first time (1) how slab-on-grade construction influences interior cooling in a cooling-dominated climate and (2) how the difference in a carpeted versus uncarpeted building might influence heating and cooling energy use.

Methanol And Dimethyl Ether From Renewable Hydrogen And Carbon Dioxide: Alternative Fuels Production And Life-Cycle Assessment, Michael J. Matzen, Yaşar Demirel

Yaşar Demirel Publications

In this work we investigate two renewably based alternative fuels; methanol and dimethyl ether. The ultimate feedstocks for production are wind-based electrolytic hydrogen and carbon dioxide captured from an ethanol fermentation process. Dimethyl ether production was modeled in ASPEN Plus using a previously simulated methanol production facility. The facilities use 18.6 metric tons (mt) of H₂ and 138.4 mt CO₂ per day. Methanol is produced at a rate 96.7 mt/day (99.5 wt%) and dimethyl ether is produced at a rate of 68.5 mt/day (99.6 wt%). A full comparative life-cycle assessment (cradle-to-grave) of both fuels was conducted to investigate …

Public Transport Accessibility Levels For Ahmedabad, India, Jay S. Shah, Bhargav Adhvaryu

Journal of Public Transportation

Public transport plays an important role in a city’s economy and its social equity. It is also instrumental in reducing automobile dependence and traffic congestion. Several factors must come together to achieve well-functioning public transport systems. One major factor is the level of accessibility offered by the public transport system. To better understand and consequentially enhance accessibility, we must be able to measure it and map it, which is the key aim of this paper.

The methodology in this study, which was originally developed by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and later adopted by Transport for London (TfL) …

Public Transport Crowding Valuation: Evidence From College Students In Guangzhou, Jianrong Liu, Huiying Wen

Journal of Public Transportation

Overcrowding has grown to be an increasingly important issue for public transit in Guangzhou, China. To capture traveler benefits of reduced crowding from improved public transport, it is necessary to identify the relevant importance of crowding to travelers. This paper analyzes the disutility of crowding in metro car and bus transit with discrete choice models. Based on the stated preference survey data from college students in Guangzhou, the results show that there is non-negligible impact of crowding on passenger travel. The relationship between the disutility of crowding and standee density is not linear; that is, the disutility increases at a …

Cross-Elasticities In Frequencies And Ridership For Urban Local Routes, Joseph Totten, David Levinson

Journal of Public Transportation

Observational data from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region’s Metro Transit were analyzed to determine the effects of service levels on ridership levels at different intervals. The research compares changes in service levels and ridership in several service intervals and includes elasticities and cross elasticities, or the influence that these service levels have on different service intervals’ ridership. These cross-elasticities were found to have little effect during the week; however, weekend ridership was found to be influenced by rush-hour and overnight frequencies.

Effects Of Speed, Curves, And Driver Behavior On Passive Securement Systems On Large Transit Buses, Andrea Mather, Katharine Hunter-Zaworski

Journal of Public Transportation

Wheeled mobility devices that are not secured properly on large transit vehicles pose risks to all passengers. The purpose of this study was to increase the understanding of the effects of horizontal and vertical curves, speed, and driver behavior on the safety and security of people using wheeled mobility devices in rear-facing passive containment systems on large transit buses. Testing included the use of manual wheelchairs and lightweight scooters on an articulated low-floor transit bus. The project conclusions were derived from data produced by accelerometers placed on the bus as well as visual observations of wheeled mobility device movement. The …

Evaluation Of Horizontal Equity Under A Distance-Based Transit Fare Structure, Milad Bandegani, Meisam Akbarzadeh

Journal of Public Transportation

Horizontal equity requires equal distribution of investment/benefit/costs among equal members of society. In other words, a transit passenger should pay as much as he/she uses. This study evaluated the measure of fulfillment of this rule in a case study, developed a distance-based fare structure, and shows that justice is better served by switching to the proposed structure. Fare elasticity of demand and probability distribution of transit passenger trip lengths were investigated through a field survey. Although mainly used in the measurement of inequality in income or wealth, the Gini index and the recovery ratio (revenue to cost for each transit …

Modeling Transit Users Stop Choice Behavior: Do Travelers Strategize?, Mohammad Nurul Hassan, Taha Hossein Rashidi, S. Travis Waller, Neema Nassir, Mark Hickman

Journal of Public Transportation

Transit choice research focuses predominantly on mode choice and route choice, whereas very few studies on stop choice are conducted. To fill this gap, this research aimed to study transit stop choice behavior with a focus on how people strategize when making their choices. It is hypothesized that travelers treat stops differently based on various schemes (strategies); minimizing travel time, access time, and the number of transfers are the schemes considered in this study, and the effectiveness of several discrete choice model specifications was examined. The study found that path attributes and stop attributes have significant impacts on stop selection …

Capture And Recycle Of Industrial Co2 Emissions Using Mircoalgae, Michael H. Wilson, Daniel T. Mohler, John G. Groppo, Thomas E. Grubbs, Stephanie Kesner, E. Molly Frazar, Aubrey Shea, Czarena L. Crofcheck, Mark Crocker

Center for Applied Energy Research Faculty and Staff Publications

A novel cyclic flow photobioreactor (PBR) for the capture and recycle of CO₂ using microalgae was designed and deployed at a coal-fired power plant (Duke Energy’s East Bend Station). The PBR was operated continuously during the period May–September 2015, during which algae productivity of typically 0.1–0.2 g/(L day) was obtained. Maximum CO₂ capture efficiency was achieved during peak sunlight hours, the largest recorded CO₂ emission reduction corresponding to a value of 81 % (using a sparge time of 5 s/min). On average, CO₂ capture efficiency during daylight hours was 44 %. The PBR at East Bend …

Capacity Building For Sustainable Workforce In The Construction Industry, Edelmiro F. Escamilla, Mohammadreza Ostadalimakhmalbaf

The Professional Constructor

Research has shown that the construction industry will face workforce shortages that will increase delivery cost and completion time. The purpose of this paper is to first identify and synthesize the fundamental factors impacting recruitment and retention of the potential construction workforce. A qualitative approach was employed in order to collect and synthesize known factors related to workforce development and capacity building for the construction industry. The paper then presents a conceptual framework for conducting research on capacity generation of a sustainable construction workforce—by considering the impact of family unit and cultural values, career path perceptions, higher educational attainment, and …

Comparing Owner Perceptions Vs. Performance Reality On Construction Management At Risk Public School Projects, Noel Carpenter, Dennis C. Bausman

The Professional Constructor

Over the past decade construction expenditures for education have reached approximately $350 billion with $195 billion of that total spent on K-12 public schools. Public funding through state and local taxes is the primary source of support for construction and school districts are charged with spending these dollars wisely. Within the confines of procurement statutes school districts must select a delivery method that best suits their needs. Two commonly used delivery methods are Design-Bid-Build and Construction Manager at Risk (CM at Risk). This paper examines qualitative and quantitative data collected from one hundred thirty-seven new K-12 school projects constructed in …

Free Fall Of Self-Consolidating Concrete In Walls Three Meters High, Donald J. Phillippi, Katie Loughmiller, Ray Buyle, Michael Cesena

The Professional Constructor

Self-consolidating concrete, (SCC) is a highly flowable, non-segregating concrete that allows for concrete placement without vibration or external consolidation. SCC also allows rapid concrete placement with reduced labor costs, resulting in vastly improved concrete surface finishes and architectural applications (RMCAO 2009). To accomplish SCC, the concrete industry has developed improvements in high-range water reducer admixtures for flowability and viscosity-modifying admixtures for stability. The current project investigated six specimens, which provided an evaluation of SCC allowed to free fall 3 m (10 ft) that filled wall formwork with different inclinations and amounts of steel reinforcement. The purpose of the investigation was …

Identification Of Agricultural Land Use In California Through Remote Sensing, Todd Allen Robinson

Master's Theses

Ground truthing actual crop types in an area can be expensive and time-consuming. The California Department of Water Resources attempts to ground truth land use in each county in California every five years. However, this is limited by budgetary constraints and often results in infrequent (more than every ten years) surveying of many counties. An accurate accounting of crops growing in a region is important for a variety of purposes including farm production estimates, groundwater and surface water modeling, evapotranspiration estimation, water planning, research applications, etc. Agricultural land use is continually changing due to development and environmental factors.

Currently, USDA …

Scaled Synthetic Aperture Rader Development, Jason Garvey Schray

Master's Theses

Several previous Cal Poly thesis projects involve synthetic aperture radar (SAR), automatic target recognition (ATR), and tracking. SAR data was either accessed from a publicly available database or generated using complex computer modeling software. The motivation for this dual thesis project is to design and construct a scaled SAR system to support Cal Poly radar projects. Ideally this is a low-cost, high resolution SAR architecture that produces raw range Doppler data for any desired target area. To that end, a scaled SAR system was successfully designed, built, and tested. The current SAR system, however, does not perform azimuthal compression and …

Modeling Bus Dwell Time And Time Lost Serving Stop In China, Chao Wang, Zhirui Ye, Yuan Wang, Yueru Xu, Wei Wang

Journal of Public Transportation

The primary objective of this study was to develop a quantitative approach to estimate bus dwell time and time lost serving stop, which included acceleration and deceleration time, dead time, and time for serving boarding and alighting passengers. A polynomial model incorporating kinematics of a particle was derived for estimating bus acceleration and deceleration time. In addition, descriptive statistics methods were used to analyze dead time. A case study was conducted to show the applicability of the proposed model with data collected from the seven most common types of bus stops in China. R-square and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) …

High-Performance Self-Powered Photodetectors Based On Zno/Zns Core-Shell Nanorod Arrays, Hailing Lin, Lin Wei, Cuncun Wu, Yanxue Chen, Shishen Yan, Liangmo Mei, Jun Jiao

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, there is an urgent demand for high-performance ultraviolet photodetectors with high photosensitivity, fast responsivity, and excellent spectral selectivity. In this letter, we report a self-powered photoelectrochemical cell-type UV detector using the ZnO/ZnS core-shell nanorod array as the active photoanode and deionized water as the electrolyte. This photodetector demonstrates an excellent spectral selectivity and a rapid photoresponse time of about 0.04 s. And the maximum responsivity is more than 0.056 (A/W) at 340 nm, which shows an improvement of 180 % compared to detectors based on the bare ZnO nanorods. This improved photoresponsivity can be understood from the …

Assessing Latrine Use In Rural India: A Cross-Sectional Study Comparing Reported Use And Passive Latrine Use Monitors, Antara Sinha, Corey L. Nagel, Evan A. Thomas, Wolf P. Schmidt, Belen Torondel, Sophie Boisson, Thomas Clasen

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although large-scale programs, like India's Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), have improved latrine coverage in rural settings, evidence suggests that actual use is suboptimal. However, the reliability of methods to assess latrine use is uncertain. We assessed the reliability of reported use, the standard method, by comparing survey-based responses against passive latrine use monitors (PLUMs) through a cross-sectional study among 292 households in 25 villages in rural Odisha, India, which recently received individual household latrines under the TSC. PLUMs were installed for 2 weeks and householders responded to surveys about their latrine use behavior. Reported use was compared with PLUM results …

Minimum Conditions For Visible Mold Growth, G. A. Tsongas, Frank Riordan

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Considerable confusion and misunderstanding exists over the conditions required for visible mold growth at a surface in buildings. That is evident in papers and articles authored by engineers and other scientists, including various ASHRAE, ASTM and Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation publications. One of the major problems is that many HVAC engineers, building scientists, practitioners and others believe there exists a single critical value of the relative humidity (RH) of the indoor or ambient air well away from surfaces, below which mold will not grow on surfaces. However, that is not the case. The purpose of this article is to clarify …

Spur Gear Design: Some New Perspectives, Edward Osakue, Lucky Anetor

Faculty Publications

New perspectives such as harmonic mean, contact patch as translating third body, contact form factor, and service load factor are introduced in spur gear design. The harmonic mean rule characterizes the physical and geometric properties of the contact patch. The contact patch is construed as a body in translation during gear teeth engagement. The contact form factor may be used to compare the load capability of different pressure angle standards. The service load factor captures the influence of different conventional rated load modification factors. Gear design analysis is separated into design sizing and design verification tasks. Design sizing and design …

Lengthscale Effects On Exchange Coupling In Co-Pt L10 + L12 Nanochessboards, Eric P. Vetter, Liwei D. Geng, Priya Ghatwai, Dustin A. Gilbert, Yongmei M. Jin, William A. Soffa, Jerrold A. Floro

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The Co-Pt nanochessboard is a quasi-periodic, nanocomposite tiling of L10 and L12 magnetic phases that offers a novel structure for the investigation of exchange coupling, relevant to permanent magnet applications. Periodicity of the tiling is controlled by the rate of cooling through the eutectoid isotherm, resulting in control over the L10-L12 exchange coupling. First order reversal curve analysis reveals a transition from partial coupling to nearly complete exchange-coupling in a Co40.2Pt59.8 nanochessboard structured alloy as the periodicity is reduced below the critical correlation length. Micromagnetic simulations give insights into how exchange coupling manifests in the tiling, and its impact on …

A Time For Change” An Evaluation Of The Ability Of The Quantity Surveyor To Measure Mechanical And Electrical Services Under The Irish Public Works Contracts (Designed By The Employer) Using The Agreed Rules Of Measurement., Charles Mitchell

Other Resources

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to examine the ability of the quantity surveyor to measure mechanical and electrical bills of quantities under the Irish Public Works Contracts using the Agreed Rules of Measurement 4. The study uses the opinions and perspectives of a broad range of industry stakeholders to identify barriers and drivers which will facilitate this change.

A mixed methodology research method incorporating both quantitative and qualitative research methods was used. A literature review covers relevant research in the field of the Public Works Contracts, the use of bills of quantities and specialist sub-contractors. The results of an unreported survey …

Bicp Global Bim Study, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Articles

The BICP is a direct response to the 2014 Construction 2020 report calling on Enterprise Ireland to work with industry organisations to promote the use of BIM and develop the appropriate technical skills amongst Irish construction firms so that they can successfully compete in markets where BIM is widely adopted or a requirement. There are four distinct work packages to achieve the strategic objectives of the BICP which include amongst other things a systematic review of BIM adoption in international regions, with particular focus on the enablers to support national implementation programmes. This study focused on exploring the value proposition …

Using The Gauge Condition To Simplify The Elastodynamic Analysis Of Guided Wave Propagation, Bhuiyan Yeasin Md, Victor Giurgiutiu

Faculty Publications

In this article, gauge condition in elastodynamics is explored more to revive its potential capability of simplifying wave propagation problems in elastic medium. The inception of gauge condition in elastodynamics happens from the Navier-Lame equations upon application of Helmholtz theorem. In order to solve the elastic wave problems by potential function approach, the gauge condition provides the necessary conditions for the potential functions. The gauge condition may be considered as the superposition of the separate gauge conditions of Lamb waves and shear horizontal (SH) guided waves respectively, and thus, it may be resolved into corresponding gauges of Lamb waves and …

Scenario Analysis For Techno-Economic Model Development Of U.S. Offshore Wind Support Structures, Rick Damiani, Andrew Ning, Ben Maples, Aaron Smith, Katherine Dykes

Faculty Publications

Challenging bathymetry and soil conditions of future U.S. offshore wind power plants might promote the use of multimember, fixed-bottom structures (or “jackets”) in place of monopiles. Support structures affect costs associated with the balance of system (BOS) and operation and maintenance. Understanding the link between these costs and the main environmental design drivers is crucial in the quest for a lower levelized cost of energy (LCOE), and it is the main rationale for this work. Actual cost and engineering data are still scarce; hence, we evaluated a simplified engineering approach to tie key site and turbine parameters (e.g., water depth, …