Engineering Commons^™

Secondary Water Saturation Of The Rock Mass And Quality Of Rocks In Active Mine Areas Bordering The Flooded Workings Of Closed Mines, Mirosława Bukowska

Journal of Sustainable Mining

The goal of this paper was to inspect the influence of capillary water saturation on the specific strain energy of sedimentary rocks. The relationships between the determined specific strain energies in an air-dried state and in a state of capillary water saturation for detrital rock were exponential, with a strong correlation among the variables. For silt, the relationships were described by a second-degree polynomial function, and the correlation was medium or weak. The relationships for kinetic and dissipated energy were described with a linear function. Pearson correlation coefficients indicated a strong correlation among the variables for detrital rock and a …

C.S.A. Assessment - Tamp Family Health Center Portal, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

This C.A.S. assessment evaluates how the Tampa Family Health Centers website influences userattention, cognitive processing, information accessibility, navigation efficiency, and digital user experience.The assessment examines whether the platform supports intentional engagement and informed decision-making while minimizing cognitive overload, distraction, confusion, and unnecessary attentional demands.

TFHC serves as a healthcare access portal providing appointment scheduling, patient resources, providerinformation, healthcare services, MyChart access, payment services, and community health resources.These functions make attention management and information clarity critical to successful user outcomes.

Comparative Analysis Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Implications For Active Learning And Assessment At Various Curricular Levels Of Stem And Health Sciences In Developed Versus Underprivileged Countries, Vinay Munlapudi, Santanu De

FDLA Journal

Today’s all-pervasive emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) necessitates a comprehensive evaluation of its role in education, especially for occupational disciplines in health sciences and STEM. AI has reshaped student learning and instructors’ navigation of the evolving, post coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) global academic landscape. This study aimed at encapsulating evidence-based AI implications for student-centered, active learning and assessment at various curricular levels of science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and health sciences education in developed versus underprivileged or less developed countries. An extensive, scoping review of 65 recent, scholarly publications was conducted over six months through diverse search engines (PubMed, Google …

65th Annual Rocky Mountain Conference On Magnetic Resonance

Rocky Mountain Conference on Magnetic Resonance

Conference program, abstracts, and information about the 65th annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Conference on Magnetic Resonance. Held in the Snowbird Resort and Conference Center, Snowbird, Utah, August 2-6, 2026.

Rockin’ Rover On The Rainbow Road, Michael Kolta, Lawrence Burgee, Ying Yuan

Transformations

This paper presents a progressive series of age-appropriate lesson plans for grades K-12 that all use the same interdisciplinary activity to educate students about Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) simultaneously. Technology from Texas Instruments (TI) was employed including a TI Nspire graphing calculator that can run Python programs, a TI Innovator Hub, and a TI Rover. The TI Rover is a small, robotic car that has sensors and is controlled by the calculator via the Hub hardware interface. A Python program was developed that uses the color sensor in the Rover to detect the color on colored paper …

Feasibility And Performance Of Aerogravity Assists For Ceres Missions, Divinaa E. Burder

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

This work investigates the feasibility and performance of aerogravity assist (AGA) maneuvers for missions to Ceres, with emphasis on both interplanetary trajectory design and atmospheric flight dynamics. AGAs provide substantially greater turning capability than pure gravity assists by exploiting aerodynamic lift during atmospheric passes, thereby enabling greater heliocentric energy changes than pure gravity assists. To quantify these benefits, this study integrates a broad interplanetary trajectory search with high-fidelity atmospheric performance modeling. Candidate trajectories for launch years 2030–2050 are generated for multiple inner-planet encounter sequences using vehicles with lift-to-drag ratios (L/D) between 1 and 7. Atmospheric flight segments are simulated using …

Modeling Formation Of Turbulent Sporadic-E Clouds Using Realistic Wind Data, Aaron M. Schinder, Kenneth S. Obenberger, Jorge L. Chau, Juan M. Urco, Matthias Clahsen, Benjamin F. Akers, Daniel J. Emmons

Faculty Publications

A high resolution two-dimensional multi-fluid model of sporadic-E layers was developed and driven with physically realistic mesosphere, lower thermosphere (MLT) winds measured over Albuquerque, New Mexico. The realistic E-region winds are produced by the HYdrodynamic Point-wise Environment Reconstructor (HYPER) model that ingests meteor derived wind observations from a Spread-spectrum Interferometric Multistatic meteor radar Observing Network (SIMONe) system combined with the Navier-Stokes equations to provide high resolution three-dimensional wind fields over time. Sporadic-E dynamics are simulated using both realistic winds from HYPER as well as idealized hyperbolic tangent windshears to compare and contrast. Overall, the model shows greater inhomogeneity and irregularity …

Linear Relationships Of Gibbs Free Energy For Rare Earth Element Oxide, Hydroxide, Chloride, Fluoride, Carbonate, Ferrite, And Zirconate Minerals And Crystalline Solids, Ruiguang Pan, Alexander P. Gysi, Artaches A. Migdisov, Nicole C. Hurtig, Chen Zhu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rare Earth Elements (REE) are classified as critical minerals and materials essential for the transition from fossil fuels to renewable and clean energy. Accurate thermodynamic properties of REE minerals and other crystalline solids are crucial for geochemical modeling of REE speciation, solubility, and transport in ore deposits and for extraction, chemical processing, and recycling. However, the standard Gibbs free energy of formation (∆Gof,REEX) for these solids vary by 10s kJ mol−1 across different sources from literature. We applied the Sverjensky linear free energy relationship (LFER) to evaluate internal consistency for isostructural REE solid groups and predicted ∆Gof values for solid …

Measurement Of Pollution Emissions From Natural Gas Stoves: Preparation For An Induction Cooktop Intervention Study, Jessica Zanella Lorensi

Dissertations and Theses

Humans spend ∼90% of their time enclosed in buildings. Indoors environments can be a source of pollutant which can affect health and productivity. Appliances that combust fossil fuels indoors, like stoves, are a critical source of a range of pollutants, like carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). In the US, the usual cooking fuel is natural gas (NG), presented in more than 30% of households in the country. Some studies in the literature linked cooking pollutants, including those specific to gas combustion, to various health conditions, including heart and respiratory diseases. Nitrogen dioxide, for example, can be …

Developing And Validating A Socio-Technical Bim-Lean Integration Maturity Model For Predicting Construction Project Performance, Felix Delmonte

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This study proposes a socio-technical, multi-level maturity model that integrates BIM and Lean to explain variation in project performance across cost, schedule, productivity, quality, safety, and sustainability, and outlines a sequential mixed-methods design-science programmed for instrument development and validation. Combining systematic review, semi-structured expert interviews, Delphi consensus, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, multi-criteria weighting, and PLS-SEM, the approach separates adoption, subsystem capability, and integration maturity, and treats integration as an emergent property of aligned infrastructure, human capability, governance, and continuous-improvement routines. Measurement development emphasizes reflective multi-item constructs for BIM technical capability, Lean production governance, system integration quality, socio-technical alignment, and …

An Integrated Bim, Ipd And Lean Capability Maturity Model For Construction, Felix Delmonte

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This study proposes an integrated BIM–IPD–Lean maturity construct that conceptualizes digital information management, contractual governance, and production system discipline as interdependent socio-technical capabilities and develops a validated measurement architecture to relate this higher order construct to project performance. A mixed methods strategy is described that uses qualitative interviews and expert panels to generate items and maturity level descriptions, followed by pilot testing and rigorous psychometric evaluation (EFA, AVE, Composite Reliability, CFA/PLS-SEM) to establish convergent and discriminant validity for BIM, IPD, and Lean subscales. Hypotheses anticipate a positive association between integrated maturity and quality, time, cost, safety, productivity, sustainability, and stakeholder …

Single Fluorogens And Orientation-Localization Microscopy For Quantifying Chemical And Biomolecular Dynamics At The Nanoscale, Yiyang Chen, Yuanxin Qiu, Matthew D. Lew

Electrical & Systems Engineering Publications and Presentations

Many chemical systems look uniform only because ensemble measurements average over their most interesting molecules. Electron-transfer rates vary across electrode surfaces; lipid membranes contain nanodomains with distinct packing and fluidity; peptide aggregates exhibit local polymorphism; and biomolecular condensates contain transient networks of interactions that are blurred in ensemble images. A central challenge in chemical imaging is not simply to see smaller structures, but to measure chemical variables such as polarity, redox potential, and molecular confinement at the single-molecule level. In this Account, we describe how fluorogens, molecules whose brightness, blinking, spectral shifts, orientation, rotational mobility, and motion are directly shaped …

Experimental Material Analysis And Load Monitoring Of Polyurethane–Steel Belts Subjected To Static And Cyclic Dynamic Loading: Implications For Continuous Mooring Line Systems In Wave Energy Converters, Youssef Mohamed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This study experimentally investigates the mechanical and viscoelastic behavior of a steel-cord-reinforced polyurethane synchronous belt capable of withstanding continuous cyclic loading as a potential compliant mooring element for WEC applications. Quasi-static and cyclic tensile tests were conducted to characterize the belt's mechanical response. The quasi-static determined that the belt behaved as a stiff, low-strain tensile member. Under approximately 100 kgf, the belt extended by about 0.107mm over a 250mm gauge length, apparent tensile modulus of 5.41GPa, an axial rigidity of 2.44MN, and an equivalent line stiffness of 9.75MN/m. Cyclic tensile testing showed high dynamic stiffness with stiffness-transfer ratio of 0.924. …

Evaluating Diagnostic Information Preservation In Weakly Supervised Medical Imaging, Vinceline Bertrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Weakly supervised medical imaging models trained with coarse image-level labels often report strong performance on metrics such as accuracy and AUC. This thesis argues that these metrics can be misleading: a model may succeed on a coarse diagnostic task while failing to preserve the fine-grained information needed for consequential clinical decisions. It makes this failure measurable through the diagnostic gap, defined as the divergence between coarse and fine-grained diagnostic preservation, across three connected studies. The first shows that near-perfect ovarian ultrasound accuracy reflects visual separability rather than pathological understanding. The second measures the diagnostic gap in a mammographic pipeline, where …

Tackling Oversmoothing, Heterogeneity, And Label Distributions For Robust Graph Learning, Yufei Jin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

With the tremendous development of graph neural networks, graph learning has become a dominant solution applied to various applications naturally integrated with graph structures, including traffic networks [82], molecule networks [40, 22, 1, 30, 32], social networks [4], etc. While most existing graph learning solutions can handle homogeneous graphs (graphs with a single node type and a single edge type) and homophily graphs (graphs where node labels tend to be the same as their neighbors) for multi-class node classification downstream tasks well, in real world applications, graph structures can be more complex with heterogeneous graphs (graphs with multiple node types …

Ground To Roof Snow Load Ratio (Gr) Data Release, Brennan Bean, Cooper Nelson, Jesse Wheeler, Scout Jarman, Salam Adil Al-Rubaye, Marc Maguire

Browse all Datasets

This data release provides historical ground-to-roof snow load ratio (GR) datasets used for snow load research and model development. The release includes original referenced datasets, cleaned country specific datasets, and a master dataset that combines Canadian and United States datasets into a standardized format for research and engineering applications.

Comparing Principal Component Analysis And Sequential Fusion Deeponet With Varying Dataset Size For Design Space Exploration Of Hypersonic Flow, J. Dallan Trentman

Theses and Dissertations

Design space exploration and optimization of hypersonic vehicles is costly due to the difficulty of producing high fidelity CFD simulations in the hypersonic domain. Reduced order modeling can allow for design optimization at a fraction of the computational cost. This paper investigates the amount of training data required to produce an accurate Reduced Order Model. A PCA based ROM is developed and compared to a Sequential Fusion DeepONet by comparing model prediction accuracy, training time, and prediction time, across dataset sizes from 25 samples to 1024 samples. These models are applied to 2D hypersonic CFD simulations of the Orion reentry …

Resonant Shock Plate Simulation And Prediction Using Modal Substructuring, Harrison C. Denning

Theses and Dissertations

Aerospace structures such as rockets can experience various shock events during flight, such as stage separation or impacts. These shock events can expose components inside the rocket to large accelerations and stresses which in turn can damage the parts. Shocks are often simulated in the lab using a resonant shock plate test. Resonant shock plate testing is often used to qualify aerospace parts, as it can mimic the shocks experienced during launch and stage separations. However, during the course of development, both the definition of the shock environment and the design of the subcomponent tend to change, so that multiple …

Rfsoc Based Ground Penetrating Radar For Detection And Avoidance Of Underground Utilities, Brady Bowerbank

Theses and Dissertations

Preexisting underground utilities present a considerable danger to underground boring projects. Gas and electrical lines can be damaged, leading to major economic impact and even loss of life. While maps of underground utilities exist, they are not always accurate and gas and electrical lines can shift over time, necessitating tools to accurately detect utilities so that crews can steer the machines away from any possible danger. In this thesis, the design of a new frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) ground penetrating radar (GPR) is outlined. The design of a lightweight, flexible radar is demonstrated using the CASPER FPGA framework with an operating …

Isoperimetric Soft Robots, Mihai Stanciu

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents two advances in isoperimetric soft robotic trusses that improve their performance, modularity, and configurability. The first contribution introduces a large-scale modular robotic truss designed as a lightweight, reconfigurable structure for lunar applications. The system consists of inflatable fabric tubes routed through motorized roller units and interconnected by a newly developed spherical joint that enables multiple robotic triangles to connect at a common vertex. The resulting truss can be assembled into structures beyond a single octahedron while retaining compact stowage when deflated and untethered operation after initial inflation. Experimental validation demonstrates modular assembly, long-term pressure retention, load-bearing capabilities …

Ensemble Learning Framework For Predicting Close Proximity Tire–Pavement Noise On Expressways, Woo Young Cho, Jin Hwan Kim, Guk Gon Song, Kyungnam Kim, Youngguk Seo

Faculty Articles

Traffic noise is a critical public health concern affecting millions of highway users and adjacent residents worldwide. In response, many transportation agencies have adopted functional surface materials to reduce noise at the source on pavement, but assessing their effectiveness remains expensive and logistically challenging. Close Proximity (CPX) testing quantifies tire-pavement noise but requires specialized equipment costing $50,000-$126,000 and is limited to existing pavement, preventing proactive noise assessment during pavement design. This study develops machine learning models to predict CPX noise levels from readily available pavement characteristics, eliminating the need for costly tests during design and planning phases. To train and …

Thermophysical Property Studies: 1. Thermodynamic Consistency For Associating Compounds 2. Autoignition Temperature, Cassandra Jane Guffey

Theses and Dissertations

Accurate thermophysical property data are essential for the design, optimization, and safe operation of chemical processes. Properties such as vapor pressure, enthalpy of vaporization, heat capacity, density, and autoignition temperature--which are among the properties studied in this work--are required for equipment sizing, process simulation, hazard assessment, and economic evaluation. A major focus of this dissertation is the application of multi-property thermodynamic consistency techniques to compounds that exhibit strong vapor-phase association. These methods improve confidence in recommended property values by enforcing rigorous thermodynamic relationships among ideal-gas heat capacity, liquid heat capacity, vapor and liquid densities, vapor pressure, and enthalpy of vaporization. …

A Semantic Data Management Framework For Uncertainty Quantification In Synchrotron Diffraction Pattern Analysis, Ayorinde E. Olatunde, Ozan Dernek, Erika I. Barcelos, Roger H. French, Anirban Mondal

Student Scholarship

Advancements in technology have enabled scientists and engineers in the synchrotron science domain to generate high-dimensional data. To conduct a machine learning study on these data, an analyst undergoes multiple analytical stages, including dimensionality reduction, predictive modelling, and uncertainty quantification (UQ).

To ensure reproducibility in science, it is necessary to document the semantic relationships among the stages of the analysis to enable provenance, interoperability, and knowledge reuse. In this work, we present a Semantic Data Management (SDM) framework rooted in FAIR principles that provides ontologies for UQ workflows. We illustrate the application of UQ ontology in synchrotron diffraction pattern analyses …

From Homogeneous To Heterogeneous Adaptive Bounded-Confidence Opinion Dynamics On Networks, Sally Hafez, Fatma R. Farag, Amira S. N. Tawadros

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Adaptive bounded-confidence models (ABCMs) elucidate the coevolution of agent states and network structure via local interactions and rewiring mechanisms. Traditional formulations assume uniform interaction parameters, leading to distinct regime shifts encompassing fragmentation, polarization, and consensus. A symmetric heterogeneous extension of the adaptive bounded-confidence model is introduced, in which interaction parameters vary according to whether agents belong to the same or different groups. The model retains the original update and rewiring protocols but integrates within-group and between-group confidence bounds alongside tolerance thresholds. Initially, the classic homogeneous model is replicated to establish a reference point. Subsequently, the heterogeneous extension is assessed under …

A Review On Bridge Scour Analysis In Cohesive Soils And Scour-Susceptible Rocks, Darud E. Sheefa, Zhen Liu, Stanley Vitton, Brian Barkdoll

Michigan Tech Publications

Bridge scour analysis, especially scour depth calculation practices implemented mostly by hydraulics and geotechnical engineers, was traditionally built upon flume tests with cohesionless materials, e.g., sands. As a result, the analysis of bridge scour in cohesive materials, i.e., cohesive soils and scour-susceptible rocks, was less understood and thus has been gaining increasing attention. This paper presents a state-of-the-practice survey on the analysis of bridge scour in cohesive materials represented by cohesive soils and scour-susceptible rocks. This includes a literature review covering the concepts and understanding of scour susceptibility, material sampling, erodibility tests, bridge scour calculation methods for cohesive soils and …

Automated Battery Management Systems For Electric Vehicles, Woonki Na, Yuanyuan Xie

Mineta Transportation Institute

Electric vehicle (EV) safety, efficiency, and lifetime are strongly influenced by how well battery cells are managed, and as EV adoption accelerates, improving battery performance has become critical to vehicle reliability, cost, and public trust. This report conducts a field study on the core technologies and challenges in Battery Management Systems (BMS), focusing on the classification of BMS circuit topologies (design/structures) and systematically reviewing different topologies of active cell balancing circuits (systems that move energy from stronger battery cells to weaker ones). The study provides a detailed analysis of the working principles, advantages, and disadvantages of various active balancing circuit …

Alternate Method For Determining The Liquid Pressure Recovery Factor, Bryson H. Parker

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The term liquid pressure recovery factor aids in determining the flowrate through valves at the maximum flowrate under choking conditions. The pressure recovery factor can be difficult to determine for certain types of valves based on the industry standard procedure. This report looks at the current industry standard procedure and adds a procedure in the event of the industry standard not being feasible. Often it is not feasible for a testing facility to supply enough flow through the valve to reach the industry standard. The industry standard is to test the valve at the maximum flowrate with a constant upstream …

Water Use And Yield Of Subsurface Drip-Irrigated Forage Crops In Northern Utah, Nishchal Tamang

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Growing water scarcity in the Intermountain West has increased interest in improving water use efficiency. Subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) has the potential to reduce evapotranspiration (ET), evaporative losses, surface runoff, and deep percolation. SDI adoption in Utah forage crops is limited, and region-specific information on forage crop water use under SDI is lacking. This study compared ET, yield, and productivity of forage crops between SDI and conventional irrigation methods in northern Utah.

The study was conducted on production fields. Applied irrigation, precipitation, and crop yield were directly measured, while deep percolation was estimated using numerical unsaturated flow modeling. Surface runoff …

Accelerating Rans Cfd Convergence For Bluff Body Flows Using Surface-Vorticity Panel Solver Initialization, Trisha Babu

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Reynolds-Averaged Navier--Stokes (RANS) simulations are widely used for predicting aerodynamic performance in engineering applications but often require substantial computational time to achieve convergence, particularly for bluff-body flows characterized by large-scale separation and wake formation. Improving the initialization of CFD simulations offers a practical approach for reducing computational cost without modifying the underlying numerical algorithms. This study investigates the use of a surface-vorticity panel solver (FlightStream) to generate physically informed velocity fields for initializing steady RANS simulations in STAR-CCM+.

Two canonical bluff-body geometries are considered: a sphere at a Reynolds number of 5 X 10⁵ and an isolated cube at …

Graph-Based Machine Learning For Multivariate Time Series Prediction In Scientific Domains: Streamflow Forecasting And Solar Flare Prediction, Kishore Ragul Alagarsamy

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Machine learning methods applied to multivariate time series data have emerged as powerful tools across a range of scientific domains. This report examines two distinct application areas in which such methods yield actionable predictive insights: hydrological streamflow forecasting and solar flare prediction in space weather.

In the domain of streamflow forecasting, a Two-Graph Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network (Two-Graph STGNN) was developed to predict river discharge across a 20-station network in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The architecture separates hydrological and meteorological feature streams into two complementary graph representations and fuses them through a learned attention mechanism. Systematic evaluation across 23 …