Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Tunable Passive Shock And Vibration Isolators For Rotational Isolation, Chase B. Lemaire

LSU Master's Theses

Shock and vibration isolation are a critical need in helmets, which are widely used to protect athletes, workers, soldiers, and astronauts. Passive vibration isolation systems are a good option when mass and volume should be minimized and when the experienced loadings can be predicted. However, it is frequently challenging to find materials and structures which exhibit the optimal vibration and impact isolation properties for an application. As a case study illustrating a novel design paradigm for rotational shock absorption, a family of optimal solutions for the physical properties of American football helmets is presented. Lumped parameter Simulink models simulate a …

Pressure Disturbance Upstream Of The Boundary Layer Data System, Michelle S. Leclere

Master's Theses

The primary objective for this work was to evaluate the reliability of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools in the prediction of upstream surface pressure disturbance and pressure drag of various instrument excrescence shapes for a small aircraft flight test device called the Boundary Layer Data System (BLDS). Insights on pressure disturbance will serve as a guide for the placement of BLDS probes/sensors, and pressure drag can be used to ensure sufficient adhesive is used to install BLDS instrumentation. The Mach number for all CFD cases was 0.12 and the Reynolds number based on excrescence height varied from 4 x 10 …

Real-Time Data Analytics For Monitoring Electricity Consumption Using Iot Technology, Waheed Muhammad Sanya, Gaurav Bajpai, Omar Haji Kombo, Evariste Twahirwa

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Rising electricity bills as a result of climate variability and new home electrical and electronic appliances are becoming a major source of concern for most end users. Consumers are typically unaware of their household electricity consumption patterns and the costs associated with them, making proper planning and budgeting difficult. Monitoring and controlling energy consumption on appliances can reduce energy costs for end-users. The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to provide remote monitoring and control of devices via automated monitoring and control. In this study, we propose an IoT-enabled system for monitoring and controlling energy consumption in homes to …

Group-Based Data Offloading Techniques Assisted By D2d Communication In 5g Mobile Network, Juma S Ally

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Machine type communication devices proposed as one of the substantial data collections in the 5G of wireless networks. However, the existing mobile communication network is not designed to handle massive access from the MTC devices instead of human type communication. In this context, we propose the device-to-device communication assisted a mobile terminal (smartphone) on data computing, focusing on data generated from a correlated source of machine type communication devices. We consider the scenario that the MTC devices after collecting the data will transmit to a smartphone for computing. With the limitation of computing resources at the smartphone, some data are …

Digital Skills And Self-Employment Among Graduates Of Technical Higher Education Institutions In Tanzania, Charles Raphael

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Digital skills are the driving forces for innovative, inclusive and sustainable growth through innovations and digitalization which in turn stimulate job creation, alleviate poverty, reducing inequality, facilitating the delivery of goods and services. However, large number of graduates is shown to be weak in digital skills in the industry hence affect their employability including self-employment. Recently, the Technical Higher Education Institutions (THEIs) took some initiatives to instill the digital skills to their respective students. This study therefore assessed the level of competence of digital skills among graduates following the initiatives taken by the THEIs and their influence on self-employment. It …

Implementation Of Digital Transformation In The Technical Higher Education Institutions In Tanzania, Charles Raphael

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Digital transformation has been prioritized recently in this era of fourth industrial revolution by various organizations for maintaining strong competitive advantage, especially in the fourth industrial revolution. The higher education institutions must likewise adopt and implement digital transformation to enrich their students with the knowledge, experience and the skills they need for a very different future. Technical higher education institutions are inevitable in the given transformation. However, very little is known regarding adoption of digital transformation in the given institutions. This study therefore examined the level of adoption of digital services in the technical higher education institutions in Tanzania. It …

Analyzing The Influence Of Smart-Device Visual Features, Viewing Distance And Content Factors On Video Streaming Qoe, Alex Frank Mongi

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Quality of experience (QoE) over wireless networks has attracted attention from industry and academia due to an increase in video streaming applications. Several researchers have attempted to understand the factors affecting QoE and design appropriate quality control strategies. Normally, video streaming is initiated by a user who accesses video content over a network using a smart device that may be held at various viewing distances. Each aforementioned factor has the potential to affect QoE. However, several studies explore the behavior of wireless networks on video streaming QoE. To understand the effects of other factors on QoE, this paper investigates the …

Cyber Security Challenges, Its Emerging Trends On Latest Information And Communication Technology And Cyber Crime In Mobile Money Transaction Services, Hakeem J. Pallangyo

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This paper investigates the challenges emerging trends on latest Information and Communication Technology and cybercrime in mobile money transaction services in Tanzania. The objective of this is to evaluate the challenges associated with this rapid growth in ICT and to determine factors influencing Cybersecurity readiness and Cybercrimes in mobile money transaction services. Cyber Security plays a significant role in the field of Information and Communication Technology especially on mobile money transaction services. The study recognizes the provision of mobile money services by both telecommunication companies and local banks, the fact is that whenever we think about the cyber security, the …

Bbt Side Mold Assy, Bill Hemphill

STEM Guitar Project’s BBT Acoustic Kit

This electronic document file set covers the design and fabrication information of the ETSU Guitar Building Project’s BBT (OM-sized) Side Mold Assy for use with the STEM Guitar Project’s standard acoustic guitar kit. The extended 'as built' data set contains an overview file and companion video, the 'parent' CADD drawing, CADD data for laser etching and cutting a drill &/or layout template, CADD drawings in AutoCAD .DWG and .DXF R12 formats of the centerline tool paths for creating the mold assembly pieces on an AXYZ CNC router, and support documentation for CAM applications including router bit specifications, feeds, speed, multi-pass …

8 Dof Quadrupedal Hopping Robot, Clayton T. Elwell, John Bennett, Tyler Mccue, Daniel Munic

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of our senior project was to fabricate an eight degree of freedom (DOF) prototypical quadrupedal robot, develop a controller than commands the quadruped to repeatedly jump 10 cm in the air, and fabricate a modular test stand to safely deploy our controller on the quadruped. The creation of a functional quadruped will bring attention to Dr. Siyuan Xing and Charlie Refvem’s research group, Cal Poly Legged Robots, and will give future Cal Poly undergraduate and graduate students a learning tool to explore dynamic control of biomimetic robotic systems.

Over the course of our senior project, we successfully manufactured …

Interactive Lego Girl Scout Arm, Christopher Suzuki, Emi Okuyama, Bryson Shores, Karina Sandoval

Mechanical Engineering

This Senior Project Report document outlines the senior design project for Girl Scouts of California’s Central Coast (GSCCC) led by a team of four Mechanical Engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The project encompasses the researching, designing, prototyping, and testing of a LEGO robotic arm for the Girl Scouts to learn more about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and provide support to each Girl Scouts cookie sales in their stores. Their goal was to build a LEGO robotic arm that will interact with customers at the Girl Scout stores and promote the girl scouts' interest …

Therapeutic Mechanical Horse, Cade M. Liberty, Aleya Dolorfino, Peter Philips, Zuzanna Dominik, Luke Watts

Mechanical Engineering

Jack's Helping Hand and its hippotherapy participants required a device to serve as an alternative to a live horseback riding experience that could also increase the range of riders. This would provide more clients with equine-assisted therapy that has proven to better the lives of people with both physical and mental disabilities. Horses can be unpredictable, tall, and sometimes anxiety-inducing, especially for new riders. Our group’s aim was to develop a mechanical horse that will be able to reduce these issues for equine therapy centers and the riders they help. When a rider gets to practice sitting on the horse …

Interactive Lego Girl Scout Arm, Chris Suzuki, Emi Okuyama, Bryson Shores, Karina Sandoval

Mechanical Engineering

This Senior Project Report document outlines the senior design project for Girl Scouts of California’s Central Coast (GSCCC) led by a team of four Mechanical Engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The project encompasses the researching, designing, prototyping, and testing of a LEGO robotic arm for the Girl Scouts to learn more about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and provide support to each Girl Scouts cookie sales in their stores. Their goal was to build a LEGO robotic arm that will interact with customers at the Girl Scout stores and promote the girl scouts' interest …

Baja Bug Suspension, James Ankers, Rebecca Hansen, Dakota Robert Hollingsworth, Thomas Alfred Spycher

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of this senior project was to design and build a long travel front suspension system for a VW Bug. This started by defining the scope of the project and performing preliminary research. In this step, similar products were investigated, and research was done on stakeholders and customers. Next, concept development, design, and evaluation were performed. With this, the first iteration of our CAD model was designed, and physical prototypes were made. Using all this information, and feedback from advisors and sponsors, multiple iterations of our CAD were performed until the design was ready to manufacture. Drawings were taken …

Multifamily Complex Smart Locks For Property Management And Tenant Security, April Mills, Allen Chen, Dana Kumamoto, Michael Cook

Mechanical Engineering

Maintaining and managing hundreds of locks and physical keys for an apartment complex can be time consuming and costly, especially when the apartments turn over to new tenants. Our goal was to develop a smart door lock that is compatible with Obodo’s management app for apartment complexes to make accessing apartments secure and simpler for tenants and easier to manage for owners.

We designed and manufactured one smart door lock that is powered with four AA batteries and utilizes a dynamic NFC device and Bluetooth technology. The board can enter a sleep mode which reduces power consumption. The dynamic NFC …

Barker Bird Animatronic Senior Project Report, Marcus Monroe, Nolan Clapp, Ishan Jandaur, Jonathan Ogden

Mechanical Engineering

This document describes how our F71 Senior Design Project team developed a 3D printed, electronic bird that mimics Disneyland’s first animatronic, the Barker Bird. An animatronic is a mechanical puppet that replicates real life movement with robotic parts. Disney’s Barker Bird is a well-known animatronic that replicates a talking macaw with multiple moving systems. The final prototype completed by our team serves as a teaching tool for CAPED (Cal Poly Amusement Park Engineers and Designers) club members that are interested in the field of animated robots.

Cloudbots: Autonomous Atmospheric Explorers, Akash Binoj

Honors Scholar Theses

The CloudBot is an autonomous weather balloon that operates on the principle of variable buoyancy to ascend and descend in the atmosphere. This project aims to develop a device that will collect atmospheric measurements and communicate them mid-flight. The apparatus consists of a helium-filled balloon, the robotic payload, and an air cell. The fixed-volume helium balloon at the top provides an upwards buoyancy force, while the air cell at the bottom can hold a variable amount of pressure to adjust the weight of the CloudBot. By doing so, it is able to travel in storm conditions and collect valuable atmospheric …

Optimal Design Of Bacterial Carpets For Fluid Pumping, Minghao W. Rostami, Weifan Liu, Amy Buchmann, Eva Strawbridge, Longhua Zhao

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Lattice Boltzmann-Based Sharp-Interface Schemes For Conjugate Heat And Mass Transfer And Diffuse-Interface Schemes For Dendritic Growth Modeling, Nanqiao Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Analyses of heat and mass transfer between different materials and phases are essential in numerous fundamental scientific problems and practical engineering applications, such as thermal and chemical transport in porous media, design of heat exchangers, dendritic growth during solidification, and thermal/mechanical analysis of additive manufacturing processes. In the numerical simulation, interface treatment can be further divided into sharp interface schemes and diffuse interface schemes according to the morphological features of the interface. This work focuses on the following subjects through computational studies: (1) critical evaluation of the various sharp interface schemes in the literature for conjugate heat and mass transfer …

Exploring Solidworks Simulation And Structural Analysis Tools To Predict Real-World Physical Behaviors, Itay Rubin

Publications and Research

Computer Aided Design (CAD) Software can optimize the product design process prior to manufacturing. This project examines engineering solutions using CAD software called SolidWorks. It simulates how the product will behave under a variety of engineering constraints. These simulations allow designers to optimize performance, cost, and speed efficiencies. The project uses simulations and finite element analysis to replicate real world behavior. It presents high-level capabilities in the design process, exposing new engineers to simulation tools that are available and relevant in mechanical engineering design. This project required independent research to obtain an advanced understanding of the software interface and capabilities.

Understanding Thermal Comfort Impact And Air Movement Around Open Stairs Through The Use Of Cfd Modeling, Ethan Davidson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The air exchange between two floors of a building has an impact on thermal comfort. The present research attempts to quantify this impact and identify the contributing factors disrupting the thermal comfort on and around stairs. Various heating and cooling scenarios were analyzed, using CFD modeling, in a simple two-story building separated by a single staircase. The research examines a single building layout with a fixed inlet and outlet configuration. In addition, the study investigated the short-term impact on thermal comfort. As a result, the duration of the simulations varies from two and half minutes to ten minutes, consistent with …

Ambient Temperature Phase Change Launcher, Johnny Molloy

Senior Honors Projects

JOHNNY MOLLOY (Mechanical Engineering) Ambient Temperature Phase Change Launcher Sponsor: Bahram Nassersharif (Mechanical Engineering)

Deployment of payloads stored in watertight cylindrical bodies in underwater environmental conditions are of interest to the marine and naval community. The proposed work will investigate the possibility of using inert carbon dioxide gas compressed into its liquid state and stored under pressure to launch payloads by means of expansion from a cylindrical tube. To suit the needs of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), this launching system must fire from up to 14 ft underwater, have two degrees of freedom, and the payload must not …

Strain-Based Design Of Steel-Polymer-Steel Composite Pipes, Vul Thang

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Many offshore single-wall pipelines and structural failures have occurred in the past. As a result, lives were lost, and billions of dollars were spent. In addition, natural disasters such as earthquake fault zones can cause a large volume of soil movement. This can easily damage single-wall pipelines or piles of fixed offshore platforms in the earthquake fault zone.

Currently, the single-wall pipelines are used for the offshore and onshore oil and gas industry. This research investigated the use of double-wall composite pipe steel-polymer-steel (SPS) in place of single-wall pipe to prevent such failures. The double-wall composite pipe has a larger …

Generative Designs Of Lightweight Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers, Connor Miller

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The development of high-performance air-cooled heat exchangers is required to permit the rapid growth of vehicle and aircraft electrification. In electric vehicles and airliners, the motors and power electronics are integrated into a compact space, leading to unprecedently high power density. To achieve higher overall thermal efficiency, the heat exchangers must be extremely light while maintaining their heat transfer performance and mechanical robustness. Recently advances in 3D metal printing, e.g., direct metal laser sintering, and selective laser melting, have enabled the manufacturing of high-performance robust heat exchangers by eliminating thermal boundary resistance and ensuring a uniform thermal expansion coefficient. Nonetheless, …

Triggering Thermal Runaway In Lithium-Ion Batteries, Chris John

Honors Scholar Theses

The proliferation of lithium-ion batteries enables electric devices such as cell phones to electric vehicles to become a reality. A latent danger, however, exists in these batteries. Mechanical, thermal, or electrical damage can initiate a phenomenon known as thermal runaway (TR). This damage causes internal short circuits within the battery, releasing heat and triggering exothermic decomposition reactions. The battery will catch fire if rapid cooling is not present. While experimental designs exist for evaluating TR, significant safety hazards and impracticality may impede testing efforts. Finite element analysis, therefore, becomes a vital tool in modeling TR and mitigation techniques. However, there …

Quantifying Shear Stresses In Tissue Engineered Aortic Heart Valves, Raj Nitin Dave

All Theses

Present heart valve prosthesis have limitations such as capability to grow, repair and remodel post implantation. Tissue engineering offers to be a promising alternative to overcome these limitations. Maturation of seeded human cells on the valve subjected to favorable growth conditions in the bioreactor is critical to the success of tissue engineered heart valves. Mechanical stress and strain which results from the pressure and flow conditions in the bioreactor plays a critical role on the developing valve tissue and are currently unknown. The goal of this research is to relate the magnitude of wall shear stress (WSS) within the heart …

Predictive Performance And Teaming Via The Mist-C Ocean Hierarchy Utilizing Personality And Skills, Brighton H. Owen

All Theses

This thesis seeks to establish and define the individual, the team as an entity, and qualify various metrics to predict team performance. When several individuals come together, they form a team that is often capable of designing and developing concepts beyond the individual on their own by methods of task dispersion, goal orientation, communication, and more. With these teams comes growth and increased performance leading to more efficient processes and better metrics by which performance may be measured. To achieve this, 34 engineering students in the AerosPACE senior design program, which lasted two semesters, were asked to complete surveys in …

Characterization Of Friction Element Welding Using Finite Element Modeling, Ankit Varma

All Dissertations

Friction element welding (FEW) has been advocated as a solution to weld different materials together, with the ability to join high-strength materials for a range of thicknesses with low input energy and a short processing time. This work develops a coupled thermal-mechanical finite element model to better understand the physical mechanisms involved in the process and to predict temperature and material flow during the process. Furthermore, microstructural analysis is performed for the steel layer using a scanning electron microscope and Vickers microhardness tester to understand the variation in its grain structure and hardness. Results from the finite element model and …

A Case Study Of Protecting Bridges Against Overheight Vehicles, Aly Mousaad Aly, Marc Hoffmann

Faculty Publications

Most transportation departments have recognized and developed procedures to address the ever-increasing weights of trucks traveling on bridges in service today. Transportation agencies also recognize the issues with overheight vehicles’ collisions with bridges, but few stakeholders have definitive countermeasures. Bridges are becoming more vulnerable to collisions from overheight vehicles. The exact response under lateral impact force is difficult to predict. In this paper, nonlinear impact analysis shows that the degree of deformation recorded through the modeling of the unprotected vehicle-girder model provides realistic results compared to the observation from the US-61 bridge overheight vehicle impact. The predicted displacements are 0.229 …

Development Of A Compliant Gripper Driven By 3 Dof Soft Robot, Derek M. Price Ii, Ricardo Ramirez, Pt Angel Tran

Symposium of Student Scholars

Industrial robots are moving toward automation, which makes it increasingly necessary to replace the functions traditionally performed by humans with robotics. Pick and place operation is a prime example of such automation. Robots that pick up and place objects mimic the human action of picking an object up and placing it in a targeted location. It has led to the development of robotic end-effectors that have a human-like feel. Grippers can be articulated in various ways depending on their application area and well-defined desired tasks. As compliant and soft links deflect more under the same load than their rigid body …