Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

A Concept Validation Of A Magnetometry-Based Technology For Detecting Concealed Weapons In Vehicle Door Panels, Nar Vang

Master's Theses

Acts of insurgency have become an increasing threat resulting in extensive measures being taken by the law enforcement authorities to mitigate their devastating effects on human life and infrastructure. This thesis introduces a magnetometry-based information, and signal processing methodology for detecting concealed ferrous objects in vehicle body panels. From extensive literature research, it was observed that while magnetic sensors have been used in a variety of related applications, but they have not been extensively applied to the on-road detection of firearms and explosives concealed in vehicles. This study utilized an extensive experimental protocol for preliminary concept validation. The main idea …

Swelling-Etching Characterization Of Copper (I) Oxide - Pdms For The Development Of Micro/Nano - Particles Composite Mems Corrosion Sensor, Abdoul Kader Maiga

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective for this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of the oxide removal process for a corrosion sensing device. The goal for designing such a device is for monitoring corrosion on metallic structures. The sensing material (6.35mm x 1mm discs) of the device is composed of copper (I) oxide particles mixed in some polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The PDMS, “housing,” is meant for controlling the oxidation rate through the sensing material. A solvent was used to facilitate the etchant diffusion through the PDMS matrix. Toluene and acetic acid were the ideal solvent and etchant, respectively, for carrying out the …

Modeling Radiation Heat Transfer For Building’S Cooling And Heating Loads: Considering The Role Of Clear, Cloudy, And Dusty Conditions In Hot And Dry Climates, Salem Ahmed Algarni

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The influence of transient factors such as sky long wave radiation exchange and atmospheric aerosols (i.e., smog, and dust – made up of sand, clay, and silt) are not carefully considered in current building design and simulation models. Therefore, the research objective was to better understand and account for such variables, resulting in improved radiative predictive capabilities, especially important for hot and dry climates under different sky conditions including clean, cloudy, and dusty. Overall, results of this dissertation provided a better prediction method for sky long wave radiation exchange with a building’s roof and the impact of dust accumulation on …

Design And Implementation Of An Interactive Animatronic System For Guest Response Analysis, Brian Burns

Phi Kappa Phi Research Symposium (Archived)

In theme park based entertainment applications, there is a need for interactive, autonomous animatronic systems to create engaging and compelling experiences for the guests. The animatronic figures must identify the guests and recognize their status in dynamic interactions for enhanced acceptance and effectiveness as socially interactive agents, in the general framework of human-robot interactions. The design and implementation of an interactive, autonomous animatronic system in form of a tabletop dragon, Kronos, and the comparisons of guest responses in its passive and interactive modes are presented in this work. The dragon capabilities include a four degrees-of-freedom head, moving wings, tail, jaw, …

Forest Sign Maker, Victor Espinosa Iii, Kevin Ly, Lisa Yip

Mechanical Engineering

Executive Summary:

The Inyo National Forest is arguably one of the most beautiful locations in California, containing natural masterpieces such as Mount Whitney and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Despite its magnificence, the Inyo National Forest can be a treacherous region. The Friends of the Inyo take pride in being able to facilitate the viewing experience for all outdoorsmen by maintaining the mountain trails, which includes providing adequate trail signage.

Unfortunately, there is a fundamental issue with the recent state of trail signage in the Inyo National Forest: the rate at which signs are being vandalized or naturally destroyed is …

Tadpole Tandem Electrically Assisted Tricycle, Austin Frederickson, Anthony Jacques, Kris Lawrence, Preston Mcelroy

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this senior project was to investigate the possibility of making bikes (as a regular mode of transportation) look much more appealing to the general public. To that end, an electric motor assist system was added to make it easier for the operators of the vehicle. A fairing was added to protect the rider from wind and rain, and an electrical subsystem consisting of a microcontroller and many other components was also added. The electrical subsystem was meant to store the information of different riders, calculate calories burned using a heart beat sensor, and increase visibility using strategically-placed …

Development Of Electronics, Software, And Graphical User Control Interface For A Wall-Climbing Robot, Lynda Beatriz Tesillo

Master's Theses

The objective for this project is to investigate various electrical and software means of control to support and advance the development of a novel vacuum adhesion system for a wall-climbing robot. The design and implementation of custom electronics and a wirelessly controlled real-time software system used to define and support the functionalities of these electronics is discussed. The testing and evaluation of the overall system performance and the performance of the several different subsystems developed, while working both individually and cooperatively within the system, is also demonstrated.

Hydromodus: An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Alex Kost, Anu Mahinkanda, Jordan Read

Electrical Engineering

Hydromodus is a student-led multidisciplinary project conceived by Jordan Read designed to provide a low-cost modular hardware and software solution for researchers and scientists. For the scope of the Senior Project class, it is designed to be a baited remote underwater vehicle (BRUV), but the platform is highly modifiable and open-source.

Vibration Table For Environmental Chamber, Michael Czabaranek, Dylan De Caussin

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Tesseract, Edgar Uribe, Vanessa Faune

Mechanical Engineering

PolySat is a student-run, Cal Poly research program in which students develop small satellites, known as CubeSats, to be sent into space. Since the start of the program in 2000, PolySat has developed eight 10cm x 10cm x10cm CubeSats. Recently, the team has developed two satellites of double, and triple, that size for NASA-KSC & AI-Solutions and the National Science Foundation. The recent volumetric expansion has been driven by high demand for further satellite functionality, which necessitates large power generation capabilities. To remain competitive in the growing CubeSat industry, PolySat must develop a platform that can provide enough power to …

Final Design Report For An Automatic Diffraction Grating, Timothy Jung, Edlin Garcia, Kelly Rorden

Mechanical Engineering

The Automatic Diffraction Grating project explored using said technology to measure the angular separation between binary stars. This system would be a dramatic improvement from the current, fixed and manually adjusted diffraction gratings in use, increasing the capability of observatories to conduct autonomous studies of binary systems. Ideally, realizing such a system would be accomplished using a simple design and off the shelf parts, so that the project could easily replicated. The design of this system was approached with a broad look at the possible mechanisms that could be used to effectively construct an Automatic Diffraction Grating, as well as …

Pier2pier: Final Report, Kevin Nelson, Anthony Miller, Paul Maalouf, Chahan Shah

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Telepresence: Design, Implementation And Study Of An Hmd-Controlled Avatar With A Mechatronic Approach, Darren Michael Chan

Master's Theses

Telepresence describes technologies that allow users to remotely experience the sensation of being present at an event without being physically present. An avatar exists to represent the user whilst in a remote location and is tasked to collect stimuli from its immediate surroundings to be delivered to the user for consumption. With the advent of recent developments in Virtual Reality technology, viz., head-mounted displays (HMDs), new possibilities have been enabled in the field of Telepresence. The main focus of this thesis is to develop a solution for visual Telepresence, where an HMD is used to control the direction of a …

Cookie Dough Portioning Tool, Alex Haughton, Courtney Shipp, Grant Wittenberg

Mechanical Engineering

The Brown Butter Cookie Company (BBCC) is located in Cayucos, California. They sell handmade cookies made without eggs. After a batch is made, dough pieces must be portioned by hand. This process is time consuming, labor intensive, and limits the number of cookies they can make.

Our task was to design a machine to replace or improve this step of the process. After talking with the members of the BBCC and creating a list of specifications for our device, the team has formulated a detailed design of a cookie dough portioning tool for the BBCC. This report includes information on …

Evaluation Of Design Tools For The Micro-Ram Air Turbine, Victor Fidel Villa

Master's Theses

The development and evaluation of the design of a Micro-Ram Air Turbine (µRAT), a device being developed to provide power for an autonomous boundary layer measurement system, has been undertaken. The design tools consist of a rotor model and a generator model. The primary focus was on developing and evaluating the generator model for the prediction of generator brake power and output electrical power with and without rectification as a function of shaft speed and electrical load, with only basic manufacturer specifications given as inputs. A series of motored generator evaluation test were conducted at speeds ranging from 9,000 to …

Veloelectric: Creating A Device That Harvests Energy From Bicycles, Austin Hall, Daniel Stohr, Tj Fox

Mechanical Engineering

Long distance mountain bikers, bike-packers, and many bikers in developing countries rely on electrical devices for safety and communication. These specific groups of people operate in areas with little to no electricity, and often times have no power to sustain their devices. The purpose of this Cal Poly senior project, VeloElectric, was to design, build, and test a kinetic energy harvester for bicycles that can be used to charge common mobile devices via USB. This senior project team created a device that attaches directly to a bicycle and uses vibrations to generate energy, which in turn powers a variety of …

Towards A Dynamic Clamp For Neurochemical Modalities, C. M. Rivera, H.-J. Kwon, A. Hashmi, Gu Yu, J. Zhao, J. Gao, J. Xu, Wei Xue, A. G. Dimitrov

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

The classic dynamic clamp technique uses a real-time electrical interface between living cells and neural simulations in order to investigate hypotheses about neural function and structure. One of the acknowledged drawbacks of that technique is the limited control of the cells’ chemical microenvironment. In this manuscript, we use a novel combination of nanosensor and microfluidic technology and microfluidic and neural simulations to add sensing and control of chemical concentrations to the dynamic clamp technique. Specifically, we use a microfluidic lab-on-a-chip to generate distinct chemical concentration gradients (ions or neuromodulators), to register the concentrations with embedded nanosensors and use the processed …

Design And Implementation Of An Interactive Animatronic System For Guest Response Analysis, Brian Burns

GS4 Student Scholars Symposium

For nearly half a century, animatronic figures have provided entertainment in the theme park industry by simulating life-like animations and sounds. These figures enhance the storytelling experience by stimulating visual and audio senses among guests. Animatronics must be identified as human partners to establish status for dynamic interactions for enhanced acceptance and effectiveness as socially-interactive agents. An animatronic dragon, Kronos, has been designed, fabricated and implemented with human-identification sensors. The primary sensor input comes from an infrared camera, the PrimeSense Carmine, and includes an Arduino Mega 2560 as the center of control. Using the data from the depth camera, people …

Distributed Wireless Pzt Fiber Composite Sensor System Development And Demonstration, Ethan Hopping, Markus Murdy

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

Mechatronics Design Process With Energy Optimization For Industrial Machines, Aderiano Medeiros Da Silva

Dissertations (1934 -)

The need for designing industrial machines with higher energy efficiency, reliability, flexibility, and accuracy has increased to satisfy market demand for higher productivity at reduced costs in a sustainable manner. As machines become more complex, model-based design is essential to overcome the challenges in mechatronic system design. However, a well-designed mechanical system with a well-designed and tuned control system are not sufficient for machines to operate at high-performance conditions; this also heavily depends on trajectory planning and the appropriate selection of the motors controlling the axes of the machine. In this work, a model-based design approach to properly select motors …

Development Of Hardware-In-The-Loop Simulation System For Electric Power Steering Controller Testing, Chuanliangzi Liu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The Electronic Control Unit (ECU) of an Electric Power Steering (EPS) system is a core device to decide how much assistance an electric motor applies on steering wheel. EPS ECUs play an important role in EPS systems. The effectiveness of EPS ECUs needs to be thoroughly tested before mass production. Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation provides an efficient way for the development and testing of embedded controllers. This report focuses on the development of HIL system for testing EPS controllers. The hardware of the HIL system employs a dSPACE HIL simulator. The EPS plant model is an integrated model consisting of Vehicle …

Adaptive Control For Autonomous Navigation Of Mobile Robots Considering Time Delay And Uncertainty, Stephen Kofi Armah

Dissertations

Autonomous control of mobile robots has attracted considerable attention of researchers in the areas of robotics and autonomous systems during the past decades. One of the goals in the field of mobile robotics is development of platforms that robustly operate in given, partially unknown, or unpredictable environments and offer desired services to humans. Autonomous mobile robots need to be equipped with effective, robust and/or adaptive, navigation control systems. In spite of enormous reported work on autonomous navigation control systems for mobile robots, achieving the goal above is still an open problem. Robustness and reliability of the controlled system can always …

La0.6Sr1.4Mno4+Δ Layered Perovskite Oxide: Enhanced Catalytic Activity For The Oxygen Reduction Reaction, Yarong Wang, Zhibin Yang, Fanliang Liu, Chao Jin, Jiao Wu, Ming Shen, Ruizhi Yang, Fanglin Chen

Faculty Publications

Efficient electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is a critical factor to influence the performance of lithium–oxygen batteries. In this study, La_0.6Sr_1.4MnO_4+δ layered perovskite oxide as a highly active electrocatalyst for the ORR has been prepared, and a carbon-coating layer with thickness <5 nm has been successfully introduced to enhance the electronic conductivity of the as-prepared oxide. XRD, XPS, Raman, SEM and TEM measurements were carried out to characterize the crystalline structure and morphology of these samples. Rotating ring-disk electrode (RRDE) technique has been used to study catalytic activities of the as-prepared catalysts for the ORR in 0.1 M KOH media. RRDE results reveal that carbon-coated La_0.6Sr_1.4MnO_4+δ exhibits better catalytic activity for the ORR. For the carbon-coated La_0.6Sr_1.4MnO_4+δ, the ORR proceeds predominately via a direct four electron process, and a maximum cathodic current density of 6.70 mA cm⁻² at 2500 rpm has been obtained, …

Effect Of Heating And Ionization Of Four Atomizing Gases On The Spray Characteristics Of A High Volume Low Pressure Spray Atomizer, Anthony V. Adornato

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The disintegration of a liquid jet emerging from a nozzle by a high speed gas stream has been under investigation of several decades. A result of the liquid jet disintegration is droplet formation. This process is referred to as atomization. Industrial applications use atomization as a method for applying coatings to substrates. It has been reported that the use of other atomizing gases instead of compressed plant air will positively affect paint droplet size distributions, spray patterns and finish qualities; furthermore, the ionization and heating of the atomizing gas was reported to positively affect finish qualities. Although ionization techniques have …

2015 Afrl University Design Challenge, Daniel Slattery, Andrew P. Killmeyer, Brandon Null, Brendan Jones, Casey Hale, Jake Stein, Jeff Quartermaine, Kevin Rolik, Nick Tsangeos, Sam Moats, Marisa Seeley

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The University of Akron’s Air Force Research Laboratory’s Design Challenge Team has engineered a Heat Stress Prevention Kit that includes a facial mask in which the soldier will cool down from the inside out by breathing in the cool air circulating throughout the mask. This cool air is produced from a thermoelectric chip, which has a specific temperature difference on either side, one hot and one cold. Each of the sides is isolated from one another and with the combination of heat sinks, fans, and the simple process of breathing, a system is created by inhaling cool air. The entire …

Senior Design: Kong Toy Instruction-Manual Insertion, Rachael L. Innocenzi, Ashley N. Cuthbert, Marianna R. Smith

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The team’s goal is to design and test a prototype and procedure that will automate the insertion of the Kong toy instructions into the cardboard packaging. This automation will increase the speed at which the product is packaged and will serve as an aid to workers with limited dexterity who find the task cumbersome.

Senior Design:Kong Toy Instruction-Manual Insertion, Ashley N. Cuthbert, Rachael L. Innocenzi, Marianna R. Smith

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The team’s goal is to design and test a prototype and procedure that will automate the insertion of the Kong toy instructions into the cardboard packaging. This automation will increase the speed at which the product is packaged and will serve as an aid to workers with limited dexterity who find the task cumbersome.

Development And Operation Of A Mobile Test Facility For Education, Christopher Davis

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The automotive industry saw a large shift towards vehicle electrification after the turn of the century. It became necessary to ensure that new and existing engineers were qualified to design and calibrate these new systems. To ensure this training, Michigan Tech received a grant to develop a curriculum based around vehicle electrification. As part of this agenda, the Michigan Tech Mobile Laboratory was developed to provide hands-on training for professional engineers and technicians in hybrid electric vehicles and vehicle electrification. The Mobile Lab has since then increased the scope of the delivered curriculum to include other automotive areas and even …

Integration Of Mechatronics Design Approach Into Teaching Of Modeling Practices, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Tatiana V. Goris, Ana M. Djuric, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Nathan J. Luetke, Moustafa R. Moustafa, Basim Matrood

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Engineering design has transformed significantly due to advances in embedded system design and computer technologies. Almost every mechanical design today has some electrical and electronic components. Many products manufactured today contain both electrical and mechanical components and systems. Mechatronics is a design process that is multi-disciplinary in nature and integrates principles of many engineering disciplines including, but not limited to, mechanical engineering and mechanical engineering technology, electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology, and controls engineering. Mechatronic systems can be found in many different places today. These range from computer hard drives and robotic assembly systems, to washing machines, coffee makers, …

Design And Implementation Of An Interactive Animatronic System For Guest Response Analysis, Brian Burns

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In theme park based entertainment applications, there is a need for interactive, autonomous animatronic systems to create engaging and compelling experiences for the guests. The animatronic figures must identify the guests and recognize their status in dynamic interactions for enhanced acceptance and effectiveness as socially interactive agents, in the general framework of human-robot interactions. The design and implementation of an interactive, autonomous animatronic system in form of a tabletop dragon and the comparisons of guest responses in its passive and interactive modes are presented in this work. The dragon capabilities include a four degrees-of-freedom head, moving wings, tail, jaw, blinking …