Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Ganging Multiple Mechanical Sun Trackers, Katie Clark, Ben Hansen, Ben Hill, Cody Kelley, Chris Twede

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The scope of this project was to design a mechanical solar tracker that implemented the algorithm/patent developed by Dr. Nicholas Flann. The solar tracker needed to be able to gang with other units using a single motor. The designed tracking unit is intended to:

• Rotate 350 degrees

• Use 3 seasonal tracks to follow the sun

• Be adjustable for wind and snow loads

• Be constructed from readily available materials

Mini Rad-Dx Product Update, Tyler Child, Bradly Payne, Colton Smart, Morgan Ward

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Improve Current model by:

• Redesigning case to accommodate 3 – AA batteries

• Improve ingress protection to IP67

• Make device look more Rugged

• Eliminate one of the two LCD screens

• Design for injection molding production

• Develop a mobile app

Direct Pedal Actuation, Tyler Fallentine, Mitch Peterson, Bryce Fisher, Sam Hartvigsen, Alexander Bird

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Problem Description:

• The Team shall deliver a working prototype for direct pedal actuation of the brake and throttle for use in remote control of a vehicle.

• The delivered design shall:

• Measure 15 in. by 9 in. by 13 in.

• Fit in 90% of tested vehicles.

• Meet force, speed, back drive force, etc.

• Install in under 10 minutes.

Small Satellite Reaction Wheel, Corey Creager, Kalan Juhasz, Jeremy Wiser, Jake Laub, Christopher Wartena

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

• A reaction wheel uses torque to control the attitude of a satellite.

• The requirements specify a torque, a momentum, and a confined volume.

Solar Array Deployment Test Gravity Offloader System, Braden Call, Matthew Calvin, Chris Debenham, Christian Marriot, Mason Onkes

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

• Space Dynamics Lab (SDL) has started to develop larger satellites and larger solar arrays are required to power the spacecrafts. These larger arrays are harder to test

• Larger solar panels need their weight from gravity offloaded to prevent damage to their joints. The joints are not designed to hold their own weight

• Space Dynamics Lab requested our design be able to function in a vacuum to simulate the microgravity environment as closely as possible.

• While gravity offloading systems have been designed in the past, a vacuum-compatible and passive design brings a new and unique challenge

Usu Mars Rover Team, Usu Department Of Mechanical And Aerospace Engineering

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The University Rover Challenge capstone project presents university students the opportunity to design, fabricate and test a rover to compete in the annual international Mars Society URC Competition held in Hanksville, Utah. The URC Competition consists of four separate missions including Extreme Retrieval & Delivery, Equipment Servicing, Science, and Autonomous Traversal. Each mission requires advanced subsystems onboard the rover to accomplish mission tasks in a timely manner.

The 2020 USU URC team is divided up into four subteams to accomplish each mission including Power/Drive, Navigation/Communications/Autonomy, Operations, and Science. Admission to the URC Competition is highly competitive since the competition is …

Westech Process Control, William Clarke, Ammon Mccarthy

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The WesTech Engineering company is looking into utilizing MatLab Simulink to increase productivity.

Zagg Innovation Program: Led Focusing Case, Kyle Douglas, Travis Halverson, Derek Wilkins, Jessica Williams

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Background: The ZAGG Innovation Program has the goal of creating innovative concepts and products for the telecommunication and consumer electronic retail channels.

Chosen Product: After deliberating over 30 generated product ideas with ZAGG representatives, the team chose to develop a phone case that would focus a cellphone camera flash into a practical flashlight beam.

Product Goals:

• Decrease beam angle and light increase projection distance

• Durability to withstand regular use and drops

• Keep the product as simple as possible, with minimal added bulk and parts

• Case will not obstruct the field of view of …

Portable Leak Test System, Tyler Pulli, Joseph Arnell, Luke Osterhout, Dustyn Roberts

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Idaho National Laboratories requires an airtight seal on transportation casks to ship radioactive material. To ensure that the cask is air-tight, a system needs to be designed to measure whether air is leaking out of the seal and determines if the cask passes or fails.

Test Dummy Positioning For Autoliv Ogden, Ut, Dianne Althouse, John Garrett, Ty Johnston, Ridge Jones

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

• The Team shall deliver a proof of concept prototype to Autoliv for its use in positioning test dummies for Out-of-Position (OOP) airbag testing

• This is to improve set-up timing and accuracy without operator to operator variation.

• The device should work for the placing of three-year-old, six- year-old, and 5th percentile female test dummies.

• There are two OOP: head on IP (instrumentation panel) and chest on IP.

Third-Eye, Aaron Fassler

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Third-Eye Device is a peripheral device compatible with any firearm equipped with the Picatinny rail system. Its system of a camera attached to the weapon which connects to an eyepiece allows the user to aim the weapon without aiming down the sights. This device is potentially crucial to those who regularly engage in close-quarters combat such as police and military specialists, whose ability to quickly and accurately clear rooms during operations is critical to their safety and the safety of others. The student team was tasked with improving the device, primarily in its survivability in dusty and wet environments, …

Experimental Investigation Of N2o/O2 Mixtures As Volumetrically Efficient Oxidizers For Small Spacecraft Hybrid Propulsion Systems, Rob L. Stoddard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A hybrid thruster system utilizes propellants in two different stages, traditionally a solid fuel and a gaseous or liquid oxidizer. Recently hybrid thrusters have become a popular topic of research due to the high demand of a ”green” replacement for hydrazine. Not only are hybrid thruster systems typically much safer than hydrazine, but they are also a low-cost system with a high reliability in performance. The Propulsion Research Laboratory (PRL) at Utah State University (USU) has developed a hybrid thruster system using 3-D printed acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) as the fuel and gaseous oxygen (GOX) as the oxidizer. This system …

Rapid Prediction Of Low-Boom And Aerodynamic Performance Of Supersonic Transport Aircraft Using Panel Methods, Ted N. Giblette

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Utah State University Aerolab developed and tested a set of tools for rapid prediction of the loudness of a sonic boom generated by supersonic transport aircraft. This work supported a larger effort led by Texas A&M to investigate the use of adaptive aerostructures in lowering sonic boom loudness at off design conditions. Successful completion of this effort will improve the feasibility of supersonic commercial transport over land.

Funding was provided by a NASA University Leadership Initiative grant to several universities, including Utah State University, as well as industry partners to complete this work over a five year period. The …

Experimental Characterization Of Thermal-Hydraulic Performance Of A Microchannel Heat Exchanger For Waste Heat Recovery, James Yih, Hailei Wang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Given size and performance advantages, microchannel heat exchangers are becoming increasingly important for various energy recovery and conversion processes. In this study, detailed experimental measurements were conducted to characterize flow and heat transfer performance of a microchannel heat recovery unit (HRU) manufactured using standard photochemical etching and diffusion bonding processes. According to the global flow and temperature measurement, the HRU has delivered the predicted thermal performance under various oil and air flow rates. As expected, the heat transfer effectiveness varies between 88% and 98% for a given air and oil flow rates while it increases with air inlet temperature due …

Aerodynamic Centers Of Arbitrary Airfoils Below Stall, Douglas F. Hunsaker, Orrin D. Pope, Jeffrey D. Taylor, Josh Hodson

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

The aerodynamic center of an airfoil is commonly estimated to lie at the quarter-chord. This traditional estimate is based on thin airfoil theory, which neglects aerodynamic and geometric nonlinearities. Even below stall, these nonlinearities can have a significant effect on the location of the aerodynamic center. Here, a method is presented for accurately predicting the aerodynamic center of any airfoil from known lift, drag, and pitching-moment data as a function of angle of attack. The method accounts for aerodynamic and geometric nonlinearities, and it does not include small-angle, small-camber, and thin-airfoil approximations. It is shown that the aerodynamic center of …

Calibration Of Hot-Film X-Probes For High Accuracy Angle Alignment In Wind Tunnels, Dallin L. Jackson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis investigates the use of hot-film thermal anemometers to align a plate on a wind tunnel at Hill Air Force Base that is used to calibrate Angle of Attack Transmitters on F-16s. A reoccurring problem with this wind tunnel is that no two instruments can verify an angle reading of the the mounting plate for the Angle of Attack Transmitters to the air stream in the wind tunnel. Multiple thermal anemometer calibration methods, such as Jorgensen’s equation and a look-up table are implemented to attempt to achieve consistent measurements between multiple probes. The results show that it is necessary …

Isentropic Efficiency And Theoretical Analysis Of The Planetary Rotor Expander, Joseph L. James

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Expanders allow pressurized fluids to undergo a pressure decrease in a controlled environment via volumetric growth to extract fluid energy. There are many types of expanders, and the objective of this thesis is to model the efficiencies of the planetary rotor expander (PRE), a century-old design undeveloped due to insufficient manufacturing capabilities (until recently). Geometric relationships are derived and mathematical models are generated to determine the efficiency of the PRE as a function of design variables. Two industrially relevant case studies show that, to maximize isentropic efficiency, the planetary rotor expander (PRE) rotational frequency is maximized and rotor geometry optimized.

How Vision Governs The Collective Behaviour Of Dense Cycling Pelotons, J. Belden, Mohammad M. Mansoor, A. Hellum, S. R. Rahman, A. Meyer, C. Pease, J. Pacheco, S. Koziol, Tadd T. Truscott

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

In densely packed groups demonstrating collective behaviour, such as bird flocks, fish schools or packs of bicycle racers (cycling pelotons), information propagates over a network, with individuals sensing and reacting to stimuli over relatively short space and time scales. What remains elusive is a robust, mechanistic understanding of how sensory system properties affect interactions, information propagation and emergent behaviour. Here, we show through direct observation how the spatio-temporal limits of the human visual sensory system govern local interactions and set the network structure in large, dense collections of cyclists. We found that cyclists align in patterns within a ± 30° …

Minimizing Induced Drag With Weight Distribution, Lift Distribution, Wingspan, And Wing-Structure Weight, Warren F. Phillips, Douglas F. Hunsaker, Jeffrey D. Taylor

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

Because the wing-structure weight required to support the critical wing section bending moments is a function of wingspan, net weight, weight distribution, and lift distribution, there exists an optimum wingspan and wing-structure weight are presented for rectangular wings with four different sets of design constraints. These design constraints are fixed lift distribution and net weight combined with 1) fixed maximum stress and wing loading, 2) fixed maximum deflection and wing loading, 3) fixed maximum stress and stall speed and 4) fixed maximum deflection and stall speed. For each of these analytic solutions, the optimum wing-structure weight is found to depend …

A Multi-Fidelity Prediction Of Aerodynamic And Sonic Boom Characteristics Of The Jaxa Wing Body, Forrest L. Carpenter, Paul G. A. Cizmas, Christian R. Bolander, Ted N. Giblette, Doug F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

This paper presents a detailed comparison between the linear panel solver PANAIR A502 and the in-house Navier–Stokes solver UNS3D for a supersonic low-boom geometry. The high-fidelity flow solver was used to predict both the inviscid and laminar flow about the aircraft geometry. The JAXA wing body was selected as the supersonic low-boom geometry for this study. A comparison of the undertrack near-field pressure signatures showed good agreement between the three levels of model fidelity along the first 0.8L of the signature. Large oscillations in the PANAIR results were observed. The PANAIR discrepancies were traced back to violations of the …

Micromechanics-Enriched Finite Element Modeling Of Composites With Manufacturing Or Service-Induced Defects, Alden S. Hyde

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Composite materials are increasingly used in many industries due to the high strength and low weight properties that they exhibit. Since composites are becoming more popular, they are being used in applications such as aircraft, boats, wind turbine blades, and even sports equipment. Composite behavior is complicated since they are made up of two completely different materials such as strong thin fibers and a relatively weaker resin material that hold the fibers together. It is becoming more important to understand how composites behave in different situations so that equipment designers have reliable material information in order to design safe products …

A High Magnification Uv Lens For High Temperature Optical Strain Measurements, Robert S. Hansen, Trevor J. Bird, Ren Voie, Katharine Z. Burn, Ryan B. Berke

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Digital Image Correlation (DIC) measures full-field strains by tracking displacements of a specimen using images taken before and after deformation. At high temperatures, materials emit light in the form of blackbody radiation, which can interfere with DIC images. To screen out that light, DIC has been recently adapted by using ultraviolet (UV) range cameras, lenses, and filters. Before now, UV-DIC had been demonstrated at the centimeter scale using commercially available UV lenses and filters. Commercial high-magnification lenses using visible light have also been used for DIC. However, there is currently no commercially available high-magnification lens that will allow images to …

Water Walking As A New Mode Of Free Surface Skipping, Randy Craig Hurd, Jesse Belden, Allan F. Bower, Sean Holekamp, Michael A. Jandron, Tadd T. Truscott

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Deformable elastomeric spheres are evaluated experimentally as they skip multiple times over a lake surface. Some spheres are embedded with small inertial measurement units to measure the acceleration experienced during water surface impact. A model for multiple impact events shows good agreement between measured acceleration, number of skipping events and distanced traveled. The experiment reveals a new mode of skipping, “water walking”, which is observed for relatively soft spheres impacting at low impact angles. The mode occurs when the sphere gains significant angular velocity over the first several impacts, causing the sphere to maintain a deformed, oblong shape. The behavior …

Peloton Tracking And Analysis From The 2016 Tour De France, Tadd T. Truscott, Jesse Belden

Browse all Datasets

The work associated with this project is described in a manuscript entitled "How vision governs the collective behavior of cycling pelotons" by Belden et al., along with an electronic supplementary material document. We investigate properties of densely packed groups of bicycle racers, which are known as cycling pelotons. These pelotons exhibit features of collective animal behavior, including emergent behavior from inter-individual interactions. In this data set, we classify global shapes of the peloton, and identify and track individual cyclists to determine the details of network structure. We also investigate motion waves that propagate through the pelotons.

Developing Silent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Glen Wright

Research on Capitol Hill

The optimization of a drone propeller’s acoustic signature can play an important role in the Department of Defense, observation of nature, commercial operations, and marine propulsion.

The aim of this research is to optimize the acoustic signature of propellers by isolating and modifying specific propeller characteristics. Propeller variations being researched in this project include:

• Leading-edge serrations: break up incoming fluid and evenly disperse it along airfoil
• Trailing-edge serrations: minimize vortex occurrences along the trailing edge of airfoil
• Airfoil ribs: force fluid through tangential channels along airfoil
• Winglets: disrupt turbulence and vortices at the tips of the propeller

Successful drone propeller …

A Sine-Summation Algorithm For The Prediction Of Ship Deck Motion, Christian R. Bolander, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

Landing a fixed-wing aircraft on a moving aircraft carrier is a risky and inefficient process. Having an accurate prediction of ship deck motion decreases the risk posed to both the pilot and the aircraft and increases the efficiency of landing maneuvers. The present work proposes the use of a sine-summation algorithm to predict future ship motion. The algorithm decomposes recorded ship acceleration data into its characteristic harmonic parameters using a fast Fourier transform. The harmonic parameters are then used in a summation of sine waves to create a fit for the acceleration data, which is projected into future time intervals …

A Procedure For The Calculation Of The Perceived Loudness Of Sonic Booms, Christian R. Bolander, Douglas F. Hunsaker, Hao Shen, Forrest L. Carpenter

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

Implementing a method to calculate the human ear’s perceived loudness of a sonic boom requires consulting scattered literature with varying amounts of detail. This work describes a comprehensive implementation of Stevens’ Mark VII in Python, called PyLdB. References to literary works are included in enough detail so that the reader could use this work as a guide to implement the Mark VII algorithm. The details behind the mathematics of the Mark VII algorithm are included and PyLdB is used to calculate the perceived loudness of an example pressure signature. PyLdB is benchmarked against a widely used and validated code by …

Inter-Laminar Fracture Of 3d-Printed Plastics - Development Of Methods, Christopher Stolinski

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Due to the increased use of 3D printed acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic parts, a way to quantify the failure energy (energy needed to initiate cracking) is needed. Impact tests at high rates of loading are performed to determine failure energy. Throughout testing, specimens are monitored with high speed cameras to perform camera-based deformation measurements. Data acquisition and processing methods to calculate failure energy using crack opening displacement, and loading rates are developed to enable further use by Dr. Ryan Berke’s lab at Utah State University.

Study Of The 3Ω Measurement Of The In-Plane And The Cross-Plane Thermal Properties On Anisotropic Thin Film Materials, Daxi Zhang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Due to the size of the nano-scale and micro-scale materials, traditional method for measuring the thermal properties of the bulk materials cannot be applied. The 3 Omega Method was developed by D. G. Cahill in the early 90s. It was used extensively to measure the thermal properties of thin film dielectric materials. Compare with other simulations or experimental methods, the 3 Omega Method has many advantages. Previous research has indicate that the 3 Omega method is capable of measuring the cross-plane thermal conductivity of thin film materials. In extension, an alternative improvement for measurement of the in-plane thermal conductivity and …

Development Of An Improved Low-Order Model For Propeller-Wing Interactions, Joshua Taylor Goates

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

For aircraft that have propellers mounted in front of the wings or tail, the prop wash produced by the propellers can have a strong influence on the aerodynamics of the aircraft. As the accelerated air from the propeller flows over the wings and tail, it can cause an alteration in the aerodynamic forces produced by those surfaces. Thus, an understanding of propeller-wing interactions is essential for the design and analysis of many aircraft.

There are multiple existing methods for analyzing the propeller-wing interactions. High order methods, such as wind tunnel testing or computational fluid dynamics, provide very accurate results but …