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Washington University in St. Louis

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Articles 151 - 180 of 376

Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Mems 411: Rowing Force Plate, Mae Hubel, Taylor Southwick, Miles Petersen Oct 2021

Mems 411: Rowing Force Plate, Mae Hubel, Taylor Southwick, Miles Petersen

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The Rowing Force Plate is a device that is designed to measure a rower’s force
over time so that they can understand how hard they are rowing. Most rowing
aids communicate the speed at which someone is rowing, which is variant on water
speed, wind speed, and other inconsistent environmental and situational factors.
Force, however, can be consistently measured and is a better indicator of effort a
rower is exerting. Other products that measure force do exist, but use complex and
expensive technology, unlike our design.
After brainstorming and analyzing multiple possible designs, we concluded to use
four force sensors …


Mems 411: The Bueffer 3000, Ty W. Bedillion, Krista Sudar, Anna Oneto, Cole Kocjancic Oct 2021

Mems 411: The Bueffer 3000, Ty W. Bedillion, Krista Sudar, Anna Oneto, Cole Kocjancic

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

We were tasked with creating a quality product for a customer for MEMS 411 Senior Design. Our customer was the Washington University in St. Louis Men's Club Volleyball team and they asked us to create a volleyball setting machine.


Mems 411: The Hash Setting Slasher, Garrett Barber, William Koopman, Andrew Werner, Alexandra Carr Oct 2021

Mems 411: The Hash Setting Slasher, Garrett Barber, William Koopman, Andrew Werner, Alexandra Carr

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The volleyball setter has certain patents that utilize some sort of rotational component or is a stationary platform that the ball rests on before the player hits it. Our design is different because it utilizes the mechanical properties of springs to propel the ball forwards. We had certain specifications to meet to allow the volleyball to be natural in its trajectory and able to be shot efficiently and effectively. Some specifications required positioning adjustments and some defined how the ball should be propelled through the air. We also had parameters involving cost, weight, and the repeatability of the mechanism to …


Mems 411: Volleyball Setter, Alexander Zuga, Liam Cadden, Neil Cumberland, Jacob Ridderhoff Oct 2021

Mems 411: Volleyball Setter, Alexander Zuga, Liam Cadden, Neil Cumberland, Jacob Ridderhoff

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Our volleyball setting machine is intended for use by the WashU men’s club volleyball team to improve their training. It allows their skilled hitters to get more reps in practice because there currently aren’t enough skilled setters on their team.


Mems 411: African Pouched Rat Trap, Kelechi Achilefu, Paul Joseph, David Allen, Chase Green Oct 2021

Mems 411: African Pouched Rat Trap, Kelechi Achilefu, Paul Joseph, David Allen, Chase Green

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

What is often thought of as a rat trap is often in reality a mouse trap, or a trap designed to catch small rodents. Rats can be quite large and catching them without harming them can be quite difficult. Current market solutions generally either kill or harm the rodent which is not acceptable for our client's needs. While there are some solutions on the market, they fall short of the needs of our client which is more specialized due to the size of rodent they will be capturing, the circumstances surrounding the capture, the number of rodents our client needs …


Volleyball Crossbow- Group W, Giovanni Alvarez, Kyle Krippner, Alexis Rivera Oct 2021

Volleyball Crossbow- Group W, Giovanni Alvarez, Kyle Krippner, Alexis Rivera

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The Volleyball Crossbow was our solution to the problem of a limited number of skilled setters on a volleyball team. This device will alleviate expectations of the setters and improve the efficiency of practice drills. The major customer needs for this device included consistency in launch, height and angle adjustability, high speed of operation, and ease of use. The Volleyball Crossbow provides a relatively low-cost, easy to manufacture design that meets these customer needs. As the name suggests, the design inspiration came from the crossbow mechanism. Two elastic bands attached to a cross-member and a cart on a track are …


Mems 411: P.O.T.T.E.R. Test Frame, Marie Drevets, Kiersten Horton, Tony Sancho Oct 2021

Mems 411: P.O.T.T.E.R. Test Frame, Marie Drevets, Kiersten Horton, Tony Sancho

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Our senior mechanical engineering design is a flexure test frame. At our university, third-year mechanical engineering students take a class called machine elements, in which the final project is a structural design competition. The students design a strong but lightweight object. The P.O.T.T.E.R. device can be used to judge the structural integrity of students contest entries. The customer who commissioned this project is Dr. Potter, who teaches the machine elements class. The customer needs a portable test frame which can apply enough compressive force to fracture an object which is secured in the device. The test frame should also measure …


Mems 411: Soccer Robot Project, Evan Sucherman, Dylan Mitchell, Benjamin Hessman, Emre Koc Oct 2021

Mems 411: Soccer Robot Project, Evan Sucherman, Dylan Mitchell, Benjamin Hessman, Emre Koc

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This project aims at designing a robot that is capable of playing a simplified form of soccer against other robots. The original competition was created by the ASME organization as a student design competition in 2018. This project is an adapted version in which some of the rules and guidelines have been changed to fit the goals of this class better. The design parameters for this project include: having the robot drive around the parameter of the playing field in under 17 seconds, having the vehicle successfully capture the ball within 2 seconds of approaching 8 out of times, and …


Mems 411: Friction Frenzy, Angelo Hawa, Landon Tafoya, Noah Owens Oct 2021

Mems 411: Friction Frenzy, Angelo Hawa, Landon Tafoya, Noah Owens

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The demo is designed to demonstrate the concept of friction to younger children(ages 4+) using an incline plane. The premise is to allow the user to slowly elevate a surface until a block resting on top begins to slide, at which point an electronic interface displays the calculated amount (or coefficient) of friction. The core functions of the device are discussed based on the customer needs in order to identify key performance goals for its successful operation. The design process is documented from initial modeling to the final prototype and critical metrics including safety and ease of fabrication are discussed. …


Mems 411: Asme Soccer Robot, Braden Arango, Brendan Otani, Florie Markwell Oct 2021

Mems 411: Asme Soccer Robot, Braden Arango, Brendan Otani, Florie Markwell

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This project was based off of a variation of the ASME Soccer Robot Competition, where 5 teams were tasked with creating a soccer robot to compete with. The main objective for each team was to create a remote-controlled robot with an integrated shooting mechanism that was capable of shooting a tennis ball, with accuracy, into a goal. A design process was used to create this robot from scratch, where multiple concepts were created and tested through mock-ups and prototypes to better understand the problem at hand. Throughout this process, three main prototype goals were prioritized: the ability to drive around …


Mems 411: The Water Bike, Erin Flynn, Patrick Grindel, Nicholas Payne, Ryan Allin Oct 2021

Mems 411: The Water Bike, Erin Flynn, Patrick Grindel, Nicholas Payne, Ryan Allin

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This design project explored the concept of a bike that can float on water and be used to assist lifeguards in rescues. The goal was for it to be quickly converted from a road to water configuration and be quick and stable enough to be a useful tool in saving drowning swimmers.


Mems 411: Laundry No Mo (Lnm), Justin Tai, Minju Lee, Logan Johnson, Elijah Stewart Oct 2021

Mems 411: Laundry No Mo (Lnm), Justin Tai, Minju Lee, Logan Johnson, Elijah Stewart

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

How can you optimize your time and labor while folding laundry? You can do so with this laundry folding device called Laundry No Mo (LNM).


Mems 411: Q.T. B-Bar, Gambian Pouched Rat Trap, Benjamin W. Horine Jr., Ileane Ho, Sarangi Pathirana Oct 2021

Mems 411: Q.T. B-Bar, Gambian Pouched Rat Trap, Benjamin W. Horine Jr., Ileane Ho, Sarangi Pathirana

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

To design and build an improved rat trap that will effectively capture a Gambian Pouched Rat of larger size ensuring the rodents' safety, easy deployment in natural environments, simple mechanical release mechanisms, and cost-effectiveness.


Mems 411: Bearing Plate Loader, Daniel Firescu, Treeton Allison, Bethany Starr Oct 2021

Mems 411: Bearing Plate Loader, Daniel Firescu, Treeton Allison, Bethany Starr

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Create a Bearing Plate Loader to move a plate from one location to another.


Mems 411: Soccer Robot, Luis Castro, Lydia Kang, Moshe Eskenazi, Ryan Whelan Oct 2021

Mems 411: Soccer Robot, Luis Castro, Lydia Kang, Moshe Eskenazi, Ryan Whelan

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) hosts annual competitions for engineeringstudents across the world. The ASME 2018 Student Design Competition wasto build a robotic soccerteam to compete in a FIFA World Cup style elimination tournament. Robot(s) must fit inside a 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 meter cube,be powered by batteries, and be controlled by a human operator with a wireless radio transmitter or through an electrical “umbilical” cord. The balls are tennis balls.


Attachment Of Fibrous Materials In Nature And Surgical Repair, Ethan Daniel Hoppe Aug 2021

Attachment Of Fibrous Materials In Nature And Surgical Repair, Ethan Daniel Hoppe

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Mother nature is the ultimate problem solver. Often by brute force and necessity for survival, the organism that has the best solution to a problem is the one to proliferate. One of these problems for which nature provides an elegant solution is the attachment of dissimilar materials. This dissertation explores the strengthening and relaxation of interactions between soft and hard materials, typically with one of the two being fibrous in character, with the goal of identifying strategies for improving the surgical reattachment of tendon to bone. The work begins with a study of the plant Harpagonella palmeri, which the dissertation …


Investigation Of Microdroplet Generation, Morphological Evolution, And Applications Under Quasi-Steady And Dynamic States, Li Shan Aug 2021

Investigation Of Microdroplet Generation, Morphological Evolution, And Applications Under Quasi-Steady And Dynamic States, Li Shan

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Microscale droplets are commonly encountered in the fields of materials processing, thermal fluids, and biology. While these droplets are naturally occurring, recent advances in microfabrication have enabled researchers to harness their enhanced transport characteristics for numerous laboratory and industrial applications from controlled chemical synthesis to inkjet printing and thermal management. Smaller droplets have larger specific surface area and a greater perimeter-to-area ratio when resting on a surface (i.e., sessile), which accelerates processes occurring at droplet surfaces like evaporation, chemical reaction, or combustion. The demand for microdroplets with smaller and more uniform sizes has motivated investigation of how such droplets can …


Jme 4110: Vibratory Parts Feeder, Adin Stambolic, Patrick Edward Vastola, Noah Herrin Jul 2021

Jme 4110: Vibratory Parts Feeder, Adin Stambolic, Patrick Edward Vastola, Noah Herrin

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

Design an inexpensive, modular and tunable vibratory feeder to move different size particles from one place to another. The feeder can change according to the shape and size of the particles while in use.


Jme 4110: Extended Hole Punch, Lucas Mennemeier, Jason Zobrist Jul 2021

Jme 4110: Extended Hole Punch, Lucas Mennemeier, Jason Zobrist

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

DESIGN AND DEVELOP A WORKING PROTOTYPE OF A SINGLE-HAND, SINGLE-HOLE PUNCH WITH AN EXTENDED THROAT THAT WILL BE ABLE TO REACH FURTHER INTO A SHEET OF PAPER THAN A STANDARD SINGLE-HOLE PUNCH. THIS CAN BE A PUNCH ATTACHMENT OR A STAND-ALONE DEVICE. EITHER DESIGN CHOSEN WILL ALSO BE ABLE TO BE CONVERTED INTO AN EMBOSSING TOOL FOR EMBOSSING SEALS INTO DOCUMENTS


Jme 4110: Mass Production Of Multi-Sphere Approximated Parts, Christopher Hartley, Chad Gorski, Matthew Brady Jul 2021

Jme 4110: Mass Production Of Multi-Sphere Approximated Parts, Christopher Hartley, Chad Gorski, Matthew Brady

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

For this project, the team needs to design a mass production manufacturing process. The product of the process will be parts that represent, as closely as possible, approximations of parts developed using Discrete Element Modelling (DEM) software. Since the software uses spheres to efficiently model complex parts, the manufacturing process must also utilize spheres as the building blocks for the approximated parts. As a proof of concept, this project uses river pebbles as the parts being approximated by the software and modeled by the multi-sphere production process.


Jme 4110: Water Reservoir Energy Storage, Kristen Grace, Supapan Thammanok, Leticia Zoratto Lunge Jul 2021

Jme 4110: Water Reservoir Energy Storage, Kristen Grace, Supapan Thammanok, Leticia Zoratto Lunge

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

The goal of this project was to create a demonstrative model of a Pumped Hydroelectric Storage System (PHS). A PHS stores energy by draining water from an upper reservoir through a turbine to generate electricity. This water is then pumped from a lower reservoir to the original upper reservoir to restart the system cycle. Using existing PHS applications, a small-scale prototype was built using an aquarium pump and mini turbine, along with PVC and plastic containers. When water is run through the system, a multimeter can be used to show the power output of the system. In addition to functionality, …


Jme 4110: Drag Line Wind Energy Generator, David Gengenbacher, Mouhamadou Bamba Kane, Brian Bakula Jul 2021

Jme 4110: Drag Line Wind Energy Generator, David Gengenbacher, Mouhamadou Bamba Kane, Brian Bakula

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

The goal of this project was to develop a prototype capable of power a 10 watt light bulb using only the energy from wind.


Jme 4110: Lego-Lock Block, Diana Engelhardt, Dmitriy Kornyukhov, Chelsea Borders Jul 2021

Jme 4110: Lego-Lock Block, Diana Engelhardt, Dmitriy Kornyukhov, Chelsea Borders

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

Design a building block device that assembles similarly to a LEGO brick, but also has the capability to lock an assembly state between two bricks. Scale (size) not critical for this proof of concept (standard LEGO blocks may be too small for this first attempt).


Jme 4110: Portable Car Wash, Coleman Kaufman, Sara Wilson Jul 2021

Jme 4110: Portable Car Wash, Coleman Kaufman, Sara Wilson

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

We met with our target customer to understand their needs for the ideal portable car wash. Their key needs included use by any sized passenger vehicle, washing the car as good as a community car wash, and must be portable. We started by researching current products that could match these needs, and then we sketched four of our own designs to match our customer’s needs. With these design sketches we used a metrics tool to determine which design was the best. From there we did engineering calculations to analyze the trouble spots in our design, such as the water pressure …


Jme 4110: Data Cooling Center, Christopher Schmidt, Brennan Fogarty, Suruchi Aryal Jul 2021

Jme 4110: Data Cooling Center, Christopher Schmidt, Brennan Fogarty, Suruchi Aryal

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

The group will design a way to efficiently move heat within a framework of using dielectric fluid as a heat transfer medium. The heat will be removed from a data center or a simulated data center. The group will evaluate the best possible design with the understanding that cooling data centers generate a large amount of heat. The design will also be constructed in such a manner that it can be scaled up to a larger size. Dielectric fluid will be used due to its efficiency compared to that of an air cooled system or a compressed refrigerant system. Account …


Mechanics Of Catheter Herniation, Chase Hartquist May 2021

Mechanics Of Catheter Herniation, Chase Hartquist

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Endovascular catheter-based technologies have revolutionized the treatment of complex vascular pathology. Catheters and endovascular devices that can be maneuvered through tortuous arterial anatomy have enabled minimally invasive treatment in the peripheral arterial system. Although mechanical factors drive an interventionalist's choice of catheters and sheaths, these decisions are mostly qualitative and based on personal experience and procedural pattern recognition. The field currently lacks a definitive quantitative characterization of endovascular tools that are best suited for specific peripheral arterial beds. This approach gives rise to a phenomenon called catheter herniation, which occurs when a catheter is energetically displaced or buckles while a …


Numerical Simulation Of Flow Past An Airfoil With Ice Accretion On Leading Edge, Boyu Wang May 2021

Numerical Simulation Of Flow Past An Airfoil With Ice Accretion On Leading Edge, Boyu Wang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this research is on aerodynamic simulation of flow past NACA 23012 airfoil with clean surface and with ice accretion on its leading edge by using the commercial CFD solver ANSYS Fluent. Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) computations are performed using Spalart-Allmaras (SA) and Wray-Agarwal (WA) turbulence models. ANSYS mesh package ICEM is used to model the geometry and generate the mesh. The computations are performed at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 degrees angle of attack which are compared with experimental data. For the case of ice accretion at the leading edge, the physical geometry becomes more …


Computational Fluid Dynamics And Fluid Structure Interaction Research On Flow In A Glenn Shunt And A Flexible Tube And On A Cantilevered Plate, Chunhui Wang May 2021

Computational Fluid Dynamics And Fluid Structure Interaction Research On Flow In A Glenn Shunt And A Flexible Tube And On A Cantilevered Plate, Chunhui Wang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

This thesis employs Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation technology to solve three flow problems: (1) Blood flow in a Bidirectional Glenn Shunt and a combined Bidirectional Glenn Shunt (BGS) and Blalock-Taussing (BT) Shunt. This shunt is used to address the problem of Cyanosis or “Blue Baby Syndrome,” which is an infant disorder that affects the newly born babies whose skins turn blue or purple because of lack of necessary blood flow between heart and lung due to pulmonary vascular blockage. The goal of this study was to evaluate the performance of BGS and combined BGS+BT shunt in achieving the desired …


Subject-Specific Musculoskeletal Modeling Of Hip Dysplasia Biomechanics, Ke Song May 2021

Subject-Specific Musculoskeletal Modeling Of Hip Dysplasia Biomechanics, Ke Song

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) is characterized by abnormal bony anatomy, causes pain and functional limitations, and is a prominent risk factor for premature hip osteoarthritis. Although the pathology of DDH is believed to be mechanically-induced, little is known about how DDH anatomy alters hip biomechanics during activities of daily living, partly due to the difficulties with measuring hip muscle and joint forces. Musculoskeletal models (MSMs) are useful for dynamic simulations of joint mechanics, but the reliability of MSMs for DDH research is limited by an accurate model representation of the unique hip anatomy. To address such challenges, this …


Understanding The Interactions Between Acoustic Fields And Motile Microorganisms In Microfluidic Systems, Minji Kim May 2021

Understanding The Interactions Between Acoustic Fields And Motile Microorganisms In Microfluidic Systems, Minji Kim

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Acoustofluidics utilizes ultrasonic standing waves in microscale fluidic channels to manipulate cells, microorganisms, and other objects sized from tens of nanometers to tens of microns. When exposed to an ultrasonic standing wave field, particles suspended in a fluid become confined to potential minima (nodes) of the acoustic field. I will present a number of related studies that involve the interactions between acoustic fields and motile microorganisms. First, I will show how an acoustic trap-and-release method enables rapid quantification of cell motility. As a demonstration, the newly developed motility assay is applied to discriminate swimming of wild-type and mutant Chlamydomonas reinhardtii …