Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Jme 4110 Seed Aerodynamics, Kristin Gonzalez, Vladimir Sidorov

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

This is a report discussing the analysis and results of a wind tunnel that was created to find the terminal velocity of a variety of seeds.

Jme 4110- Solar Panel Tracker, Bob Stretch, James Eimer, Patrick Kraus

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

Our design is a passive solar panel tracker using fundamentals of thermodynamics. A fixed solar tracker only operates at peak efficiency for a short period during the day. Our tracker uses the sun's energy to power pistons that push the panel to face the sun throughout the day, increasing efficiency.

Composition-Dependent Mechanisms Of Multiscale Tendon Mechanics, Fei Fang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Tendons serve as an integral part of the musculoskeletal system by transferring loads from muscle to bone and providing joint mobility and stability. From the physiologically-loading perspective, while progress has been made in evaluating mechanical behavior of different types of tendons in tension, further work is needed to relate tendon mechanics to compositional and microstructural properties, particularly under non-tensile loading modalities (i.e., shear, compression). This information is vital to explore mechanisms of how mechanical signals lead to changes in tendon structure and composition to enable these tissues to function properly, including in in vivo multiaxial loading conditions. From the structural …

Minimum Induced Power For A Helicopter In High-Speed Forward Flight, Junsoo (Sean) Hong

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

A dynamic inflow model is used to calculate minimum induced power for a helicopter in high-speed forward flight with infinite and finite number of blades. Comparisons between analytical and numerical results are shown and they show good agreement. Different flow conditions (such as with and without reverse flow or inflow feedback) are used to show how each condition affects optimum induced power. Several results confirm the findings of earlier investigations such as a singularity in rotor power in reverse flow and induced power reduction with increase in blade number. Some of the new findings are that greater inflow feedback (due …

Fundamental Studies Of Flame Structure Through Laser Plasma Diagnostics, Wendong Wu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Increasing concerns about air pollution and global climate change are drawing attention to the need for efficiency improvements and emission reductions for combustion processes, which account for more than 85% of energy production in United States. Combustion efficiency and emissions are affected by the mixing and reacting of fuel and oxidizer. Understanding such behavior plays a critical role in flame structure studies and combustion optimization. However, experimentally obtaining mixture fraction, which is a widely used quantity to describe the mixing behavior, has proven to be a challenge, especially for heavier hydrocarbon fuels or fuel rich flames. Moreover, measuring flame temperature …

Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling And Simulations Of Fast Fluidized Bed And Moving Bed Reactors For Chemical Looping Combustion, Mengqiao Yang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Chemical-looping combustion (CLC) is a next generation carbon capture technology with high efficiency and low cost. To assess the potential of this technology for industrial scale power plants, thousands of laboratory scale and many pilot-scale plants have been designed and tested. In recent years, to obtain a thorough understanding of the hydrodynamic behavior inside the reactors and chemical looping combustion process, high-fidelity numerical simulation using Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) have been performed. However, CFD simulations in the literature have been limited reported compared to the laboratory scale experiments.

In this thesis, cold flow simulations of a CLC fuel reactor are performed …

Cfd Simulations Of Chemical Looping Combustion In A Packed Bed And A Bubbling Bed Fuel Reactor, Guanglei Ma

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Chemical-looping combustion (CLC) is a next generation combustion technology that has shown great promise in addressing the need for high-efficiency low-cost carbon capture from fossil fueled power plants to address the rising carbon emissions. Although there have been a number of experimental studies on CLC in recent years, CFD simulations have been limited in the literature on CLC. The development and confidence in high-fidelity simulations of the CLC process is a necessary step towards facilitating the transition from laboratory-scale experiments to deployment of this technology on an industrial scale. In this research, first the CFD simulations of a CLC packed …

Numerical Simulation Of Flows Past A Circular And A Square Cylinder At High Reynolds Number, And A Curved Plate In Transitional Flow, Ling Zhang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Increasing the prediction accuracy and computational efficiency of turbulence models at high Reynolds number remains a challenging problem in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In this paper, several turbulence models are applied for numerical simulation of flow past a circular and a square cylinder at high Reynolds number. Wray-Agarwal (WA) turbulence model is a recently developed one-equation turbulence model derived from k-w closure. Comparisons are made among computational results from WA model, Spalart-Allmaras (SA) model, the shear stress transport SST k-w model and the standard Wilcox k-w model. For circular cylinder, the computations are performed for Reynolds numbers and and simulation …

Numerical Simulation Of Enhancement In Co2 Sequestration With Various Water Production Schemes Under Multiple Well Scenarios, Li Chen

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

CO₂ geological sequestration simultaneously combined with water production from deep saline aquifers can effectively address the challenge faced by the modern energy systems for reducing the CO₂ emissions and water intensity while providing reliable, affordable, and secure energy. However, little attention has been paid to date in the literature on determining the best CO₂ injection strategy for achieving both the optimal water production and the optimal CO₂ space storage capacity while maintaining operational safety. This research first establishes three injection-extraction scenarios based on the typical geological parameters of the Junggar Basin in China to analyze the …

Particle Enrichment In Longitudinal Standing Bulk Acoustic Wave Microfluidics, Mingyang Cui

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Separation, isolation, and enrichment of targeted nano- and microparticles are critical to a variety of biomedical applications from clinical research (development of therapeutics and diagnostics) to fundamental investigations that require concentration of specific cells from culture, separation of target species from heterogenous mixtures, or controlled perturbation of cells and microorganisms to determine their response to stimuli. Numerous techniques are available for bench-scale and medical settings; however, these traditional approaches are often labor intensive, time-consuming, costly, and/or require modification of the target. Efficiency and specificity are also lacking. Recently, techniques that exploit the similar scales of microfluidic technologies and the intrinsic …

Sanitation System For Underdeveloped Countries, Anish Agrawal, Mutian Tang, Dylan Lesher, Reid Schur

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Currently, there are over 2.5 billion people living in the world without having access to proper sanitation. This is primarily because of lack of access to water and/or their financial situation to afford a sanitation system. Therefore, there is a need for a sanitation system which can flush in less water and is inexpensive. This project involves the creation of a sanitation system for use in impoverished areas with little access to water or electricity.

Maneuverable Backpack Scooter Attachment, Andrew Goldfield, Alex Roesch, Cosmo Centanni, Nina Nepa

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

A mechanical device that will aid in the collaboration between a scooter and a backpack. Due to the weight of typical backpack, our device will aid the consumer to carry less weight on their backs, and create a device to fold into the scooter so that it nicely fits in a classroom setting. This device will be detachable so that the scooter can be operated without the attachment.

Automatic Onion Peeler, William R. Luer, Matthew O. Clohisy, Craig A. Claire, Dylan L. Newcomb

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Our senior design report encompasses the design selection, process, and fabrication of an automatic onion peeler. Our design is intended for the peeling of medium yellow onions in restaurant-scale applications. Our machine is easily cleaned and can be safely operated by one person.

Universal Pitter, Angelica Price, Rachel Venn

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Fruits with pits in them have been cumbersome to eat due to the delicate quality of the fruit and the rigid structure of the pits that must be removed. Many types of pitters already exist, but any are for small pits such as cherries and olives or involve to much manual action. This pitter will remove the pit out of multiple types of fruit while holding the fruit in a manner that does not damage the fruit. This projected was initiated by Rachel Venn, an engineering student at Washington University in St. Louis, who took a pole amongst family and …

Asme Student Design Challenge, James Mitchell, Ean Murnan, Alex Wirtz

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The Olympic Summer Games test the abilities of people throughout the world in a wide variety of athletic challenges. The athlete that wins the Olympic decathlon or heptathlon is referred to as the world’s greatest male or female athlete. The 2017 Student Design Competition challenges your technical design skills to create a robot that is fast, strong, and agile. Your team must build a remotely controlled device to compete against others in five different events – a robot pentathlon. Scores from each of the events will be combined to determine the overall champion. Our team will attempt to design a …

Mems 411 Design Report Group O: Naked Mole Rat Trap, Drew Pikey, Adam Glassl, Sam Nadell

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Naked mole-rats are mouse size rodents that live in underground colonies in East Africa. They are best known for having a queen and workers like bees. Prof Stan Braude has been studying them in Kenya and Ethiopia for over 25 years and has trapped over 10,000 of these animals, marked and released them. He is the world’s expert at trapping naked mole-rats and yet, he still needs a better trap. Prof. Stan Braude is looking forward to working with a team of real engineers and designers who can help him complete this project.

Autonomous Shopping Cart, John Gutsch, Steven Taschner, Asim Zaidi

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

In shopping centers across the United States, customers must return shopping carts after they used them by themselves. For a variety of reasons, a significant number of shopping carts are left in parking lots after being used. This results in expenses to the store in the form of damaged carts, man hours required to return each one, and law suits from customers whose cars are damaged by free carts. This project is an add-on mechanism by which allows shopping carts to return to the shopping center autonomously. The cart should be able to locate a preset track that is set …

Group H: Expandable Brush, Aaron Hall, Michael Roznik

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This is an overview of our project to design an expandable brush. This brush is designed to be versatile and able to clean a variety of vessels with narrow necks, wide bases, and complex geometries. Our prototype consisted of two parts: an outer sleeve with a deflector and a handle with a head piece to hold our bristle filaments. This design allows the user to insert the brush into a vessel and then control how far outward the bristles expand for easy cleaning.

Reinventing The Dishwasher, Caryn Devaney, Carter Fraser, Aaron Walters

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Most people aren’t excited to do the dishes. Still, washing cookware like pots and pans is an unavoidable task - and even those who own dishwashers typically choose to handwash them after use. After conducting a wide-ranging market survey, we designed a standalone device which can fill the existing gap between handwashing and dishwashing. We successfully built a single pan dishwasher which simulates hand washing to clean nonstick frying pans.

Building A Better Naked-Mole Rat Trap Mems 411- Senior Design Course, Alex Flammond, Lance Middleton, Andrew Chang

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

In this paper, we design, analyze, test, and construct an improved naked mole rat trap for Prof. Stan Braude of Washington University in St. Louis.

Telescoping Cup Holder, Richard Kristian O. Pajarillo, Eric Nehrbas, Charlie Morrow

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Cup holders are a beloved feature of the modern automobile because they keep your drink stable and close, ensuring that minimal work is needed to grab it. Our mission is to provide a cup holder for everyday use outside of vehicles. Our device will hold drinks of most sizes, and will keep them cool. Motion activation will raise the drink to a convenient height using a telescoping motion, and then lower to a sturdy position that is out of the way. The finished product will minimize the amount of work required to retrieve the drink, and grab some attention as …

An Improve Naked Mole Rat Trap, Group Iii, Spencer Egly, Ted Daley, Andrew Thompson

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This project attempts to improve on Dr. Stan Braude’s current Naked Mole Rat trap design. Dr. Braude currently uses his trap to catch and tag naked mole rats for his research. While Dr. Braude is happy with his current trap, he designed them himself over twenty years ago, and believes that they can be improved and modernized for increased ease and convenience. The key project goal is to deliver an improved trap to Dr. Braude that will meet his needs. The modifications that this project will attempt to deliver are a repeatable, solar powered trap that is compatible with his …

Four-Wheel Steering, Theodore Wisniewski, Andrew Sparrow, Phil Rowsell

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This prototype Four-Wheel Steering system is designed for a Formula SAE racecar. Multiple steering geometries can be applied to optimize the handling across a range of speeds. Ackermann steering geometry at low speeds improves the car’s agility in tight, technical race courses. At high speeds the steering transitions to parallel steering geometry, improving stability and giving the driver more precise control over the vehicle. The system fits seamlessly within the rear suspension packaging of the existing WashU Racing vehicle design and minimizes addition of weight by using compact and lightweight electronic linear actuators to steer the rear wheels. In testing …

Group F: Cell Phone Forearm Holder, Jacob Aley, Emily Groth, Sinclair Hodge

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Design a forearm device that stores cell phones while traveling and provides an easy access apparatus for one handed use on the go. A compression sleeve will be the main feature as it will be the way in which our device will stay on the users arm. An adjustable apparatus that securely holsters the cellphone will be another feature so that our device will be viable for cellphones of varying dimensions. A swivel apparatus that will allow users to select horizontal or vertical viewing of the cellphone while connected to our device. A track system that allows for the movement …

Mechanically Advantageous Wheelchair, Katy Hagerty, Noah Dromgoole, Carlo Balleria, Andrew Orona

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This project will utilize a gear system to create a multispeed wheelchair. Multiple gears will allow users to adjust the speed of the wheelchair for appropriate scenarios. Our device will be modular and use a different gear mechanism than products currently in the marketplace.

Compact Furniture Dolly, Gary Hu, Jieun Yim, Jason Xie, Jiayi Hou

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

One problem faced by people during moving is how to move large pieces of furniture, i.e. sofa, mattress, table, refrigerator, etc., conveniently without damaging them. A typical small dolly is incapable of carrying such large pieces, and a bulky dolly is inappropriate for an indoor use because it can damage the furniture and the floor. Besides, in either case, the user should lift up and put the load on the dolly. People who want to change positions of their furniture regularly to get a fresh look for the house, it is cumbersome to call a moving company every time. Our …

Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling And Simulations Of Fluidized Bed Reactors For Chemical Looping Combustion, Subhodeep Banerjee

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is a next generation combustion technology that shows great promise as a solution for the need of high-efficiency low-cost carbon capture from fossil fueled power plants. To realize this technology on an industrial scale, the development of high-fidelity simulations is a necessary step to develop a thorough understanding of the CLC process. Although there have been a number of experimental studies on CLC in recent years, CFD simulations have been limited in the literature.

In this dissertation, reacting flow simulations of a CLC reactor are developed using the Eulerian approach based on a laboratory-scale experiment of …

Semi-Empirical Modeling Of Two-Dimensional And Three-Dimensional Dynamic Stall, Ramin Modarres

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Helicopters are generally limited in their performance by the phenomenon of dynamic stall. The purpose of this work is to develop a method for modeling dynamic stall that is appropriate to preliminary design and flight simulator applications. Unlike other semi-empirical dynamic stall models, the model developed in this thesis, not only counts for the well-known, three-dimensional flow effects on the stalled loads but also captures the secondary vortex-shedding phenomenon that has been seen in experiments. The fundamental physics that modify dynamic-stall behavior and that have been extended from two-dimensional to three-dimensional flow are, namely: 1.) yawed flow, 2.) time-varying velocity, …

Mems 411 Final Report - Plate Pourer Ii, Minsoo Ha, Patrick Champlin, Timothy Young

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The objective of this project is to create a machine that has the capability to pour Petri dishes. The usage of this machine must be easier than simply performing the task by hand, be automated, capable of producing 120 plates per hour, be sterile, prevent the plates from sloshing, fit in a fume hood, and stack the plates while they are cooling so that they may cool properly. This all was accomplished with a device that drops the plates vertically down, fills them, and then lowers them into storage thanks to their now increased mass and a spring-loaded platform.

2015 Asme Design Competition - Group Iii Final Report, Matthew J. Yurescko, Nick Divincenzo, Sam Johnson, Sean Cole-Jansen

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The 2015 ASME Challenge was to construct a device which manufactures a projectile from a piece of copy paper then launches it as far as possible. At the competition, each team has five minutes to assemble their machine, craft three projectiles and fire them for a cumulative distance. In addition to launching paper projectiles as far as possible, the machines must also be designed to take up as little space as possible while still performing its main function effectively. A team’s final score is the ratio of the cumulative distance of all three projectiles to the volume of a box …