Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Treadle Driven Lathe, Eleanor B. Mullard, Daniel Kronthal, Aaron Cohn, Robert Borovsky

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The main objective of this senior design project was to design and build a treadle-driven, metal-cutting lathe that has the ability to cut 3/4" diameter material and produce small parts up to 3" long. The main challenge in this project was to successfully generate enough power through the treadle driven system to successfully cut metal at the proper specifications, while simultaneously meeting all of the user-needs. The entire system needed to be operated and pedaled by a single person, which put constraints on the location of the treadle relative to the lathe itself so the user could comfortably operate both …

Wind Walking Machine, Sam N. Lazechko, Taylor A. Justman, Will Nocka, Isaac Goldenthal

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Design a machine that walks using wind power.

Treadle Driven Can Opener, Chris Lowery, Stewart Martens, Dom Quaranta

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Given the task to build a treadle driven can opener that opened a can in under 5 seconds, met cost requirements, and was robust.

Orthopedic Screwdriver Design, Tiffany M. Ewing, Ryan F. Blumenstein, Beenish Qayum

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Design an adjustable mechanical clutch screwdriver suitable for driving Orthopedic Screws into bones. The clutch would prevent over tightening and damaging bone material. The prototype design must demonstrate the function and ergonomics of the device and it must be suitable for modification into a medical device. Specify material changes and design details that would be needed for the ultimate production model.

Shape Optimization Of Airfoils Without And With Ground Effect Using A Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm, Yilei He

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this thesis is on shape optimization using a genetic algorithm. A multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) is employed to optimize the shape of an airfoil to improve its lift and drag characteristics, in particular to achieve two objectives simultaneously that is to increase its lift as well as its lift to drag ratio. The commercially available software FLUENT is employed to calculate the flow field on an adaptive structured mesh, which is generated by the commercial mesh generating software ICEM. The flow field is calculated using the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations in conjunction with a two equation k-ω …

Evaluation Of The Performance Of Various Turbulence Models For Accurate Numerical Simulation Of A 2d Slot Nozzle Ejector, Colin Graham

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

With the development over the last several decades, accurate Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling has now become an essential part in the analysis and design of various industrial products where the fluid flow plays an important role. The goal of this thesis is to apply the CFD technology to the analysis of a 2D slot nozzle ejector which has application in Short Take-off and Landing (STOL) aircraft and other future aerospace vehicles. In the nozzle-ejector configuration, the high speed air flow from the nozzle entrains the ambient air into a mixing chamber (ejector) as a means to create additional thrust …

Numerical Simulation And Optimization Of Carbon Dioxide Utilization And Storage In Enhanced Gas Recovery And Enhanced Geothermal Systems, James H. Biagi

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

With rising concerns surrounding CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel power plants, there has been a strong emphasis on the development of safe and economical Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technology. Two methods that show the most promise are Enhanced Gas Recovery (EGR) and Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). In Enhanced Gas Recovery a depleted or depleting natural gas reservoir is re-energized with high pressure CO₂ to increase the recovery factor of the gas. As an additional benefit following the extraction of natural gas, the reservoir would serve as a long-term storage vessel for the captured carbon. CO_{2 …}

Engineered Plasmonic Nanostructures For Nanomedicine, Christopher Matthew Portz

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Approach To Thermocouple Temperature Measurements That Reduces Uncertainties Associated With Radiative Corrections, Siddharth Krishnan

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Obtaining accurate temperature measurements in flame environments with thermocouples is extremely challenging due to the effects of radiative heat loss. These losses are difficult to quantify and often cannot be corrected for or minimized without sacrificing spatial resolution. In this work, a new experimental methodology is presented that has shown potential to minimize the temperature correction by both increasing and controlling the effects of convection. This is accomplished through high speed rotation of the thermocouple. The rotation yields a high and known convective velocity over the thermocouple. Heat transfer can then be modeled for the thermocouple, and a functional relationship …

Optimization Of Wind Turbine Airfoils/Blades And Wind Farm Layouts, Xiaomin Chen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Shape optimization is widely used in the design of wind turbine blades. In this dissertation, a numerical optimization method called Genetic Algorithm (GA) is applied to address the shape optimization of wind turbine airfoils and blades. In recent years, the airfoil sections with blunt trailing edge (called flatback airfoils) have been proposed for the inboard regions of large wind-turbine blades because they provide several structural and aerodynamic performance advantages. The FX, DU and NACA 64 series airfoils are thick airfoils widely used for wind turbine blade application. They have several advantages in meeting the intrinsic requirements for wind turbines in …

Emg-Emg Coherence Analysis Of Elbow And Shoulder Muscles, Manu Stephen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Motor coordination can be described by the activation of a few intermuscular coordination patterns, or muscle synergies. Muscle synergy can be defined as a relatively fixed pattern of activation across a set of muscles. The neural mechanisms underlying muscle synergies remain to be fairly unknown. Through a muscle synergy study [13], co-activation in muscle pairs was discovered through a non-negative matrix factorization: NMF) analysis. In order to evaluate the same muscles under the frequency domain, coherence analysis: a correlational method) was used. Additionally, a comparison can be made to determine if the resulting muscle pairs overlap with the muscle pairs …

Ideal Optimum Performance Of Propellers, Lifting Rotors And Wind Turbines, Ramin Modarres

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

Numerical Simulation Of Separated And Secondary Flows In Diffusing S-Ducts For Air Breathing Propulsion, Colin James Fiola

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

Numerical Simulation And Optimization Of Co2 Sequestration In Saline Aquifers, Zheming Zhang

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

With heightened concerns on CO2 emissions from pulverized-coal power plants, there has been major emphasis in recent years on the development of safe and economical Geological Carbon Sequestration: GCS) technology. Although among one of the most promising technologies to address the problem of anthropogenic global-warming due to CO2 emissions, the detailed mechanisms of GCS are not well-understood. As a result, there remain many uncertainties in determining the sequestration capacity of the formation/reservoir and the safety of sequestered CO2 due to leakage. These uncertainties arise due to lack of information about the detailed interior geometry of the formation and the heterogeneity …

Development Of Optimization Models For The Set Behavior And Compressive Strength Of Sodium Activated Geopolymer Pastes, Brian Albert Fillenwarth

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

As large countries such as China begin to industrialize and concerns about global warming continue to grow, there is an increasing need for more environmentally friendly building materials. One promising material known as a geopolymer can be used as a portland cement replacement and in this capacity emits around 67% less carbon dioxide. In addition to potentially reducing carbon emissions, geopolymers can be synthesized with many industrial waste products such as fly ash.

Although the benefits of geopolymers are substantial, there are a few difficulties with designing geopolymer mixes which have hindered widespread commercialization of the material. One such difficulty …

A Rigorous Solution For Finite-State Inflow Throughout The Flowfield, Zhongyang Fei

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

In this research, the Hseih/Duffy model is extended to all three velocity components of inflow across the rotor disk in a mathematically rigorous way so that it can be used to calculate the inflow below the rotor disk plane. This establishes a complete dynamic inflow model for the entire flow field with finite state method. The derivation is for the case of general skewed angle. The cost of the new method is that one needs to compute the co-states of the inflow equations in the upper hemisphere along with the normal states. Numerical comparisons with exact solutions for the z-component …