Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Engineering Design And Development, David Kennedy

Conference Papers

Combining Industrial and Functional Design methodologies for the development of new products and systems requires a broad understanding of human behaviour and industrial activities. The requirements of international standards, protection of the environment and the ability to make a profit on sales requires a sound attitude and approach to succeed, especially in current economic conditions. This highlights the importance of good business and management strategy that must be dynamic to meet the changing needs of the market. Competitiveness depends largely upon advances in the fields of design and Innovation, cutting edge research and new advances over a broad range of …

Methodology To Quantify Vertical Accelerations Of Planing Craft In Irregular Waves, Jennifer Suzanne Grimsley

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Planing craft operating in waves at high speeds can experience high, repetitive vertical accelerations that are random and nonlinear in relation to the sea condition. A proper understanding of vertical accelerations is critical to meet statistically based criteria for structural design, habitability, and equipment selection. Historically, it was assumed that planing craft vertical accelerations fit the Exponential distribution, and design methods adopted this conclusion. However, several published papers have raised doubts regarding the accuracy and validity of this Exponential distribution assumption.

The statistical behavior of planing craft vertical accelerations are examined for the Parent and Peak data sets from twenty-eight …

A Novel Piezoelectric Device With Dual Functions Of Studying Biological Soft Tissues, Avin A. Jamadagni

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This thesis presents the design of a novel piezoelectric device with dual functions of studying soft biological tissues. The device consists of a central circular plate and a set of flexural beams. The flexural beams are partially covered with piezoelectric film for integrated transduction. It can function as a force sensor for measuring the mechanical behavior of a tissue sample and a load applier for mimicking physiological loads experienced by the tissue sample in vivo, while the mechanical behavior can be visually observed under a microscope simultaneously. By combining the classic theories in solid mechanics and piezoelectricity, the performance of …

Prediction Of Shock Diamonds And Mach Disk In An Under-Expanded Air Jet, Praveen D. Malali

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The present study involves performing simulations, using the commercially available CFD code Fluent, to obtain under-expanded jet flow structures for different values of nozzle pressure ratio (NPR). A fluid flow domain comprised of a converging nozzle attached to a plenum chamber is discretized, using triangular cells, in the pre-processing software Gambit, companion software to Fluent. The test of grid independence is carried out by performing simulations for NPR value of 10 using three discretized flow domains, referred to as a mesh or a grid, with varying cell numbers. Two models, namely the inviscid compressible flow model, employing Euler equations, and …

Freight Transportation Analysis Comparison Of Short Sea Shipping To Conventional Transportation Modes, Vishwesh Vilas Parkhi

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Pollution due to transportation is one of the biggest concerns today. Freight transportation plays a significant role in this situation. Pollution can be reduced by minimizing the use of transport fuel. This can be achieved by selecting the most economical transport mode for long voyages for which fuel cost is one of the major costs. The model developed in this research helps in comparing the transport modes by evaluating cost per ton-mile. The three transportation modes of trucks, trains and Ro-Ro shipping vessels are considered in the model with very detailed costs associated with them. The major objective of this …

Development Of Sustainability Indicators For Products And Processes, Sundeep Bodapati

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Significant increase in industrialization is a leading cause for the depletion of global resources and changes in the earth's atmosphere due to global warming. There has been a major concern for the manufacturing industry to deal with the above problems and this had led the researchers to focus on the area of sustainability. Sustainable development aims for the future, which is characterized by the interaction of the economic, environment and society. To enable the manufacturing companies to measure sustainability performance, developing the metrics for sustainability is critical. The purpose of this thesis is to review the indicators published in the …

2010 (Fall) Ensi Informer Magazine, Morehead State University. Engineering Sciences Department

ENSI Informer Magazine Archive

The ENSI Informer Magazine published in the fall of 2010.

Turbulence Measurement With Coherent Doppler Sonar, Jeremy Dillon

Link Foundation Ocean Engineering and Instrumentation Fellowship Reports

The ocean has been described as Earth's "fi nal frontier" in a vision statement on ocean exploration (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2000). The search for new insight is motivated by the fact that our environmental and economic security depends critically on the ocean and the freshwater bodies that drain into it. As the vast majority of the ocean is unknown and unexplored, there is great potential for scientifi c discovery beneath the sea surface (McNutt, 2002). The development of remote and in situ sensors forms a cornerstone of this vision for exploring ocean dynamics at new scales.

Opportunities For Energy Conservation And Improved Comfort From Wind Washing Retrofits In Two-Story Homes - Part Ii, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Wind washing is a general term referring to diminished thermal control caused by air movement partially or completely bypassing the thermal barrier. The primary focus of this paper relates to a specific type of wind washing where wind can push attic air into the floor cavity between first and second stories of the home through ineffective (or missing) air barriers separating attic space from the floor cavity. A second type of wind washing studied in this project involves insulation batts on knee walls where space between the batts and the wall board allow air movement against the gypsum wall board. …

Opportunities For Energy Conservation And Improved Comfort From Wind Washing Retrofits In Two-Story Homes - Part I, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Wind washing is a general term referring to diminished thermal control caused by air movement over or through a thermal barrier. The primary focus of this paper is towards a specific type of wind washing where wind can push attic air into the floor cavity between first and second stories of the home through ineffective (or missing) air barriers separating attic space from the floor cavity. A second type of wind washing studied in this project involved insulation batts on knee walls where space between the batts and the wall board allowed air movement against the gypsum wall board. During …

Affiliate Steps Toward Building Energy Star Homes, Florida Solar Energy Center, Janet Mcilvaine

FSEC Energy Research Center®

To certify a home as an Energy Star, a builder works with a RESNET certified home energy rater to evaluate the home with respect to criteria required by the Energy Star program. The following steps will help Habitat affiliates navigate the path toward building Energy Star homes.

Cutting Tool Insert Having Internal Microduct For Coolant, William J. Endres

Michigan Tech Patents

A cutting tool insert includes: a body defining a rake face, a flank face, and a cutting edge at an intersection of the rake and flank faces; and a cooling microduct within the body. A portion of the microduct extends along the cutting edge not more than 0.5 millimeter from the rake face, and not more than 0.5 millimeter from the flank face. The microduct has a cross-sectional area of not more than 1.0 square millimeter. The microduct is adapted to permit the flow of a coolant therethrough to transfer heat away from the cutting edge and extend the useful …

System Identification And State Estimation For Intake Manifold Charge Flow Temperature Of A Compression Ignition Diesel Engine, Ryle D. Maxson

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Intake manifold charge temperature is a factor used in mean value engine models (MVEMs) for the calculation of intake mass air charge and oxygen flow. More stringent emission requirements have led to increased deployment of more advanced engine combustion models onto production engine controllers. Measurement of the temperature via physical thermocouple sensors mounted to the engine intake manifold is both slow, in comparison to the changing conditions of an engine, and undesirable due to the cost and increased complexity of extra sensors. A state estimation model has been evaluated that imitates the function of the intake manifold temperature sensor reading, …

Pilot Evaluation Of Energy Savings And Persistence From Residential Energy Demand Feedback Devices In A Hot Climate, Florida Solar Energy Center, Danny Parker

FSEC Energy Research Center®

According to past studies, providing instantaneous feedback on household electrical demand has shown the promise to typically reduce energy consumption by 5-10%. This paper briefly reviews past research and describes a two year pilot evaluation of a low cost residential energy feedback system installed in twenty case study homes in Florida. Although not a statistical sample (the participants were self-selected and interested in reducing energy use), the study showed an average 7% reduction in energy use from feedback homes in the second year of monitoring after controlling for weather-related influences. However, a follow-up evaluation done three years later found little …

Developing Intelligent Engineering Collaboration Tools Through The Use Of Design Rationale, Jordan David Ryskamp

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a new method that improves upon the existing approaches to developing collaborative tools. The new method uses automatically inferred and manually recorded design rationale to intelligently filter the information that is shared by a collaborative tool. This represents an improvement upon the existing state of the art in collaborative engineering tools. To demonstrate the viability of the method three collaborative tools were created. The first is a multi-user collaborative design environment tool named SimulPart and built upon the NX CAD package. SimulPart uses the new method to limit the amount of communication required to keep every user …

2010 Fall Engr333 Project Assignment, Matthew K. Heun

ENGR 333

The Fall 2010 ENGR333 project focused on heating and air-conditioning in campus dormitories, which are notoriously leaky and inefficient.

I asked the students “What would it take to retrofit the Bolt-Heyns-Timmer (BHT) dormitory heating and air-conditioning systems in a manner that achieves LEED certification?”

Customer

The customer for this project was Calvin’s VP for finance Henry DeVries.

Exploring Cost-Effective, High Performance Residential Retrofits For Affordable Housing In The Hot Humid Climate, Florida Solar Energy Center, Janet Mcilvaine

FSEC Energy Research Center®

In 2009, a Department of Energy Building America team led by the Florida Solar Energy Center began working with partners to find cost-effective paths for improving the energy performance of existing homes in the hot humid climate. A test-in energy audit and energy use modeling of the partner's proposed renovation package was performed for 41 affordable and middle income foreclosed homes in Florida and Alabama. HERS1 Indices ranged from 92 to 184 with modeled energy savings ranging from 3% to 50% (average of 26%). Analyses and recommendations were discussed with partners to encourage more efficient retrofits, highlight health and safety …

Defect Detection Microscopy, Stuart Craig Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

The automotive industry's search for stronger lighter materials has been hampered in its desire to make greater use of Magnesium alloys by their poor formability below 150°C. One current challenge is to identify the complex structure and deformation mechanisms at work and determine which of these are primary contributors to the nucleation of defects. Orientation Imaging Microscopy has been the most accessible tool for microstructural analysis over the past 15 years. However, using OIM to analyze defect nucleation sites requires prior knowledge of where the defects will occur because once the defects nucleate the majority of microstructural information is destroyed. …

Reducing Whole Body Vibration Levels In Off-Road, Heavy-Duty Vehicles: A Case Study With Computer Modelling, Shaun Mcfadden, Matthieu Morhan, Brian Hurley

Conference Papers

This paper describes a case study involving the dynamic ride performance of a 30-ton, articulated dumper vehicle. The vehicle in question was originally fitted with a front-end, solid axle with leading arm mechanism. After an engineering design program, the vehicle was custom-fitted with a Timoney Independent suspension system. Extensive testing and modelling activities using LMS Virtual.lab Motion® were undertaken to determine the productivity levels of each vehicle. It was demonstrated that the vehicle fitted with a Timoney suspension could achieve a productivity increase of up to 50%. A health analysis is also presented which shows the Timoney Independent suspension system …

Earth Systems Lesson Plan: Size And Forces Of The Solar System, Getaway Special Team 2010

Education and Outreach

No abstract provided.

Physics Lesson Plan: How Far And Fast Does It Travel?, Getaway Special Team 2010

Education and Outreach

No abstract provided.

Elementary And Middle School Science Lesson Plan: Solid, Liquid, Gas, What Is It?, Getaway Special Team 2010

Education and Outreach

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Bias Issues Within Regression-Based Inverse Modeling Methods Against Climate And Building Characteristics Using Synthetic Data, Florida Solar Energy Center, Jamie Cummings

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Typically, a model of the energy use of a building is created using the building's characteristics and climate information for its location. However, models of existing homes can be created using monitored energy and climactic data in a process called inverse modeling. Such a technique has potential for those seeking to evaluate the savings a home before and after a retrofit (Meier, Busch, & Conner, 1988).Several programs use an inverse modeling technique to model a home's energy use based on total home energy use, heating and cooling energy use, and indoor/outdoor temperature data from a home (Kissock, Haberl, & Claridge, …

State Space Model Of A Light Weight Flexible Telescope, Chi-Yeh Hsu

Master's Theses

The accuracy of optical telescope in the past was dominated by the construction of the telescope body and the precision of optical surface. This thesis fits into a larger project with a goal of controlling a flexible telescope in order to help a cheaper telescope achieve higher accuracy. In order to understand the internal motion of telescope, the goal of this thesis is to build a state space model of a two-degree-of-freedom telescope using a known star location as feedback. The model presented in this thesis may be used for the telescope simulation and the control design in the future. …

Uncertainty Quantification Integrated To Cfd Modeling Of Synthetic Jet Actuators, Srikanth Adya, Daoru Frank Han, Serhat Hosder

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Point-Collocation Non-intrusive Polynomial Chaos (NIPC) method has been applied to a stochastic synthetic jet actuator problem used as one of the test cases in the CFDVAL2004 workshop to demonstrate the integration of computationally efficient uncertainty quantification to the high-fidelity CFD modeling of synthetic jet actuators. The test case included the simulation of an actuator generating a synthetic jet issued into quiescent air. The Point-Collocation NIPC method is used to quantify the uncertainty in the long-time averaged u and v-velocities at several locations in the flow field due to the uniformly distributed uncertainty introduced in the amplitude and frequency of …

Stochastic Optimal Control In Nonlinear Systems, Celestin Nkundineza

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Stochastic control is an important area of research in engineering systems that undergo disturbances. Controlling individual states in such systems is critical. The present investigation is concerned with the application of the stochastic optimal control strategy developed by To (2010) and its implementation as well as providing computed results of linear and nonlinear systems under stationary and nonstationary random excitations. In the strategy the feedback matrix is designed based on the achievement of the objectives for individual states in the system through the application of the Lyapunov equation for the system. Each diagonal element in the gain or associated gain …

"Pull-In" Of A Pre-Stressed Thin Film By An Electrostatic Potential: A 1-D Rectangular Bridge And A 2-D Circular Diaphragm, Gang Duan, Kai Tak Wan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A one-dimensional (1-D) rectangular pre-stressed thin film clamped at two opposite ends is actuated by an electrostatic voltage applied to a pad directly underneath. the pre-stress is allowed to be either tensile or compressive in nature. at a critical applied voltage, the film becomes unstable and makes direct contact with the pad, leading to "pull-in". an elastic model is constructed to account for the phenomenon over ranges of film pad gap and residual stress. the results compare favorably with finite element analysis (FEA) in literature and experimental data and possess distinct advantages over other available closed-form solutions. the model is …

Sae Baja: Final Drive Gearbox, Michael Mccausland, Michael Watkins, Ian Masterson, Andrew Sommer

Mechanical Engineering

This paper presents the results of a manual transmission project for SAE Baja. A full engineering process is documented, including problem definition, scheduling, conceptualization, decision theory, synthesis, analysis, manufacturing, and testing. A comparison is made between existing and potential mechanical power train solutions. The final design is analyzed in dynamic simulations, AGMA stress, predicted FFT spectrums, and shifting rod buckling. A number of complicated parts are manufactured through investment casting and direct CNC machining. Issues in the final assembly have prevented the project from being fully realized, recommendations are made for future SAE Baja teams.

Differential Regulation Of Immature Articular Cartilage Compressive Moduli And Poisson’S Ratios By In Vitro Stimulation With Igf-1 And Tgf-Β1, Gregory M. Williams, Kristin J. Dills, Christian R. Flores, Michael E. Stender, Kevin M. Stewart, Lauren M. Nelson, Albert C. Chen, Koichi Masuda, Scott J. Hazelwood, Stephen M. Klisch, Robert L. Sah

Mechanical Engineering

Mechanisms of articular cartilage growth and maturation have been elucidated by studying composition-function dynamics during in vivo development and in vitro culture with stimuli such as insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-β1). This study tested the hypothesis that IGF-1 and TGF-β1 regulate immature cartilage compressive moduli and Poisson’s ratios in a manner consistent with known effects on tensile properties. Bovine calf articular cartilage from superficial-articular (S) and middle-growth (M) regions were analyzed fresh or following culture in medium with IGF-1 or TGF-β1. Mechanical properties in confined (CC) and unconfined (UCC) compression, cartilage matrix composition, and explant …

Pole Arrangements That Introduce Prismatic Joints Into The Design Space Of Four- And Five-Position Rigid-Body Synthesis, David H. Myszka, Andrew P. Murray

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Although a general five-position, rigid-body guidance problem admits a discrete number of revolute–revolute (RR) dyads, this paper identifies arrangements of five task positions that result in a center-point curve. For these special arrangements, a one-dimensional set of revolute-prismatic (RP) dyads exist to achieve the task positions. Other five-position arrangements are identified where a one-dimensional set of prismatic-revolute (PR) dyads exist to achieve the task positions. For a general case of five task positions, neither PR nor RP dyads are possible. In a general case of four-position rigid-body guidance problems, a unique PR dyad and RP dyad exist. Four-position arrangements are …