Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Mars Reconnaissance: Civil Engineering Advances For Human Exploration, Laurent Sibille, Robert W. Moses, Robert P. Mueller, Michelle A. Viotti, Michelle M. Munk, Paul J. Van Susante, Et. Al.

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Friction Stir Processing For Fabrication Of Composites In The Context Of Industry 4.0: A Bibliometric Review, Arunkumar Bongale, Pragya Saxena, Satish Kumar

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Aluminum alloys having good strength to weight ratio and resistance to corrosion have a wide range of applications in aerospace, automobiles, military, sports and many other applications. In order to enhance the hardness and wear resistance of the surface without compromising the bulk properties, aluminum matrix based surface composites fabricated with various reinforcements on the surface are now a days being utilized widely as new generation materials. In the manufacturing of metal surface hybrid composites (precisely of light weight alloys like- Al, Mg, etc.), the friction stir processing is a promising new solid state processing technique which is versatile enough …

A Dynamic Programming Approach To Determine Optimum Modularity Level In Industrial Packaging, Marshal Louie, Kumar B

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Modular packaging facilitate customization for accommodating variable product sizes in a product family. When determining package sizes for product variability, packaging engineers does not find difficulty to determine package dimension for less product variety whereas if the product variety is more, then determining the dimension of modular package involves complex decision-making and time-consuming process to find the optimal solution. This in turn directly impacts the overall lead time of the supply chain. Thus, in this paper a dynamic programming is developed to determine the quantity and dimension of modular packages for every demand of assorted products sizes. The program helps …

High Pressure Responsive Luminescence Of Flexible Eu3+ Doped Pvdf Fibrous Mats, Carlos Hernandez, Santosh K. Gupta, Jose P. Zuniga, Jorge Vidal, Rene Galvan, Hector Guzman, Lilian N. Chavez, Karen Lozano, Yuanbing Mao

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Exploring lanthanide doped materials and their high-pressure optical properties is important from the perspective of designing pressure sensors, piezoelectric materials, scintillators, and optoelectronic devices, just to mention a few. Understanding the high-pressure optical properties of polymeric fibrous mats provides significant advantages in terms of flexibility, tunability, facile processability, and malleability. In this work, we have developed flexible polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) fibrous mats doped with an Eu3+ source of Eu(NO3)3·5H2O (EN-PF) or Eu2(SO4)3 (ES-PF) by a Forcespinning® method. Microstructural analysis of these two systems indicates that Eu(NO3)3·5H2O and Eu2(SO4)3 are homogeneously distributed and dispersed into the PVDF matrix. Fiber formation …

Temperature-Immune Self-Referencing Fabry–Pérot Cavity Sensors, Hengky Chandrahalim, Jonathan W. Smith

AFIT Patents

A passive microscopic Fabry-Pérot Interferometer (FPI) sensor an optical fiber a three-dimensional microscopic optical structure formed on a cleaved tip of an optical fighter that reflects a light signal back through the optical fiber. The reflected light is altered by refractive index changes in the three-dimensional structure that is subject to at least one of: (i) thermal radiation; and (ii) volatile organic compounds.

Solid-State Transducer, System, And Method, Andrew Barnard

Michigan Tech Patents

The present disclosure includes solid-state transducers, a system, and a method. In one embodiment, a solid-state transducer includes a housing, a first end portion, a second end portion, a plurality of electrical conductors, and a thin-film resistive material. The thin-film resistive material is disposed between and in electrical communication with a plurality of electrical conductors. The thin-film resistive material is configured to receive one or more electrical signals from the plurality of electrical conductors, and generate thermal oscillations to create pressure waves in a medium in response to receiving the one or more electrical signals.

Impact Damage Ascertainment In Composite Plates Using In-Situ Acoustic Emission Signal Signature Identification, Robin James, Roshan Prakash Joseph, Victor Giurgiutiu

Faculty Publications

Barely visible impact damage (BVID) due to low velocity impact events in composite aircraft structures are becoming prevalent. BVID can have an adverse effect on the strength and safety of the structure. During aircraft inspections it can be extremely difficult to visually detect BVID. Moreover, it is also a challenge to ascertain if the BVID has in-fact caused internal damage to the structure or not. This paper describes a method to ascertain whether or not internal damage happened during the impact event by analyzing the high-frequency information contained in the recorded acoustic emission signal signature. Multiple 2 mm quasi-isotropic carbon …

Ignition Process And Flame Lift-Off Characteristics Of Dimethyl Ether (Dme) Reacting Spray, Khanh Duc Cung, Ahmed Abdul Moiz, Xiucheng Zhu, Seong-Young Lee

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Advanced combustion systems that utilize different combustion modes and alternative fuels have significantly improved combustion performance and emissions compared to conventional diesel or spark-ignited combustions. As an alternative fuel, dimethyl ether (DME) has been receiving much attention as it runs effectively under low-temperature combustion (LTC) modes such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and reactivity control combustion ignition (RCCI). Under compression-ignition (CI), DME can be injected as liquid fuel into a hot chamber, resulting in a diesel-like spray/combustion characteristic. With its high fuel reactivity and unique chemical formula, DME ignites easily but produces almost smokeless combustion. In the current study, …

Mechanical Engineering News, Georgia Southern University

Mechanical Engineering: News & Publications (2013-2023)

• 2021 Engineering Design Challenge

Relative International Energy Conservation Code (Iecc) Energy Impacts By Compliance Path, Florida Solar Energy Center, Philip W. Fairey

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The EnergyGauge® USA (v.6.2) residential building energy simulation software tool is used to examine energy impacts in two-story, 2,376 ft², single-family homes configured in accordance with the minimum requirements of Section R402-R404 of the 2018 IECC in fourteen representative U.S. cities.⁴ EnergyGauge USA is a RESNET-accredited HERS software tool capable of evaluating not only the HERS Index and the IECC Section R406 Energy Rating Index Compliance Alternative but also the IECC Section R405 Simulated Performance Alternative as well as the IECC Section R402 R-Value and Total UA Alternative prescriptive methods along with all of the IECC mandatory …

Evaluating The Performance Of Devices Engineering To Quantify The Fars Test, Harsh Patel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clinical rating scales play a major role in assessing progressive neurological diseases. Neurologists use these rating scales to provide a better diagnosis, to provide a better treatment plan, and to analyze the outcome of clinical trials. Friedreich’s ataxia (FA) is a neurodegenerative disease that causes ataxia in limbs, speech impairment, and polyneuropathy. Since FA is a progressive disease, various rating scales have been standardized to provide an objective assessment of the patient’s current condition. The Friedreich Ataxia Rating Scale (FARS) includes several tests to capture neurological features of FA and to assess the functional stage of ataxia. The rubrics used …

In-Situ Calibrated Modeling Of Residual Stresses Induced In Machining Under Various Cooling And Lubricating Environments, Julius M. Schoop

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Although many functional characteristics, such as fatigue life and damage resistance depend on residual stresses, there are currently no industrially viable ‘Digital Process Twin’ models (DPTs) capable of efficiently and quickly predicting machining-induced stresses. By leveraging advances in ultra-high-speed in-situ experimental characterization of machining and finishing processes under plane strain (orthogonal/2D) conditions, we have developed a set of physics-based semi-analytical models to predict residual stress evolution in light of the extreme gradients of stress, strain and temperature, which are unique to these thermo-mechanical processes. Initial validation trials of this novel paradigm were carried out in Ti-6Al4V and AISI 4340 alloy …

Study Of Laser Based Additive Manufacturing For Titanium And Copper Alloys, Congyuan Zeng

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Material processing by laser is increasingly applied in industrial applications for its outstanding characteristics, such as localized heating, high efficiency, and high manufacturing precision. In this study, two kinds of laser material processing strategies were investigated, namely laser surface engineering and laser-powder-bed fusion additive manufacturing, with pure titanium and copper alloys as target materials, respectively.

For laser surface engineering related studies, the work includes the investigation of the dynamic interactions between titanium and pure nitrogen or ambient air under transient laser processing conditions. Thanks to the in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction tests, the high-temperature reaction steps between titanium and pure nitrogen/ambient …

Experimental And Numerical Investigation In Directed Energy Deposition For Component Repair, Lan Li, Xinchang Zhang, Frank W. Liou

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Directed energy deposition (DED) has been widely used for component repair. In the repair process, the surface defects are machined to a groove or slot and then refilled. The sidewall inclination angle of the groove geometry has been recognized to have a considerable impact on the mechanical properties of repaired parts. The objective of this work was to investigate the feasibility of repairing various V-shaped defects with both experiments and modeling. At first, the repair volume was defined by scanning the defective zone. Then, the repair volume was sliced to generate the repair toolpath. After that, the DED process was …

Hemodynamic Response To Device Titration In The Shunted Single Ventricle Circulation - A Patient Cohort Modeling Study, Chet Villa, Farha Zafar, Angela Lorts, Ethan Kung

Publications

Clinical outcomes of ventricular assist device (VAD) support for shunted single ventricle patients trail the larger population due in part to the challenges in optimizing VAD support and balancing systemic and pulmonary circulations. We sought to understand the response to VAD titration in the shunted circulation using a lumped-parameter network modeling six patient-specific clinical cases. Hemodynamic data from six patients (mean body surface area = 0.30 m²) with a systemic-to-pulmonary shunt was used to construct simulated cases of heart failure and hemodynamic response to increasing VAD flow from 5 to 10 L/min/m². With increasing VAD flow, …

Half-Barrel Planter Mover, Mihir Shah, Natalie Lewis, Mason James Hughes

Mechanical Engineering

A device for transporting heavy barrel planters is needed. Barrel planters are wooden wine barrels that have been cut in half along the circumference. They are used to store and grow a variety of plants. As such, they can contain more than 300 pounds of soil. The products currently on the market are not designed for such heavy planters, are cost prohibitive, and do not take advantage of the tapered design of a wine barrel half. A solution is needed that is durable, easy to use, and low cost. This final design report will show the steps used to find …

Fsae Chassis Hardpoint Optimization, Christopher Soohoo, Ethan Vallivero, Dwarak Reddy

Mechanical Engineering

Our team has been tasked with optimizing hardpoints for the Cal Poly Racing team. Hardpoints are the locations on the chassis of a car that are designed to carry both internal and external loads, they are the areas where the engine and suspension connect to the chassis. These points are subject to torsion, shear, bending and pull-out loads. Cal Poly Racing needs more thoroughly analyzed individualized hardpoints that are optimized for weight, strength and specific stiffness, so they can reduce the overall weight and improve the race times of the vehicle while maintaining their strength and stiffness standards. Our team …

Time-Dependent System Reliability Analysis With Second-Order Reliability Method, Hao Wu, Zhangli Hu, Xiaoping Du

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

System reliability is quantified by the probability that a system performs its intended function in a period of time without failures. System reliability can be predicted if all the limit-state functions of the components of the system are available, and such a prediction is usually time consuming. This work develops a time-dependent system reliability method that is extended from the component time-dependent reliability method using the envelope method and second-order reliability method. The proposed method is efficient and is intended for series systems with limit-state functions whose input variables include random variables and time. The component reliability is estimated by …

Common Pool Resource Management: Assessing Water Resources Planning For Hydrologically Connected Surface And Groundwater Systems, Francisco Munoz-Arriola, Tarik Abdel-Monem, A. Amaranto

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Common pool resource (CPR) management has the potential to overcome the collective action dilemma, defined as the tendency for individual users to exploit natural resources and contribute to a tragedy of the commons. Design principles associated with effective CPR management help to ensure that arrangements work to the mutual benefit of water users. This study contributes to current research on CPR management by examining the process of implementing integrated management planning through the lens of CPR design principles. Integrated management plans facilitate the management of a complex common pool resource, ground and surface water resources having a hydrological connection. Water …

Part-Scale Thermal Simulation Of Laser Powder Bed Fusion Using Graph Theory: Effect Of Thermal History On Porosity, Microstructure Evolution, And Recoater Crash, Reza Yavari, Ziyad Smoqi, Alex Riensche, Ben Bevans, Humaun Kobir, Heimdall Mendoza, Hyeyun Song, Kevin Cole, Prahalada Rao

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Flaw formation in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is influenced by the spatiotemporal temperature distribution – thermal history – of the part during the process. Therefore, to prevent flaw formation there is a need for fast and accurate models that can predict the thermal history as a function of the part shape and processing parameters. In previous work, a thermal modeling approach based on graph theory was used to predict the thermal history in LPBF parts in less-than 20% of the time required by finite element-based models with error within 10% of experimental measurements. The present work transitions toward the …

Moving Hands-On Mechanical Engineering Experiences Online: Course Redesigns And Student Perspectives, Jaclyn E. Johnson, Nancy B. Barr

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Hands-on lab experiences are essential for enabling students to be successful engineers, especially those who identify as kinesthetic learners. This case study describes how a Mechanical Engineering Practice course sequence was redesigned during the COVID-19 emergency transition to remote learning and examines how students responded to these changes. The remote course included videos of Graduate Teaching Assistants conducting data acquisition phases of the practice session to replace hands-on experiments. To understand student perspectives and performance, researchers reviewed approximately 400 reflective essays from Spring 2020 and compared assignment submissions between Fall 2019 and Spring 2020. Results suggest that some students perceived …

Accelerated Controller Tuning For Wind Turbines Under Multiple Hazards, Aly Mousaad Aly, Milad Rezaee

Faculty Publications

During their lifecycle, wind turbines can be subjected to multiple hazard loads, such as high-intensity wind, earthquake, wave, and mechanical unbalance. Excessive vibrations, due to these loads, can have detrimental effects on energy production, structural lifecycle, and the initial cost of wind turbines. Vibration control by various means, such as passive, active, and semi-active control systems provide crucial solutions to these issues. We developed a novel control theory that enables semi-active controller tuning under the complex structural behavior and inherent system nonlinearity. The proposed theory enables the evaluation of semi-active controllers’ performance of multi-degrees-of-freedom systems, without the need for time-consuming …

Project G.H.O.S.T., Matthew Morell, Austin Conrad, Zackeris Gordon, Conan Estes

Mechanical Engineering

Project G.H.O.S.T aimed to produce a model transmission with a control system for high performance/racing electric vehicles to utilize the full capability of the electric motor at higher speed applications. Current electric vehicles have a large amount of torque and use a fixed gear ratio that compromises between both high and low speeds with performance peaking around 65 miles per hour. A typical electric motor used in this application has approximately 1800 ft-lbs of torque up to 5,000 rpm. Past approximately 5,000 rpm, the torque rapidly drops off and so does the overall vehicle performance. Though transmissions exist that could …

Smud Solar Regatta, Logan Garby, Nam Le, Jacob Singer, Alejandro Carrera, Laura Casas

Mechanical Engineering

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) hosts the Solar Regatta every year in Rancho Seco, CA, a competition which consists of teams building a solar powered boat to compete in three races: the sprint race, endurance race, and slalom race. The Cal Poly Solar Regatta team was informed mid-project by SMUD that the competition has been canceled once again for spring 2021, but the team decided to move forward with the construction of the boat. The previous Cal Poly team from 2019/2020 designed the hull and propulsion system of the boat. The 2020/2021 team worked with the previous team in …

Enduro Campers, Ryan J. Shomsky, Alexander W. Horst, Kevin S. Pickering, Jackson L. Aplanalp, Luke Arana, Will Firestone

Mechanical Engineering

The Enduro Campers senior project team (Formerly known as Lobo Campers senior project team) was recruited by Mr. Leif Stein to assist in the design, manufacturing, and testing of the materials and components of his company’s expedition box camper. The two main focuses of the project, divided into two sub-teams, were on the testing and manufacturing process of the materials used in the camper, and on the design and analysis of the camper’s access door, step box, and other subsystems.

The focus of the materials analysis and manufacturing team was based around the design parameter to use composite sandwich panels …

Final Design Report Cal Poly Wind Power - Balancing System, Caleb Seth Cross, Ethan Andrew Czuppa

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Wind Power club is anticipating joining the annual Collegiate Wind Competition in the year 2021. This competition hosts schools from all around the country, who meet and compete against each other by testing the wind turbines they have made throughout the academic school year. Tasks included in the competition test the wind turbine’s efficiency, power generation, overall design, and stability in extreme conditions.

Cal Poly is planning to implement a formal balancing system to support their 2021 wind turbine. Our senior project team undertook mitigating mass imbalance in the wind turbine; mass imbalance occurs when the center …

The Corrosion Of Stainless Steel Made By Additive Manufacturing: A Review, Gyeongbin Ko, Wooseok Kim, Kyungjung Kwon, Tae-Kyu Lee

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The advantages of additive manufacturing (AM) of metals over traditional manufacturing methods have triggered many relevant studies comparing the mechanical properties, corrosion behavior, and microstructure of metals produced by AM or traditional manufacturing methods. This review focuses exclusively on the corrosion property of AM-fabricated stainless steel by comprehensively analyzing the relevant literature. The principles of various AM processes, which have been adopted in the corrosion study of stainless steel, and the corrosion behaviors of stainless steel depending on the AM process, the stainless steel type, and the corrosion environment are summarized. In this comprehensive analysis of relevant literature, we extract …

A Hybrid Droplet Vaporization-Adaptive Surrogate Model Using An Optimized Continuous Thermodynamics Distribution, Simcha L. Singer, Michael Hayes, Alanna Y. Cooney

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Liquid transportation fuels are composed of hundreds of species, necessitating the use of surrogates in CFD simulations. Surrogates composed of a few species are often formulated to emulate the combustion properties targets (CPTs) of pre-vaporized fuels but fail to reproduce their vaporization behavior, implying that such surrogates cannot replicate the CPTs in the presence of preferential vaporization. The prevailing approach to this problem proposes a physical–chemical surrogate formulated to match the fuel’s distillation curve in addition to its CPTs. However, the physical–chemical surrogate approach requires more species, may not reproduce the instantaneous (distillation-resolved) CPTs, and is not well-suited to conditions …

Me-Em Enewsbrief, March 2021, Department Of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering eNewsBrief

No abstract provided.

Cal Poly Wind Power - Blade Pitching System, Jenna Hartley, Ben Santos, Willie Bass

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Wind Power club (CPWP) has sponsored our senior project team to design and implement a system to dynamically pitch the blades of their prototype horizontal-axis wind turbine. A blade pitching system can improve a turbine’s efficiency under certain operating conditions and prevent failure under extreme wind speeds. To ensure reliable control, the pitching system must be able to pitch quickly and accurately. Turbine efficiency can be improved by a pitching system with low power draw and low inertia about the rotor axis. The turbine is subjected to static and dynamic loading occurring due to changing aerodynamic forces, …