Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Gazelle: A Human Powered Vehicle, William Fluharty, Brian Rice, Amulya Rao, Werner Nistler

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

This thesis details the year-long Senior Design process in which our goal was to create a human powered vehicle that could be a short-distance replacement for cars. Our team designed our vehicle to be entered in the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Competition in April of 2016. Our vehicle featured a seat that could be adjusted for users of different heights, making it more comfortable to ride. This report will describe the process and design choices that were made throughout the year in order to create a vehicle. Our frame was welded using Chavez Welding, and the welding created some complications …

Gravity Charger, Luke Lindsay, Will Gonder, George Montgomery

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

According to a 2014 World Health Organization research initiative based on data collected from 14 global developing countries, “Only 28% of health facilities and 34% of hospitals had what could be called “reliable” access to electricity (without prolonged interruptions in one week)” [1]. Healthcare quality suffers because of this lack of reliable electricity. We propose that a gravity powered generator would stand as a reliable power source for small medical devices under any conditions at any location at any time of day. Our research examines how a gravity powered electric generator could best empower medical facilities in developing countries to …

Safer: Search And Find Emergency Rover, Zachary Agustin, Charles Lewis, Elizabeth Mcmahon, Cameron Pierce, Pranav Pradhan, Michael Tamshen

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

When disaster strikes and causes a structure to collapse, it poses a unique challenge to search and rescue teams as they assess the situation and search for survivors. Currently there are very few tools that can be used by these teams to aid them in gathering important information about the situation that allow members to stay at a safe distance. SAFER, Search and Find Emergency Rover, is an unmanned, remotely operated vehicle that can provide early reconnaissance to search and rescue teams so they may have more information to prepare themselves for the dangers that lay inside the wreckage. Over …

Project Space: Solar Panel Automated Cleaning Environment, Matt Burke, Ryan Greenough, Daniel Jensen, Elliot Voss

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The goal of Project SPACE is to create an automated solar panel cleaner that will address the adverse impact of soiling on commercial photovoltaic cells. Specifically, we hoped to create a device that increases the maximum power output of a soiled panel by 10% (recovering the amount of power lost) while still costing under $500 and operating for up to 7.0 years. A successful design should operate without the use of water. This will help solar panel arrays achieve a production output closer to their maximum potential and save companies on costs associated energy generation.

The current apparatus utilizes a …

Marv: Marine Autonomous Research Vessel, Drew Azevedo, Sam Beltram, Gregorio Delvecchio, Ben Hopner

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Conducting hydrologic research in remote areas is currently performed manually, making it a labor intensive and inaccurate solution. Due to the size, weight, and cost of automated solutions on the market today, a need has arisen for a low cost, highly portable, autonomous solution. Working closely with Santa Clara University’s Robotics Systems Lab (RSL), our team has developed a low cost, highly portable autonomous marine research vessel named MARV (Marine Autonomous Research Vessel). It is an autonomous surface platform where scientists outfit the vessel with their own data acquisition equipment. The mechanical chassis is collapsible for modes of remote transportation …

Smart Control For Home Water Heater Saving, Joe Singer, Michael Simmons, Scott Jansen

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Existing gas or electric water heaters can become inefficient through the overheating of water and through parasitic heat loss. These inefficiencies are able to be solved by monitoring when a home uses hot water. AquAdapt is a smart sensor which is capable of attaching to any existing residential gas or electric water heater. By constantly monitoring the temperature change of a home water heater, the first law of thermodynamics can be used to relate temperature change to the amount of hot water leaving the water heater. Utilizing this information, a schedule can be generated to optimize the heating of home …

Heat Pipe Design For Absorption Chiller Refrigerators Powered By Cookstoves, Paola Flores, Eduardo Melendez

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

We developed an inexpensive refrigeration system that will operate off-grid through the use of reclaimed heat from cookstoves. The refrigerator will serve as a reliable storage unit that will maintain vaccines at a proper temperature range. This report focuses on the various components that make up our Cool Stove project. The overall system and subsystems are laid out and explained. We also address the reason why we believe this project will be beneficial to individuals in developing countries. In addition, we provide detail on the work that we have accomplished and on the results that we have achieved. We created …

Cook Stove Powered Refrigeration: Cool Stove 2, Robert Bernal

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Lack of refrigeration contributes to the death of over 3.7 million children and the loss of 200 tonnes of food every year in developing countries. While 1.21 billion people in developing countries do not have access to electricity to operate traditional refrigerators, 38% of individuals within developing countries use biomass fuel to cook. The scope of my project was to produce a viable solution for refrigeration for these individuals in developing countries through the use of thermosyphons that utilize reclaimed thermal energy from cook stoves to power absorption chillers. Over the span of my project I was able to confirm …

Waterproofing Shape-Changing Mechanisms Using Origami Engineering; Also A Mechanical Property Evaluation Approach For Rapid Prototyping, Andrew Jason Katz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My work has been focused on compliant mechanisms, origami engineering, and rapid prototyping. Two of the projects that I worked on were focused on compliant mechanisms and origami engineering. The similar goal of both of those projects was to create an origami membrane whose kinematics mimic that of an existing mechanism. The first project created an origami membrane to mimic the kinematics of a planar shape-changing mechanism. This mechanism was a square shaped unit-cell which could shear, compress, and expand in its own plane. In addition to waterproofing the mechanism, the first project also sought to optimize the dimensions of …

Droplet-Based Mechanical Actuator Utilizing Electrowetting Effect, Qi Ni

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this work is to quantify the key design parameters such as the load capacity, actuation force, positioning repeatability, and reliability for droplet-based electrowetting actuators. Due to the fact that surface tension dominates gravity at both the mesoscale and microscale, droplet-based actuators can provide adequate force in manipulation tasks at those scales. Electrowetting, which uses an electric field to modulate the apparent surface tension of the liquid-ambient, provides a method to actuate droplets, which in turn transports the object carried by the droplet.

Most previous electrowetting actuation efforts have concentrated on manipulating droplets in a closed two-plate configuration. …

Microfluidic E. Coli Detection, Kyle Pietrzyk, Scott Fukuoka, Andres Maldonado-Liu, Andy Ly

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

In both developed and developing countries, there is a need for a fast diagnostic system to detect pathogens within a fluid sample. In developing a microfluidic platform, which utilizes a microfluidic chip and an optical detection method, doors may be opened for new methods of determining pathogen concentration in fluid. Most biological reactions are not instantaneous. A flow-controlling mechanism with no power requirement may be implemented in the microfluidic platform. As a proof-of-concept, our device uses a microfluidic chip, smartphone, and microlens to detect E. coli concentrations in water. The detection method is based on the latex agglutination assay which …

Effect Of Original Layer Thicknesses On The Interface Bonding And Mechanical Properties Of Ti-Al Laminate Composites, Minyu Fan, Joseph P. Domblesky, Kai Jin, Liang Qin, Shengqiang Cui, Xunzhong Guo, Naksoo Kim, Jie Tao

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

It is of great significance in high-temperature aeroengine applications for large-surface-area TiAl laminate composites to be fabricated into Ti-Al₃Ti parts by plastic forming and subsequent vacuum hot pressing. Then the original layer thicknesses have an important influence on the interface bonding and mechanical properties of TiAl laminate composites, but only few reports about it have been published so far. In the present study, vacuum hot pressing was employed to fabricate TiAl laminate composites using Ti and Al foils of different thickness. The resulting interface bond and mechanical properties of TiAl laminate composites were then studied to determine the …

Eigenstress Model For Electrochemistry Of Solid Surfaces, Hongxin Ma, Xilin Xiong, Panpan Gao, Xi Li, Yu Yan, Alex A. Volinsky, Yanjing Su

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Thermodynamic analysis and molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to systematically study the size-dependent electrochemical response of solids. By combining the generalized Young-Laplace equation with the popular Butler-Volmer formulation, the direct influence of surface stress on solid film electrochemical reactions was isolated. A series of thermodynamic formulas were developed to describe the size-dependent electrochemical properties of the solid surface. These formulas include intrinsic surface elastic parameters, such as surface eigenstress and surface elastic modulus. Metallic films of Au, Pt, Ni, Cu and Fe were studied as examples. The anodic current density of the metal film increased, while the equilibrium potential decreased …

Large Length Scale Capillary Fluidics: From Jumping Bubbles To Drinking In Space, Andrew Paul Wollman

Dissertations and Theses

In orbit, finding the "bottom" of your coffee cup is a non-trivial task. Subtle forces often masked by gravity influence the containment and transport of fluids aboard spacecraft, often in surprising non-intuitive ways. Terrestrial experience with capillary forces is typically relegated to the micro-scale, but engineering community exposure to large length scale capillary fluidics critical to spacecraft fluid management design is low indeed. Low-cost drop towers and fast-to-flight International Space Station (ISS) experiments are increasing designer exposure to this fresh field of study. This work first provides a wide variety of drop tower tests that demonstrate fundamental and applied capillary …

Analysis Of A Parallel Machine Scheduling Problem With Sequence Dependent Setup Times And Job Availability Intervals, Ridvan Gedik, Chase Rainwater, Heather Nachtmann, Edward A. Pohl

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

In this study, we propose constraint programming (CP) model and logic-based Benders algorithms in order to make the best decisions for scheduling non-identical jobs with availability intervals and sequence dependent setup times on unrelated parallel machines in a fixed planning horizon. In this problem, each job has a profit, cost and must be assigned to at most one machine in such a way that total profit is maximized. In addition, the total cost has to be less than or equal to a budget level. Computational tests are performed on a real-life case study prepared in collaboration with the U.S. Army …

Sensitivity Analysis Of Common Input Parameters In Tools For Modeling Energy In Homes, Sheikh Tijan Tabban, Nelson Fumo

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Energy models of buildings can be developed and used for analysis of energy consumption. A model offers the opportunity to simulate a building under specific conditions for analysis of energy efficiency measures or optimum design. Due to the great amount of information needed to develop an energy model of a building, the number of inputs can be reduced by making variable the most relevant input parameters and making the others to take common or standard values. In this study, an analysis of input parameters required by computational tools to estimate energy consumption in homes was done in two stages. In …

Gold Contamination In Non-Lead Surface Mount Solder Joints, Richard Alexander Garrison

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Abstract

Solder joints are critical to the reliability of circuit boards. If gold is introduced to the solder joint, brittle AuSn4 intermetallic compounds develop which affect reliability of that solder joint. To determine the effects of gold when dissolved into a non-lead solder joint, a process was developed in order to apply gold content onto SAC305 solder paste. The gold was transferred as a paste from a micropipette onto each individual solder bump. This process was designed to apply a range of gold content from 1.0 wt. % to 10 wt. % to each individual solder joint. The test board …

Improving The Mechanical Performance Of 3d Printed Parts Using Fused Filament Fabrication, Inderpreet Binning

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The 3D printing industry has seen rapid growth in the last 10 years and has been called the next industrial revolution. There are several different processes used in 3D printing, but the most popular process is called Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) or Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). This is the process where (most commonly) plastic filament enters a nozzle, is heated to a semi-liquid state, and then deposited into a pattern to create a print. One major drawback to this process is that the prints are anisotropic. This means that the strength of the print varies with the orientation that it …

Design & Analysis Of A Bicycle Towing Device, Austin Lynch, William Max Mcewan, Fredrik Stenson

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

A local businessman had the idea to build a device that allows a bicycle to tow another bicycle. He built a prototype to demonstrate his idea but he wanted help in developing a product that could fit more bikes, did not require a rear rack to operate, and be manufacturable at his facility. He also expressed interest in an economic evaluation of production and marketing of the device. An analysis of customer needs led to adding reduction of weight and ease of attachment to the design requirements.

This report is about improving the original design and presents the process of …

Haas Automation Umc750 5axis Mill Assembly Process Improvement, Mason A. Garcia, Gregory R. Gunion, Juan Pablo Quinonez Weston

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The improvement of the current assembly of the motor and casting components for the Haas UMC-750 5-Axis vertical CNC mill includes the evaluation, development and proposal of a new pair of material handling carts. To meet these deliverables, a student team began by assessing the assembly workstation, defining the problem to be solved, researching ergonomics in material handling equipment and drafting the final design of the improved cart models using SolidWorks. The final design considered the initial improvement request from the client, as well as better ergonomic features to enhance the safety of the operators. It was estimated that the …

Molecular Dynamics Study On The Grain Growth In Nanocrystalline Aluminum, Jielong Yin

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

In recent years, nano-materials have been a popular direction of research in the field of materials science. Nanocrystalline aluminum has been of particular intrest among the nano-materials. This thesis describes the results of three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations that have been performed to study grain growth in nanocrystalline FCC aluminum. This project built the models by using the Voronoi geometry method to study the grain growth mechanism, grain boundary structure and the effects of temperature and grain size on the crystal structure and grain growth by Energy Analysis, Radial Distribution Function (RDF) analysis, and investigating changes in Centro symmetric parameters.

The …

Mentoring Management Database, Alexandra Cava, Samantha Kin

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

A new mentoring program is set to begin next year pairing children from Kindergarten through 12th grade with college students as their mentors. Keeping track of the mentor information, mentee information, pairings, stipend disbursements, interview question results, events, and final assessments by hand would be extremely difficult, therefore, a database would be a great asset to the program.

Creating a database in Microsoft Access allows a user to have all this information in one convenient location, therefore, ensuring there is a good user interface is a key component to this project. Using Perach’s "Guide to the Perplexed" as the base …

E-Learning Design For Microsoft Access & Asp.Net, Jonathan Choi, Christopher Hom

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The problem definition is that the current video tutorial series is outdated and lacks interactive features that aid with E-Learning. The goal of the project is to create a platform that incorporates features such as structure, interaction, assessments, and competency tests. The project revolved around integrating four softwares together in order to create an effective E-Learning platform. The four softwares were Adobe Captivate, Camtasia, Microsoft Access and Microsoft Visual Studios. Adobe Captive is used to store the tutorial video and assign quizzes. Camtasia is used to record the tutorial videos. Microsoft Access is used to store all the questions given …

Smart Packing With Qr - Improving Cal Poly's Parking System For All Users, Kelsey Bazshushtari, Andrew Lee, Christopher Ragasa

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Cal Poly Smart Parking, herein referred to as CPSP QR Code Initiative, is developed to reduce the wait times student, staff, and guest drivers experience when searching for a parking spot on campus. Cal Poly is currently undergoing a large growth in student population, and, as a result, is experiencing congestion in parking lots. Drivers will commonly spend frustrating amounts of time "vulturing" these parking lots for an open spot. CPSP QR Code Initiative consists of a database that is controlled by user submitted data through QR codes scanned on a user’s smartphone. This system will provide drivers with a …

Soto's True Earth Market Optimization, Hironari Fujita, Wei Lin Luong, Sean Macwilliams

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Soto’s True Earth Market is a new organic market startup which is located in a historical facility in the small town of Cambria. The new owner of Soto’s Andre Ponce has a vision to create a community revolved around local organic foods and sustainability. Since Soto’s is still in the initial startup phase there is a large amount of room for optimization and redesign in order to create a solid customer foundation. Andre presented several opportunities for improvement to the team. With a time constraint of solely two quarters the project team decided to provide the following:

● Old and …

Building A Startup Wine Brand, Sean Christopher Silvestre

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Lisso Wine is a company that currently purchases wine from a California winemaker and resells it in China. In order to reach more customers and increase sales, Lisso wants to create their own brand of wine while keeping the winemaker as a supplier. However, they do not have a plan for the marketing, production, or distribution of their new product. This project will be treated as a startup venture by Lisso Wine and designed to be operated by a handful of people with limited resources. Sustainable and cost-effective materials were selected for the product and it’s packaging in order to …

Inventory Tracking Software Improvement Project, Jacky Leung

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

FanimeCon’s Convention Operations department required standardized processes and controls for their inventory tracking software. On top of the current web application, new controls were put into place for checkout limitations. To allow for a continuous improvement effort, processes became standardized with a new graphical user interface where user input is recorded. These will provide processing times for further study in proposing redesigned layouts and more efficient processes.

National Society Of Sales Engineers & National Sales Engineering Competition, Joseph Lynes, Tyler Sasse

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Sales Engineering is a popular career choice for many engineers coming out of university. Despite its continuing growth, many students lack the knowledge and preparation to be successful in the early years of their career. A small collection of sales engineering minors and student clubs are the only option for students interested in technical sales.

Using the DMAIC process, the senior project team went step by step to find and implement the best possible solution to better connect college students and the professional sales engineering industry . The team worked side by side with professionals in the industry and students …

Enrichment Of Diluted Cell Populations From Large Sample Volumes Using 3d Carbon-Electrode Dielectrophoresis, Monsur Islam, Rucha Natu, Maria Fernanda Larraga-Martinez, Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte

Publications

Here, we report on an enrichment protocol using carbon electrodedielectrophoresis to isolate and purify a targeted cell population from sample volumes up to 4 ml. We aim at trapping, washing, and recovering an enriched cell fraction that will facilitate downstream analysis. We used an increasingly diluted sample of yeast, 106–102 cells/ml, to demonstrate the isolation and enrichment of few cells at increasing flow rates. A maximum average enrichment of 154.2 ± 23.7 times was achieved when the sample flow rate was 10 μl/min and yeast cells were suspended in low electrically conductive media that maximizes dielectrophoresis trapping. A COMSOL …

Cost Estimation Model For Pan Based Carbon Fiber Manufacturing Process, Amaninder Singh Gill, Darian Visotsky, Laine Mears, Joshua D. Summers

Publications

A polyacrilonitrile (PAN) based carbon fiber manufacturing cost estimation model driven by weight is presented in this study. One of the biggest limiting factors in the large scale use of carbon fiber (CF) in manufacturing is its high cost. The costs involved in manufacturing the carbon fiber have been formalized into a cost model in order to facilitate the understanding of these factors. This can play a key role in manufacturing CF in a cost effective method. This cost model accounts for the fixed and variable costs involved in all stages of manufacturing, in addition to accounting for price elasticity.