Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Asme R/C Baja Car Suspension And Steering, Nathan Wilhelm

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers holds regional student design competitions each year with both a reoccurring RC Baja competition with a new challenge course each year. This project covers the design and manufacturing of components for a radio controlled car to race in the annual ASME RC Baja competition. For this project the car was broken down into its component subsystems and divided between two partners. It was then determined which components of each respective subsystem could be purchased and which required design and manufacture within the rules set forth in the ASME Baja competition rule book. All of …

Rc Baja Competition Drive Train And Differential, Chelsea Dowdell, Nathan Wilhelm

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers holds regional student design competitions each year with both a reoccurring RC Baja competition with a new challenge course each year. This project covers the design and manufacturing of components for a radio controlled car to race in the annual ASME RC Baja competition. For this project the car was broken down into its component subsystems and divided between two partners. It was then determined which components of each respective subsystem could be purchased and which required design and manufacture within the rules set forth in the ASME Baja competition rule book. All of …

Emulsion Pump Pressure Relief, Aaron Greean

Mechanical Engineering and Technology Senior Projects

Over time the harsh outdoor environment wears away at asphalt surfaces. Asphalt emulsion is sprayed onto the surface to act as a sacrificial barrier. To pump this asphalt emulsion for spray application an effective pressure relief device must be incorporated. High pressure is needed to achieve the desired spray pattern, but this same pressure can cause components to fail in the presence of a pressure spike. Hydraulically driven positive displacement pumps are used to pump the emulsion, so a pinched hoses or a clog in the system results in a severe pressure spike. Due to the emulsions viscosity and abrasive …

Warpage And Shape Distortion In Laser Metal Sintering, Xuan Wang

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) is the primary method to fabricate metal and ceramic components in additive manufacturing. Due to the anisotropy of powder material, the sintering rate difference will inevitably causes shape change, distortion , and other defects of sintered parts. In this paper, a continuum model was developed to simulate the SLS process. The developed model has been successful to predict sintering kinetics. The impact of processing parameters, such as laser power, scanning speed, hatching distance, and particle size has been studied . The proposed method provides an innovative tool to optimize SLS process parameters.

Computational Fluid Dynamics Applied To The Analysis Of Blood Flow Through Central Aortic To Pulmonary Artery Shunts, Carey Celestin Jr

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research utilizes CFD to analyze blood flow through pathways representative of central shunts, commonly used as part of the Fontan procedure to treat cyanotic heart disease. In the first part of this research, a parametric study of steady, Newtonian blood flow through parabolic pathways was performed to demonstrate the effect that flow pathway curvature has on wall shear stress distribution and flow energy losses. In the second part, blood flow through two shunts obtained via biplane angiograms is simulated. Pressure boundary conditions were obtained via catheterization. Results showed that wall shear stresses were of sufficient magnitude to initiate platelet …

Numerical Simulation And Optimization Of Carbon Dioxide Utilization For Enhanced Oil Recovery From Depleted Reservoirs, Razi Safi

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Due to concerns about rising CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel power plants, there has been a strong emphasis on the development of a safe and economical method for Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS). One area of current interest in CO₂ utilization is the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) from depleted reservoirs. In an Enhanced Oil Recovery system, a depleted or depleting oil reservoir is re-energized by injecting high-pressure CO₂ to increase the recovery factor of the oil from the reservoir. An additional benefit beyond oil recovery is that the reservoir could also serve as a long-term storage …

Effects Of Biomass Moisture Content On Volatile Flame Length During Cofiring With Coal, Matthew Pollard

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Cofiring biomass with coal can contribute to meeting Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and reduce pollutant emissions. The physical characteristics and composition of biomass can vary significantly, which can affect the combustion characteristics. When cofiring biomass with coal, these differences can impact the structure of the volatile flame, the region where combustion of volatiles dominates. The length and location of the volatile flame is important to flame stability and determines the location and extent of volatile release. This has an effect on pollutant emissions, such as NOx (nitrogen oxides). Previously, the effects of parameters such as cofiring ratio, particle size, and …

Maximum Energy Efficiency Cost Effectiveness In New Home Construction, Florida Solar Energy Center, Philip W. Fairey

FSEC Energy Research Center®

EnergyGauge® USA (v.4.0.00) is used to examine the cost effectiveness of high performance homes that are improved to significantly exceed the minimum requirements of the 2015 IECC. The objective of the study is to determine the maximum level of energy efficiency that can be considered cost effective to the consumer. For these purposes, it is the cost effectiveness of the entire package of measures that is considered by the analysis rather than the cost effectiveness of individual measures. Optimization and rank ordering of the individual improvement measures in the package is not considered by the analysis.

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College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2015, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Towards A Dynamic Clamp For Neurochemical Modalities, C. M. Rivera, H.-J. Kwon, A. Hashmi, Gu Yu, J. Zhao, J. Gao, J. Xu, Wei Xue, A. G. Dimitrov

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

The classic dynamic clamp technique uses a real-time electrical interface between living cells and neural simulations in order to investigate hypotheses about neural function and structure. One of the acknowledged drawbacks of that technique is the limited control of the cells’ chemical microenvironment. In this manuscript, we use a novel combination of nanosensor and microfluidic technology and microfluidic and neural simulations to add sensing and control of chemical concentrations to the dynamic clamp technique. Specifically, we use a microfluidic lab-on-a-chip to generate distinct chemical concentration gradients (ions or neuromodulators), to register the concentrations with embedded nanosensors and use the processed …

Integration Of Information Literacy Skills To Mechanical Engineering Capstone Projects, Farshid Zabihian, Mary L. Strife, Marian G. Armour-Gemmen

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Searching for information and using that information appropriately is an essential part of every engineering design project. It has been reported that design engineers spend about 30% of their time searching for information. Experience shows that even senior level students have not received proper training, either directly or indirectly, in information literacy (IL). They usually search for information intuitively. For mechanical and aerospace engineering students at West Virginia University Institute of Technology (WVU Tech), the Mechanical Engineering System Design I and II courses (MAE 480 and 481) are probably the last chance to teach students about IL. In this project, …

Design Improvements Of Wirelesshart Enabled Field Device, Yuxuan Zeng

Graduate Theses - Electrical and Computer Engineering

WirelessHART, as an improvement of HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer), provides a simple, reliable, and cost-effective method to deliver information without the trouble of wiring in the field. WirelessHART is being used more and more in field devices. Several years ago, Endress + Hauser (U.S.) Automation Instrumentation Inc. designed a WirelessHART solution by attaching a wireless adapter to a field device. The goal of this thesis is to improve the WirelessHART solution of Endress + Hauser to make it less expensive, smaller, and less power-consuming. The work is done in two parts. The first part is to redesign an I/O …

Maximum Power Point Tracking And Solar Power For Developing Countries Around The World, Christopher M. Plate

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Renewable energy is becoming increasingly important as more and more countries become industrialized. Using solar power as opposed to fossil fuels and coal is becoming cheaper and easier to access throughout the world, yet there are still efficiency hurdles to be overcome. Designing a cheap, easily modifiable and reparable Maximum Power Point Tracker would be a stepping stone to bringing solar power to remote parts of the globe. Once designed and made portable, these devices could be distributed throughout developing countries to enhance renewable energy output. An Arduino-based tracker was chosen for ease of use and access. This base also …

Improving Connectivity Between Members And Alumni Of Alpha Pi Mu, Ben Patrick Buell, Shannon Elizabeth O'Keefe

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this project was to solve the problems of a lack of connectivity between the current members and alumni of Alpha Pi Mu, as well as the lack of incentives for prospective members to join the club. These problems were solved by creating a website that allowed current members to be able to view the complete work experiences of alumni and provided a way to reach out to those alumni directly to network with them. The agile project management system was used to develop the website and helped to successfully complete all of our design requirements listed in …

A Case Study Of Multiple-Use Finish Electrodes For Die-Sinking Edm, Troy A. Robertson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examines the use of one finishing electrode to finish multiple dies without remachining the electrode. The multiple-use electrode finishing experiment in this study addresses technology in the die-forging industry. Methods of manufacturing spherical straight bevel forge gear dies have relied on die-sinking Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) practices that showed great potential for advancement. The focus of this study is solely on the improvements of electrode use in EDM finishing-processes. The surface finish quality itself is not an area of concern other than maintaining that it does not diminish. The focused concern is maximizing the process by using one …

Fusion Of Short-Mid Wavelength Infrared Image And Long Wavelength Image Using Discrete Wavelet Transform For Image Quality Enhancement, Rocky Hedrick

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Infrared technology advancements have led to an expansive set of infrared applications in both the private and public sectors. New materials and manufacturing techniques have continued to reduce the cost while improving the quality of infrared cameras, but the cost is still high when compared to the cost versus quality of visible light spectrum cameras. Innovative image processing techniques can be implemented to help bridge this gap between the cost and quality of infrared cameras. The goal of this research is to improve the overall quality of infrared imaging by fusing short-mid wavelength infrared images and long wavelength images of …

Improved Methods For Identifying, Applying, And Verifying Industrial Energy Efficiency Measures, Andrew Chase Harding

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Energy efficiency is the least expensive source of additional energy capacity for today's global energy expansion. Energy efficiency offers additional benefits of cost savings for consumers, reduced environmental impacts, and enhanced energy security. The challenges of energy efficiency include identifying potential efficiency measures, quantifying savings, determining cost effectiveness, and verifying savings of installed measures. This thesis presents three separate chapters which address these challenges. The first is a paper presented at the 2014 industrial energy technology conference (IETC) that details a compressed air system project using the systems approach to identify cost effective measures, energy intensity to project savings, and …

Three Dimensional Simulations Of Tornado Sheltering Effect Of Man-Made Structures, Piotr Gorecki

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A three dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was utilized to investigate tornado-like vortex interactions with wide man-made structures. The tornado-like wind profile was approximated using Rankine vortex model. By utilizing the CFD model, it was explained why tornadoes exhibit less damage on leeward side of large structures. During the preliminary stage of this study, a perpendicular vortex-prism interaction was analyzed. The prism height and the length were equal to the vortex core radius. The prism was also 12 times wider than the vortex core radius. During the vortex-prism interaction, the near-ground portion of the vortex was blocked by the …

Characterization Of Nano-Porous Si-Cu Composites To Enhance Lubricant Retention Impacting The Tribological Properties Of Sliding Surfaces, Julius Sheldon Morehead

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the expectations for modern machinery's tribological and thermal performances continue to rise, the retention of lubricant on the contact surfaces of their sliding components becomes an increasingly important issue. Friction and wear cause heat-related failures which lead to catastrophic damage to machinery. Evaporation of a lubricant's volatile constituents as well as lubricant migration leads not only to a reduction in lubricant quantity but also in its quality, thus facilitating component failures. In order to enhance component reliability, the surface should incorporate features that actively retain lubricants. The unique properties of nano-porous topographies such as their high surface area-to-volume ratio …

The Development And Evaluation Of A Method For Understanding The Impact Of Transmission Loss On The Overall Noise Attenuation Of Finite Barriers, Ashwin Arvind Upasani

Graduate Theses - Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of transmission loss on the overall noise reduction obtained from finite barriers. The noise attenuation ability of barriers is understood to be a consequence of sound waves diffracting around their edges. Although the presence of transmission loss is acknowledged, its significance in affecting noise attenuation is usually not considered a priority in barrier design. This study incorporates the Fresnel Number concept for predicting theoretical insertion loss of a finite barrier and compares these predictions to experimental observations. The experiments performed in this study offer a method to isolate the transmission …

Euler-Lagrange Optimal Control Of Indirect Fire Symmetric Projectiles, Austin L. Nash

Graduate Theses - Mechanical Engineering

An important aspect of controls engineering is the dynamic modeling and flight control of smart weapons. One division of this area involves the guidance, navigation, and control of smart projectiles. In recent decades, methods for controlling projectiles have become much more sophisticated. In this thesis, principles of optimal control are used to develop a controller for indirect fire symmetric projectiles, or high-launch projectiles. A plant model is created to simulate the flight of a 2.75-inch Hydra-70 rocket. Two pairs of forward-mounted controllable canards are used as actuators to modify the flight toward a downrange target. A linear optimal regulator is …

Efficient Method To Cool The Data Center Using Solar Energy, Krishna Ketanbhai Desai

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Solar energy is the only source which is abundantly available and which can be used to power a cooling system that is based on absorption cycle. Solar cooling system can be used to provide refrigeration for food and medicines and comfort cooling also. Such systems are speci cally applicable to the large applications having large cooling loads for particularly big periods of a year. Peak demand for the cooling of a building and the highest availability of solar radiation are in similar phase, which makes solar cooling of any building a potential energy source and also a green solution. In …

Multiphase Flow Modeling And Analysis Of Filling Process For Pulsed Detonation Engines, Swati Chandran Thirumangalath

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

The filling process of a pulsed detonation engine with fuel and oxidizer should be carried out quickly in order to maintain a high frequency of operation. The objectives of this research were to model an efficient inlet system for filling the detonation tube with fuel/air mixture in stoichiometric ratio and to evaluate various filling schemes. Numerical modeling of the filling process was done using PointwiseTM for meshing and FluentTM as the flow solver, solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with a k-? turbulence model. Five different filling configurations were studied, including endwall, normal and angled, opposing and staggered sidewall. The fuel …

Gui Matlab Code To Display Damped, Undamped, Forced And Unforced Mass Spring Systems, Melanie Garcia

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Machine Dynamics and Control is the course offered at the University of Arkansas that deals with damped, undamped, forced and unforced systems. It’s important for students to understand each of these systems for future implementation in the industry and daily real life situations. The three types of damped systems, underdamped, overdamped and critically damped are analyzed in this thesis. As well as only two of the most common forced functions are analyzed, the cosine and sine functions. The objective of this thesis was to develop a GUI code in Matlab that would help students visualize the differences between undamped, damped, …

Binding Innovation Technologies, Restoring Freedom To The World Of Snowboard Bindings, Matthew Lee Munsee

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Snowboarding technology has progressed by leaps and bounds since the sport's inception in the 1980's. However, there is one area that has gotten progressively worse. That area is flexibility and freedom of expression. In order to make the sport safer, the industry responded by making stiffer boots and bindings. Our goal is to bring back the high level of flexibility that built the sport while maintaining or exceeding current safety standards. We also need to reduce heel side shock so as to increase the comfort of the rider. Our design consists of three major systems that drastically increase flexibility, safety, …

Development Of A Surrogate Bruising Detection System To Describe Potential Bruising Patterns Associated With Common Childhood Falls., Raymond Dsouza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Child abuse is a leading cause of fatality in children aged 0-4 years. An estimated 1,700 children die annually as a result of child abuse of which threequarters (75.7%) of the children were younger than 4 years old1. Infants (younger than 1 year) had the highest rate of fatalities among the group. Many of the serious injuries and fatalities could have potentially been prevented if clinicians and child protective services were able to better distinguish between injuries associated with abuse versus those caused by accidents. Missed cases of child abuse have been shown to be as high as 71% of …

Loss On Ignition Using Infrared Heating, Benjamin J. Binoniemi

Masters Theses

The focus of this study is a proof of concept that infrared heating can be used to produce a reliable and rapid method of performing the loss on ignition test. The loss on ignition test is a foundry industry standard test that requires all moisture and volatile organic compounds be vaporized from a sample of foundry sand. The standard test as recommended by the American Foundry Society uses a muffle oven and requires nearly four hours to perform. This new concept performs the same test in approximately ten minutes. The biggest issues with the loss on ignition test are time …

Hybrid Carbon Fiber Alumina Nanocomposite For Non-Contact Stress Sensing Via Piezospectroscopy, Imad Hanhan

HIM 1990-2015

Carbon ber composites have become popular in aerospace structures and applications due to their light weight, high strength, and high performance. Recently, scientists have begun investigating hybrid composites that include fibers and particulate fillers, since they allow for advanced tailoring of mechanical properties, such as improved fatigue life. This project investigated a hybrid carbon ber reinforced polymer (HCFRP) that includes carbon fiber and additional alumina nanoparticle fillers, which act as embedded nano stress-sensors. Utilizing the piezospectroscopic e ect, the photo-luminescent spectral signal of the embedded nanoparticles has been monitored as it changes with stress, enabling non-contact stress detection of the …

A Collaborative Conceptual Aircraft Design Environment For The Design Of Small-Scale Uavs In A Multi-University Setting, Joseph Samuel Becar

Theses and Dissertations

In today's competitive global market, there is an ever-increasing demand for highly skilled engineers equipped to perform in teams dispersed over several time-zones by geography. Aerospace Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering (AerosPACE) is a senior design capstone program co-developed by academia and industry to help students develop the necessary skills to excel in the aerospace industry by challenging them to design, build, and fly an unique unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Students with little to no experience designing UAVs are put together in teams with their peers from geographically dispersed universities. This presents a significant challenge for the students …

Using Controlled Curing In A Custom Stereolithography-Based 3d Printing Machine To Obtain Graded Property Variations, Evan S. Schwahn

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

In an effort to construct materially graded parts, a strategy was studied that is based on varying ratios of interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) in a manner that can be adapted to 3D printing. Using IPNs has the benefit of allowing access to a broad range of property variation. The strategy used involves controlled partial curing of the first network, followed by washing of that network to remove uncured components, then swelling of the structure with a second polymer component and curing.

This method was utilized to control final IPN properties by controlling the extent of crosslinking of the initial network, …