Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Reimagining Wind Based Sea Travel With Vertical Axis Wind Turbines, Julian Goins

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

In the realm of Nautical vehicles, aside from the occasional outliers like rarely used coal steamboats, experimental solar powered ships, or the military grade nuclear vessels, the vast majority of ships run off diesel-powered engines. The unsustainability of such methods will need to be addressed for the security of our planet’s future due to the limited and destructive nature of fossil fuels, much like it already is in many other fields. To that end, this project gains inspiration from the past and looks toward harnessing the power of the wind. In recent times, most sail boats are equipped with some …

Greenwall Use For Air Repair And Depollution (G.U.A.R.D.), Sophia Elwood, Sophia Piro, Maura Barrada, Kathrine Lopez, Wendi Goffer

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Creating habitable indoor environments for long-duration space missions and extraterrestrial habitats requires reliable, sustainable air quality improvement. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s ACE Lab provides a unique opportunity to investigate plant-based purification in a controlled environment while addressing campus air quality concerns linked to a high-traffic airport and exposure to jet fuel particulate matter and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This collaborative project between Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering researchers and the Botanical Society evaluates whether a green wall can improve indoor air quality as a scalable model for future closed-loop habitats. In the study's first phase, student researchers documented ACE Lab dimensions to …

A Feedback Loop Control To Automate Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Based Additive Manufacturing, Arineh Shahbazi

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Currently, nanoparticle annealing based additive manufacturing process requires high temperatures, making them unsuitable for a broad range of applications. By lowering the temperature and developing a process to use Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma (CAPP) for annealing, many more doors are opened to a wide range of materials, films, and environments for space, communication, and microelectronics. CAPP-based additive manufacturing technology is continually evolving, making projects like nanoparticle annealing more feasible. In this work, we designed a CAPP jet printer assembly consisting of a 0.25-inch outer diameter glass tube connected to a 3D printing nozzle. The flow of Argon gas in the …

Automation And Robotics In Timber Construction Prefabrication, Jason Grabowski, Anish Mandyam, Samuel Mcaraw, Jacob Jander

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Robotics and automation have varying degrees of utilization across the construction prefabrication industry. The timber prefabrication industry is uniquely positioned for the implementation of robotics and automation due to the environment being more controlled than most of the construction industry. Current developments are influenced by the evolution of "Construction 4.0/5.0," where the integration of digital technologies and robotics is transforming timber prefabrication from traditional subtractive CNC machining into a highly precise, additive, and collaborative process. The purpose of this project is to conduct a systematic literature review of the state of-the-art and near-future developments of automation and robotics in timber …

Influence Of Infill Geometry On The Vibrational Behavior Of 3d-Printed Cantilever Beams, Owen Maute

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Vibration and damping are important considerations in many engineering structures, especially as additive manufacturing becomes more widely used in functional mechanical components. This project investigates how the internal structure of 3D-printed parts affects their vibrational behavior. A series of cantilever beams with identical outer dimensions will be designed and manufactured using a 3D printer with PLA filament, since PLA is one of the most commonly used materials in consumer and prototyping-level additive manufacturing. The study will examine five different infill patterns at three different infill densities, producing multiple beam configurations that vary only in their internal geometry. In addition to …

Modeling Seiche Oscillations Using Damped Vibration Differential Equations, Sharjeel Malik, Justin Della

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Combustion instability in liquid rocket engines is driven by coupling acoustic pressure oscillations and unsteady heat release. To achieve specific desired outcomes, small perturbations can be made to either decay or grow, depending on system dynamics and artificial parameters. Using a linearized eigenvalue framework, where eigenvalues determine growth/decay rates and frequencies, and eigenvectors describe spatial mode shapes and couplings between pressure, velocity, and heat release, a mathematical model can be derived to describe said behavior for a cross-section of the rocket engine. The Rayleigh criterion is used to identify conditions under which energy is added to oscillations, while flame transfer …

Cavitation In Pumps And Propellers: Causes, Effects, Prevention, And Future Trends, Gillian Negron Burgos, Olivia Wilson

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

In this research, we will explore cavitation in pumps and propellers, including its causes, effects on system performance, prevention methods, and future engineering solutions. Cavitation occurs when the local pressure of a flowing liquid drops below its vapor pressure, forming vapor-filled bubbles that collapse and damage mechanical components. Disciplines such as fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and materials science contribute to understanding and mitigating cavitation in fluid machinery.   When vapor bubbles collapse near metal surfaces, they generate localized shock waves that cause pitting, erosion, vibration, and noise. These effects reduce efficiency, increase maintenance requirements, and shorten the lifespan of rotating machinery used …

Mechanical Vibrations And Damping, Axon Deadrick, Will Standish, Tanay Agarwal

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Mechanical vibrations occur in many engineering systems and can be described using second-order differential equations. In this project, the motion of vibrating systems is studied using the mass–spring model. The focus is on three types of oscillations: free vibrations, dampened vibrations, and forced oscillations. Free vibration describes how a system moves when it is displaced and then released without any external force. Damped vibration includes effects such as friction or resistance that cause the motion to gradually decrease over time. Forced oscillations occur when an external force acts on the system and continuously drives the motion. This project also examines …

A Differential Equation Approach To Heat Flow In A Thin Rod, Alexandria Krol, David Cardona, Collin Petrie

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

A Differential Equation Approach to Heat Flow in a Thin Rod examines how differential equations can be used to model and understand heat conduction in a fundamental physical system. Heat transfer in solids is a key concept in physics and engineering, particularly in systems where temperature changes over time. A thin rod provides a useful one-dimensional model for studying how heat moves through a material and how temperature varies along the rod as time passes. The primary objective is to develop a mathematical description of this process using differential equations. The analysis begins with physical principles such as conservation of …

Continuous Process Intensification For Rare Earth Element Adsorption, Kyle Madill

Honors Theses

A continuous flow resonant vibratory adsorption swing reactor was designed to facilitate adsorption interactions between biochar and rare earth elements in a slurry or aqueous solution. A continuous mixing vessel can allow operators to run a large quantity of material through the RVM in an automatic manner that requires little supervision. This will save the operators time and allow them to focus on other research tasks. The reactor that was built was designed to bolt into Resodyn Acoustic Mixers’ Lab Resonance Acoustic Mixer-II (LabRAM-II). A design with two stacked stages within the LabRAM-II’s acoustic enclosure was settled on. These stages …

Measurement Of Pollution Emissions From Natural Gas Stoves: Preparation For An Induction Cooktop Intervention Study, Jessica Zanella Lorensi

Dissertations and Theses

Humans spend ∼90% of their time enclosed in buildings. Indoors environments can be a source of pollutant which can affect health and productivity. Appliances that combust fossil fuels indoors, like stoves, are a critical source of a range of pollutants, like carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). In the US, the usual cooking fuel is natural gas (NG), presented in more than 30% of households in the country. Some studies in the literature linked cooking pollutants, including those specific to gas combustion, to various health conditions, including heart and respiratory diseases. Nitrogen dioxide, for example, can be …

Experimental Material Analysis And Load Monitoring Of Polyurethane–Steel Belts Subjected To Static And Cyclic Dynamic Loading: Implications For Continuous Mooring Line Systems In Wave Energy Converters, Youssef Mohamed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study experimentally investigates the mechanical and viscoelastic behavior of a steel-cord-reinforced polyurethane synchronous belt capable of withstanding continuous cyclic loading as a potential compliant mooring element for WEC applications. Quasi-static and cyclic tensile tests were conducted to characterize the belt's mechanical response. The quasi-static determined that the belt behaved as a stiff, low-strain tensile member. Under approximately 100 kgf, the belt extended by about 0.107mm over a 250mm gauge length, apparent tensile modulus of 5.41GPa, an axial rigidity of 2.44MN, and an equivalent line stiffness of 9.75MN/m. Cyclic tensile testing showed high dynamic stiffness with stiffness-transfer ratio of 0.924. …

Development And Testing Of A Computer Vision Pose Estimation System For Planar Mobile Robots, Andrew Jones

Master's Theses

This thesis details the development and testing of a computer vision-based real-time pose estimation system for differential drive robots. A single camera with a fisheye lens is used to locate ArUco markers placed at fixed locations and attached to robots. Using the OpenCV library, the Perspective-n-Point (PnP) problem is solved to facilitate the transformation of 2-D robot positions in an image to world-frame coordinates. An analytical solution is presented to estimate robot poses based on a single PnP solution, rather than solving the PnP problem for each pose estimate. Pose information is relayed to individual robots using a multi-microcontroller architecture …

Automated Guided Wave Characterization Of Marcelling: In-Plane Fiber Waviness In Thermoplastic Composites, Sourav Banerjee, Ana Tudor, Corey Leydig, Thomas Ferguson, Tally Bovender, Darun Barazanchy, Josh Widosky, Paul Ziehl

Faculty Publications

Thermoplastic composite (TPC) materials often develop in-plane fiber waviness during manufacturing, a defect known as marcelling. Marcelling negatively impacts the strength and overall performance of the composite and are hard to control. While it may appear as a surface imperfection, it can also extend partially through the thickness of the material. Currently, there is no established nondestructive evaluation (NDE) method to reliably detect and quantify marcelling in composites after manufacturing. As marcelling is not a local defect but spans across the surface in in-plane dimensions of the structure, traditional pulse-echo and phased-array ultrasonic NDE are ineffective. Automated multi-directional guided …

Thermal Conversion Of Cotton Gin Byproducts Into Liquid Fuels And High-Value Chemicals, Emmanuel Asare

Mechanical Engineering Theses

In this study, we performed fast pyrolysis, catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP), and catalytic hydropyrolysis (CHP) of cotton gin byproducts (CGB) to investigate their conversion into hydrocarbon-rich liquid fuels and high-value aromatic chemicals. Five CGB fractions (CC1, CC2, SM, TM, and FCGB) were collected from different stages of cotton ginning operation and characterized by proximate, ultimate, and higher heating value (HHV) analysis. The feedstocks contained 41.5 44.8 wt.% carbon, 54.2–58.5 wt.% volatile matter, 6.0–15 wt.% ash, and higher heating values of 15.2–16.8 MJ kg⁻¹. All pyrolysis experiments were performed using a Pyroprobe 5200 coupled with GC-MS/FID, while catalyst loading, hydrogen pressure, …

High-Throughput Characterization Of Creep In Additively Manufactured 316l Stainless Steel, Raushan Kumar Singh

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Advanced materials are widely used in industries such as nuclear energy, aerospace, and automotive engineering, where components are exposed to extreme temperatures and stresses over long periods of time. As new materials continue to emerge, researchers need efficient ways to evaluate their mechanical performance so they can be used safely and effectively. Among several mechanical challenges, creep is a major concern in these conditions. Creep is a type of mechanical failure in which materials gradually deform when exposed to high temperatures and constant load. Conventional methods for evaluating creep typically involve testing a single specimen at a time, which can …

Theory, Implementation, And Practical Applications Of A Modern Parabolized Navier-Stokes Code, Logan B. Freeman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The Parabolized Navier-Stokes (PNS) method is a specialized computational approach for solving the equations that govern fluid flowing faster than the speed of sound, known as supersonic flow. By leveraging unique physical properties of supersonic environments—specifically that information cannot travel upstream—this method allows for significantly more efficient calculations than traditional approaches. Supersonic flows are important for many military and civilian applications including hypersonic weapons, high-speed passenger aircraft, and reentry. This thesis provides a comprehensive review of the two-dimensional PNS formulation, detailing the mathematical derivation and its practical implementation for solving flow problems. Through performance analysis and error assessment, this research …

Sensitivity Analysis Of A Low-Power Wireless Capacitive Charging System To Inform Thermal Limitations And Battery Size Reduction Potential For Electric Passenger Vehicles, Karmen Teuscher

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The purpose of using electric vehicles instead of internal combustion engine vehicles that burn gas is to reduce pollutants in the air and potential environmental impacts such as climate change. EVs produce much less air pollutants than ICEVs but manufacturing the EV batteries and the repeated recharging still contributes to the overall air pollution.

Capacitive power transfer systems can wirelessly charge vehicles through the road as they drive along highways or stop at traffic lights. If vehicles charge as they drive, an opportunity opens to reduce the size of the battery while maintaining the same driving range. Reducing the size …

A Cfd-Dem Framework For Characterizing Nanoparticle Adhesion Effects On Creeping-Flow Permeability In Composite Manufacturing, Gavin Stoker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Modern aircraft, spacecraft, and high-performance vehicles are increasingly built from composite materials, engineered combinations of plastics and fibers that are lighter and stronger than traditional metals. Researchers are now pushing these materials further by mixing in microscopic particles thousands of times smaller than a human hair, called nanoparticles, to make them even tougher and more resistant to damage. The challenge is getting those nanoparticles distributed evenly. During manufacturing, liquid plastic resin is pumped through a network of tightly packed fibers, carrying the nanoparticles along with it. But nanoparticles tend to clump together and stick to surfaces as they travel, clogging …

0905: American Car And Foundry (Acf) Collection, 1916-2019, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

The collection includes only documents that were found in the plant in 2021. These primarily consist of files on capital projects from the 1970s through the 1990s. Also included are notebooks with job descriptions and classifications; ledger books containing maintenance purchase orders; quality assurance manuals; visitors register books from 1973-2019; drawings of plant machinery and operations; slides and photographs; and miscellaneous materials.

The forerunner to ACF was Ensign Manufacturing Company, founded in 1871 at Huntington, West Virginia, by William H. Barnum and Ely Ensign, both from prominent families of Lime Rock, Connecticut. It was chartered (incorporated) on November 1, 1872, …

Spatial Structure And Energy Content Of Wakes Behind Single And Arrayed Undulated Cylinders, Taiga Naomi Drucker-Boisvert, OndˇRej FerˇCák, Jérémie Auzoux, Sarah E. Smith, Zein Sadek, Rowan Moore, Christain T. Murphy, Trevor Dunt, Jennifer A. Franck, Raul Bayoan Cal

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Biologically inspired undulated cylinder geometries significantly influence wake structure and vortex-induced vibrations in turbulent flows, yet the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. It is further unknown how these influences extend to multi-cylinder arrays, where interacting wakes accumulate and mix. This study examines the wake characteristics of an undulated cylinder and a smooth elliptic cylinder in single- and multi-cylinder array configurations, using particle image velocimetry and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). Relative to the smooth elliptic cylinder, the undulated geometry induces pronounced spanwise-axial variability, characterized by enhanced near-wake mean momentum and weak far-wake signatures, consistent with reduced turbulent kinetic energy. While …

Prompt-Driven Tabletop Robotic Manipulation With A Structured Llm Interface And Visual Verification, Tomas Franco

Master's Theses

Creating a tabletop robotic manipulation system that connects language goals to robot actions is a challenging problem. Large language models can interpret mission objectives and reason through actions, but when placed directly in control of hardware they can produce hallucinated commands that result in unsafe behavior without the proper safeguards.

This thesis presents a constrained LLM-guided manipulation system built around the Quanser Qarm, a four degree of freedom manipulator with a mounted Realsense RGB-D camera and a gripper with readable current. Every decision made by the LLM planner is routed through a gated command interface that restricts the model to …

A Transfer-Learning And Continuous Optimization-Based Framework For Predicting Heat Treatment-Dependent Mechanical Properties Of Ded-Processed Low-Alloy Steels, Atiqur Rahman, Sung Heng Wu, Ranjit Joy, Frank Liou

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Directed energy deposition (DED) of low-alloy steels involves strongly coupled effects among alloy composition, solidification behavior, and post-deposition heat treatment, making mechanical property prediction difficult when target-domain data are limited. This study develops a transfer-learning and continuous optimization framework for predicting heat treatment-dependent yield strength (YS), ultimate tensile strength (UTS), hardness (HV), and as-solidified phase fractions of martensite, ferrite, and austenite in DED-processed low-alloy steels. A CALPHAD-based dataset was generated for 125 low-alloy steel compositions. A multilayer perceptron (MLP) surrogate was first trained as a baseline model, then fine-tuned through transfer learning and progressively updated as staged continuous optimization; the …

Machine Learning For Predictive Energy And Emissions Modeling Of Vehicles And Power Grids In The United States, S M Tanvir Faysal Alam Chowdhoury

Dissertations

The environmental benefits of electric vehicle (EV) adoption depend on more than replacing internal combustion engine vehicles with electric powertrains. EV adoption reshapes electricity demand, interacts with regional generation mixes, and influences travel behavior and congestion, creating a coupled transportation-energy system in which vehicle and power-plant emissions must be evaluated together. This dissertation develops machine-learning frameworks for predicting energy consumption and emissions from vehicles and power grids under rising EV adoption. The first component forecasts grid emissions from EV charging. Using simulation data from NREL's Cambium database, a Prophet-based time-series framework predicts carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane emission rates …

Review: Mechanics Of Mycelium Materials, Md Anwar Sadat Anik, Ehsanul Azim, Gerardo I. Zapata, Mohammad R. Islam

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

The biological growth of fungal root structure, called mycelium, can be engineered to develop innovative fibrous and biocomposite materials. Mycelium materials have potential as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-derived materials for load-bearing applications. To realize this potential, there is an increasing effort dedicated to understanding the mechanics of mycelium materials. This work presents a systematic review of our current understanding of the mechanics of mycelium materials with a specific focus on structure–property relationships. The review first explores how the mycelium’s fiber network structure varies depending on whether it is grown as a two-dimensional (2D) membrane, a cellular foam, or as a …

Toward Risk-Informed Design Of Supercooling Heat Exchangers: Statistical Inference And Experimental Investigation Of Heterogeneous Ice Nucleation, Daniel B. Gardner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Ice-based cooling storage systems can reduce electricity costs and grid strain by making ice during off-peak hours and using it for air conditioning during the day. One promising design works by chilling water below its freezing point as it flows through a heat exchanger, then allowing it to freeze in a separate storage tank. The challenge is that the chilled water can freeze prematurely inside the heat exchanger itself, blocking the flow and shutting the system down. Preventing this unwanted freezing requires understanding how and where ice begins to form on surfaces, a process called nucleation.

This dissertation investigates ice …

Automated Battery Management Systems For Electric Vehicles, Woonki Na, Yuanyuan Xie

Mineta Transportation Institute

Electric vehicle (EV) safety, efficiency, and lifetime are strongly influenced by how well battery cells are managed, and as EV adoption accelerates, improving battery performance has become critical to vehicle reliability, cost, and public trust. This report conducts a field study on the core technologies and challenges in Battery Management Systems (BMS), focusing on the classification of BMS circuit topologies (design/structures) and systematically reviewing different topologies of active cell balancing circuits (systems that move energy from stronger battery cells to weaker ones). The study provides a detailed analysis of the working principles, advantages, and disadvantages of various active balancing circuit …

Smart Process Planning For Automated Fiber Placement, Matthew J. Godbold

All Dissertations

Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) is a preeminent manufacturing technology for producing high-performance composite structures, offering precise material placement, reduced waste, and the potential for highly optimized lightweight designs. While AFP has been widely adopted in aerospace applications, its broader use across industries such as automotive, wind energy, maritime, and sporting goods remains limited. A key barrier to wider adoption is the traditional separation of design, manufacturing, and inspection processes, which drives up cost and results in inefficiencies, sub-optimal designs, and limited feedback between lifecycle stages. In current practice, manufacturing is treated as an isolated process, disconnected from early-stage design decisions …

Integrated Power, Energy, And Thermal Management For Autonomous Hybrid Off-Road Vehicles: Multi-Timescale Modeling, Predictive Control, And Resilient Thermal Design, Anirudh Sundar

All Dissertations

Electrification and autonomy are increasingly important for off-road vehicles operating in construction, agriculture, mining, defense, and other demanding environments. These platforms must deliver high tractive power under unstructured terrain, harsh ambient conditions, low-speed operation, and large auxiliary loads. While hybrid and electrified powertrains offer improved efficiency, mobility, and auxiliary power capability, they also introduce significant challenges in managing tightly coupled power, energy, and thermal subsystems. In particular, lithium-ion batteries, power electronics, electric machines, and internal combustion engine-generator systems operate across different temperature limits and timescales, requiring coordinated management to ensure efficiency, durability, and safe operation. This dissertation develops modeling, planning, …

Microstructural Shielding And Advanced Fatigue Crack Analysis In The Presence Of Deformation Twinning, Seyed Ali Asli

All Dissertations

Design methods to mitigate fatigue failures have remained relatively stagnant, as engineers have relied on existing continuum-level models and adhered to the damage tolerance design methodology. Although damage-tolerant design has led to increased safety, extended component in-service life, and better life predictions, it still relies on maintenance routines to identify dangerous cracks. This research aims to test the hypothesis that bundles of deformation twin boundaries will increase the resistance to fatigue crack growth (FCG). Slip and twinning are two dominant mechanisms of plastic deformation in metals. Slip is more common in materials with face-centered cubic (FCC) crystal structures at room …