Other Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Adapted Tricycle 2021, Carolyn Graven, Daniel Coleman, Sebin Cho, Farhan Khan

Mechanical Engineering

This document describes and outlines the details of the senior project completed by a team of four mechanical engineering students in their final year at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The team worked with Linda Wolff at California Children’s Services to reach their main goal: to create an exercise tricycle that can be used by Savannah. Savannah is a young adult, and she needs to be able to steer, brake, and power the tricycle using almost entirely her core muscles. Over the course of the project, the team worked to design and build a safe and functional tricycle …

F34 Beekeeper Assist, Kyle Ladtkow, Javier Guerra, Jose Velazquez, Ryan Heryford

Mechanical Engineering

Alejandro Jauregui is a veteran who now works as a commercial beekeeper. He lost both of his legs during his service. While his current prostheses allow him to fully complete his work, he has found that inspection of the bee boxes causes him severe hip and back pain. Bee box inspection is a critical task for beekeeping, especially since he maintains about 200 hives every day. Our senior project team was tasked with designing and building a device that would help him move the top bee box out of the way to allow for inspection. We performed preliminary research into …

Design And Implementation Of A Modular Human-Robot Interaction Framework, Michael J. Juri

Master's Theses

With the increasing longevity that accompanies advances in medical technology comes a host of other age-related disabilities. Among these are neuro-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and stroke, which significantly reduce the motor and cognitive ability of affected individuals. As these diseases become more prevalent, there is a need for further research and innovation in the field of motor rehabilitation therapy to accommodate these individuals in a cost-effective manner. In recent years, the implementation of social agents has been proposed to alleviate the burden on in-home human caregivers. Socially assistive robotics (SAR) is a new subfield of research …

Monte Carlo Stack-Up Tolerance Analysis Of The Hybrid Rf/Optical Antenna Edge Sensors, Kara Hewson

Master's Theses

The Deep Space Network (DSN), located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is developing an RF/Optical Hybrid Antenna. This antenna concept will support the reception of high-bandwidth optical deep-space communications with simultaneous support of conventional RF uplink and downlink. The optical system on the antenna consists of sixty-four hexagonal mirrors positioned to form a spherical aperture. To align the mirrors, a Position Opto-Electronic Metrology Sensor (POEMS) system is used to measure the position of each mirror relative to one another. The POEMS system consists of a sender called a collimator, which sends collimated light to the receiving component, called a …

Adjustable Head Tube Angle Headset, Glenn Petersen, Ben Harper, Josh Martin, Dylan Prins

Mechanical Engineering

This final design review report describes the design, manufacture, and test process of a bicycle headset capable of quickly and easily adjusting the effective head tube angle. The evolution of mountain bike geometry has forced bike designers to compromise between climbing and descending performance when choosing a head tube angle. A headset capable of quickly adjusting the effective head tube angle would allow riders to optimize their bike’s geometry for different stages of riding. This report details the research, idea generation, concept development and selection, design, manufacturing, and testing of our adjustable head tube angle headset.

Bicycle Headset With Adjustable Spring Rate, Andrew W. Drees, Jonah Masumoto, Camden R.S. Boshart, Matthew B. Mounteer

Mechanical Engineering

Fork flop can play an important role in the performance of a mountain bike. This phenomenon of fork flop is known as the tendency that the front wheel of a bike wants to flop over to one side when moving slowly. The fork flop experienced on a bicycle changes with the geometry of the bike, but our team sought to change the fork flop experienced through an adjustable internal spring design that attaches to the bicycle instead. From our research, we decided to utilize torsion springs as the method for mitigating fork flop. We also decided to use load cells …

3-Axis Reaction Wheel System For Cubesats, Alexandra Mae Lee, Daniel Leon, Christopher Pablo Casillas, Rose Mccarver

Mechanical Engineering

Reaction wheels are a common, but expensive, component used in CubeSats, that can accurately position a satellite using an imparted momentum (or impulse) from a rotating flywheel to adjust a satellite’s attitude. This document serves as the final design review and report for the 3-Axis Reaction Wheel Senior Design Project in the Mechanical Engineering Department of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The goal of this project is to produce a functional, low-cost 3-axis reaction wheel system based on previous research done by a master’s student at Cal Poly to be implemented in future CubeSats in the Cal Poly …

Adaptive Vehicle Control, Brian L. Finger, Maria Vargas, Jacob T. Larson, Christopher J. Villa

Mechanical Engineering

This report presents the final design for our device made for Mrs. Laura Jagels. Mrs. Jagels, who has an above the knee amputation, needed a device that would allow her to operate a manual car in a safe and reliable way that still gives her the traditional driving experience. This report takes into consideration the shortcomings of current market devices that enable amputees to operate vehicles. From this research and through interviews with Mrs. Jagels, we were able to decide on our device specifications, giving us a basis to objectively evaluate designs. Ideation and concept prototype building was performed for …

Scitechatorium, Esther Hurst, Emma Salam, Nejad Harara, Felipe Dejesus

Mechanical Engineering

The Bellevue-Santa Fe Charter School SciTechatorium needs a new educational exhibit for its K-6th grade students. The exhibit must be safe, engaging, and exciting for the students to use, and will ideally introduce students to the topics of Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Art, and Technology (STEAM) concepts. The team has investigated some of the most popular science museums from around the nation, as well as several popular children’s educational toys. This research revealed a need for hands on, focused exhibits to provide an effective educational experience. Many of our favorite existing exhibits give students an opportunity to fail in a safe …

Solar Decathlon Competition 2021, Khanh My Fleshman, Ashley H. Kim, Ian Grant Maclean, Erich Peter Fenczik Warnock, Carina Michaela Nani Monaco

Mechanical Engineering

This report is intended to outline all relevant background information, decisions, and design direction for our senior project at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. We will be designing net-zero, affordable housing to compete in the attached housing division of the 2021 Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. With the increased urgency of climate change and focus on sustainability in construction, the importance of designing a net-zero structure is very apparent. Because there is a great need for affordable and sustainable housing in Watts, CA, we will be tailoring our design to meet this community’s needs. Details of the Solar …

Maize Tassel Detection From Uav Imagery Using Deep Learning, Aziza Alzadjali, Mohammed H. Alali, Arun Narenthiran Weeranampalayam Sivakumar, Jitender S. Deogun, Stephen Scott, James C. Schnable, Yeyin Shi

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

The timing of flowering plays a critical role in determining the productivity of agricultural crops. If the crops flower too early, the crop would mature before the end of the growing season, losing the opportunity to capture and use large amounts of light energy. If the crops flower too late, the crop may be killed by the change of seasons before it is ready to harvest. Maize flowering is one of the most important periods where even small amounts of stress can significantly alter yield. In this work, we developed and compared two methods for automatic tassel detection based on …

Prosthetic Foot Shell, Christopher Menke, Colton Arbuckle, Jacob Rodriguez

Mechanical Engineering

Prosthetic foot shells are designed to fit around lower limb prosthetics to be able to fit shoes and several types of footwear. They are currently designed in a way that they wear through very quickly if used in an active lifestyle. The current designs on the market are designed for geriatric use. The sponsor for this project Mr. Dana Cummings, would like for the team to produce a product that extends current foot shell’s life. This document explains includes the team’s research process, the design process, and the main functions of what the team designed for. It will also show …

Transportable, Jung Sub Kim, Ellie Kitabjian, David Yang, Christopher Macias

Mechanical Engineering

This document is a Final Design Review (FDR) report for team TransporTable, a quartet of mechanical engineers at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). It chronicles our design and validation process through final design phase. Our project: to design and test concepts for a stackable table that streamlines group work. After conducting user/sponsor interviews and background research, we found that many products already exist, but none meet the specific blend of requirements set out by our sponsor. They include fast deploying/stowing times, durability, stiffness, and manufacturability. We ideated on the table’s functions, distilling many ideas into three …

Space Suit Attachment Quick Release System, Elyse C. Gillis-Smith, Andres I. Elzaurdia, Cole H. Stanton, Michael T. Roth

Mechanical Engineering

NASA plans to make it back to the Moon by 2024 with their Artemis Program, and stay there for a longer period of time to conduct research which will support the future of space exploration. While on the lunar surface, astronauts need to maximize their efficiency by carrying tools on their Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU), and to accommodate this need, the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Tools Team is pursuing a utility belt concept. The objective of this project is to develop a system capable of interfacing between the utility belt and any given tool, while also accommodating numerous restrictions and …

Analytical, Numerical, And Computational Methods To Analyze The Time To Empty Open, Closed, And Variable-Topped Inverted Bottles, Callen Schwefler

Master's Theses

Recent unexpected experimental observations of the emptying of inverted bottles with perforations has generated interest in modeling and simulation of this phenomenon. It was observed that as a perforation, i.e., a small hole at the "top" of the inverted bottle, is added and enlarged, the overall emptying time first increases to a maximum value and then decreases until it reaches a lower limit. The change in emptying time is associated with a transition from jetting, where only water exits the neck, to glugging, a competition between air and water flows at the neck of the bottle.

This paper develops analytical …

Investigation Of Two-Phase Flow Phenomena In Rotating Paper Dryer To Achieve Effective Heat Transfer With Low Energy Consumption, Hamed Abdul Majeed

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The paper industry provides important consumer products comprised of paper, tissue, paper board, and pulping. The papermaking process requires a lot of energy, in the form of steam, to dry the paper web in rotating dryers. As steam condenses inside the dryers by releasing heat to the dryer walls, the condensate is removed using either stationary or rotary siphons. Since the condensate is usually at a saturated state, part of the condensate flashes into vapor during the extraction process and becomes difficult to extract. Thus, additional blow-through steam is used to push the condensate out. Since this blow-through steam is …

Numerical Study On Oscillating Flow Over A Flat Plate Using Pseudo-Compressibility In Intermittent Turbulent Regime, Shivank Srivastava Mr.

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) in-house code is developed to study unsteady characteristics of incompressible oscillating boundary layer flow over a flat plate under laminar and intermittently turbulent condition using pseudo-compressible unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier- Stokes (RANS) model. In the in-house code, the two-dimensional, unsteady conservation of mass and momentum equations are discretized using finite difference techniques which employs second order accurate (based on Taylor series) central differencing for spatial derivatives and second order Runge-Kutta accurate differencing for temporal derivatives. The in-house code employs Fully Explicit-Finite Difference technique (FEFD) to solve the governing differential equations of the mathematical model. In …

Uavs For Vegetation Monitoring: Overview And Recent Scientific Contributions, Ana I. De Castro, Yeyin Shi, Joe Mari Maja, Jose M. Pena

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper reviewed a set of twenty-one original and innovative papers included in a special issue on UAVs for vegetation monitoring, which proposed new methods and techniques applied to diverse agricultural and forestry scenarios. Three general categories were considered: (1) sensors and vegetation indices used, (2) technological goals pursued, and (3) agroforestry applications. Some investigations focused on issues related to UAV flight operations, spatial resolution requirements, and computation and data analytics, while others studied the ability of UAVs for characterizing relevant vegetation features (mainly canopy cover and crop height) or for detecting different plant/crop stressors, such as nutrient content/deficiencies, water …

Three-Dimensional Shape Analysis Of Peripapillary Retinal Pigment Epithelium-Basement Membrane Layer Based On Oct Radial Images, Junfei Tong, Pengfei Dong, Sachin Kedar, Deepta Ghate, Linxia Gu

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

The peripapillary retinal pigment epithelium-basement membrane (ppRPE/BM) layer angle was recently proposed as a potential index for estimating intracranial pressure noninvasively. However, the ppRPE/BM layer angle, measured from the optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans, varied across the radial directions of the optic disc. This made the ppRPE/BM layer angle difficult to be utilized in its full potential. In this study, we developed a mathematical model to quantify the ppRPE/BM layer angles across radial scans in relation to the ppRPE/BM 3D morphology in terms of its 3D angle and scanning tilt angles. Results showed that the variations of the ppRPE/BM layer …

On The Comparison Of Flow Physics Between Minimal And Extended Flow Units In Turbulent Channels, Ethan A. Davis, Siamak Mirfendereski, Jae Sung Park

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Direct numerical simulations were performed to study the effects of the domain size of a minimal flow unit (MFU) and its inherent periodic boundary conditions on flow physics of a turbulent channel flow in a range of 200 ≤ Re_τ ≤ 1000. This was accomplished by comparing turbulent statistics with those computed in sub-domains (SD) of extended domain simulations. The dimensions of the MFU and SD were matched, and SD dynamics were set to minimize artificial periodicities. Streamwise and spanwise dimensions of healthy MFUs were found to increase linearly with Reynolds number. It was also found that both MFU …

A Bibliometric Analysis Of Variable Displacement Pump For Optimal Control Of Operating Parameters, Anurag Ashokkumar Nema, Nagraj R. Gandhe

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

A centralized lubrication system or automatic lubrication system (ALS) is a system that delivers controlled amounts of lubricant to multiple locations on a machine while the machine is operating as per machine requirement. Lubrication occurs while the machinery is in operation, causing the lubricant to be equally distributed within the bearing and increasing the machine’s availability. Proper lubrication of critical components ensures the safe operation of the machinery. Less wear on the elements results in extension of component life, lower breakdowns, reduced downtime, reduced replacement costs, and reduced maintenance costs. If we can measure lubrication amounts, we can control the …

Desalination For Sustainable Water Production With An Emphasis On Low Pressure Distillation, Jessica Vivian Savage

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Freshwater resources depletion is a growing concern. This freshwater scarcity motivates research into seawater desalination as a means for alleviating the stresses on water demands. The primary methods of desalination include filtration and distillation. This paper explores the potential energy savings of vacuum distillation for seawater desalination to reduce the amount of energy needed to achieve phase change.

Depending on the vacuum boiler design, the vaporization mechanism may be boiling, evaporation, or cavitation. There is very little literature on cavitation that involves mass transfer, so cavitation is not developed here. This thesis focuses on standard models for boiling and evaporation …

Automated Bottling Station - Packaging System, Lauren Nicole Zinzilieta

Honors College Theses

This report focuses on the packaging system used at the end of the FESTO bottling station that is located in EP 2355. The system will be made up of an x-y 300 mm x 300 mm gantry system, an Arduino, two micro-stepping stepper drivers, and two 152.4 mm (6 in) single acting cylinders with a 3D printed bracket attached to both. The gantry system will be located at the end of the conveyor belt and will be programmed to pick up three bottles at a time and then will move a specified number of steps in both the x and …

Analysis On Fuel Options For Scramjet Engines With The Study To Lower The Starting Mach Number, Sumantra Luitel, Gagan Dangi

Honors Theses

The main objectives of this report were to perform analysis of an ideal scramjet engine, to assess the influence of fuel on endurance factor, and the possibility of lowering the starting Mach Number of the scramjet. In the first part, an ideal cycle parametric analysis was conducted on three different fuels i.e. Liquid Hydrogen (LH2), Jet Propellant 7 (JP-7), and Rocket Propellant (RP-1), taking into account their availability, physical properties, current uses, and potential uses. The detailed analysis is done largely relying on a 9 step Parametric Cycle Analysis technique to study how fuel properties influence the variation of seven …

Mixed Mode Crack Propagation In Iliac Bone, E. Baesu, Dm. Iliescu, Bv. Radoiu, S. Halichidis

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Bone is a complex material that can be regarded as an anisotropic elastic composite material. The problem of crack propagation in hu- man bone is analyzed by using a generalization of the maximum tensile stress criterion (MTS). The results concern the critical stress for crack propagation and the direction of the crack path in Iliac bone.

Parametric Design Of Flywheel For An Electric Punch Press, Prashant Dhakal

Honors Theses

Almost all designs start with a design requirement. These may be weight, volume, clearance, and even custom calculations. Finding a solution that meets these requirements often involves tedious and time-consuming iterations. Once the solution has been found, the design must be optimized to find the best possible solution. Finding the ‘best possible design’ requires substantial time and effort dedicated to iterating and analyzing the potential model solutions. This is where Parametric design comes into play. The Parametric design aids in specifying the key parameters of the design and makes changes interactively, with the model updating automatically. The purpose of this …

Computational Study On Suppression Of Airfoil Flow Separation Using High-Frequency Translational Surface Actuation, Bibek Gupta

Honors Theses

Flow separation is a phenomenon that occurs when pressure increases in the streamwise direction of a flow, making a distinctive boundary layer or separation bubble. It causes aircraft to experience an increase in drag and noise and a decrease in a lift, hence degrading their aviation performance. This study uses numerical simulations to understand better the effects of high-frequency translational surface actuation (HFTSA) on flow separation control. The numerical simulations mimic the experimental parameters of an experiment performed by Okoye et al. on using the HFTSA system to control flow separation. A symmetrical airfoil structure of chord length of 0.3 …

Special Issue “Cfd Modeling Of Complex Chemical Processes: Multiscale And Multiphysics Challenges”, Li Xi, De-Wei Yin, Jae Sung Park

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Kennesaw State University And United Alloy Corporation Robotic Pick And Place Project, Kathryn Bharadwaj, Logan Spencer, Tharkun Hudlow

Senior Design Project For Engineers

United Alloy Corporation (UAC), a company specializing in unique aluminum parts for aeronautics, needed a fix to their error prone, labor-intensive billet press operation. The process has a problem of adding the wrong size or wrong alloy billet to the induction oven, which results in a waste of raw materials. The billets range from ten to thirty-seven inches in length and weigh up to three hundred pounds. Currently, an operator uses a gantry crane to check and lift the billets from a rack onto the magazine of an induction oven. The magazine can hold up to three billets safely and …

Improving Accuracy Of Unmanned Aerial System Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing For Use In Energy Balance Models In Agriculture Applications, Mitchell S. Maguire, C.M.U. Neale, Wayne E. Woldt

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Unmanned aerial system (UAS) remote sensing has rapidly expanded in recent years, leading to the development of several multispectral and thermal infrared sensors suitable for UAS integration. Remotely sensed thermal infrared imagery has been used to detect crop water stress and manage irrigation by leveraging the increased thermal signatures of water stressed plants. Thermal infrared cameras suitable for UAS remote sensing are often uncooled microbolometers. This type of thermal camera is subject to inaccuracies not typically present in cooled thermal cameras. In addition, atmospheric interference also may present inaccuracies in measuring surface temperature. In this study, a UAS with integrated …