Other Engineering Commons^™

Active Noise Barrier Minimizing Pressure Gradient, Carl Hart, Siu-Kit Lau

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Minimization of the sound pressure field within the shadow zone of a noise barrier is achieved by reducing the pressure gradient along a line, at the top of a barrier, via active noise control. The noise control effectiveness of a barrier is increased by this strategy, especially for specific system configurations. The proposed method was evaluated by numerical simulation. Results indicate that system orientation has little effect on minimizing the pressure gradient at the top of the barrier when the error sensors are invisible to the primary noise disturbance. Highly effective control within the shadow zone and close to the …

Experimental Study Of Blast Resistant Glazing System Response To Explosive Loading, William Chad Wedding

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

This thesis recounts the experimental study of the dynamic response of a blast resistant glazing system to explosive loading. A combination of triaxial force sensors, pressure gauges, and laser displacement gauges capture the response in detail over a wide range of scenarios. The scenarios include low level blast loading to characterize the reaction at points around the perimeter of the window, moderate level blast loading to examine the repeatability of the blast scenario, and high level blast loading to capture the response during failure as the tensile membrane forms. The scenarios are modeled via an analytical Single-Degree-of-Freedom model as well …

Fusion Of Sources Of Evidence With Different Importances And Reliabilities, Florentin Smarandache, Jean Dezert, J.M. Tacnet

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper presents a new approach for combining sources of evidences with different importances and reliabilities. Usually, the combination of sources of evidences with different reliabilities is done by the classical Shafer’s discounting approach. Therefore, to consider unequal importances of sources, if any, a similar reliability discounting process is generally used, making no difference between the notion of importance and reliability. In fact, in multicriteria decision context, these notions should be clearly distinguished. This paper shows how this can be done and we provide simple examples to show the differences between both solutions for managing importances and reliabilities of sources. …

Development Of A Framework For The Assessment Of The Role And Impact Of Technology On The Public Procurement Process: An Irish Health Sector Study, Paul Davis

Doctoral

This thesis sets out to examine how the role and impact of technology, in the context of the public procurement process, can be assessed by addressing it as a single bounded structural entity. The thesis specifically examines the procurement process in the Irish Health Sector. This thesis takes the view that context for the procurement process is critical and that adopting a structuration approach to the examination of the process allows for a greater understanding of the role of technology. The thesis is built around a thematic structure which examines the changing relationship between information technology systems and organisational structure. …

Noise Propagation Through Open Windows Of Finite Depth Into An Enclosure, Caleb Sieck, Siu-Kit Lau

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Predicting the insertion loss of an opening backed with an enclosed space is important for building noise control. Recent research in sound transmission through apertures of finite depth in infinite rigid baffles has included the effects of propagating and evanescent modes within the aperture in order to extend models to higher frequencies. The present study extends the model to the case of the aperture backed by a cavity as opposed to sound radiating into half-space. The role of coupling between the aperture modes, radiation modes, and cavity modes in the transmission was investigated. The results were compared to those of …

E.J. Gallo Winery Spirit-Makers Facility, Aaron Pickar

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

With growing demand for E.J. Gallo spirit brands, the cramped and cluttered facility allocated to the spirit-makers does not provide an adequate work environment to design and test new hard alcohols. E.J. Gallo Winery wants to relocate the spirit-makers to a new facility located near the brandy production floor for under 200,000 dollars. In order to do this, a revised systematic approach to facility design is used.

In this process, the departments are first defined, then the relationships between these departments and the space requirements are documented. Once these planning steps are complete, alternative layouts are constructed and analyzed until …

Implementing Rfid To Improve Animal Shelter Inventory And Allocation, Adam Mach

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this project is to observe the best way to incorporate Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology into the animal inventory system present in animal shelters, while also observing the benefits of implementing this system. The Woods Humane Society was used in this project as a sample animal care facility that could benefit from this application.

Many RFID systems can be observed in other industries, but very few examples this technology exist in animal shelters or smaller animal care facilities. Part of the reason for that is because funds are scarce at most animal care facilities, like the Woods …

Design And Manufacture Of Tennis Ball Retriever, Philip Hurst

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

No abstract provided.