Physical experimentation in various scientific and engineering areas continues to be a useful and often necessary approach that is applied in research, development, and for general problem solving. The experimental design process however, is iterative and often involves trial and error. Alternative designs are proposed and evaluated on cost and...
Traditional electronic systems are usually fabricated via printed circuit boards (PCBs). In a regular PCB, the electronic components are placed and mounted on a two-dimensional board. Such a component layout limits the freedom in the component placement process which results in larger electronic devices. With the use of Additive Manufacturing...
Photonic sintering of nanoparticles is a relatively new process for sintering of nanoparticles, deposited on a substrate, into functional solid structures. The working principle of this process is the incidence of large-area broad-spectrum light onto deposited nanoparticles, which results in heat generation in the nanoparticles and their subsequent densification. Key...
Deburring of machined parts is a crucial task in the aerospace and automotive industry. This process is still performed manually to a large extent due to the unpredictability of burr formation as well as the complex interactions between the human arm and the workpiece. Poor ergonomics, repetitive stress and strain...
A common problem in energy allocation problems is managing the trade-off between selling surplus energy to maximize short term revenue, versus holding surplus energy to hedge against future shortfalls. For energy allocation problems, this surplus represents resource flexibility and is quantified as the surplus energy after meeting the demand. The...
Sintering of nanoparticles to create films and patterns of functional materials is emerging as a key manufacturing process in applications like flexible electronics, solar cells and thin-film devices. Further, there is the emerging potential to use nanoparticle sintering to perform additive manufacturing as well. While the effect of nanoparticle size...
Time-dependent crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 617 at 800°C in air were studied using compact tension samples machined in the L-T direction, cracked at temperature using an induction furnace and servo-hydraulic load frame. The application of different loading waveforms, including triangular, hold time, and sustained loading, were studied with relation...
To address several challenges faced in healthcare, the Triple Aim (3A) was targeted by institutions to improve health outcomes and patient experience while reducing the costs of health. Process improvement techniques in manufacturing, such as Lean systems, were applied as tools to achieve the 3A framework. Unfortunately, the high level...
Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are prevalent among surgeons due to a variety of risk factors. Various subjective tools have been used to investigate the associations between these risk factors and their contributions to the development of WMSDs. This study aimed to provide a summary of a collection of popular subjective...
Renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly important due to their low environmental impact and limitless nature. This thesis explores the design of a 250 mW permanent magnet linear generator wave energy converter to power ocean sensors. While many wave energy converters exist, this is a unique application because the wave...
In the face of a disruptive event or prolonged period of stress, resilient performance ischaracterized by preventative measures, effective response, and the integration of lessonslearned. In healthcare, resilience significantly affects patient safety. However, currentguidelines for healthcare performance assessment, such as the Triple Aim, do notconsider physician satisfaction and preventative measures...
Predicting condensation flow regimes and the associated heat transfer and pressure drop in microchannels is critical for designing terrestrial and space systems for heating, cooling, power generation, and advanced manufacturing. It is well established that in flows approaching the microscale (Dh < 1 mm) gravity-dominated flow regimes become less relevant,...
This thesis covers the use of a quarter car model to select damping rates for aFormula Student (FS) car, focusing on minimizing vertical tire force variation to improvegrip. A 2 degree of freedom (DOF) quarter car model is cycled over the road frequenciesof interest and the results compared with the...
The ternary system (Bi₀.₅Na₀.₅)TiO₃-(Bi₀.₅K₀.₅)TiO₃-Bi(Mg₀.₅Ti₀.₅)O₃ (BNT-BKT-BMgT) was explored along the [75-(x 2) ]Bi₀.₅Na₀.₅TiO₃ - [25-(x 2)]Bi₀.₅K₀.₅TiO₃ - [x]Bi(Mg₀.₅Ti₀.₅)O₃ composition line. Thin films were fabricated using chelated mixing route solutions spin cast onto platinized silicon substrates. Processing parameters such as: excess cation molar%, solution molality, and crystallization temperatures, for composition where x=0,...
Manufacturing exists as a stronghold for continuous growth and development of economies, a trend that is likely to continue as the demand for commodities and products grow. Manufacturing drives innovation and productivity in developed nations, as well as promoting economic stability and development in developing nations. However, manufacturing activities pose...
Soft robots are designed to utilize their compliance and contortionistic abilities to both interact safely with their environment and move through it in ways a rigid robot cannot. To more completely achieve this, the robot should be made of as many soft components as possible. Here we present a completely...
There is growing commercial interest in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in urban environments, specifically for package delivery applications. However, the size, complexity and sheer numbers of expected UAVs makes conventional air traffic management that relies on human air traffic controllers infeasible. To enable UAVs to safely and...
In this research, a bi-criteria batching and scheduling problem is investigated in hybrid flow shop environments, where unrelated-parallel machines are run simultaneously with different capacities and eligibilities in processing, in some stages. The objective is to simultaneously minimize a linear combination of the total weighted completion time and total weighted...
In this research, a bi-criteria batching and scheduling problem is investigated in hybrid flow shop environments, where unrelated-parallel machines are run simultaneously with different capacities and eligibilities in processing, in some stages. The objective is to simultaneously minimize a linear combination of the total weighted completion time and total weighted...
In Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) sintering, pulsed large-area visible light from a xenon lamp is absorbed by nanoparticle films or patterns and converted to heat, resulting in rapid sintering of the nanoparticles. This work experimentally characterizes IPL sintering of silver nanoparticle films. A newly observed turning point in the evolution...