An experimental study of the near-field flow structure produced by an incompressible turbulent Acoustically Self-Excited Jet (ASEJ) in a large enclosure using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is presented. The salient feature of this jet is that it provides an increase in near-field mixing and turbulence without additional external power input....
Transportation plays such an important role in daily living that, without it, a person might be totally homebound. The nation’s air travel system for persons with disabilities is an area of substantial dissatisfaction, with both passengers and the airline industry recognizing the need for improvement. One of the major concerns...
PDMS membrane-based microvalves are becoming increasingly more important for the control of fluid flow within MECS applications such as microreactors used to synthesize nanoparticles and biological macromolecules. The motivation for pursuing PDMS membrane-based microvalves is for implementing a plug flow microreactor to simulate slug flow yielding a narrower residence time...
A PID controller was designed to control the performance of an oil-heated fractal-like branching microchannel desorber for use in an ammonia-absorption refrigeration system. Both the amount and concentration of ammonia refrigerant generated at the desorber can be controlled by choosing the rectified circulation ratio as the controlled variable in a...
The behavior of a metal vapor plasma arc in a vacuum arc remelting (VAR) furnace is believed to contribute to the formation of defects in reactive metal and super-alloy ingots. Industry standard instrumentation, which includes electric current and voltage measurements, can asses the stability of an arc but cannot predict...
A Mixed Reactant Single Chamber (MRSC) Fuel Cell is a relatively recent concept in the field of fuel cell engineering originally developed in the late 1950’s. Typical fuel cells have separated reactants (a separated fuel and oxidizer) that react on their usually non-selective electro-catalytic materials. A mixed reactant fuel cell...
Coordinating multiple robots to achieve a complex task requires solving two distinct control problems: the high-level control problem of ensuring that each robot aims to perform a useful task (e.g., coordination) and the low-level control problem of ensuring that each robot actually performs the correct actions to achieve its task...
Flow separation is an important phenomenon in fluid dynamics because of the effect it has on lift and drag on immersed bodies. Areas of swirl within a separated flow region may have a distinct effect on the surface forces, modifying the lift and drag characteristics. A correlation between the passage...
A non-intrusive measurement technique for direct quantitative thermal visualization of channel wall temperatures in two phase microchannel flows using infrared thermography (IRT) is presented. Specifically, the measurement of top channel wall temperatures in a fractal-like branching microchannel silicon heat sink during flow boiling is demonstrated and thoroughly documented. Obtaining quantitative...
Field biologists are in need of more specialized and technical equipment than they are able to produce on their own in order to collect data more efficiently or gather data that is not currently available. This presents a challenge for design engineers because these products are typically highly specialized and...