Vertical Axis Pendulum Wave Energy Converters (VAPWECs) are thought to be both effective and robust at converting ocean wave energy into usable electricity. Seeking to build upon and investigate such potential, this work examines the merits of actively controlling a generic VAPWEC's pendulum for the purpose of increasing the converter's...
Ocean wave energy is a new and developing field of renewable energy with great potential. The energy contained in one meter of an average wave off the coast of Newport Oregon could supply dozens of homes with electricity. However, ocean waves are usually quite irregular which leads to large bursts...
Rising energy demands and the continual push to find more energy efficient technologies have been the impetus for the investigation of waste heat recovery techniques. Diesel engine exhaust heat utilization has the potential to significantly reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and reduce the release of greenhouse gases, because diesel...
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6.17. Tops (cyan) and bottoms (green) separated by the horizontal line in the x-y data
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology has grown out of traditional research and military applications and has captivated the commercial and consumer markets, showing the ability to perform a spectrum of autonomous functions. This technology has the capability of saving lives in search and rescue, fighting wildfires in environmental monitoring, and...
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 new material system was developed for fabricating the combustion engine of an unmanned aerial vehicle. The material system consisted of a mixture of nanoscale and microscale particles of silicon nitride. Magnesia and yttria were used as sintering additives. The powders were mixed with a paraffin binder system. The binder-powder...
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...
The objective of this paper is to demonstrate a method for mechanically characterizing a 25 μm thick elastoviscoplastic hemodialysis membrane and for quantifying the force required to use that membrane in compression sealing. First, methods are developed for mechanically characterizing the thin elastoviscoplastic membrane. Then, a finite element model is...
The design and analysis of single point power-mooring cables applied to wave energy converters (WECs) is presented. WECs are mechanical devices designed and deployed to extract energy from waves in varying ways, and at varying distances from the shoreline. WEC devices operating on the water surface require mooring lines or...
In cases where complex systems routinely experience extreme operating conditions, preventative maintenance is often employed to guard against system failure. Yet, with accessible real-time data and the standard practice becoming prohibitively expensive, the test stand can serve as a vital contributor to the development of system health and reliability estimations....