The fuzzy front end of engineering design can present a difficult challenge, and as such, recent engineering design research has focused on guiding and influencing the way a designer ideates. Early ideation can be especially difficult when attempting to integrate specific design objectives in product design, called Design for X...
This thesis presents accurate and time-optimal smooth reference trajectory generation techniques for manufacturing equipment such as high-speed machine tools (MT) and industrial robots (IR). Typical machining tool-paths for MTs and IRs are defined as a series of discrete linear moves. Although Point-to-Point (P2P) feed motion can be generated by interpolating...
Breakthroughs in heat sink design are now limited by conventional manufacturing techniques which can only produce basic fin shapes with homogenous surface structuring. Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a potential disruptive technology for heat sink design and other convective heat transfer solutions, as surface properties can be directionally varied to maximize...
The aviation industry is pushing for better fuels and gas turbine engines for several reasons: cost, emissions, and to a lesser extent high-altitude relights. One aspect that research has been focused on to help reduce costs, emissions and better understand high-altitude relights is studying the combustion behavior of the fuel...
In order to solve some classic problems in traditional topology optimization, such as unknown material distribution, checker-boarding and curse of dimensionality, this thesis introduces a new method to construct a mechanical structure that can reduce mass and increase stiffness. It uses a graph to represent the skeleton of a structure....
Microchannel high temperature recuperators have the advantage of higher heat transfer coefficients and lower size and weight than traditional high temperature recuperators. However, the industrial application of microchannel recuperators are restricted by the high cost of photochemical machining and diffusion bonding. The objective of this paper is to introduce a...
The rising global trend to reduce dependence on fossil fuels has provided significant motivation toward the development of alternative energy conversion methods and new technologies to improve their efficiency. Recently, oscillating energy harvesters have shown promise as highly efficient and scalable turbines, which can be implemented in areas where traditional...
The behavior of the thin liquid film formed between a bubble and hydrophobic membrane is of high interest in applications where separating two-phase mixtures is beneficial. One such application is in-situ vapor extraction heat sinks. In these systems, high heat transfer rates are accomplished by taking advantage of the high...
This dissertation details the application of digital image correlation (DIC) in novel methods for mechanical testing and shape characterization. The first usage manifested in the development of a novel composite test specimen that provided the ability to characterize the matrix compression energy release rate at initiation and subsequent crack propagation....
Topology optimization (TO) is a mathematical method to find the optimal size, shape and connectivity of a domain under specified conditions, and has had many applications in engineering design. However, challenges remain in realizing TO as an effective design tool for many design situations. Uncertainty is ubiquitous in nature and...