An electrically driven propellant pump (HALE E-Pump) was analysed and tested to determine its viability for use in a bi-propellant launch vehicle for the High-Altitude Liquid Engine (HALE) student rocket team at Oregon State University (OSU). The pump, manufactured in 2022 by students in OSU machine shops, was hydrostatically tested...
Smoldering combustion in wildland fires is a critical phenomenon that needs in-depth study because it can initiate with weaker ignition sources, can persist for long periods, is difficult to suppress, and can transit to flaming combustion. Cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin are the major organic constituents within biomass, in varying proportions...
Coastal Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii), a keystone species in the Pacific Northwest, relies on symbioses with microorganisms to obtain nutrients, potentially defend against pathogens, and perform a variety of other tasks. Two of the tree’s primary fungal symbionts are foliar epiphytes and endophytes, which reside on the exterior or...
Survival of ecological systems pivot on critical moments. In the arid John Day Basin of Eastern Oregon, extensive restoration of the stream and floodplain focused on supporting salmon has been ongoing for the past 20 years, but recurring short periods of extreme temperature increase and low flows result in mortality...
Smoldering can play a dangerous role in the ignition and spread of wildfires. Naturally occurring fuels consist of multiple layers of organic materials with varying particle sizes due to differences in decomposition stages with fuel depth, yet the influence of particle size on burning behavior is poorly understood. Previous research...
Smoldering combustion in wildland fires is difficult to extinguish, can transition to flaming combustion, and produces a significant amount of pollutants. It is necessary to understand parameters controlling smoldering in order to help predict the smoldering behavior and potentially mitigate these hazards. The wide variety of natural fuels that occur...
The oxidation of carbon monoxide (CO) to carbon dioxide (CO2) is ubiquitous throughout many industrial processes and is a common probe reaction used to help understand catalytic systems in research settings. The reaction is essential in power generation and transportation exhaust gas treatment technologies to ensure environmental safety, because CO...
Distributed version control allows developers to manage software evolution among distributed development teams. But it does not eliminate all consistency and concurrency issues, and instead introduces additional complexity when merging code. And resolving merge conflicts is nontrivial when automated merging fails. In such cases, developers are forced to inspect the...
Consistent with its charge under Oregon House Bill 3543, the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI) conducts a biennial assessment of the state of climate change science, including biological, physical, and social science, as it relates to Oregon and the likely effects of climate change on Oregon. This sixth Oregon...
Epidemiological research on HIV/AIDS seeks to determine at-risk populations not reached by current care. In the forty years since the AIDS epidemic began, transgender people were only recently deemed “at-risk” by the CDC and more action was taken to study them. Most current research centers on transgender women, with transgender...