In this paper, I present the design of Mira 2, a small-scale, liquid bipropellant rocket engine, with a specific focus on its oxidizer-centered pintle injector. Building upon the valuable lessons and insights gained from the empirical testing of its predecessor, Mira 1, the Mira 2 engine incorporates several improvements and...
Turbulent flow with suspended, non-spherical particles can be found in nature and several industrial applications. Although turbulence with dispersed spherical particles has been studied extensively, modeling the dynamics of non-spherical particles in a turbulent flow has not been studied extensively. Motion of spherical particles in complex flows is typically captured...
Wind power forecasting provides valuable insights for demand response, energy market operation, and plant control optimization. Probabilistic approaches—which capture uncertainty in these complex systems by representing predictions as probability distributions—represent a growing area of research in wind energy science. However, their applications for wind-based hybrid systems, particularly those focused on...
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 purpose of this project is to assist the OSU Baja Racing vehicle in turning more sharply. This is done using a turning brake, which locks one rear wheel to facilitate turning on a smaller radius. This project focuses on the development of a custom cylinder housing for the turning...
Government regulation is an established policy tool for inducing technological innovation in a market. For example, many environmental regulations prescribe performance requirements that industry complies with by innovating aspects of the product design. These design innovations might include updated components, new functionality, or a revised product architecture. However, the effect...
Hydrogels have been attractive for use as a medium in porous flow studies,
but have always been limited in this role because of their poor mechanical properties.
This project analyzes and tests two recently developed hydrogels,
poly(methacrylamide-co-methacrylic acid) (PMM), and a heat-treated long chain
PVA hydrogel. Particle image velocimetry (PIV)...
Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is an innovative method where metal powder is fused together to generate complex geometries. LPBF is used as a technology to reduce material waste, and extensive labor that are often linked to conventional subtractive manufacturing. H13 tool steel is one of the widely used materials...
Optical sensing technologies are pivotal in the manufacturing process, specifically in defect detection, tool condition estimation, and monitoring. The research aims to enhance the accuracy, efficiency, and reliability of manufacturing metrology by employing optical sensing technologies, such as laser profilometers and image processing techniques. The dissertation proposes intelligent and flexible...
This work investigates the acoustic velocity of gas-liquid mixtures in vertical, co-current flow in a concentric annulus. Acoustic velocity shows promise as a detection parameter for the presence and amount of gas in a liquid flow because of its high sensitivity to gas void fraction in a gas-liquid mixture. However,...
Modulation assistance is widely employed to improve chip management in turning. This process is also known as modulated turning. Modulated turning transforms continuous cutting into intermittent cutting by periodically disengaging the tool tip from the workpiece, resulting in the generation of short, easily managed chips. This novel method improves the...
Determining the electrical properties of ceria-based materials is important for their use as electrodes in hot-wall magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) power generators with wall temperatures greater than 1500 ̊C. The electrical conductivity of a material can be used in models for predicting the performance of generator designs. More specifically, the temperature dependent...
Designs for improved cookstoves aim to decrease the detrimental environmental and health impacts that are associated with traditional biomass cooking practiced by nearly 40% of the global population. Programs to provide improved cookstoves are found worldwide, and regional testing centers support development of these through emissions testing services. Aprovecho Research...
This study evaluates the system efficiency and energy-offsetting capabilities of a closed-cycle thermochemical energy storage (TCES) system. Current TCES research primarily focuses on material selection and reactor design but overlooks the practical limitations faced on a system level. Thus, this study investigates various TCES integration methods for providing building space...
Long field-life systems are those for which operational, as opposed to capital, expenditures dominate the life time cost of the system. In established product categories, operational experience and historical maintenance data allows engineers to make informed decisions influencing maintenance during the early design stages when design changes are at their...
The cost of long-duration energy storage poses one of the most significant limitations on the penetration of renewables into power grids. Thermochemical energy storage has great potential to reduce this cost through the use of a reversible redox reaction pair that has a high enthalpy of reaction. The chemical nature...
The “why” of any situation is one of the most important questions to ask. Inventors have ideas every day. Some ideas are the brilliant ideas that lead to a better tomorrow. To protect these ideas, inventors turn to patents, a governmental grant of the right to stop others, for a...
This work explores the mechanical properties of single-phase niobium alloy C103 from room temperature to 600°C for the purpose of expanding safe uses of the material into new applications. The study utilizes a symmetrically notched triaxial tensile specimens to manipulate the internal stress field in order to observe the changes...
With the increased demand for high-quality products, reliable and robust process monitoring has become a key capability for modern manufacturing systems. Through sensors installed in the machinery, the real-time information was measured to assess the state of the processes. The measured data can be used to infer the mechanical, material,...
The electrical conductivity data of ceramic material at high temperatures can be useful in the application of modeling, solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD). The existing data is considerably lacking at extreme temperatures. Our research focuses on bridging this gap by reporting the electrical conductivity measurements of sets...