This project examines the portrayal of the life and times of Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich (Empress Elisabeth of Austria) in the popular Austrian musical "Elisabeth das Musical" (Elisabeth the Musical), written by Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay. "Elisabeth" was first performed in Vienna in 1992 and has since become the...
This study is a comparison to establish similarities between the funding resources of college and university athletic bands. The secondary objective is to determine the funding potential that exists as a result of alumni relations. In order to obtain funding information for a variety of athletic band programs, a survey...
A study was conducted to determine the heat transfer characteristics
of pin finned heat sinks in natural convection. Three pin
diameters were studied: 0.238 cm, 0.318 cm and 0.396 cm. The pins
were attached to the base in two arrangements, triangular and
rectangular, forming a horizontal array. Pin spacing was...
Three approaches for evaluating mode I interlaminar strain energy release rates in graphite/epoxy composites were compared using experimental data from double cantilever beam specimens. Expressions for evaluating strain energy release rates were arrived at based on assumptions regarding specimen geometry and material behavior. The calculations included the direct method of...
The potential of red blood cell (RBC) and platelet damage was studied for a novel microfluidic hemoperfusion device currently in development at Oregon State University for use in treating sepsis. COMSOL 4.4's computational fluid dynamics (CFD) module was used to examine shear rate profiles in laminar, Newtonian blood flow throughout...
It is desirable for complex engineered systems to perform missions efficiently and economically, even when these missions' complex, variable, long-term operational profiles make it likely for hazards to arise. It is thus important to design these systems to be resilient so that they will actively prevent and recover from hazards...
A computational model for a resonantly coupled alpha free-piston Stirling cooler
is presented. The cooler consists of two isothermal working spaces for compression and
expansion connected by a regenerator consisting of a stack of narrow parallel channels.
The regenerator is assumed to have a linear temperature distribution along its axial...
Significant reductions in the number of defects in parts
produced by investment casting can be obtained by improving
the flow of the molten metal during pouring. Studies have
been done at Oregon State University with simulated casting
techniques to determine optimal mold configurations.
Better mold layouts have been shown to...
In current practice, design documentation often fails
to support the activities of design understanding,
communication, and redesign. A Design History Tool has been
developed to improve current design documentation. This
tool is a computerized design history that represents and
plays back important information generated during the
process of designing a...
Much like wind energy in its early years, marine energy has vast potential, and wave energy converter (WEC) concepts are constantly in development. Consequently, wave energy faces many challenges for expansion and has a wide-ranging design space of WEC concepts. The large design space demands new methods for understanding the...
Since the Industrial Revolution, automated systems have increasingly become a part of everyday life. Automated systems range in scale and scope from simple assists to complete robotic replacements. Inexpensive integrated circuits, sensors and microprocessors have allowed automated systems to become smaller, cheaper and more prevalent. Identifying appropriate opportunities for automation,...
Past research has shown that automobile exhaust is composed
of a mixture of many different hydrocarbons and that some of these
hydrocarbons contribute more to the smog problem than others.
Natural gas has been proposed as an alternative to gasoline as a
motor fuel, and it was desired to confirm...
Marching band activities consist of both physically and cognitively demanding tasks. The demands that this activity has on players has largely been unstudied. The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of players’ experience level, role, and gender on the workload of marching band players via a field...
The transfer of air travelers with disabilities between a mobility aid and an aircraft seat is a major source of injury for both the travelers and the airline personnel assisting in the transfer. The risk to both parties might be reduced through the biomechanical study of the transfer task. Such...
As modern systems continue to increase in size and complexity, they pose significant safety and risk management challenges. System engineers and much of the government research efforts are focused on understanding the attributes and characteristics that emerge from the interactions of components and subsystems. As a result, the objective of...
Most accidents and malfunctions in complex engineered systems are attributed to human error. However, a closer inspection would reveal that such mishaps often emerge as a result of poor design and human- and component-related vulnerabilities acting together. To fully understand and mitigate potential risks, the effects of such interactions between...
An open area of research in complex systems is to move reliability and failure assessments earlier in the engineering design process. When compared to later design, early decisions are cost effective and have a large impact on the system. Standard methods are limited by the availability of data and often...
Chain saws are a common tool used by large logging corporations and family homesteads to manage forests, limb trees and buck lumber. A significant cost of operation is the continuous required supply of bar and chain oil. Consumers and logging corporations desire a lubricant with a high performance to cost...
Computation of offset curves is an operation critical to many computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) applications. Though simple on the surface, differences between the straightforward mathematical definition and the demands of CAD/CAM environment in the formulation and expression of an offset curve create a problem for which only complicated, approximate...
Quadrotors are unique among Micro Aerial Vehicles in providing excellent maneuverability (as opposed to winged flight),while maintaing a simple mechanical construction (as opposed to helicopters). This mechanical simplicity comes at a cost of increased controller complexity. Quadrotors are inherently unstable, in the sense that they are essentially unflyable by a...
This thesis addresses a common knowledge gap that was identified amongst the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) competition design teams at Oregon State University. Students that join the SAE teams at Oregon State University typically do not have experience using physically collected data during a design process. This leads to...
A model is developed that allows the prediction of the stress-strain
distribution in a mixed carbide sphere pac fuel pin during
irradiation. The model is coupled with a previously developed model
for the thermal behavior of the pin. The one-dimensional (radial at
various axial locations) solution is for quasi-steady pin...
The respiratory tract is lined with a mucous blanket which is
motivated by a ciliated epithelium. This blanket includes a lower
serous layer of fluid through which the cilia beat and an upper viscid
layer into which particulates from the inhaled air are deposited.
The movement of the mucous blanket...
For control of a flexible manipulator, the assumed- mode method is applied to the mathematical model of the model reference adaptive system. In the assumed-mode method, the flexible, continuous manipulator is described by a limited number of degrees of freedom. A modified model reference adaptive system is studied for direct...
Given the current abundant supply and cheap price of natural gas (NG) in the United States, there is a significant opportunity to use this fuel for transportation. However, there are few fueling stations for consumers. To address this need, a dual-mode engine has been developed where in one mode all...
The competitiveness level of Formula Student is consistently increasing. Teams must allocate resources to develop new innovative designs to gain a competitive edge. Managing team resources effectively is critical to a team’s success. Reducing the resources required to manufacture specific components can be used to allocate resources to other beneficial...
Innovation is a key element for a product to achieve market success, but identifying it within product or even defining the term is a difficult task. Identifying innovation has been approached in many different ways. Experts in design engineering may identify innovative designs based on an analysis of a product's...
Multiphase flow dynamics are important in many naval and turbomachinery applications, where bubble interaction with low pressure, vortical structures can lead to undesirable cavitation effects. To better understand the underlying phenomena, a multiscale numerical framework is developed to simulate bubble laden flow in dynamic hydro propulsion systems. Several subproblems in...
Recent work has shown humanoid robots with spinal columns, instead of rigid torsos, benefit from both better balance and an increased ability to absorb external impact. Similarly, snake robots have shown promise as a viable option for exploration in confined spaces with limited human access, such as during power plant...
Design of commercial aircraft structure, composed of composite material, requires the
prediction of failure loads given large scale damage. In particular, a fuselage of
graphite/epoxy lamination was analyzed for damage tolerance given a standard large
crack that severed both skin and internal structure. Upon loading, a zone of damage is...
The matrix compression behavior is assumed similar to tension, and many material's elastic and damage parameters are considered equal in tension and compression but experimentally not explored. This assumption leads to unrealistic or very far from the actual behavior of the matrix under compression. Moreover, the pre-existing implemented Abaqus models...
A model of an exhaust plume was developed and programmed
on a digital computer. The purpose of the model was to predict the
concentration and size distribution of ice particles produced from
automobile exhaust during arctic conditions. The model accounted
for the nucleation, growth, and freezing of the condensed water...
Droplet formation from a rigid and a vibration nozzle driven by a pulsing pressure is simulated. Droplet formation is simulated by using one-dimensional model. For the case of droplet formation from a vibration nozzle, the nozzle vibration is simulated by large deflection plate vibration equation. Droplet formation from a rigid...
In this work, flow through synthetic arrangements of contacting spheres is studied
as a model problem for porous media and packed bed type flows. Direct numerical
simulations are performed for moderate pore Reynolds numbers in the range,
10 ≤ Re ≤ 600, where non-linear porescale flow features are known to...
Coal continues to be burned by direct combustion in packed or moving bed in
small size domestic furnaces, medium size industrial furnaces, as well as small power
stations. Recent stringent restrictions on exhaust emissions call for a better
understanding of the process of combustion of coal in beds.
The present...
Lake Kinneret is Israel's only fresh water lake (unless you count the Dead Sea). It spans roughly 20km from north to south, and about 12km at its widest east west extent. It is not quite 50m deep at its deepest point. In late spring, the lake stratifies significantly and remains...
Chainsaws, an indispensable tool for modern forestry operations, rely on bar lubricant to prevent rapid wear of the chain and bar. Choice of bar lubricant must balance performance, cost, and biological impact. Many bar lubricants are available, but little published work exists that conclusively ranks the performance of these choices....
Renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly important due to their low environmental impact and limitless nature. This thesis explores the design of a 250 mW permanent magnet linear generator wave energy converter to power ocean sensors. While many wave energy converters exist, this is a unique application because the wave...
The determination of failure is complicated when a structural
element is subjected to combined rather than simple stresses. This
is especially true when the principle of superposition does not apply.
For such cases, tests of the element under the expected loads are
required to determine its failure criteria.
In this...
This describes the development of a new fuel flowmeter. Among the desired features were an accuracy of ±2%, a linear response to fuel flow rate, a means of increasing the sensitivity at the low end of the meter scale and portability so that it would be equally useful in the...
The design and testing of a portable pumping system for use in
the hydraulic excavation of commercial crab pots buried by ocean
sediment was undertaken. The resulting portable system retained the
four major components of the pumping systems presently used by
commercial fishermen: engine, pump, fire hose, and nozzle. Because...
This thesis is the combination of two research publications working towards automating functional modeling. Functional modeling is an underutilized yet critical tool for concept generation and product design. Understanding the difficulty both novice and expert designers have in implementing functional modeling in their design process, this research sets out to...
The implementation of concurrent engineering into many large
companies has greatly improved their product development processes.
These companies have seen significant gains in quality and customer
satisfaction with reduced product costs, defects, and time-to-market
(Lake, 1992). Many large companies have successfully employed this
relatively new product development philosophy. However, smaller...
Wave dispersion and fracture are phenomena that involve. mechanisms triggered at the scale of a material's internal structure. Experiments were performed with a candidate material to judge the hypothesis that wave dispersion measurements can be used to nondestructively predict fracture strength. Wood-based particleboard was chosen as the candidate material because...
A gap exists in the methods used in industry and available in academia that prevents customers and engineers from having a voice when considering engineering risk appetite in the dynamic shaping of early-phase conceptual design trade study outcomes. Current methods used in Collaborative Design Centers either collect risk information after...
This thesis investigates a simple dynamic model of the hind leg
of a beetle during initiation of a step. The primary assumption was
that the full load of the body was carried on the hind leg during
this time. That is, the only forces on the body were that of...
A simplified model of the combined particle convective and
radiative components of heat transfer between large-particle gas-fluidized
beds and immersed surfaces was developed. This analytical
model was based on the single particle formulation of Adams and Welty
[4,9], with the added assumptions of one-dimensional heat conduction
in the particle and...
A continuous process for the production of ceramic materials has been studied.
This method reacted metal and oxidizer in a diffusionally controlled process,
demonstrated by reacting a magnesium particle stream and hot water vapor. Many small
rich hydrogen/air diffusion flames provide an atmosphere of hot water vapor, hydrogen,
and nitrogen...
A one-dimensional numerical model has been developed to study diabatic and adiabatic
flow boiling in microchannels. This model accounts for developing flow effects and
variable property effects. The model uses correlations for void fraction and two-phase
multipliers found in the literature. The model has been used to study the performance...
The literature cites several examples of investigations made
concerning the size of bubbles rising in small particle fluidized beds
at room temperature. In many practical applications, however, fluidized
beds require the use of large particles at very high temperatures.
Despite this fact, little information has been reported on bubble size...
Cavitation instabilities in elastic-plastic solids under spherically-symmetric and axisymmetric loadings were investigated using the finite element method. Both quasi-static and dynamic analyses were used to solve these problems. In the quasi-static analyses, we investigated a cavitation instability in elastic/perfectly-plastic, linear hardening elastic-plastic, power hardening elasticplastic, and constrained silver materials. Here,...
The compressive behavior of continuous fiber composites is not as well
understood as their tensile behavior because research and industrial applications have until
recently focused on the latter. Furthermore, most theoretical and experimental studies on
the compression of composites have examined the case of unidirectional specimens with
fibers along the...
The object of this research, project was to study how
different parameters effect the magnitude and frequency
composition of forces exerted on simulated heat exchange
tubes immersed in a cold fluidized bed. Two arrays of
tubes were assembled with the tubes mounted in an
equilateral triangular pitch pattern. The center...
Microscale fluid processes are an increasingly important subgroup of fluid mechanics. Applications for heat transfer and micro-electro-mechanical devices use flows on the scale of less than one hundred microns. This study is part of a larger work in which a multiphase, high shear environment is studied in a microchannel that...
Combustive Synthesis or Self-Propagating High-Temperature
Synthesis (SHS), is an energy-efficient combustion
method of producing metallic, ceramic and composite
materials from their constituent powders.
This thesis presents the results of an experimental and
numerical evaluation of the propagation velocity for the SHS
solid-solid reaction of titanium and carbon, as well as...
The application of laser generated ultrasonics was first
demonstrated in the mid-seventies and has shown good potential
when applied to isotropic materials. However, its use with
composite materials is still in the early stages of development.
This study explores the potential for application of laser
generated Rayleigh and Lamb waves...
The effects of laser processing of Ni₃Al, TiAl,
Fe₃Al, and Ni₃Si on microstructure and phase
composition were characterized using optical and
scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction
analysis. It was found that laser processing
resulted in melt zones of ordered phases with fine
grains and microstructures. The effects of heat...
A first generation, one-dimensional predictive model is proposed for designing heat sinks with fractal flow networks. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is analyzed as a means for validating the model and identifying areas for improvement. Two separate CFD models were developed. One was analyzed with conjugate heat transfer...
A computational model is developed to study the effects of alumina layer formation on an ablative surface when exposed to high temperature particle laden gas flow. The solidification dynamics i.e., the solid and liquid alumina layer growth rate, and the heat transferred to the ablative surface are investigated. A one-dimensional...
The characteristics of the free surface in an orifice driven by a periodic forcing function have been studied both theoretically and experimentally. In the theoretical study, two wall boundary condition cases were examined: 1) the radial velocity at the wall of the orifice is zero; and 2) the axial velocity...
The phenomena of interest in this work is the thermal stratification which occurs during the early stages of a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) in the OSU APEX Thermal Hydraulic Test Facility, which is a scaled model of the Westinghouse AP600 nuclear power plant. Thermal stratification has been linked to...
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...
Self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) is a new
method of producing advanced ceramic materials and offers an
attractive alternative to conventional methods of materials
processing.
An experimental investigation was carried out to determine
the SHS reaction wave propagation speed in a vertical cylindrical
compact made from a mixture of titanium and...
An analytical model of the radiative contribution to the
total heat transfer between a large-particle (greater
than 1 mm) gas-fluidized bed and an immersed horizontal
tube is discussed. The model is applied to the case of a
bubbling bed and the emulsion phase contribution is obtained from a detailed analysis...
This dissertation approaches the problem of how to design process
measurements by identifying process attributes which are common to all product
development processes. By classifying the generic attributes of a product
development process and their relationships, a framework is established which
gives definition and context to individual measurements. At the...
There is strong interest in the energy community to develop technologies that can diffuse low-cost, renewably generated electricity into difficult and slow to decarbonize sectors. One of the emerging areas of interest is renewable natural gas (RNG). RNG has low or no associated net greenhouse gas emissions and can be...
Collective robotic systems are biologically-inspired and exhibit behaviors found in spatial swarms (e.g., fish), colonies (e.g., ants), or a combination of both (e.g., bees). Collective robotic system popularity continues to increase due to their apparent global intelligence and emergent behaviors. Many applications can benefit from the incorporation of collectives, including...
An Achilles tendon injury can be devastating. Surgical methods to bring the muscle to full strength are not always available. Proposed is an ankle foot orthosis (AFO) that is entirely passive (does not add energy to the system) and uses the mechanical advantages provided by the walking gait of a...
This thesis presents novel feedback and feedforward control system design strategies for active to passive vibration mitigation of residual vibrations on high speed machine tools. Residual vibrations on high-speed machine tools are triggered when the machine axes (table) undergo large accelerations, which induce sudden inertial forces and excite the lightly...
This thesis explores the implementation of learning based control with predictive cruise control and the potential this technology has for increasing fuel efficiency while keeping on a well maintained schedule for commercial trucks. Traditional cruise control is wasteful when maintaining a constant velocity over rolling hills. Predictive cruise control is...
There is growing commercial interest in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in urban environments, specifically for package delivery applications. However, the size, complexity and sheer numbers of expected UAVs makes conventional air traffic management that relies on human air traffic controllers infeasible. To enable UAVs to safely and...
This study investigates the microstructure and mechanical properties of an austenitic Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) steel produced by the Laser Directed Energy Deposition (LDED) process using powder feedstock atomized with elemental yttrium. The Microstructure of the samples was characterized by electron microscopy, and mechanical properties were measured using a tensile...
High Entropy Alloys (HEA) exhibit unusual properties and are gaining interest as new materials for challenging applications in the aerospace, hypersonic and medical fields. The application of HEAs have been limited by the development of powder production at scale. A recently developed process of plasma spheroidization by 6K, inc. has...
Adhesive use is becoming increasingly common in manufacturing processes. The advantage of adhesives are light weight components, non-destructive fastening techniques and distribution of loads over the applied bond region. Modeling the behavior of adhesive bond lines in fastening joints can help in the design process to make an optimized joint,...
Given the immense energy potential of oshore wind and ocean waves, offshore renewable energy can significantly contribute to the renewable energy landscape. Fixed floating wind is already making strides internationally with increased electricity capacity, while floating offshore wind turbines and marine hydrokinetic (MHK) technology have significant potential that can...
Floating offshore wind energy is anticipated to become a competitive source of renewable energy by the late 2020s, but the industry must reduce costs and uncertainties associated with the technology to do so. Identifying solutions to these problems frequently relies on computational modeling, which presents technical shortcomings limiting the versatility...
There are numerous techniques for improving the mixing of fuel and
oxidant species. However, many of these methods cannot be applied to combustion
systems due to material limitations. A means of mixing the reacting species without
physically invading the flow stream is therefore desired.
In this work, induced electromagnetic forces...
Today, billions of people are limited to using biomass-fueled traditional fires as a primary energy source for cooking and purification of drinking water. Reliance on open burning of biomass leads to exposure to high levels of household air pollution which has been estimated to claim over 1.5 million lives annually,...