Within the past several years the technology of high-throughput sequencing has transformed the study of biology by offering unprecedented access to life's fundamental building block, DNA. With this transformation's potential a host of brand-new challenges have emerged, many of which lend themselves to being solved through computational methods. From de...
State-of-the-art personal robots need to perform complex manipulation tasks to be viable in complex scenarios. However, many of these robots, like the PR2, use manipulators with high degrees of freedom. High degrees of freedom are desirable from a functionality standpoint, but make the learning task more difficult by adding a...
Manufacturing process design (MPD) represents a design-oriented approach to manufacturing engineering. In this dissertation, Haynes 230 (H230), a solid solution-strengthened Ni-based superalloy, was chosen to meet the material requirements of a microchannel solar receiver (MSR) needed to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of solar thermal power generation. An...
E8,E10-dodecadien-1-ol, the primary component of the female sex pheromone of codling moth, Cydia pomonella L., has no attraction to male Oriental fruit moth (OFM), C. molesta (Busck). However, this compound when added to the OFM pheromone blend of Z8-dodecenyl acetate (85.5%), E8-dodecenyl acetate (5.5%), and Z8- dodecen -1 -ol (9.0%),...
High temperature microchannel heat recuperators (HTμRs) offer an efficient means of improving reactor process thermal efficiency by offering smaller form factors due to increased heat transfer surface area density and volumetric heat transfer rate over traditional heat exchanger designs. To date, HTμRs face cost and reliability challenges. In this work,...
Advances in plant construction within the energy and chemical process industries require inexpensive process intensification (PI) technology as a means to reduce plant size for enabling modular construction. One form of PI is microchannel process technology where arrays of microchannels, having hydraulic diameters on the order of 0.1 to 1...
This work investigates the in-tube condensation of low global warming potential (GWP) zeotropic refrigerant mixtures R448A, R450A, R452A, R454B and R454C. These refrigerants have been proposed for a wide range of commercial heating, ventilation, air-conditioning applications, but their heat and momentum transport phenomenon were not well understood. Thus, in this...