Modern science was produced by a Christian society,
and although science has had an effect on Christianity, it
could not itself remain unaffected. In the second half of
the nineteenth century, the subject of evolution was as
much a religious as a scientific issue. The battle line
was drawn and...
John Wesley Powell worked actively for public land system
reform while a director of geographical and geological surveys in
the West from 1869 to 1894. Although this has won him acclaim as a
conservationist, the basis of Powell's linkage of reform with
scientific work is poorly understood.
A study of...
This study consists of three parts: 1) Part A: Limiting Height Evaluation for
Composite Wall Tests, 2) Part B: Mid-Span Deflection Evaluation for Composite Wall
Tests, and 3) Part C: Nominal Axial Strength Evaluation for Wall-Braced Wall Stud
Columns.
The purpose of Part A is to develop experimentally-based limiting heights...
The majority of low-rise residential structures in the U.S. are constructed with wood. Wood-based composites are primary building materials in these structures, used as structural sheathing, joists, and beam components. Wood composites are susceptible to degradation upon exposure to high levels of moisture. Moisture durability is routinely assessed with accelerated...
During the eighteenth century, diagrams increasingly became an important aspect of scientific inquiry. Diagrams employed simplification as a strategy for representing complex information, played a role in standardizing scientific language, and served as instruments of reason to think through and communicate problems and findings in mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, natural...
Situated cognition theory emphasizes the role that social and material contexts have on learning and knowledge application. Several studies of engineering workplace environments have noted differences between the social and material contexts of the workplace and those of undergraduate engineering education. No existing research has studied the social and material...
Nowadays selective separation processes are sought after more than ever before. They are indispensable to meet the growing demand for individual rare earth elements, minor actinides partitioned from fission-produced lanthanides, as well as, overall, more concentrated and high-purity products. This research focuses on such separation techniques as solvent extraction which...
In the second chapter, a foam-core meniscus coating process was developed for retrofitting 100 nm-scale sol-gel anti-reflective coatings onto in-field solar panels through the deposition, evaporation, and curing of wet films.Advantages of this technique include the means to control fluid flow relative to substrate motion and the ability to conform...
This dissertation outlines the design and development of the first fully-soft, snake robot and its snake-inspired skin. Soft robotics takes advantage of soft materials to, among other things, improve robot interactions with complex, unstructured environments. Due to the interplay between the soft material and the environment, minor tweaks to the...
Prototyping is a crucial step in product design and development, but it is also known as the highest sunk cost. The top 20 Research and Development (R&D) department spends 142 billion dollars, yet 40 to 46 percent of this money goes into developing products that cannot even make to the...