The goal of this research was to compare team effectiveness with objective team success as seen through individual team members’ perceptions in academic and athletic teams. We hypothesized that successful teams are most often strong in team effectiveness, that individual perceptions of team effectiveness can differ among teammates, and that...
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,...
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...
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,...
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...
As CAD tools become more sophisticated, engineers are able to more easily create complex part geometries with minimal mass given strength and stiffness requirements. However, these complex part geometries can be difficult to subtractively manufacture, which consequently increases manufacturing cost and production time. This thesis presents a method independent of...
This thesis compares the implementation of additive manufactured suspension uprights against subtractive manufactured suspension uprights from concept generation, design, and validation through simulation. Additive manufactured suspension uprights were designed for Global Formula Racing’s 2023 electric vehicle. Utilizing Siemens NX, Nastran, Fusion 360, and Ansys Workbench both subtractive and additive manufactured...
For safety critical complex systems, reliability and risk analysis are important design steps. Implementing these analyzes early in the design stage can reduce costs associated with redesign and provide important information on design viability. In the past several years, various research methods have been presented in the design community to...
Research in the miniaturization of thermomechanical systems in recent years has proven to be both rewarding and challenging. Micro-scale devices have tremendous technological potential but come with a new set of design problems. One such problem is energy storage. Heat actuated systems, driven primarily by thermal energy, take advantage of...
Toughened ceramics, or bridging ceramics, are being developed in an attempt
to widen the application base of traditional ceramics, which are brittle and have low
resistance to crack extension. The crack growth resistance of these extrinsically
toughened ceramics has been shown to increase with crack length, and unlike
traditional ceramics,...
A need exists to develop a non-destructive testing technique that can identify
the formation and propagation of diagonal tension cracks in conventionally
steel reinforced concrete deck girder (RCDG) highway bridges in the State of
Oregon. Such a technique could be included into a structural health
monitoring (SHM) system installed on...
Ocean wave energy shows great potential as a developing form of renewable energy. However, challenges arise in maturing this technology to achieve cost-effective energy conversion. Development and testing of wave energy converters can be problematic due to the harsh environment in which they are operated. To promote development of this...
Oregon Department of Transportation’s bridge no. 9743b is a multi-span, two-girder steel deck bridge connecting the busy interstates 5 and 205. Vertical cracks have been detected in the welded girder-to-crossbeam connections at the bents. Distortion-induced fatigue is suspected to be responsible for the cracking. Linear elastic beam analysis, 2-D and...
Air travel presents several problems for passengers with disabilities.
One in particular is how they get from their wheelchair and to an aircraft seat.
The commonly used manual transfer method is hazardous to the assistants
and the passenger. There are other alternatives, but they have plenty of room
for improvement....
There are about 80 million single-family dwellings (SFD) in the United States, predominantly of wood-frame construction. Of these, 68% are owner occupied. A home is typically the largest single investment of a family, and is often not covered by earthquake insurance, even where it is available. Of all SFD in...
In cases where complex systems routinely experience extreme operating conditions, preventative maintenance is often employed to guard against system failure. Yet, with accessible real-time data and the standard practice becoming prohibitively expensive, the test stand can serve as a vital contributor to the development of system health and reliability estimations....
Modern complex mechanical systems have evolved to a point of incredible complexity. Many now operate with significant assistance from automated response functions, and some operate without human operators at all. These increasingly complex systems have also become more expensive and more ambitions in mission, bringing about higher risk to both...
The large wind resource off the United States West Coast has the potential to generate wind power for millions of homes, yet the high cost of energy for offshore wind power compared to traditional sources has slowed the development of offshore wind farms in the US. The four studies presented...
Field biologists are in need of more specialized and technical equipment than they are able to produce on their own in order to collect data more efficiently or gather data that is not currently available. This presents a challenge for design engineers because these products are typically highly specialized and...
This thesis addresses Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) control by leveraging learning based techniques to improve robustness of the control system. Applying classical control methods to MAVs is a difficult process due to the complexity of the control laws with fast and highly non-linear dynamics. These methods are mostly based on...
The goal of this thesis is to explore the possibility of an upgrade of materials used in the wing-structure of a high-performance light aircraft operating under severe aerodynamic and inertial loads. The case aircraft considered in the thesis is the Caproni A-21 SJ, an all-metal high-performance motorglider powered by two...
Thousands of children and adults suffer from fine motor skill deficits due to developmental disabilities or brain trauma. In order to acquire or reclaim these precision motor movements, occupational therapists work closely with each patient to develop the muscle memory required for completing tasks such as handwriting or drawing. Although...
A greater than 10-fold increase in Canada goose (Branta canadensis) populations over the past several years has resulted in concerns over grazing impacts on grass seed production in the mid-Willamette Valley, Oregon. This study was designed to develop methods to quantify and statistically analyze goose-grazing impacts on seed yields of...
The current proliferation of portable electronic devices for personal
communication, business and entertainment has created a demand for high energy density
power supplies. A hydrocarbon fuel with a conversion efficiency of over
15% can provide greater energy density than current battery technology for these
applications. Current micro-scale heat engines do...
In a seminal paper published in 1982, scientist have warned that humanity was pushing earth’s ecosystems beyond their capacities to support the web of life. One response to the concern was outlined by NASA with its vision for advanced fixed wing transport aircraft to be environmentally compatible and have revolutionary...
Offshore renewable energy (ORE) has the potential to be a significant source of future global electricity production, reduce carbon emissions, decrease dependence on energy importation, and stimulate economic growth in coastal and remote areas. The availability and abundance of ORE, paired with growing coastal population centers, position offshore wind, wave,...
Presented is an investigation into the modeling, active control design, and simulation of a generic horizontal pendulum wave energy converter, known as a PWEC. A description is provided of the dominant attributes PWECs have, showcasing their promising potential as wave energy converters. Seeking to further promote this potential, an active...
In this work, we first introduce a novel approach to the long term irrigation scheduling
using Genetic Algorithms (GAs). We explore the effectiveness of GAs in the context of
optimizing nonlinear crop models and describe application requirements and implementation of
the technique. GAs were found to converge quickly to near-optimal...
Through passive adaptation to incidental flow, flexible aerodynamic surfaces exploit effects of increased lift, delayed stall and disturbance rejection. Wings of birds, bats, and insects exhibit these passive effects, and at the same time through the use of structural state feedback sensed from the loads on the wing, active control...
Predictive Soil Mapping (PSM) has recently become an attractive method for soil scientists wishing to develop a more objective and efficient approach to mapping soils. Due to the potential PSM has for reducing the effort to produce soil maps, as well as its ability to improve the classification accuracy of...
Eighteen Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl.ex.laws) veneer flitches
were randomly selected and crosscut into paired flitches. Serpentine-end-matched
(SEM) joints were machined in the flitches, joint amplitude equal to the width in
one half of the paired flitch and joint amplitude equal to 2/3 width in the other half
of the...
Risk is a crucial decision factor besides traditional cost and performance during collaborative decision making in a distributed environment. Three main challenges exist: 1) stakeholders' different perspectives and/or diverse cultures can lead to inconsistent risk probability evaluations; 2) risk consequence is hard to be quantified in concrete unit; 3) risk...
Timber harvesters are high powered industrial grade rigs used to fell, delimb, and cut to size large trees. Hydraulic motors power sprockets that drive chains around a guide bar that get extended through logs during cuts. As technological advances allow for higher speeds a phenomenon called “chain shot” has...
A number of computational tools now exist to aid in developing conceptual solutions based on a functional description of a design problem. A key limitation of these tools is the way results are organized for presentation to the user. In general, results are an undifferentiated mass of potential solutions. Analysis...
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...
Vertical Axis Pendulum Wave Energy Converters (VAPWECs) are thought to be both effective and robust at converting ocean wave energy into usable electricity. Seeking to build upon and investigate such potential, this work examines the merits of actively controlling a generic VAPWEC's pendulum for the purpose of increasing the converter's...
With the need to integrate renewable energy sources into the current energy portfolio and the proximity of many population centers to an ocean coastline, it is pressing that marine energy systems, specifically wave energy converters (WECs), are evaluated as potential solutions for meeting energy needs. In order to best understand...