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...
Assembly time estimation is a key factor in evaluating the performance of the assembly process in an automated assembly process. The overall goal of this study is to develop an efficient assembly time estimation method by generating the prediction model from an experimental design. In order to estimate these times,...
Assessing student conceptual understanding is a valuable method for gauging specific student learning outcomes but can be difficult and time consuming to measure. This research investigates the potential of automating some intermediary steps of a qualitative analysis of student conceptual understanding with tools from the field of Natural Language Processing...
Considering human factors in early engineering design stages can improve expensive late stage processes, facilitate user safety, improve product quality and help reduce the need for physical prototyping. Currently, car pillar design (the vertical pillars between windows which connect the roof and car body) provide safety for the passengers in...
Design is a process of decision making. Organizations that are dedicated to systematic support of the design process tend to have higher profit margins. Further, studies of system development have shown that early-stage design mistakes have a large impact on incurred costs. Therefore, it is critical to identify methods to...
Energy from offshore wind could provide substantial power generation if further utilized. One area of significant research focus is in developing floating offshore wind devices, which would allow for wind energy to be gathered in deep water where driven monopile turbines are infeasible. However, floating offshore wind is not currently...
The grid geometry plays a vital role in the performance of gridded ion thrusters. It can dramatically impact the erosion rate and thrust. Designers push the limits of electric in-space propulsion by optimizing grid parameters through simulation. At the same time, computational models of plasma physics are intensive. A baseline...
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...
Practical engineering design problems are generally multi-disciplinary with limited budget and high risk in terms of life loss, economic resources, etc. In the early phase of such problems, selection of true efficient designs is desired while minimizing overall design cost by avoiding expensive search processes. However, the task is difficult...
Topology optimization (TO) is a mathematical method to find the optimal size, shape and connectivity of a domain under specified conditions, and has had many applications in engineering design. However, challenges remain in realizing TO as an effective design tool for many design situations. Uncertainty is ubiquitous in nature and...