Senior Design, Special Project** or Honors Program Opportunity
Please read all the way down. There are several projects listed below.
Cooling Tower for Stocker 015 Steam Plant
Needed: One-two person team to develop a cooling tower for the steam plant in Room 015
Advisor: Dr. Bayless (Room 248) bayless@ohio.edu
When: immediately
Concept: The existing steam plant uses potable water for cooling the steam at the condenser. This wastes approximately 1500 gallons of water each time this experiment is run. A mechanical draft cooling tower is needed to cut these losses to about 30 gallons each time the experiment is used. All funding will be provided by Dr. Bayless.
Performance Evaluation of the new Lausche Heating Plant
Needed: One-two person team to evaluate Ohio University's Lausche Heating plant with new FluSorb technology
Advisor: Dr. Bayless (Room 248) bayless@ohio.edu
When: January 2000
Concept: Thanks to a $6.5 million grant from the Ohio Coal Development Office, Ohio U. is getting a new boiler system with sorbent injection to control SO2 emissions. A team of students is needed (Special Investigation) to evaluate the performance of the plant and help evaluate the worth of this new technology. All work would be done on campus.
Environmental Testing Chamber
Needed: One-two person team to develop an environmental testing chamber
Advisor: Dr. Bayless (Room 248) bayless@ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: A Ph.D. student in environmental studies (Cynthia Riccardi) requires a facilty to test the effects of high temperature flames on biological samples. The samples would be transported through the flame chamber at variable speed to control residence time. Full funding is available for this project, which must be finished in the Spring.
New Rotating Fatigue Testing Machine
Needed: One-two person team to develop a new machine to test fatigue failure of aluminum samples
Advisor: Dr. Bayless (Room 248) bayless@ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: ME 498 Senior Lab needs a simpler, more reliable rotating fatigue testing machine than the two units currently available. Items to be addressed include a new sample holder, more accurate determination of self-loading weight, and minimization of eccentricity of sample. Approximately $500 is available for this work, which will be located in Room 015.
Membrane Based Electrostatic Precipitator
Needed: One-two person team to design a wet electrostatic precipitator
Advisor: Dr. Bayless (Room 248) bayless@ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: The next phase of air pollution engineering will be driven by the control of ultrafine (2.5 micron or smaller) particles. Drs. Pasic, Alam, and Bayless have developed a new type of electrostatic precipitator that could help industry meet this need. One or two students are needed to construct a test facility to perform experimentation on this novel type of electrostatic precipitator. Approximately $15,000 is available for this work, which will be housed in Room 045C of the Coal Research Center.
Web-based Weather and Pollution Monitoring
Needed: One person team to design web-delivery of emissions data
Advisor: Dr. Bayless (Room 248) bayless@ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: We have installed a weather and pollution monitoring station in the 4th floor of Stocker. The US EPA has provided funds for us to put this information on the world-wide web. One student is needed to implement the conversion of the existing data acquisition system to a real-time delivery system using Apache and Microsoft FrontPage. HTML knowledge required
Carbon Fiber Precursors
Needed: One person to develop a process to extract carbon fiber precursors from coal fines
Advisor: Dr. Bayless (Room 248) bayless@ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: Coal fines contain carbon, sulfur, and iron - materials that are necessary for making carbon fibers in the gas phase. Carbon fibers have application in sporting goods, automotive, and aerospace fields. One student is needed to modify this system for monitoring the production of the precursor gas. No knowledge of chemistry is needed. However, an interest in thermal science is a must, and willingness to get your hands dirty is essential. Approximately $3,000 is available for this work, which will be housed in Room 015.
Humanoid Robot for International Space Station Applications
Needed: One or two person team to simulate and control (virtually) anthropomorphic humanoid robot systems for NASA space applications.
Advisor: Dr. Bob (Room 257) bobw@bobcat.ent.ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: International Space Station is in severe need of robotic augmentation to keep up with planned maintenance events. A robotic surrogate astronaut concept, Robonaut, (http://tommy.jsc.nasa.gov/robonaut/Robonaut.html) is under development at NASA Johnson Space Center to answer this need. This project involves computer simulation, system analysis, and virtual control to test on-orbit operations.
Air Force Crash Dynamics Simulation
Needed: One or two person team to simulate vehicle/occupant dynamics during crashes for improved safety design.
Advisor: Dr. Bob (Room 257) bobw@bobcat.ent.ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: The Air Force is interested in simulation of crashes and other hazardous events for improved pilot and occupant safety. This project involves PC modeling of rigid body dynamics and FEM for seat restraints, air bags, and other vehicle components. There is a clear technology transfer path to the auto and civil aviation industries.
Pneumatic Muscle Actuators
Needed: One or two person team to develop and test novel pneumatically-driven muscle-like actuators.
Advisor: Dr. Bob (Room 257) bobw@bobcat.ent.ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: The McKibben artificial muscle was developed in the 1950's but only now has the computer and controls technology developed so we can implement these promising actuators. They exhibit an extremely high payload-to-weight ratio (300 lbs. lifted by an 8 oz. actuator!). Applications are broad; we would like to focus on development of inherently safe, compliant, human-like robots driven by these miracle actuators.
Design and Implementation of Real-Time Control Experiments
Needed: One or two person team to design and implement ME 401 experiments to augment the class.
Advisor: Dr. Bob (Room 257) bobw@bobcat.ent.ohio.edu
When: Immediately
Concept: We want to develop economical computer-controlled lab experiments for augmenting the lecture material in ME 401 Systems Analysis and Control. Ideally we wish to have multiple setups for each experiment for maximum student assess. Examples we currently have are the rotating link experiment and the inverted pendulum. Using Matlab/Simulink, the Quanser software and hardware enable us to control real-world plants (send commands and receive feedback) with the controller implemented in the Laplace domain in Simulink. We call this rapid prototyping for controls.
Dr. Bob has several other projects listed here. Descriptions will soon come...
**Special Projects (ME 489) are projects that can grant 1-6 hours of technical elective credit, where a student and faculty member work together on a project of interest to a student. This does not have to be a design project.
