2012-2013 Senior Design project: Design, simulation, Fabrication, and experimental analysis of a heat exchanger

Team : Jan Pinpin, Lince Rumainum, Mohammed Almoumen

Abstract: The design of heat-transfer equipment involves a trade-off between the two conflicting goals of low capital cost (high overall heat-transfer coefficient, small heat-transfer area) and low operating cost (small stream pressure drops). Optimal designs thus involve the constraints of capital and energy costs, which are constantly changing. In this project, we develop a computer interface similar to commercial computer software packages used for heat exchanger design, the underlying computer program calculates and optimize the size of heat exchangers within the constraints of capital and energy costs; particular emphasis is on the design of a double pipe heat exchanger. Heat transfer simulation using ANSYS Fluent, in addition to engineering experimentation were also conducted to confirm the efficiency and reliability of the proposed designs. (power point)       

2013-2014 Senior Design project: Geometry optimization of aerodynamics add-ons on road vehicles.

Team: Jeremiah Baker, Miciah Guy , Nick Chalifaux

Abstract: The rising trend in fuel prices has led to growing concern about vehicle fuel economy, and viscous drag is one of the main factors. Improvement in fuel efficiency can be achieved at a relatively low cost by installing aerodynamics devices to streamline vehicles and reduce drag.  We report here an efficient numerical technique to automatically optimizing the geometry of such devices. The technique combines shape optimization, geometric modeling, and Finite element analysis (FEA). To assess the validity of our optimization algorithm, we compare our optimization results against known test cases similar to the configurations in hand. We use this method to examine how effective add-on devices in reducing drag on a simple model of a commercial truck. (power point).

2014-2015 Senior Design project: Improving the hydraulic performance of centrifugal pumps using computational fluid dynamics and fractional factorial design of experiments.

Team: Hamzah Alrashdan, Topp Ira

Abstract:The design and optimization of turbo machine impellers such as those in pumps and turbines is a highly complicated task due to the complex three-dimensional shape of the impeller blades and surrounding devices. Small differences in geometry can lead to significant changes in the performance of these machines. The subject of this project is to devise an efficient numerical technique that automatically optimizes the geometry of the impeller for maximum hydraulic performance. The technique will combine automatic design of the impeller, Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and fractional factorial design of experiments using orthogonal arrays. Students are also expected to devise the experimental set up and instrumentation needed for measurement and benchmarking of the numerical results. As a case study we consider the “Berkely” sprinkler pump available in our department mechanical engineering laboratory.

2015-2016 Senior Design project: Minimizing stress shielding in femoral implants through mathematical modeling and experimental verification.

Team: Justin Fischer, Rohan Yadav, Tyler Grubb and Phuong Huyen

Abstract: The design and optimization of prostheses used for total hip replacement is a highly complicated task due to the complex three-dimensional shape and material properties of the stem, ball and cup socket. Small differences in the aforementioned characteristics can lead to significant changes in the levels of stress in the fixation areas between implant, cement and cortical bone which can lead to cement fracture in short term and fatigue failure in long term. Aseptic loosening caused by stress shielding is also responsible for total hip replacement failure for both cemented and uncemented hip implants.  In this respect, prostheses that are extremely stiff induce high levels of stress shielding in the proximal portion of the femur and decrease interface stress. This aspect is more pronounced in uncemented implants since their sizes are larger, hence stiffer and takes away more loads from the bone.  In this project we contrive to reduce stress shielding and interface stress in a total hip replacement by controlling stem stiffness, which is a function of the stem geometry and its material properties. This will be achieved in two phases. In the first, we develop a numerical method that systematically employs Finite element Analysis (FEA), Geometry Parameterization and a novel orthogonal arrays search method to predict the most optimal stem stiffness that simultaneously minimize stress shielding and interface stress on the fixation areas. In the second phase, we use modeling and instrumentation to benchmark and confirm the efficiency and reliability of the proposed designs via experimentation. -