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Implementation of Fluid Viscous Damper for 2023 EERI Seismic Design Competition
Get PDFThe authors of this report were a part of the 2023 Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) student chapter for California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). With thirteen other team members, they traveled to San Francisco, CA to compete in the Seismic Design Competition (SDC) hosted by EERI. The team was tasked with preparing a written proposal, design and computer analysis of the structural system, construction of two physical models, as well as creation of a poster and a presentation for a proposed mid-rise building located in the competition host city. The goal of the design of Cal Poly building “Lucid Towers” was to achieve seismic resiliency while integrating characteristic elements of San Francisco architecture.
The senior project group was specifically responsible for the design, implementation, and analysis of supplementary dampers in the structural system. These efforts were to improve the structure’s performance during the two competition earthquake ground motions and therefore reduce the seismic cost of the building. This report serves as an important team record, since there is no existing Cal Poly team documentation from past years on the process of selecting, testing, and implementing a damping system. Therefore, the report outlines both the overall process of implementing dampers into the structural system for the 2023 EERI SDC competition, as well as details on physical testing methods and calculation approaches used to quantify the dynamic response of the dampers
Automated Tree Mortality Detection Using Ubiquitously Available Public Data
Get PDFUnderstanding the dynamic interplay between fire severity, topography, and tree mortality, is crucial for predicting future forest dynamics and enhancing resilience against climate change-induced wildfire regimes. This thesis develops a multi-sensor approach for automated estimation of tree mortality, then applies it to examine trends in tree mortality over a six-year period across a fire affected study site in the Trinity River basin in Northern California. The Random Forest model uses publicly available USGS 3D Elevation Program Lidar (3DEP) and NAIP imagery as inputs and is likely to be easily adaptable to other landscapes. The model had a Receiver Operating Characteristic Area Under the Curve (ROC AUC) score in training of 0.998. In multiple rounds of validation, using geographically distinct sets of holdout data, had mean accuracy of 0.998. The trained model was then used to assess tree mortality across a patchwork of different levels of burn severity at a site in Northern California. When applied to the study site significant variations were found in tree mortality across different fire severity treatments and landforms. This model shows potential for incorporation into predictive tree mortality models based on landform and climate
Assisted Delivery Device
Get PDFCurrent devices used to assist in complicated births present serious risks to both the mother and the fetus, which has caused a decline in the use of these devices over the last decade. This senior project team has proposed an alternative device that interfaces with the infant’s shoulders that would decrease these risks and contribute to the decrease of unnecessary c-sections due to device inadequacy. This Statement of Work includes research on the downfalls of current devices, existing patents, customer requirements, engineering specifications, and a design plan through December of this year. The next phase of this project will include brainstorming possible solutions and selecting a final design idea before prototyping begins next year
Design of High Efficiency Doherty Power Amplifier
Get PDFThe project includes design and fabrication of a high efficiency power amplifier for a student design competition held at International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2023. Efficient power amplifiers are critical for base station communication requiring efficient use of available power. The final design optimizes power added efficiency (PAE) and linearity. The amplifier will operate at 2.45 GHz. Competitive PAE above 50%, and C/I above 30 dB is achieved by leveraging a Doherty class amplifier using accurate discrete CGH4006P transistor models to simulate an efficient and linear design. Unique design features include optimal transistor bias point selection and power split ratios between the auxiliary and main amplifiers. Equipment required for the project includes access to ADS software for design, a drill press, a tap and die set, and soldering equipment to manufacture the amplifier. Additionally, access to a vector network analyzer, spectrum analyzer, RF power meter, and frequency synthesizer is critical for the testing of the project. Materials required include GaN HEMTs, Rogers laminate blanks, and passive surface mount components
Coralai: Emergent Ecosystems of Neural Cellular Automata
Get PDFArtificial intelligence has traditionally been approached through centralized architectures and optimization of specific metrics on large datasets. However, the frontiers of fields spanning cognitive science, biology, physics, and computer science suggest that intelligence is better understood as a multi-scale, decentralized, emergent phenomenon. As such, scaling up approaches that mirror the natural world may be one of the next big advances in AI. This thesis presents Coralai, a framework for efficiently simulating the emergence of diverse artificial life ecosystems integrated with modular physics. The key innovations of Coralai include: 1) Hosting diverse Neural Cellular Automata organisms in the same simulation that can interact and evolve; 2) Allowing user-defined physics and weather that organisms adapt to and can utilize to enact environmental changes; 3) Hardware-acceleration using Taichi, PyTorch, and HyperNEAT, enabling interactive evolution of ecosystems with 500k evolved parameters on a grid of 1m+ 16-channel physics-governed cells, all in real-time on a laptop. Initial experiments with Coralai demonstrate the emergence of diverse ecosystems of organisms that employ a variety of strategies to compete for resources in dynamic environments. Key observations include competing mobile and sessile organisms, organisms that exploit environmental niches like dense energy sources, and cyclic dynamics of greedy dominance out-competed by resilience
Improving Automatic Transcription Using Natural Language Processing
Get PDFDigital Democracy is a CalMatters and California Polytechnic State University initia-tive to promote transparency in state government by increasing access to the Califor-nia legislature. While Digital Democracy is made up of many resources, one founda-tional step of the project is obtaining accurate, timely transcripts of California Senateand Assembly hearings. The information extracted from these transcripts providescrucial data for subsequent steps in the pipeline. In the context of Digital Democracy,upleveling is when humans verify, correct, and annotate the transcript results afterthe legislative hearings have been automatically transcribed. The upleveling processis done with the assistance of a software application called the Transcription Tool.The human upleveling process is the most costly and time-consuming step of the Dig-ital Democracy pipeline. In this thesis, we hypothesize that we can make significantreductions to the time needed for upleveling by using Natural Language Processing(NLP) systems and techniques. The main contribution of this thesis is engineeringa new automatic transcription pipeline. Specifically, this thesis integrates a new au-tomatic speech recognition service, a new speaker diarization model, additional textpost-processing changes, and a new process for speaker identification. To evaluate the system’s improvements, we measure the accuracy and speed of the newly integrated features and record editor upleveling time both before and after the additions
Efficacy of Passive Ventilation with High Exhaust Demands: A Case Study of Cal Poly SST
Get PDFThe Simpson Strong Tie Demonstration Laboratory serves as a multipurpose space allowing students at the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at California Polytechnic State University to build full scale construction projects. The building features a material storage area, a high bay for construction of full-scale projects, and a mezzanine level that houses digital fabrication equipment. However, the building was never designed to house the specific equipment currently installed on the mezzanine and ventilate the exhaust fumes from them. Rather, the building relies on passive natural ventilation that is likely ineffective at properly exhausting hazardous fumes, resulting in complaints from students. This paper will examine the current problems with the Simpson Strong Tie ventilation system and determine how to satisfy the criteria set forth by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), using a qualitative occupant survey. By doing so, the paper will make a case for an Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) air quality test to allow for future renovations to improve the safety of the space
Design and Test the Effectiveness of Interpretive Signs Using Eye Tracking and Biometric Data
Get PDFRecreational trails on forested lands should satisfy the needs of recreationists, safeguard important habitats, and maintain the natural environment (Kortenkamp et al., 2021). Appropriate management is critical because of the increasing number of visitors. Signs are a cost-effective method to reduce the negative impacts on visitors and enhance visitor experiences (Brown et al., 2010). This research aimed to investigate how visitors pay attention to signs, view the trail surrounded by trees and behave in a natural space