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Development of Underground Utility Construction Course Curricula for the Granite Heavy Civil Minor
Get PDFThis paper discusses the introduction of a new course into the Granite Heavy Civil Minor (GHCM) curriculum. This course revolves around underground utility construction and is designed to provide students with knowledge that neither the Construction Management nor Civil Engineering Departments provide. The additional curricula are comprised of underground construction safety, materials, and construction methods that will provide GHCM students with a competitive advantage when applying for jobs in heavy civil construction, further incentivizing the minor program. This senior project utilizes PowerPoint presentations that can either comprise an entire course or be added to existing courses as supplemental informatio
Experimental Characterization and Computer Vision-Assisted Detection of Pitting Corrosion on Stainless Steel Structural Members
Get PDFPitting corrosion is a prevalent form of corrosive damage that can weaken, damage, and initiate failure in corrosion-resistant metallic materials. For instance, 304 stainless steel is commonly utilized in various structures (e.g., miter gates, heat exchangers, and storage tanks), but is prone to failure through pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking under mechanical loading, regardless of its high corrosion resistance. In this study, to better understand the pitting corrosion damage development, controlled corrosion experiments were conducted to generate pits on 304 stainless steel specimens with and without mechanical loading. The pit development over time was characterized using a high-resolution laser scanner. In addition, to achieve scalable and automatic assessment of pitting corrosion conditions, two convolutional neural network-based computer vision algorithms were adopted and implemented to evaluate the efficacy of networks to identify existence of pitting damage. One was a newly trained convolutional neural network (CNN) using MATLAB software, while the other one was a retrained version of GoogLeNet. Overall, the experimental results showed that time is the dependent variable in predicting pit depth. Meanwhile, loading conditions significantly influence pit morphology. Under compression loading, pits form with larger surface opening areas, while under tension loading, pits have smaller surface opening areas. Deep pits of smaller areas are dangerous for structural members, as they can lead to high stress concentrations and early stress corrosion cracking (SCC). Furthermore, while the training library was limited and consisted of low-resolution images, the retrained GoogLeNet CNN showed promising potential for identifying pitting corrosion based on the evaluation of its performance parameters, including the accuracy, loss, recall, precision, and F1-measure
The Nature of LoBAL QSOs. II. HST/WFC3 Observations Reveal Host Galaxies Dominated by Mergers
Get PDFLow-ionization broad absorption line QSOs (LoBALs) are suspected to be merging systems in which extreme, active galactic nucleus-driven outflows have been triggered. Whether or not LoBALs are uniquely associated with mergers, however, has yet to be established. To characterize the morphologies of LoBALs, we present the first high-resolution morphological analysis of a volume-limited sample of 22 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-selected LoBALs at 0.5 \u3c z \u3c 0.6 from Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 observations. Host galaxies are resolved in 86% of the systems in F125W, which is sensitive to old stellar populations, while only 18% are detected in F475W, which traces young, unobscured stellar populations. Signs of recent or ongoing tidal interaction are present in 45%–64% of the hosts, including double nuclei, tidal tails, bridges, plumes, shells, and extended debris. Ongoing interaction with a companion is apparent in 27%−41% of the LoBALs, with as much as 1/3 of the sample representing late-stage mergers at projected nuclear separations \u3c10 kpc. Detailed surface brightness modeling indicates that 41% of the hosts are bulge dominated while only 18% are disks. We discuss trends in various properties as a function of merger stage and parametric morphology. Notably, mergers are associated with slower, dustier winds than those seen in undisturbed/unresolved hosts. Our results favor an evolutionary scenario in which quasar-level accretion during various merger stages is associated with the observed outflows in low-z LoBALs. We discuss differences between LoBALs and FeLoBALs and show that selection via the traditional balnicity index would have excluded all but one of the mergers
Incorporating Antibodies into Reagent Pencils for Lateral Flow Assays
No full textThe following document describes major aspects of the project: Incorporating Antibodies Into Reagent Pencils For Lateral Flow Immunoassays. This project has been developed under the direction of Dr. Andres Martinez with the goal of creating a customizable lateral flow assay (LFA) kit consisting of antibody-specific reagent pencils and modifiable testing strips. Previous studies directed by Dr. Martinez have demonstrated effectiveness in producing a polymer-based enzyme matrix and using the matrix to deposit enzymes on paper test strips.
For the sake of time and resources, reagent pencils and LFA testing strips were constructed to detect the presence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and luteinizing hormone (LH) via liquid samples. The generic LFA test strip is modified with both primary and secondary reagent pencils. The primary pencils contain labeled antibodies for hCG and LH. The secondary pencil contains a universal capture antibody. A detailed design of the prototype models was developed for reagent pencil cores, generic LFA strips, and an acrylic strip case.
Each reagent pencil core was found to have a lifetime of about 450 tests and can operate in 0-80% relative humidity and 4-37.8℃. Currently, the reagent pencils have been proven effective at least 5 months after manufacturing. Additionally, hCG and LH reagent pencils produce positive test lines on the same universal lateral flow assay strip. Deliverables in this report include a conceptual design report, prototype development and manufacturing plans, documentation and analysis of all testing procedures, a complete budget, a final project report, and a functional LFA kit containing test strips and reagent pencils