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Description
A hybrid PV/T module was built, consisting of a thermal liquid heating system and a photovoltaic module system that combine in a hybrid format. This report will discuss the work on the project from Fall 2012 to Spring 2013 and the extended section on the economics for the Honors Thesis.

A hybrid PV/T module was built, consisting of a thermal liquid heating system and a photovoltaic module system that combine in a hybrid format. This report will discuss the work on the project from Fall 2012 to Spring 2013 and the extended section on the economics for the Honors Thesis. Three stages of experiments were completed. Stage 1 showed our project was functional as we were able to verify our panel produced electricity and increased the temperature of water flowing in the system by 0.65°C. Stage 2 testing included “gluing” the flow system to the back of the panel resulting in an average increase of 4.76°C in the temperature of the water in the system. Stage 3 testing included adding insulating foam to the module which resulted in increasing the average temperature of the water in our flow system by 6.95°C. The economic calculations show the expected energy cost savings for Arizona residents.
ContributorsHaines, Brent Robert (Author) / Roedel, Ronald (Thesis director) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Rauch, Dawson (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
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Description
A high voltage plasma arc can be created and sustained in air by subjecting the gases to an electric field with high voltage potential, causing ionization. The internal energy of the ionized gases can be transferred to corresponding pressure waves when the matter involved switches between the gaseous and plasma

A high voltage plasma arc can be created and sustained in air by subjecting the gases to an electric field with high voltage potential, causing ionization. The internal energy of the ionized gases can be transferred to corresponding pressure waves when the matter involved switches between the gaseous and plasma states. By pulse-width modulating a transformer driving signal, the transfer of internal electrical energy to resonating pressure waves may be controlled. Audio wave input to the driver signal can then be modulated into the carrier wave and be used to determine the width of each pulse in the plasma, thus reconstructing the audio signal as pressure, or sound waves, as the plasma arc switches on and off. The result will be the audio waveform resonating out of the plasma arc as audible sound, and thus creating a plasma loudspeaker. Theory of operation was tested through construction of a plasma arc speaker, and resultant audio playback was analyzed. This analysis confirmed accurate reproduction of audio signal in audible sound.
ContributorsBoehringer, Brian Thomas (Author) / Roedel, Ronald (Thesis director) / Huffman, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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Description
The project described here is a solar powered intrusion detection system consisting of three modules: a battery recharging circuit, a laser emitter and photodetector pair, and a Wi- Fi connectivity board. Over the preceding seven months, great care has been taken for the design and construction of this system. The

The project described here is a solar powered intrusion detection system consisting of three modules: a battery recharging circuit, a laser emitter and photodetector pair, and a Wi- Fi connectivity board. Over the preceding seven months, great care has been taken for the design and construction of this system. The first three months were spent researching and selecting suitable IC's and external components (e.g. solar panel, batteries, etc.). Then, the next couple of months were spent ordering specific materials and equipment for the construction of our prototype. Finally, the last two months were used to build a working prototype, with a substantial amount of time used for perfecting our system's packaging and operation. This report will consist of a detailed discussion of our team's research, design activities, prototype implementation, final budget, and final schedule. Technical discussion of the concepts behind our design will assist with understanding the design activities and prototype implementation sections that will follow. Due to the generous funding of the group from the Barrett Honors College, our overall budget available for the project was $1600. Of that amount, only $334.51 was spent on the actual system components, with $829.42 being spent on the equipment and materials needed for the testing and construction of the prototype. As far as the schedule goes, we are essentially done with the project. The only tasks left to finish are a successful defense of the project at the oral presentation on Friday, 29 March 2013, followed by a successful demo on 26 April 2013.
ContributorsTroyer, Nicole L. (Co-author) / Shtayer, Idan (Co-author) / Guise, Chris (Co-author) / Kozicki, Michael (Thesis director) / Roedel, Ronald (Committee member) / Goodnick, Stephen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
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Description
Water desalination has become one of the viable solutions to provide drinking water in regions with limited natural resources. This is particularly true in small communities in arid regions, which suffer from low rainfall, declining surface water and increasing salinity of groundwater. Yet, current desalination methods are difficult to be

Water desalination has become one of the viable solutions to provide drinking water in regions with limited natural resources. This is particularly true in small communities in arid regions, which suffer from low rainfall, declining surface water and increasing salinity of groundwater. Yet, current desalination methods are difficult to be implemented in these areas due to their centralized large-scale design. In addition, these methods require intensive maintenance, and sometimes do not operate in high salinity feedwater. Membrane distillation (MD) is one technology that can potentially overcome these challenges and has received increasing attention in the last 15 years. The driving force of MD is the difference in vapor pressure across a microporous hydrophobic membrane. Compared to conventional membrane-based technologies, MD can treat high concentration feedwater, does not need intensive pretreatment, and has better fouling resistance. More importantly, MD operates at low feed temperatures and so it can utilize low–grade heat sources such as solar energy for its operation. While the integration of solar energy and MD was conventionally indirect (i.e. by having two separate systems: a solar collector and an MD module), recent efforts were focused on direct integration where the membrane itself is integrated within a solar collector aiming to have a more compact, standalone design suitable for small-scale applications. In this dissertation, a comprehensive review of these efforts is discussed in Chapter 2. Two novel direct solar-powered MD systems were proposed and investigated experimentally: firstly, a direct contact MD (DCMD) system was designed by placing capillary membranes within an evacuated tube solar collector (ETC) (Chapter 3), and secondly, a submerged vacuum MD (S-VMD) system that uses circulation and aeration as agitation techniques was investigated (Chapter 4). A maximum water production per absorbing area of 0.96 kg·m–2·h–1 and a thermal efficiency of 0.51 were achieved. A final study was conducted to investigate the effect of ultrasound in an S-VMD unit (Chapter 5), which significantly enhanced the permeate flux (up to 24%) and reduced the specific energy consumption (up to 14%). The results add substantially to the understanding of integrating ultrasound with different MD processes.
ContributorsBamasag, Ahmad (Author) / Phelan, Patrick E (Thesis advisor) / Shuaib, Abdelrahman (Committee member) / Wang, Liping (Committee member) / Bocanegra, Luis (Committee member) / Roedel, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020