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Due to decrease in fossil fuel levels, the world is shifting focus towards renewable sources of energy. With an annual average growth rate of 25%, wind is one of the foremost source of harnessing cleaner energy for production of electricity. Wind turbines have been developed to tap power from wind.

Due to decrease in fossil fuel levels, the world is shifting focus towards renewable sources of energy. With an annual average growth rate of 25%, wind is one of the foremost source of harnessing cleaner energy for production of electricity. Wind turbines have been developed to tap power from wind. As a single wind turbine is insufficient, multiple turbines are installed forming a wind farm. Generally, wind farms can have hundreds to thousands of turbines concentrated in a small region. There have been multiple studies centering the influence of weather on such wind farms, but no substantial research focused on how wind farms effect local climate. Technological advances have allowed development of commercial wind turbines with a power output greater than 7.58 MW. This has led to a reduction in required number of turbines and has optimized land usage. Hence, current research considers higher power density compared to previous works that relied on wind farm density of 2 to 4 W/m 2 . Simulations were performed using Weather Research and Forecasting software provided by NCAR. The region of simulation is Southern Oregon, with domains including both onshore and offshore wind farms. Unlike most previous works, where wind farms were considered to be on a flat ground, effects of topography have also been considered here. Study of seasonal effects over wind farms has provided better insight into changes in local wind direction. Analysis of mean velocity difference across wind farms at a height of 10m and 150m gives an understanding of wind velocity profiles. Results presented in this research tends to contradict earlier belief that velocity reduces throughout the farm. Large scale simulations have shown that sometimes, more than 50% of the farm can have an increased wind velocity of up to 1m/s

at an altitude of 10m.
ContributorsKadiyala, Yogesh Rao (Author) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Thesis advisor) / Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (Committee member) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
In this thesis the performance of a Hybrid AC System (HACS) is modeled and optimized. The HACS utilizes solar photovoltaic (PV) panels to help reduce the demand from the utility during peak hours. The system also includes an ice Thermal Energy Storage (TES) tank to accumulate cooling energy during off-peak

In this thesis the performance of a Hybrid AC System (HACS) is modeled and optimized. The HACS utilizes solar photovoltaic (PV) panels to help reduce the demand from the utility during peak hours. The system also includes an ice Thermal Energy Storage (TES) tank to accumulate cooling energy during off-peak hours. The AC runs continuously on grid power during off-peak hours to generate cooling for the house and to store thermal energy in the TES. During peak hours, the AC runs on the power supplied from the PV, and cools the house along with the energy stored in the TES. A higher initial cost is expected due to the additional components of the HACS (PV and TES), but a lower operational cost due to higher energy efficiency, energy storage and renewable energy utilization. A house cooled by the HACS will require a smaller size AC unit (about 48% less in the rated capacity), compared to a conventional AC system. To compare the cost effectiveness of the HACS with a regular AC system, time-of-use (TOU) utility rates are considered, as well as the cost of the system components and the annual maintenance. The model shows that the HACS pays back its initial cost of $28k in about 6 years with an 8% APR, and saves about $45k in total cost when compared to a regular AC system that cools the same house for the same period of 6 years.
ContributorsJubran, Sadiq (Author) / Phelan, Patrick (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Trimble, Steve (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
With microspheres growing in popularity as viable systems for targeted drug therapeutics, there exist a host of diseases and pathology induced side effects which could be treated with poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) [PLGA] microparticle systems [6,10,12]. While PLGA systems are already applied in a wide variety the clinical setting [11], microparticles still

With microspheres growing in popularity as viable systems for targeted drug therapeutics, there exist a host of diseases and pathology induced side effects which could be treated with poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) [PLGA] microparticle systems [6,10,12]. While PLGA systems are already applied in a wide variety the clinical setting [11], microparticles still have some way to go before they are viable systems for drug delivery. One of the main reasons for this is a lack of fabrication processes and systems which produce monodisperse particles while also being feasible for industrialization [10]. This honors thesis investigates various microparticle fabrication techniques \u2014 two using mechanical agitation and one using fluid dynamics \u2014 with the long term goal of incorporating norepinephrine and adenosine into the particles for metabolic stimulatory purposes. It was found that mechanical agitation processes lead to large values for dispersity and the polydispersity index while fluid dynamics methods have the potential to create more uniform and predictable outcomes. The research concludes by needing further investigation into methods and prototype systems involving fluid dynamics methods; however, these systems yield promising results for fabricating monodisperse particles which have the potential to encapsulate a wide variety of therapeutic drugs.
ContributorsRiley, Levi Louis (Author) / Vernon, Brent (Thesis director) / VanAuker, Michael (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
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Description
Locomotion of microorganisms is commonly observed in nature. Although microorganism locomotion is commonly attributed to mechanical deformation of solid appendages, in 1956 Nobel Laureate Peter Mitchell proposed that an asymmetric ion flux on a bacterium's surface could generate electric fields that drive locomotion via self-electrophoresis. Recent advances in nanofabrication have

Locomotion of microorganisms is commonly observed in nature. Although microorganism locomotion is commonly attributed to mechanical deformation of solid appendages, in 1956 Nobel Laureate Peter Mitchell proposed that an asymmetric ion flux on a bacterium's surface could generate electric fields that drive locomotion via self-electrophoresis. Recent advances in nanofabrication have enabled the engineering of synthetic analogues, bimetallic colloidal particles, that swim due to asymmetric ion flux originally proposed by Mitchell. Bimetallic colloidal particles swim through aqueous solutions by converting chemical fuel to fluid motion through asymmetric electrochemical reactions. This dissertation presents novel bimetallic motor fabrication strategies, motor functionality, and a study of the motor collective behavior in chemical concentration gradients. Brownian dynamics simulations and experiments show that the motors exhibit chemokinesis, a motile response to chemical gradients that results in net migration and concentration of particles. Chemokinesis is typically observed in living organisms and distinct from chemotaxis in that there is no particle directional sensing. The synthetic motor chemokinesis observed in this work is due to variation in the motor's velocity and effective diffusivity as a function of the fuel and salt concentration. Static concentration fields are generated in microfluidic devices fabricated with porous walls. The development of nanoscale particles that swim autonomously and collectively in chemical concentration gradients can be leveraged for a wide range of applications such as directed drug delivery, self-healing materials, and environmental remediation.
ContributorsWheat, Philip Matthew (Author) / Posner, Jonathan D (Thesis advisor) / Phelan, Patrick (Committee member) / Chen, Kangping (Committee member) / Buttry, Daniel (Committee member) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description

Polymer drug delivery system offers a key to a glaring issue in modern administration routes of drugs and biologics. Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) can be used to encapsulate drugs and biologics and deliver them into the patient, which allows high local concentration (compared to current treatment methods), protection of the cargo

Polymer drug delivery system offers a key to a glaring issue in modern administration routes of drugs and biologics. Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) can be used to encapsulate drugs and biologics and deliver them into the patient, which allows high local concentration (compared to current treatment methods), protection of the cargo from the bodily environment, and reduction in systemic side effects. This experiment used a single emulsion technique to encapsulate L-tyrosine in PLGA microparticles and UV spectrophotometry to analyze the drug release over a period of one week. The release assay found that for the tested samples, the released amount is distinct initially, but is about the same after 4 days, and they generally follow the same normalized percent released pattern. The experiment could continue with testing more samples, test the same samples for a longer duration, and look into higher w/w concentrations such as 20% or 50%.

ContributorsSeo, Jinpyo (Author) / Vernon, Brent (Thesis director) / Pal, Amrita (Committee member) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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Description
This dissertation studies two outstanding microscale fluid mechanics problems: 1) mechanisms of gas production from the nanopores of shale; 2) enhanced mass flow rate in steady compressible gas flow through a micro-conduit.

The dissertation starts with a study of a volumetric expansion driven drainage flow of a viscous compressible fluid from

This dissertation studies two outstanding microscale fluid mechanics problems: 1) mechanisms of gas production from the nanopores of shale; 2) enhanced mass flow rate in steady compressible gas flow through a micro-conduit.

The dissertation starts with a study of a volumetric expansion driven drainage flow of a viscous compressible fluid from a small capillary and channel in the low Mach number limit. An analysis based on the linearized compressible Navier-Stokes equations with no-slip condition shows that fluid drainage is controlled by the slow decay of the acoustic wave inside the capillary and the no-slip flow exhibits a slip-like mass flow rate. Numerical simulations are also carried out for drainage from a small capillary to a reservoir or a contraction of finite size. By allowing the density wave to escape the capillary, two wave leakage mechanisms are identified, which are dependent on the capillary length to radius ratio, reservoir size and acoustic Reynolds number. Empirical functions are generated for an effective diffusive coefficient which allows simple calculations of the drainage rate using a diffusion model without the presence of the reservoir or contraction.

In the second part of the dissertation, steady viscous compressible flow through a micro-conduit is studied using compressible Navier-Stokes equations with no-slip condition. The mathematical theory of Klainerman and Majda for low Mach number flow is employed to derive asymptotic equations in the limit of small Mach number. The overall flow, a combination of the Hagen-Poiseuille flow and a diffusive velocity shows a slip-like mass flow rate even through the overall velocity satisfies the no-slip condition. The result indicates that the classical formulation includes self-diffusion effect and it embeds the Extended Navier-Stokes equation theory (ENSE) without the need of introducing additional constitutive hypothesis or assuming slip on the boundary. Contrary to most ENSE publications, the predicted mass flow rate is still significantly below the measured data based on an extensive comparison with thirty-five experiments.
ContributorsShen, Di (Author) / Chen, Kangping (Thesis advisor) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Lopez, Juan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Description
About 20-50% of industrial processes energy is lost as waste heat in their operations. The thermal hydraulic engine relies on the thermodynamic properties of supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) to efficiently perform work. Carbon dioxide possesses great properties that makes it a safe working fluid for the engine’s applications. This research

About 20-50% of industrial processes energy is lost as waste heat in their operations. The thermal hydraulic engine relies on the thermodynamic properties of supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) to efficiently perform work. Carbon dioxide possesses great properties that makes it a safe working fluid for the engine’s applications. This research aims to preliminarily investigate the actual efficiency which can be obtained through experimental data and compare that to the Carnot or theoretical maximum efficiency. The actual efficiency is investigated through three approaches. However, only the efficiency results from the second method are validated since the other approaches are based on a complete actual cycle which was not achieved for the engine. The efficiency of the thermal hydraulic engine is found to be in the range of 0.5% to 2.2% based on the second method which relies on the boundary work by the piston. The heating and cooling phases of the engine’s operation are viewed on both the T-s (temperature-entropy) and p-v (pressure-volume) diagrams. The Carnot efficiency is also found to be 13.7% from a temperature difference of 46.20C based on the measured experimental data. It is recommended that the thermodynamic cycle and efficiency investigation be repeated using an improved heat exchanger design to reduce energy losses and gains during both the heating and cooling phases. The temperature of CO2 can be measured through direct contact with the thermocouple and pressure measurements can be improved using a digital pressure transducer for the thermodynamic cycle investigation.
ContributorsManford, David (Author) / Phelan, Patrick (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Ronald (Thesis advisor) / Shuaib, Abdelrahman (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
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Description
This study introduces a new outdoor accelerated testing method called “Field Accelerated Stress Testing (FAST)” for photovoltaic (PV) modules performed at two different climatic sites in Arizona (hot-dry) and Florida (hot-humid). FAST is a combined accelerated test methodology that simultaneously accounts for all the field-specific stresses and accelerates only key

This study introduces a new outdoor accelerated testing method called “Field Accelerated Stress Testing (FAST)” for photovoltaic (PV) modules performed at two different climatic sites in Arizona (hot-dry) and Florida (hot-humid). FAST is a combined accelerated test methodology that simultaneously accounts for all the field-specific stresses and accelerates only key stresses, such as temperature, to forecast the failure modes by 2- 7 times in advance depending on the activation energy of the degradation mechanism (i.e., 10th year reliability issues can potentially be predicted in the 2nd year itself for an acceleration factor of 5). In this outdoor combined accelerated stress study, the temperatures of test modules were increased (by 16-19℃ compared to control modules) using thermal insulations on the back of the modules. All other conditions (ambient temperature, humidity, natural sunlight, wind speed, wind direction, and tilt angle) were left constant for both test modules (with back thermal insulation) and control modules (without thermal insulation). In this study, a total of sixteen 4-cell modules with two different construction types (glass/glass [GG] and glass/backsheet [GB]) and two different encapsulant types (ethylene vinyl acetate [EVA] and polyolefin elastomer [POE]), were investigated at both sites with eight modules at each site (four insulated and four non-insulated modules at each site). All the modules were extensively characterized before installation in the field and after field exposure over two years. The methods used for characterizing the devices included I-V (current-voltage curves), EL (electroluminescence), UVF (ultraviolet fluorescence), and reflectance. The key findings of this study are: i) the GG modules tend to operate at a higher temperature (1-3℃) than the GB modules at both sites of Arizona and Florida (a lower lifetime is expected for GG modules compared to GB modules); ii) the GG modules tend to experience a higher level of encapsulant discoloration and grid finger degradation than the GB modules at both sites (a higher level of the degradation rate is expected in GG modules compared to GB modules); and, iii) the EVA-based modules tend to have a higher level of discoloration and finger degradation compared to the POE-based modules at both sites.
ContributorsThayumanavan, Rishi Gokul (Author) / Tamizhmani, Govindasamy (Thesis advisor) / Phelan, Patrick (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023