The operating principles of bicycle drivetrains have remained largely static since the invention of the derailleur in 1905. A bicycle-specific Continuously Variable Transmission has the potential to eliminate many of these issues. This paper explores the current state of bicycle CVT technology, details the advantages and disadvantages of these designs, and analyzes the many human factors that play into their adoption. Finally, a conceptual design for a novel bicycle CVT is described, and a physical model is created to demonstrate the mechanical principles of operation.

Large companies that produce engines all have a customer service side of their business to help clients solve the issues they may be having with the company's product. Communication, safety, connectivity, and the shear problem-solving process during these troubleshoots have long since been issues felt within the industry. The aim of this Honors Thesis was to see how augmented reality could meet the needs of these companies and what it would take to actually implement it. Cummins Care provided a real world example of some of these needs, troubleshooting methods and application. The research conducted into the field of AR shows great promise. The technology available today, and its direction of development, allow for augmented reality to create a much better communication tool. It also allows for engine companies to bring their own engines into the 3D world to benefit troubleshooting. Lastly, as technology continues to advance well into the future, augmented reality will become a needed and powerful tool for analyzing engines in live time through an AR experience.

Formula SAE is a student design competition where students design and fabricate a formula-style racecar to race in a series of events against schools from around the world. It gives students of all majors the ability to use classroom theory and knowledge in a real world application. The general guidelines for the prototype racecars is for the students to use four-stroke, Otto cycle piston engines with a displacement of no greater than 610cc. A 20mm air restrictor downstream the throttle limits the power of the engines to under 100 horsepower. A 178-page rulebook outlines the remaining restrictions as they apply to the various vehicle systems: vehicle dynamics, driver interface, aerodynamics, and engine. Vehicle dynamics is simply the study of the forces which affect wheeled vehicles in motion. Its primary components are the chassis and suspension system. Driver interface controls everything that the driver interacts with including steering wheel, seat, pedals, and shifter. Aerodynamics refers to the outside skin of the vehicle which controls the amount of drag and downforce on the vehicle. Finally, the engine consists of the air intake, engine block, cooling system, and the exhaust. The exhaust is one of the most important pieces of an engine that is often overlooked in racecar design. The purpose of the exhaust is to control the removal of the combusted air-fuel mixture from the engine cylinders. The exhaust as well as the intake is important because they govern the flow into and out of the engine's cylinders (Heywood 231). They are especially important in racecar design because they have a great impact on the power produced by an engine. The higher the airflow through the cylinders, the larger amount of fuel that can be burned and consequently, the greater amount of power the engine can produce. In the exhaust system, higher airflow is governed by several factors. A good exhaust design gives and engine a higher volumetric efficiency through the exhaust scavenging effect. Volumetric efficiency is also affected by frictional losses. In addition, the system should ideally be lightweight, and easily manufacturable. Arizona State University's Formula SAE racecar uses a Honda F4i Engine from a CBR 600 motorcycle. It is a four cylinder Otto cycle engine with a 600cc displacement. An ideal or tuned exhaust system for this car would maximize the negative gauge pressure during valve overlap at the ideal operating rpm. Based on the typical track layout for the Formula SAE design series, an ideal exhaust system would be optimized for 7500 rpm and work well in the range

This thesis focuses on the effects of an engine's induction and exhaust systems on vehicle fuel efficiency, along with the challenges accompanying improvement of this parameter. The aim of the project was to take an unconventional approach by investigating potential methods of increasing fuel economy via change of these systems outside the engine, as finding substantial gains via this method negates the need to alter engine architectures, potentially saving manufacturers research and development costs. The ultimate goal was to determine the feasibility of modifying induction and exhaust systems to increase fuel efficiency via reduction of engine pumping losses and increase in volumetric efficiency, with the hope that this research can aid others researching engine design in both educational and commercial settings. The first step toward achieving this goal was purchasing a test vehicle and performing experimental fuel efficiency testing on the unmodified, properly serviced specimen. A test route was devised to provide for a well-rounded fuel efficiency measurement for each trial. After stock vehicle trials were completed, the vehicle was to be taken out of service for a turbocharger system installation; unfortunately, challenges arose that could not be rectified within the project timeframe, and this portion of the project was aborted, to be investigated in the future. This decision was made after numerous fitment and construction issues with prefabricated turbo conversion parts were found, including induction and exhaust pipe size problems and misalignments, kit component packaging issues such as intercooler dimensions being too large, as well as manufacturing oversights, like failure to machine flanges flat for sealing and specification of incorrect flange sizes for mating components. After returning the vehicle to stock condition by removing the partially installed turbocharger system, the next step in the project was then installation of high-flow induction and exhaust systems on the test vehicle, followed by fuel efficiency testing using the same procedure as during the first portion of the experiment. After analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data collected during this thesis project, several conclusions were made. First, the replacement of stock intake and exhaust systems with high-flow variants did make for a statistically significant increase in fuel efficiency, ranging between 10 and 20 percent on a 95% confidence interval. Average fuel efficiency of the test vehicle rose from 21.66 to 24.90 MPG, an impressive increase considering the relative simplicity of the modifications. The tradeoff made was in noise produced by the vehicle; while the high-flow induction system only resulted in increased noise under very high-load circumstances, the high-flow exhaust system created additional noise under numerous load conditions, limiting the market applicability for this system. The most ideal vehicle type for this type of setup is sports/enthusiast cars, as increased noise is often considered a desirable addition to the driving experience; light trucks also represent an excellent application opportunity for these systems, as noise is not a primary concern in production of these vehicles. Finally, it was found that investing in high-flow induction and exhaust systems may not be a wise investment at the consumer level due to the lengthy payoff period, but for manufacturers, these systems represent a lucrative opportunity to increase fuel efficiency, potentially boosting sales and profits, as well as allowing the company to more easily meet federal CAFE standards in America. After completion of this project, there are several further research directions that could be taken to expand upon what was learned. The fuel efficiency improvements realized by installing high-flow induction and exhaust systems together on a vehicle were experimentally measured during testing; determining the individual effects of each of these systems installed on a vehicle would be the next logical research step within the same vein. Noise, vibration, and harshness increases after installing these systems were also noticed during experimental trials, so another future research direction could be an investigation into reducing these unwanted effects of high-flow systems. Finally, turbocharging to increase a vehicle's fuel efficiency, the original topic of this thesis, is another very important, contemporary issue in the world of improving vehicle fuel efficiency, and with manufacturers consistently moving toward turbocharged platform development, is a prime research topic in this area of study. In conclusion, the results from this thesis project exhibit that high-flow induction and exhaust systems can substantially improve a vehicle's fuel efficiency without modifying any internal engine components. This idea of improving a vehicle's fuel economy from outside the engine will ideally be further researched, such as by investigating turbocharger systems and their ability to improve fuel efficiency, as well as be developed and implemented by others in their educational projects and commercial products.

The goal of this honors thesis creative project was to design, manufacture and test a retrofitted E-bike kit that met certain stated design objections. To design a successful E-bike kit, the needs of the customer were researched and turned into measurable engineering requirements. For the biker, these requirements are speed, range, cost and simplicity. The approach is outlined similarly to the capstone program here at ASU. There is an introduction in sections 1 and 2 which gives the motivation and an overview of the project done. In section 3, the voice of the customer is discussed and converted into requirements. In sections 4, 5,6,7 and 8 the design process is described. Section 4 is the conceptual design where multiple concepts are narrowed down to one design. Section 5 is the preliminary design, where the design parts are specified and optimized to fit requirements. Section 6 is fabrication and assembly which gives details into how the product was manufactured and built. Sections 7 and 8 are the testing and validation sections where tests were carried out to verify that the requirements were met. Sections 9 and 10 were part of the conclusion in which recommendations and the project conclusions are depicted. In general, I produced a successful prototype. Each phase of the design came with its own issues and solutions but in the end a functioning bike was delivered. There were a few design options considered before selecting the final design. The rear-drive friction design was selected based on its price, simplicity and performance. The design was optimized in the preliminary design phase and items were purchased. The purchased items were either placed on the bike directly or had to be manufactured in some way. Once the assembly was completed, testing and validation took place to verify that the design met the requirements. Unfortunately, the prototype did not meet all the requirements. The E-bike had a maximum speed of 14.86 mph and a range of 12.75 miles which were below the performance requirements of 15 mph and 15 miles. The cost was $41.67 over the goal of $300 although the total costs remained under budget. At the end of the project, I delivered a functioning E-bike retrofitting kit on the day of the defense. While it did not meet the requirements fully, there was much room for improvement and optimization within the design.

As robots become more prevalent, the need is growing for efficient yet stable control systems for applications with humans in the loop. As such, it is a challenge for scientists and engineers to develop robust and agile systems that are capable of detecting instability in teleoperated systems. Despite how much research has been done to characterize the spatiotemporal parameters of human arm motions for reaching and gasping, not much has been done to characterize the behavior of human arm motion in response to control errors in a system. The scope of this investigation is to investigate human corrective actions in response to error in an anthropomorphic teleoperated robot limb. Characterizing human corrective actions contributes to the development of control strategies that are capable of mitigating potential instabilities inherent in human-machine control interfaces. Characterization of human corrective actions requires the simulation of a teleoperated anthropomorphic armature and the comparison of a human subject's arm kinematics, in response to error, against the human arm kinematics without error. This was achieved using OpenGL software to simulate a teleoperated robot arm and an NDI motion tracking system to acquire the subject's arm position and orientation. Error was intermittently and programmatically introduced to the virtual robot's joints as the subject attempted to reach for several targets located around the arm. The comparison of error free human arm kinematics to error prone human arm kinematics revealed an addition of a bell shaped velocity peak into the human subject's tangential velocity profile. The size, extent, and location of the additional velocity peak depended on target location and join angle error. Some joint angle and target location combinations do not produce an additional peak but simply maintain the end effector velocity at a low value until the target is reached. Additional joint angle error parameters and degrees of freedom are needed to continue this investigation.

Abstract A study was conducted on three models of the medieval siege engine, the trebuchet. The three models analyzed were the "see-saw", the hinged, and the floating arm trebuchet. Of these models, the mathematical model of each was determined. With his model, the most efficient model was determined to be the floating arm trebuchet, with a range efficiency of 0.8275 and an energy efficiency of 0.8526. The hinged trebuchet achieved efficiencies of 0.8065 for both range and energy efficiency and the "see-saw" with efficiencies of only 0.567 and 0.570, respectively. Then, the floating arm trebuchet's arm length ratio and sling length were then optimized. It was determined that the optimal arm length ratio was approximately 1:2, where the short arm is 1.7 feet and the long arm is 3.3 feet. The optimized sling length was 4.45 feet. Finally, the mathematical models were compared to full scale models. These ranges of the full scale models were surprisingly accurate with what was predicted. The hinged trebuchet model had the largest percentage error at 8.4%.

This thesis is concerned with off-design performance of gas turbines using the program GasTurb12. The thesis provides basic background research into gas turbine performance and an extensive discussion about off-design performance. The program GasTurb12 is used to perform design point calculations to verify the program against known textbook results and to perform a detailed off-design analysis based on a formulated problem statement. The results in GasTurb12 showed good correlation with the textbook results and the detailed off-design analysis provides valuable information about gas turbine design. An implementation strategy has been suggested to not only research further uses of GasTurb12, but also to incorporate it into undergraduate curriculum. It is recommended to further evaluate the capabilities of GasTurb12 to verify the program with real gas turbine systems.

The paper presents a new exhaust header design to replace the current design on Arizona State University's Formula SAE car. Also, the thought process of the design was presented as well as a method of analysis for tuning the exhaust headers. The equation presented was then compared with a computational fluid dynamics model using ANSYS Fluent. It was found that the equation did not match the timing of the CFD model. However, the design does allow for simple changes to be made in order to reduce the length of the exhaust and allow for the correct tuning. Also, the design minimizes interference between the individual headers which is ideal to increase engine performance. The exhaust meets the Formula SAE regulations, and is designed to fit in the new chassis for the FSAE car that ASU will run in 2015. Recommendations were also made to further improve the design and analysis model.