|
Chemical and Materials Engineering:
Project Title: Characterization of microstructure of pipeline steel welds
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Li, Leijun |
Email: | leijun@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Student assists the graduate students to conduct research in metallographic sample preparation, microhardness, and tensile testing of X70 steel welds.
Project Title: Closed-loop standoff control for welding head
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Mendez, Patricio |
Email: | ccwj@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: This project aims to create a closed loop control to keep the welding torch always at the same distance from the work being welded. This involves Arduino prototyping of the electrical circuit and programming to control an existing linear-action servomotor. This project also involves the reliable measurement of current and voltage to use as input signals in the control system. If successful, this project will open the door for high-level automation and control in manufacturing operations at an affordable cost. This is an ideal project for an EE student, but all interested are welcome.
Project Title: Effect of blood toxins on protein-surface interactions
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Unsworth, Larry (DICE 13-390) |
Email: | lunswort@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Dialysis is a life saving therapy, however, life expectancy upon kidney failure has not improved for ~30 yrs. This situation is intolerable and Unsworth labs is trying to understand why this situation has persisted.
Come join our team to work on metabolite identification and how their concentration in blood affects protein-surface interactions.
Project Title: Laser head adapter for additive manufacturing
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Mendez, Patricio |
Email: | ccwj@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: The CCWJ just set up its 9 kW laser (the most powerful laser of its class in Canada). This laser is integrated to an 8 degree of freedom robot, and to a specialized head to deliver the laser beam and depositing powders for adding material. Laser, robot, and head come together at the end of the robotic arm. The goal of this DRA project is to design the adapter to allow this integration (this involves CAD and perhaps finite-element proof of concept, to program our existing CNC mill to machine the part, and to assemble and test the adapter. Ideal project for a MecE student, but all welcome.
Project Title: Latest generation hydrogen testing
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Mendez, Patricio |
Email: | ccwj@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Diffusible hydrogen testing is essential for determining the propensity of materials to crack during welding. The CCWJ has one of the most advanced hydrogen testers available. This project aims to create weld samples (methods can include manual welding, mechanized welding, and/or robotic welding), and testing them to determine the sensitivity and reproducibility of the equipment. Project involves becoming familiar with standards of H testing, operating equipment, and running tests in gas chromatographer. This is an ideal project for a ChemE or MatE student, but all interested are welcome.
Project Title: Latest generation impact testing
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Mendez, Patricio |
Email: | ccwj@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Impact testing is at the core of most materials qualifications in Alberta. The CCWJ has the most sophisticated instrumented impact tester in Canada. This project aims to create Charpy samples for testing reproducibility of the equipment. This project involves becoming familiar with the practice, and standards of Charpy testing, programming the CCWJ’s existing CNC mill to machine samples, testing the samples in the instrumented impact tester, and then performing the statistical analysis to determine repeatability. This is an ideal project for a MatE student, but all interested are welcome.
Project Title: Self Assembled Materials for Drug Delivery to Neonates
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Unsworth, Larry (DICE 13-390) |
Email: | lunswort@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Brain injury accounts for 25% of all activity-related disabilities in children -costing $3.5 billion per year for resulting mental disabilities alone. There are very few clinical outcomes where rapid drug delivery, early on in the disease progression, is so directly linked with child development and morbidity/mortality than that associated with the traumatized immature brain.
Come join Unsworth and Yager (Pediatrics) to help engineer self-assembling nanoparticles that disassemble upon encountering environmental cues to release drugs to the brain.
Project Title: Thermal Plasmas at Atmospheric Pressure
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Mendez, Patricio |
Email: | ccwj@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: The ultimate goal of this project is to predict the properties of thermal plasmas at atmospheric pressure. This type of plasmas are crucial for technological applications such as welding, circuit breakers, cutting tools, and more. Despite their importance, they currently cannot be treated with engineering tools such as formulae or tabulated data. This project will focus on modeling the coupled physics in the welding arc, with a focus on providing a general quantitative set of formulas and tabulated data useful both in research and industry. Ideal project for an EngPhys student, but all welcome
Civil and Environmental Engineering:
Project Title: Assessing the "Readiness" of Highways for Autonomous Vehicles
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | El-Basyouny, Karim (6-265 DICE ) |
Email: | basyouny@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Autonomous vehicles are equipped with several sensors to map and perceive their surrounding environment. Unfortunately, different manufacturers use their own customized sensor sets and computer systems in the design of their self-driving vehicles. Assessing the performance of our current roads under different autonomous driving scenarios is essential before the use of such technologies is permitted. In this study, we will explore how such an assessment can be performed on a network-level and how to consider the different vehicles' customized sensor sets and processing times into account.
Project Title: Automated Assessment of Railways using LiDAR Data
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | El-Basyouny, Karim (6-265 DICE ) |
Email: | basyouny@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: In this project, LiDAR scanners are mounted on locomotives to collect point cloud data on Canada’s railway network. The main objective of this project is to automate the assessment of clearances on railways to assess the appropriateness of existing tracks in allowing the movement of different types of train models. Further, a method to assess the safety of railway crossings will be investigated using LiDAR data. This project is a great opportunity to work on state-of-the-art technology and applications in the infrastructure market.
Project Title: Crack propagation in Deteriorated Prestressed Concrete Girders
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Tomlinson, Doug (ICE 6-255) |
Email: | dtomlins@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Analysis of previously completed testing using Digital Image Correlation (a technique that uses time-lapse photos to track deformations) on a deteriorated concrete bridge girder. Results will be compared to a non-deteriorated girder and compared to acceptable limits in bridge design codes.
Project Title: Machine learning for image based crack detection
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Gül, Mustafa |
Email: | mustafa.gul@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Identifying cracks on civil infrastructure systems is of interest because cracks are early signs of the underlying damage in these systems. In this project, the student is expected to apply machine learning algorithms on the images to automatically detect the cracks. Expected outcomes of this study can significantly reduce the cost of infrastructure inspections. The student will experience the complete process of applying machine learning algorithms to a real life problem including data collection, data annotation and implementation of the algorithm.
Project Title: Parametric geometric modeling and finite element meshing of concrete beams/columns
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Li, Yong (6-259) |
Email: | yong9@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: The main objective of this project is to develop a tool for parametric geometric modeling and finite element meshing of concrete beams/columns. This can be achieved by using Gmsh (http://gmsh.info/), a finite-element mesh generator, to create the models to be used for engineers or researchers for further analysis in other software.
Project Title: Parametric geometric modeling and finite element meshing of flawed pipelines
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Li, Yong (6-259) |
Email: | yong9@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: The main objective of this project is to develop a tool for parametric geometric modeling and finite element meshing of flawed pipelines. This can be achieved by using Gmsh (http://gmsh.info/), a finite-element mesh generator, to create the models to be used for engineers or researchers for further analysis in other software.
Project Title: Pavement Cracks Detection using LCMS Data
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | El-Basyouny, Karim (6-265 DICE ) |
Email: | basyouny@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Pavement cracks can allow water to infiltrate the surface and significantly damage the base, sub-base, and subgrade layers leading to potholes formation and other types of deteriorations. As such, regular maintenance of pavement surface is essential to ensure its safe long-term performance. For that purpose, regular surveys are carried out using Laser Crack Measurement Systems (LCMS). LCMS utilizes sensors to scan a 3D image of the pavement surface. In this project, LCMS 3D images will be used to automate the detection and assessment of pavement cracking and rutting.
Project Title: State-of-the-art inspection devices and techniques for aging concrete structures
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Li, Yong (6-259) |
Email: | yong9@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: The main objective of this project is to review the current engineering practices as well as relevant technical developments in the inspection of aging concrete structures. Many of the concrete infrastructure (e.g., bridges) has been deteriorating due to aging effects, and many inspection or nondestructive evaluation devices and techniques can be used to diagnose the health state of them. The project will help identify the right tools and knowledge for the research and industry needs.
Electrical and Computer Engineering:
Project Title: An automated style checker for technical papers
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Bezemer, Cor-Paul (11-324) |
Email: | bezemer@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: In the Analytics of Software, Games and Repository Data (ASGAARD) lab, we always strive to publish our research in technical/academic papers.
However, when writing papers often the same stylistic or linguistic mistakes are made. One reason for these mistakes is that we do not use Word to write papers, but instead we use Latex, which does not have very strong spell and style-check capabilities.
In this project, you will work on implementing such a rule-based style-checker for Latex papers. The goal is to integrate this style-checker into our paper building processes.
Project Title: Behavior Analysis from Images and Videos
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Cheng, Li (ICE, 11-365) |
Email: | lcheng5@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: This project focuses on analyzing visual behaviors of human and animals from video feed, a problem that plays a crucial role in many real-life applications ranging from natural user interface to autonomous driving. You are expected to work with a graduate student/researcher, get familiar with state-of-the-art deep learning techniques, and gain hands-on research experience on benchmark and home-grown datasets.
Project Title: Biomedical image analysis
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Cheng, Li (ICE, 11-365) |
Email: | lcheng5@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: We have collaborated with biologists and clinicians on analyzing cellular or medical images for answering important scientific questions. In this project, you are expected to conduct 2D/3D biomedical image Understanding work. You are expected to work with a graduate student/researcher, get familiar with state-of-the-art deep learning techniques, and gain hands-on research experience on benchmark and home-grown datasets.
Project Title: Build scene graphs, the knowledge graph of images, for image retrieval
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Niu, Di |
Email: | dniu@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: The goal is to model images as scene graphs, which can be used for semantical understanding of images and image searching. A scene graph represents an image with objects (“man”, “boat”), attributes of objects (“boat is white”) and relationships between objects (“man standing on boat”). Image retrieval can be done by comparing the similarity of scene graphs and graph embedding through Graphical Neural Networks. The objective is to build a large aggregated scene graph given an image dataset, which is a knowledge graph for images, and use it for image retrieval and recommendation.
Project Title: Build scene graphs, the knowledge graph of images, for image retrieval
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Niu, Di |
Email: | dniu@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: The goal is to model images as scene graphs, which can be used for semantical understanding of images and image searching. A scene graph represents an image with objects (“man”, “boat”), attributes of objects (“boat is white”) and relationships between objects (“man standing on boat”). Image retrieval can be done by comparing the similarity of scene graphs and graph embedding through Graphical Neural Networks. The objective is to build a large aggregated scene graph given an image dataset, which is a knowledge graph for images, and use it for image retrieval and recommendation.
Project Title: Build scene graphs, the knowledge graph of images, for image retrieval
| Term: | Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Niu, Di |
Email: | dniu@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: The goal is to model images as scene graphs, which can be used for semantical understanding of images and image searching. A scene graph represents an image with objects (“man”, “boat”), attributes of objects (“boat is white”) and relationships between objects (“man standing on boat”). Image retrieval can be done by comparing the similarity of scene graphs and graph embedding through Graphical Neural Networks. The objective is to build a large aggregated scene graph given an image dataset, which is a knowledge graph for images, and use it for image retrieval and recommendation.
Project Title: Deep learning to interpret images and videos
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Cheng, Li (ICE, 11-365) |
Email: | lcheng5@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: This project focuses on developing deep learning techniques to interpret images/videos. You are expected to work with a graduate student/researcher, get familiar with state-of-the-art deep learning techniques, and gain hands-on research experience on benchmark and home-grown datasets.
Mechanical Engineering:
Project Title: Assessment of an air-source heat pump
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Komrakova, Alexandra |
Email: | komrakov@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) are widely used to heat/cool the Net-Zero homes. These buildings are designed to generate as much energy as they consume on a yearly basis. Better estimations of the Net-Zero homes design requires knowledge of the performance of the ASHPs. In this project, a series of experiments will be carried out to determine the Coefficient of Performance (COP) of a pump installed in a cold room of the MEC building. The emphasis will be placed on data acquisition and analysis of the results.
Project Title: CFD simulations of blending in confined impeller stirred tank
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Komrakova, Alexandra |
Email: | komrakov@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: I am looking for an undergraduate student who has experience with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) or is currently taking MEC E 539 class. This project is focused on CFD simulations of a flow in a confined impeller stirred tank. It is a 1L stirred tank equipped with five Rushton turbines. It is necessary to model the injection of the tracer into the tank and quantify the blending process for a range of Reynolds numbers. Experimental results are available for validation of the numerical predictions. A commercial software package STAR-CCM+ will be used to run the simulations.
Project Title: Continued development of a wheeled instrumented robot
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Barczyk, Martin (DICE 10-380) |
Email: | mbarczyk@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: This project involves the further hardware and software development of an instrumented wheeled robot used for research into autonomous navigation. Specific objectives include adding a stereo camera onto the robot and testing its performance in a navigation software package, as well as performing and experimentally evaluating a swap of the current onboard computer with a Jetson TX2. The data from the navigation software package will be logged and used to validate the performance of a novel sensor fusion algorithm.
Project Title: Cross-flow filter for recycled polymer 3D printing
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Sameoto, Daniel (DICE 10-390) |
Email: | sameoto@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: We have developed a means to directly 3D print from pellets or recycled scrap polymers using fused deposition modelling (FDM) processes. Because scrap polymer may have much higher rates of contaminants (dirt and/or unmelted unknown thermoplastics) than raw resin, we wish to avoid a dead-end filter design which has to be periodically removed and cleaned. The DRA position will begin the design, manufacturing, and testing of a single input/multi-output cross-flow filter system integrated between a screw extruder and heated hose for FDM extrusion.
Project Title: Drop Impact of Complex Fluids
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Tsai, Peichun Amy |
Email: | peichun@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: We will experimentally investigate the drop impact dynamics of a complex drop hitting on a solid surface with a high-speed image technique. The student will record high-speed movies of a droplet impacting on various surfaces to study the interactions between droplets and solids. The student will acquire fundamental experimental and research skillsets, including basic experimental techniques, image analysis as well as data acquisition and analysis.
Project Title: Experimental study of turbulent flow behind a cylinder
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Wong, Jaime |
Email: | jgwong@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: This project is a part of a new course development ‘Fluid Thought, or: Research Methods in Fluid Dynamics’. It is necessary to perform experimental measurements of the turbulent flow around a cylinder in order determine time-resolved drag and lift coefficients for comparison to CFD, and develop teaching methodology for the course. Optical measurements, such as PIV, will be critical to the work, which will be undertaken in a newly constructed wind tunnel.
Project Title: Framework development for optimization of cooling coils performance in a green building
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Zhong, Lexuan (ICE 10-351) |
Email: | lexuan.zhong@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Efficient air conditioning system is a key component to reduce energy consumption in a building. In order to decrease the energy consumption in an air conditioning system, entropy and exergy based methodological framework to calculate the optimal tube row number of a direct expansion cooling coil will be developed in this project.
Project Title: Liquid metal stretchable wire optimization
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Sameoto, Daniel (DICE 10-390) |
Email: | sameoto@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: We have a developed a mechanism to extrude liquid metals contained in thermoplastic elastomers. We are aiming to improve production quality and reduce the size of the wires through drawing processes close to the melting point of the thermoplastic. The goal of this work is to improve the quality control of the co-axial extruder and achieve highly consistent stretchable electrically conductive wires for high extension strain sensors.
Project Title: Modelling of the Performance of Air Source Heat Pumps for NetZero Houses
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Lange, Carlos (10-277) |
Email: | clange@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs) are ideal for the heating and cooling of NetZero Energy Houses, but there is a lack of knowledge about their performance in cold climates. This project will complement an experimental test facility in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and use the resulting measurement data to validate a predictive numerical model of performance of ASHPs.
The developed numerical model will then be used to predict the performance of ASHPs under realistic environmental conditions.
Project Title: Numerical study of turbulent flow behind a cylinder
| Term: | Fall 2019 |
Professor: | Komrakova, Alexandra |
Email: | komrakov@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: This project is a part of a new course development ‘Fluid Thought, or: Research Methods in Fluid Dynamics’. It is necessary to perform computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the turbulent flow around a cylinder in order to predict drag and lift coefficients and to study the wake development behind the cylinder. Mesh and domain size sensitivity analyses and turbulence model selection should be carried out. The results will be compared to the experimental data provided by other group member working in the lab. A commercial software package STAR-CCM+ will be used to run the simulations
Project Title: Protecting People Against Dynamic Failure
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Hogan, James |
Email: | jdhogan@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: I am seeking motivated undergraduate students to study the dynamic failure of materials. In this program, we seek to design new materials that allow us to control failure, and, ultimately, improve performance. Current sectors of industrial application include: advanced manufacturing, defense, aerospace, and oil and gas.
Depending on interest, a typical project involves: defining an appropriate research problem, reviewing literature, and performing experiments, modelling, or characterization. Proficiency in Matlab is encouraged.
Project Title: Soft robotic crawler
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Sameoto, Daniel (DICE 10-390) |
Email: | sameoto@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: Soft robotics is an emerging field that develops robotic systems out of materials close to the stiffness of human tissue like muscle and skin so that their operation can be inherently safe when operating close to or on on a human body. This project aims to manufacture a soft robot that can crawl and change its gait when necessary to fit the environment. Actuation will be via pneumatics, with a strong preference to have a single pressure source produce complex motion via soft robotic logic - https://www.pnas.org/content/116/16/7750
Project Title: Viscous Fingering of Complex Fluids
| Term: | Fall 2019/Winter 2020 |
Professor: | Tsai, Peichun Amy |
Email: | peichun@ualberta.ca |
Brief Description: We will experimentally investigate how to control viscous fingering instability of complex fluids using a special fluidic cell of varying permeability. The student will record the dynamics of interface profile between fluids during fluid-fluid displacement, when a less viscous fluid pushes another immiscible one. The student will acquire fundamental experimental and research skillsets, including basic experimental techniques, image analysis as well as data acquisition and analysis.
|