Optimizing the Design of a Traditional Peruvian Cookstove: Modifications for Overall Improved Combustion Efficiency

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McCall Barger and Christopher Mattson, Mechanical Engineering Nearly 3 billion people worldwide still cook using open fires or biomass cookstoves, in which they burn wood, charcoal, and other solid fuels1. Over the past ten years, great effort and consideration has been devoted to progressing improved biomass cookstove technology for the developing world. The traditional cookstoves used […]

Boiling: Droplet Impingement on Heated Superhydrophobic Surfaces

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Unrau, Mikkel Boiling and Julie Crockett, Mechanical Engineering Introduction The interaction between water-based droplets and heated solid surfaces is one of the most ubiquitous observed phenomena in nature and many industries. Some of the applications include spray coating/cooling, ink-jet printing, lab-in-a-droplet technology, and internal combustion engines. Droplet impingement on Superhydrophobic (SH) surfaces promises great benefits […]

Trends in Grain Boundary Energy and Structure

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Jonathan Priedeman and Eric Homer, Mechanical Engineering The principal purpose of materials science is to investigate the relationships between microstructure, processing, properties and performance of materials to develop enhanced materials for engineering applications. Maximizing the capabilities of a given material requires control of the microstructure: the small-scale arrangement of atoms that comprise the material. Commonly […]

2D Analysis of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Wake

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Nicolas Bons and Andrew Ning, Department of Mechanical Engineering 1 Introduction Wind energy is a very promising source of renewable energy for the future. Vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) arrays could potentially offer greater power density than horizontal axis wind turbines. In order to leverage the advantages of the VAWT in certain applications with confined […]

Expanding the Genetic Code Through Compatible Sets of tRNA Synthetase

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Steven Stanley and Bradley C. Bundy, Department of Chemical Engineering The genetic code, once mainly restricted to the 20 canonical amino acids, has been expanded to include many unnatural amino acids (UAAs). These new amino acids grant novel chemistries to proteins, unlocking functionalities that could be used in vaccine development and medical diagnosis methods. Unfortunately, […]

High-Resolution Soil Moisture Estimation Using ASCAT

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David Lindell and David G. Long, Electrical Engineering I. INTRODUCTION NASA’s Decadal Survey emphasizes the importance of soil moisture measurements, citing their significance in predicting natural hazards and the role of soil moisture levels in the water and carbon cycles [1]. Soil moisture estimates are used for a variety of applications including drought detection, flood […]

Single Ion Detection for Mass Spectrometry using Low Capacitance MOSFETs

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Matthew Hamblin and Aaron Hawkins, Electrical Engineering   Introduction Mass spectrometry is an important tool for analytical chemistry that allows the chemical composition of a compound to be determined. In order to do so, it separates the compound into ions, and then detects the number of ions of different masses. The charge on a single ion […]

Video Games – that Happen to be Educational

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Kyle Bryant, Dr. Jarom McDonald, Digital Humanities, and Dr. Derek Hansen, School of Technology Researchers like James Gee, culturists such as Henry Jenkins, and educators such as BYU’s own Derek Hansen and Jonathan Ostenson agree that video games can be a powerful educational tool; capturing both the users attention and imagination, something that the educational […]

The Influence of Probe Design on DNA Surface Hybridization and Microarrays Performance

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Thomas Knotts, Chemical Engineering 1 Background The overall goal of this project was to provide new theories and models that describe DNA hybridization on surfaces on a fundamental level for improved application and design of microarrays. Microarrays work on the principle of DNA hybridization, and can be used to identify the identity or abundance of […]

Development of Student Research Resources and Training Material for Functional and Structural MRI-Based Research at BYU

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Professor Neal K Bangerter, Electrical & Computer Engineering and Professors Erin Bigler and Brock Kirwan, Psychology Overview This project was aimed at providing in-depth training and mentoring for a small group of students to address the large anticipated demand for accessible research and training resources at BYU’s new MRI Research Facility. The facility opened summer […]