Active Fog Catcher

The active fog catching senior project team has been asked to develop a device that will harvest water from the atmosphere, namely fog, using active means. The project will be centered on maximizing water collection rate, with efficiency as a secondary concern. The final design utilizes a refrigeration system in which fans pull air across the cold evaporators inside of a duct. Water condenses on the evaporators and drain into a collection container. It was decided to focus on maximizing water collection at the cost of efficiency because the feasibility of actively harvesting fog must be proved before trying to make the system efficient. A Copeland condensing unit that provides 2,490 Btu/min of heat transfer from the evaporator to the incoming fog is used in tandem with three expansion valves and four evaporators. Two Vernier expansion valves will allow the system to be finely adjusted while a third ball valve is used to coarsely adjust the flowrate. In addition, temperature and pressure gauges will be used to monitor the performance of the system and add additional control over the system. Speed controllers are connected in series to the fans in order to allow for variable flowrate. For testing, the system was placed in a high humidity environment and the fans were set to run at a predetermined flowrate. The Vernier expansion valves were adjusted until the first couple coils were frosting and the kWh consumption of the system was monitored using a watt meter. The results showed that the optimal flowrate for this system was between 140-150 cfm. In addition, it was discovered that pulsing the fans (toggling between the set point flowrate and the maximum flowrate for a brief period of time) would promote condensate to form droplets and drip out of the evaporators. The results showed that at the optimum flowrate, with pulsing, and a relatively high humidity the system could capture an experimental maximum steady state condensation rate of .307 gal/kWh. This amounted to approximately one gallon of water collected in six hours, at an energy cost of approximately forty cents

TRON 2.0 - The Experience

The goal of this senior project was to come up with a structural-engineering-related schematic design for a roller coaster to be installed in Disneyland called TRON 2.0: The Experience. This involved looking at both design processes that we had already learned through our curriculum as well as researching concepts that were previously foreign to us, namely the dynamic application of loads and the effects of fatigue stresses. A story was established based on the source material: the TRON movies produced by Walt Disney Studios. Thematic elements from the story were used as the basis for design implications that would become necessary as the process continued. These design implication influenced the design of the Ride System, Track Layout, and Ride Vehicle Design. These factors would end up influencing applicable loads, which would be utilized in the design of the Track Layout. The site was chosen to be constructed on Disneyland proper so that realistic site parameters and dimensions would give a sense of scale to the project and eliminate ambiguity. However, existing elements on the site would cause challenges for us to work around. Once the site was chosen, Queue and Show buildings were designated simple designs to tie back to story-driven implications and reinforce the standards set by the Walt Disney Imagineering process model. In addition, we gained more information such as crowd capacity to dictate further mechanical design and dynamic applications. The mechanical side of the process saw the development of a ride system used to propel the Ride Vehicles, all designed by the Mechanical Engineers on the project. The Ride Vehicle weights became relevant for the design of the track. A Track Layout was created and inputted into simulation software so that dynamic accelerations could be developed as new loading conditions for Track Design. Finally, all of the preceding elements of design were culminated into a schematic design of a roller coaster track making sure to account for subjects such as dynamic applications, torsion, and fatigue. All designs were replicated in modeling software to confirm constructability and viability of the resulting schematic design