Global ETD Search
Search theses and dissertations gathered from participating repositories worldwide. Every result links back to the library that holds it. No account is needed.
Results
Showing 1 to 20 of 144 for “"Engineering, Agricultural"”.
-
Virtual closed networks: optimised security for autonomous MANETs
… tool in exploration, disaster management, civil-engineering, agricultural and military scenarios. Their endurance, low-cost, high mobility and ability to reduce human involvement in prolonged or hazardous activities have proven attractive to both commercial and military sectors. In such domains, …
-
Analysis of Flow and Water Quality Components in Drainage Channels in Tile Drained Watersheds
*This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Microsoft Office.
-
Integrated Numerical Modeling of Spatial and Time-Variant Hydrologic Response in Subsurface Drained Watersheds
Field-scale studies showed that the subsurface module could provide good predictions with accurate descriptions of soil hydraulic properties, climatic data and drainage parameters. Simulated results at the field scale also indicated that the subsurface model was highly sensitive to estimates of …
-
A Design Framework for Qualitative Human-in-the-Loop System Development
The proof of concept for the design improvement during the design-phase was shown in that, for both off-line and on-line cases, the expert operator on the resulting system with the VMC performed over 17% better than the expert operator on the original system.
-
A Vadose Zone Field Study: Subsurface Tile Drainage, Hydrology, and Variablity
Results include an analysis of the water balance components over periods bounded with similar satiated moisture storage conditions. The field site was found to have an excess storage during most periods which is partially explained by the atmospheric ET models underpredicting evaporation during …
-
Hyperspectral Imagery for Precision Agriculture
The main contribution of this dissertation to hyperspectral image processing is that a hybrid feature selection and feature extraction approach was proposed and implemented for image feature reduction. The general procedure was to select a subset of the original image bands and transform the image …
-
Computational Modeling of Nitrogen Oxide Emissions From Biodiesel Combustion Based on Accurate Fuel Properties
Computational modeling was applied to evaluate strategies for reducing NOx emissions from biodiesel combustion. The results indicated that increasing spray cone angle, retarding start of injection, applying exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and charge air cooling were all effective in reducing NOx …
-
A Drainmod-Based Decision Support System (Dss) for Drainage and Water Quality in Illinois
The DRAINMOD-based Decision Support System for Drainage in Illinois was shown to be a useful tool for users of various skill levels. Increased soil database resources along with updating the DRAINMOD-N component were suggested to further increase the utility of the DSS.
-
Hydrothermal Process of Swine Manure to Oil Using a Continuous Reactor System
Hydrothermal processing of swine manure is a novel technology that has shown very promising results in treating waste and producing oil. Oil yields of up to 70% were achieved in batch experiments. Since a continuous-mode process is more applicable for scale-up operations, a continuous hydrothermal …
-
Analysis and Control of Rate and Uniformity for Granular Fertilizer Application Systems
A comparison was made between the spinning tube method discussed in this paper and a rheometer method. In the latter method, the particles are fixed in placeholders, and a spinning disc is kept in contact with them under a controlled normal force. The measured torque on the disc is then a measure …
-
Development of a Controller for Fermentation in the Dry Grind Corn Process
The controller maintained glucose concentration of <2.0% w/v in the fermenter throughout the SSF process. Reduced glucose concentrations minimize the osmotic shock to yeast and inhibit the growth of other competing microorganisms. Use of the optimal controller resulted in 50% reduction in …
-
Airborne Pollutant Spatial Distribution, Emission, and Ventilation Effectiveness for Mechanically Ventilated Livestock Buildings
CFD simulation was used to predict the spatial distribution of particles less than 10 mum in diameter (PM10) in the swine building. Results showed that the magnitude of the predicted concentrations was significantly higher than the measured concentrations which could be attributed to the assumption …
-
Factors Affecting Starch Conversion to Ethanol in Dry Grind Corn Process
Factors affecting corn starch conversion to ethanol were evaluated to investigate the lack of correlation between ethanol concentration and corn starch content in dry grind corn process. Effect of amylose:amylopectin ratios and resistant starch in corn starch on ethanol concentration was evaluated …
-
Measurement and Modeling of Nitrate-Nitrogen Transport in Subsurface Bioreactors
… (6.1 m by 6.1 m) installed by researchers in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was selected for this study. The nitrate-N concentrations of the bioreactor were monitored in 16 monitoring wells installed at 1.5 m intervals and 0.76 …
-
Numerical and Experimental Study of Volumetric Particle Tracking Velocimetry in a Spatial and Temporal Domain
A hydraulic system was setup to generate a laminar flow in a cylinder tube. The flow is measured by the VPTV system for the purpose of demonstration. Fluorescent particles were employed to trace the fluid motion. An argon-iron laser was employed as the illumination system. The tube is immersed in a …
-
Thin Stillage Fractionation to Improve Water Recycling Rates and Heat Transfer Characteristics in the Corn Dry Grind Process
We considered application of optimization to the design and operation of a continuous microfiltration (MF) system for the corn dry grind process. Total area requirement decreased with number of stages but there was tradeoff between higher capital costs involved at higher number of stages. Optimal …
-
Decision Making in Dry-Grind Ethanol Industry Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
Calibration on the FT-NIR spectrometer for total soluble sugars predicted fermentation samples with a RMSEP of 0.87% w/v and RPD of 8.7. Total soluble sugar ranged from 0.4 to 22.2% w/v. Thus, in order to observe the effect of treatment on total soluble sugars, the difference between total soluble …
-
Characterization and Concentration of Particulate Matters Emitted From Confinement Animal Buildings
Third, seasonal bioaerosol measurements focusing on airborne bacterial particles were performed using a six-stage cascade impactor from nine different animal farms (swine finishing, farrowing, and layer hen housing). The measured bioaerosol concentrations varied from 12,000 to 28,000 CFU/m3 showing …
-
Supervisory Control of a Commercial Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning System
The MPC supervisory controller generated 'optimal' setpoints for lower-level single-input, single-output controllers to maximally utilize the control system framework currently used in the industry. Two different supervisory controller configurations were developed and compared with the existing …
Page 1 of 8