2020 - Mines Theses & Dissertations
Recent Submissions
-
Studies of elves and their connection to lightning with the Pierre Auger Observatory
Emissions of Light and Very-low frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic pulse Sources (elves) are observed by the Pierre Auger Cosmic-Ray Observatory (Auger), located in Malargüe, Argentina, with an unprecedented ... -
Effects of heat treatment on structure-property relationships of additively manufactured Inconel 718, The
To date, standard heat treatments (SHTs) for cast and wrought (C&W) conditions have been utilized for additively manufactured (AM) materials. However, it is known that AM processes induce high thermal gradients and rapid ... -
Functional safety fault tree analysis of a model autonomous haulage system
Autonomous Haulage Systems (AHS) in mining began trials in the 1990’s but have only become widely accepted in the last five years. Mine operators with AHS deployments are reporting greater than 20% increases in utilization ... -
CFD simulation of polarization phenomena in direct contact membrane distillation systems
Direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) is a thermal process in which warm feed and cool distilled water flow on opposite sides of a hydrophobic membrane. The temperature difference causes water to evaporate from the ... -
Improving renewable energy system design and operations with optimization and simulation
Renewable energy is a growing industry, and new technologies present unique challenges for both large and small energy systems. Concentrating solar power plants utilize thousands of mirrors to direct sunlight to a collection ... -
Synergistic computational and experimental chemical investigations for the advancement of sustainable energy technologies
Sustainable energy technologies are becoming ever more crucial to support the increasing energy demands facing society and to stem the growing effects of pollution on the diminished health of our planet. Advancing current ... -
Effective development of cylindrical finite-difference time-domain for electromagnetics applications
Computationally, the size of the domain is important in terms of the memory and time to complete the run and collect the results. Thus, a conventional perfectly matched layer (PML) can be used to truncate computational ... -
Assessing the impacts of hydrologic disturbances on urban water supply and demand in the western United States
In the semi-arid western U.S., urban water systems are facing growing challenges to both supply and demand associated with growing populations, urban development, wildfires in headwaters basins, and climate change. Wildfire ... -
Data-driven process monitoring and control in municipal wastewater treatment
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that by 2040, water and wastewater infrastructure (e.g., treatment facilities, conveyance systems) in the United States will require $144 billion to repair, replace, and ... -
Performance comparison of III-V-on-Si tandem solar cells in the 2-terminal, 3-terminal and 4-terminal configurations
Tandem (or multijunction) solar cells are the only photovoltaic (PV) devices that have demonstrated efficiencies above 30%. Hybrid tandem solar cells consist of dissimilar PV materials, each layer optimized to absorb a ... -
High temperature broadband microwave absorbing materials
Advancements in military and aerospace applications have increased the demand for high temperature microwave absorbing materials. While current state of the art composite material solutions contain strong absorption ... -
Characterization of transport equations with forensic applications (nuclear and social)
Convection and diffusion processes are used to understand transport in a wide range of contexts including the spread of diseases, the adoption of ideas within populations and the classical applications to heat and mass ... -
Developing an integrated planning-level approach for optimizing green to grey stormwater management solutions
Urbanization is expected to persist in cities across the world, resulting in increased percent imperviousness, alterations to the hydrologic regime, degraded water quality, and deteriorated ecosystems. Stormwater Control ... -
Fate and remediation of emerging organic contaminants in aquatic and soil environments
The ubiquitous occurrence and growing abundance of many organic micropollutants in aquatic and soil environments poses significant risks to human health and ecosystems. While past research has improved our understanding ... -
FDTD subgridding with higher order derivative approximations
The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method provides numeric solutions to analyze electromagnetic problems. This includes modeling wave propagation through urban environments, wireless communications, radio-frequency ... -
Shortwave infrared spectral analysis of hydrothermal alteration in the main and southwest Tintic mining district and exploration implications of the Silver City porphyry Cu-Mo-Au prospect, Tintic mining district, Utah, USA
The Main subdistrict of the Tintic Mining District located approximately 65 km south of Rio Tinto’s Bingham Mine, near Salt Lake City, Utah, has historically produced ~12.9 Mt of ore (Au, Ag, Cu, Pb and Zn) principally ... -
Socio-technical assessment of mercury and gold losses in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operations in Colombia, A
In Colombia, the artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sector represents about 70% of the mining activities, and approximately 80% of Colombia’s gold comes from this sector. In addition, the ASGM sector in Colombia ... -
Enhancing socio-technical integration of remediation efforts in artisanal and small-scale gold mining communities
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining represents the largest source of anthropogenic mercury contamination in the world, creating long-term exposure risks to miners and communities in which these operations exist. Eliminating ... -
Analysis of the influence of ferricrete on hyporheic exchange flows
The area of confluence between surface water and groundwater, known as the hyporheic zone, is a natural biogeochemical filter that is dependent on channel morphology and hydraulic conductivity, pressure-driven downwelling ... -
Developing ionomer detection methodologies for use in quality control systems in the manufacture of catalyst coated membranes
Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are on the verge of being produced at unprecedented levels as fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) and other renewable energy resources are set to drastically increase their market ...