Armen's Engineering Portfolio
armanuch@bu.edu (+1)-617-902-8113
Droplet Impact on hydrophobic surface
Lab Grade Silver Mirror From ThorLabs
Variable Hydrophobic Test Stand
Since May 2023, have worked at the BU Fluid Lab and worked on multiple projects. Here is one of the things I have worked on on. The lab in the past has used fixed prebuilt wedge-like objects to place hydrophobic glass slides onto for experimental tests. But the issue with this method is that one, you only have set fixed angles for testing and can not get angles between and lastly it takes up space. What I designed is a solution where one device can be attached and can vary the angle of a glass slide. Please feel free to click on the images and pan through the images.
This device was then attached to the test stand I had already made for this experiment
Improved Lab Method
In the past in the lab, every time the angle of set up was to change, then the whole camera would also have to change in order to keep it perpendicular to the surface being studied. The camera is big and heavy, thus initially it was a paint for me and the others to change the camera every time. So I came up with the solution of utilizing a lab-grade mirror. The camera stays parallel to the floor pointing at the mirror, and the only thing that changes is the rotation of the mirror to angle the light to be perpendicular to the surface being studied. I used this method in all future experiments including the bubble test stand. This method saves time and is more accurate in ensuring perpendicularity. You can see this method used in the images in both test stands shown above and below.
Variable Bubble Water Tank Test Stand
Towards the end of the Summer of 2023, my lab advisor and Ph.D. coworker told me that the experimental focus would now be switching towards also studying the shear stress of variable-sized bubbles on different angles surfaces, as the size of the bubbles on the impact on its shear stress has not been analyzed in depth. One of the possible use cases would be for example, better-optimizing bubbles to clean ship hulls, rather than spending tens of thousands of dollars on either cleaning the surfaces manually or by using very harsh chemicals that negatively impact the environment. The photos on the right show the process of me building this test stand that I designed myself and used for data-taking purposes.
Side view of Bubble rising from test stand
Overall experimental set up
Laser-Cutting Part for test stand
Video showing my tracking of the bubble as it rises from the top. Data is collected in the process. We mostly care about the minor and major from the bubble impact here in respect to time.
MATLAB
Besides making the various setups in the lab as shown above, I also have the responsibility of recording and collecting data from the videos by writing MATLAB programs. In short, the process by which I analyze most of my videos is by first having a reference frame without the entity of interest. I treat each frame as an individual image. In MATLAB, each image is treated as a matrix. I then through a series of processes binarize the image, so the only values in the matrix are zeros and ones. I then subtract the frame of interest with the reference frame, and we have is that all of the background(not of interest) values subtracted with the reference frame, and now we have a new "image" with only the droplet/bubble. I then apply a series of filters to clean up the droplet/bubble and then use other processes to either get the major/minor or other important information such as velocity.
Video showing my tracking of bubble as it rises from. Data is collected in the process. We mostly care about gathering the terminal velocity and initial diameter from this view.
LUTRON Compitition
Now and then Boston University has these fun events where a prompt is given and students can form teams and create! This time the prompt was to create anything with light. So my team and I got to work and decided to make a mushroom water light decoration that would also have the ability to act as a humidifier.
Video of the device in action
Cool Image of it pumping water
Teamate(left) and I(right) discussing about the implications of our product
BURPG
At BURPG we were assigned to look towards new rocket fuel injector designs that have not been historically implemented in the club. Normally at the club, we have used impinging fuel injectors. In short, the main issue with this fuel injector is that they are not the most efficient fuel injector out there. That is why in a team of four we set out to research and design two types of fuel injectors for the club. We split in two with with one pair designing a swirl injector, and another two designing a pintle fuel injector(me). In the future, we will manufacture both injectors and then implement tests.
Room Occupancy Monitor
Designed and developed in a group of four a device to prevent dangerous overcrowding in an indoor space by warning the user when capacity has been met. Utilizes two post-width modulated LEDs and IR sensors with a 99% accuracy in tracking how many people enter and leave a closed area. The user has the ability to change the max value with a button on the side. Once maximum occupancy is reached, the progress bar is filled up and the screen lights up very bright alerting the user. Both parts house a 10,000 mAh lithium-ion battery to ensure long battery life without the need for frequent charging.
