Fall 2006 Capstone Projects

Reconstruction and stability analysis of human gait time series:

The objective of this project is to improve the understanding of the neuromuscular control mechanisms involved in human gait through a Lyapunov exponent stability analysis, by implementing a series of MATLAB routines, fitted to the specific needs of the Kinesiology Department at LSU. See separate webpage for this project.

William Olefins Project:

The main objective of this project is to study and refine an existing computer program that was made available to us by Williams Company in Geismar. The computer program is designed to predict the product yield rates and the energy required for the whole process, and it also computes the net profit for the plant.

The current model is directly derived from experimental data by the method of curve fitting (regression type model). However, the predicted outputs from the computer program do not match the actual data for the energy input. Our goal is then to investigate the existing model and find out what causes the program to perform so poorly in predicting the heat input.