Energy Harvesting via Ballonet Altitude Control; District Cooling And Heating: Outlooks and Challenges

The challenge I address in both projects is the urgent need for lower-carbon, energy efficient systems. My technical capstone provides the solution in harvesting otherwise wasted energy in airship transport. My STS thesis examines how centralized district networks can cut waste in urban heating and cooling. These are two separate problem frames. The technical paper's problem frame is about the difficulty of large scale commercial adoption of balloon/blimps as a low energy consumption platform, and the project provides a solution that increases balloon's self-sustaining capability and reducing operation cost thus making blimps/balloons more commercially viable. The STS paper's problem frame is about the challenge to provide sufficient indoor comfort solutions amongst the changing global environment and rising energy costs, as well as the various technical and economical challenges to these solutions. Both aim to provide energy efficient systems, but they do not directly connect or depend on each other.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Technical Advisor: Frank Lagor

STS Advisor: Caitlin D. Wylie

Technical Team Members: Clarisse Forro, Vivienne Hughes, Troy S. Meink, Ashlin Schultz,
Robert Stambaugh, Will Stevens, Richard Yau, Yining Xu