REU Projects 2021

Click the arrow below the short description to read more. If travel is allowed, projects 1-4 will be conducted in Puerto Rico and projects 5-6 will be conducted in Illinois.

Project 1: Approaches for Water Filtration and Purification of Reclaimed Rainwaters

Project Advisor: Pedro J. Tarafa

Location: Puerto Rico

Design and prototype sedimentation tank for community as an extension of the rainwater collection system. Researchers will measure physico-chemical parameters such as turbidity, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO) and temperature before optimization of disinfection methods and water quality through bacteriological analyses to quantify pathogens. Participants will receive proper laboratory safety training and have access to the necessary instrumentation and laboratory facilities.

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Once the community rainwater collection system has been built, there will be a need to provide various levels of water treatment to make it safe and suitable for domestic use or for other downstream practices. Thus, a sedimentation tank will be designed and prototyped at University of Puerto Rico in Cataño for implementation in the community as an extension of the rainwater collection system. This tank will encourage a solid-liquid separation process, aided by gravity, to precipitate those suspended solids with specific gravity higher than one. Relevant physico-chemical parameters such as turbidity, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO) and temperature will be assessed before and after the sedimentation tank. A replicate system will then be built in the community with local materials, thus quantifying the benefits of the sedimentation tank in context. The clarified effluent/overflow leaving the top of the sedimentation tank will be fed to a disinfection chamber. The REU student will test the disinfection effectiveness with chlorine compared to other disinfecting methods in Tarafa’s laboratory using water collected at Juana Matos with the rainwater collection system. Bacteriological analyses will be also assessed to quantify pathogens present in the water by testing Escherichia coli as a fecal pollution indicator. For this bacteriological quantification it is planned to use either the membrane filtration technique or the IDEXX Colilert method. The underflow leaving the bottom of the sedimentation tank will be studied for irrigation. The student will have access to the necessary instrumentation and laboratory facilities affiliated to the project. The participant will receive proper laboratory safety training and will learn different methods to test water quality parameters.

Figure 1. Projects 1, 2 and 6 include water collection, filtration and use in plant irrigation. These are shown here.

Project 2: Nursery Irrigation Systems using Reclaimed Rainwater

Project Advisor: Luis Perez Alegria

Location: Puerto Rico

Design and implement systems to control irrigation systems based on cultivar needs, monitor nutrient levels, and integrate ‘programmed robots’. Researchers will measure environmental variables onsite to produce a daily water budget, considering nursery pot size and plant species, plant age, and plant biomass. This will serve the community in learning about water quality, plant management, bolster community efforts to substantiate a mangrove reserve that helps in flood water mitigation during disaster events.

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Given water of sufficient quality, as determined from rainwater collection, filtration, and purification, a modular irrigation system will be designed and built to provide controlled irrigation to the local greenhouse, managed by Caras con Causa. The designed system will control flow rate based on plant needs, monitor the nutrient levels, and be automated. This will serve the community in learning about water quality, plant management, and bolster their efforts to substantiate the mangrove reserve that contributes to flood water management during disaster events, which are of extreme relevance in Puerto Rico.

Plant water needs can be determined from climate data and cultivar phenology. Our team will either measure daily air temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity, and precipitation at the site, in addition to using nearby weather station data (i.e. NOAA-NWS at LMM Airport and NRCS-SCAN network) to produce a daily water budget, considering nursery pot size and plant species, days after planting (DAP), and plant biomass. These latter will be recorded to develop a knowledge base for each cultivar and improve irrigation performance in future cultivation. Team members will work to design data acquisition approaches that answer research questions including: a) what is the water budget in a plant’s container at any time during the growing season or period, b) how much water should the irrigation system apply to each pot size in the greenhouse, c) Evaluate the uniformity of irrigation water application in the greenhouse. The team will actively participate in the design and construction of the irrigation system for the greenhouse populated with different plant species, variable planting dates and possibly variable pot size.

 

Project 3: Microgrids for Disaster Resilience

Project Advisor: Luis Perez Alegria

Location: Adjuntas, Puerto Rico

Support community-based organization Casa Pueblo in Adjunta, Puerto Rico as they install renewable energy infrastructure, mostly solar, in various public structures. Researchers will conduct energy audits in town center and georeference all solar energy facilities.

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Casa Pueblo is a community-based organization in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. Casa Pueblo aims to generate 50% of Adjuntas’s energy load from clean energy sources, mainly by installing solar panels on roofs of residential, commercial, and public structures in the town center of Adjuntas. They are also evaluating means to increase energy efficiency by updating residential and commercial electric appliances, using LED light, and more efficient air conditioning units, in addition to solar water heaters for commercial and residential uses. Recently, Casa Pueblo announced the initiation of a new project phase that will install over 1,000 solar panels in thirteen commercial and residential structures in the town center with funding from individual donors and the Honnold foundation (www.honnoldfoudation.org). Along with the solar panels installation, a new microgrid with an initial capacity of 220 KVA will be set up to distribute the energy generated to eighteen of the commercial and residential structures in the town center. A subsequent phase of the project is the design and installation of a battery bank scheduled to commence in 2021 with the support from RIVIAN automotive company. Student efforts here will support ongoing activities in Casa Pueblo such as developing and conducting energy audits in structures around the Adjuntas town center. A second project to support Casa Pueblo’s is the georeferencing of all solar energy facilities in the town of Adjuntas.

 

Project 4: Community Evaluation through Contextual Engineering

(Not conducted in 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic concerns)

Project Advisor: Ann Perry Witmer and Luisa Seijo-Maldonado

Location: Puerto Rico

Evaluate the capabilities of both a predictive tool and the students who use it to interact with communities in Puerto Rico and identify the technical influences most dominant in its society, thus determining optimal community exposure time, effectiveness in identifying conditions, and processes employed to optimize products.

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Drawing upon research methods already developed by the Contextual Engineering Research Group and the University Institute for Community Development, this project will evaluate the capabilities of both a predictive tool and the students who use it to interact with communities in Puerto Rico and identify the technical influences most dominant in its society. Undergraduate researchers will engage with and ethnographically investigate at least two different communities (e.g. Casa Pueblo, in Adjuntas, and Guayabota in Yabucoa) to determine optimal community exposure time, effectiveness in identifying conditions, and processes employed to optimize products. Students would be expected to reside within each of two identified communities for a duration of 5 weeks in each location, following the previously developed contextual evaluation protocol (xxcitation) to learn about residents’ identities, capabilities, and physical conditions as they relate to engineered infrastructure. Each student will independently complete the predictive tool once per week, as well as collaboratively complete the tool once every other week, for each community. The purpose of this investigation is to answer the research question: How long and in what fashion must an outside engineer engage with a community to accurately assess the non-technical influences that guide design decision-making with respect to an infrastructure? Secondary questions that will be assessed are: 1) Does variability of perception among contextual tool users converge with time? 2) Are there inherent differences in how tool users perceive a community, no matter how their understanding is calibrated using contextual methodology? 3) Does the tool itself accurately capture conditions as perceived by the tool creator (which is, for the moment, the only validation method available)? Data compiled from the tool will be evaluated by researchers on campus to determine whether/how perceptions change with time and whether they more accurately represent the conditions within the community.

Figure 2. The five elements of contextual engineering.

 

Project 5: Supply Chain Analysis for Communities Vulnerable to Disaster

Project Advisor: Luis F. Rodríguez

Location: Illinois

Continue the development of the FEW-VIEW system visualization and analytical capabilities to better describe the potential for disaster resilience of supply chains serving the citizens of Puerto Rico.

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We seek to identify, view, and analyze the resilience and sustainability of supply chains serving citizens of Puerto Rico. To do this, we have reviewed governmental databases from the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), and United States Geological Survey (USGS) to gather data describing availability and demand of related commodities within the island. As there is currently no place to easily visualize the status of Puerto Rico’s supply chains in one centralized location, we currently seek to continue the development of the FEW-VIEW platform to better represent this portion of US supply systems. Knowing and understanding the flow of life sustaining commodities in both nominal conditions, as well as after disaster related events, will facilitate planning of future infrastructural improvements serving vulnerable communities in Puerto Rico. To complete this task it will be necessary to gameplay current analytical approaches quantifying both resilience and sustainability of supply chains influencing Puerto Rico, while preparing data systems that are compatible with subsequent visualization enabled by FEW-VIEW. Such analyses can be contrasted with other archipelago (e.g. Hawaii) and coastal systems (e.g. New Orleans) prone to similar events.

 

Project 6: Stochastic Analysis of Approaches for Rainwater Collection and Reuse

Project Advisor: Luis F. Rodríguez

Location: Illinois

Study consolidation of local rain water resources and connection to public infrastructure for addressing community needs like consistent, abundant, and potable water for cleaning and irrigation. The water volume (rate/day, rate per person) and quality parameters (nutrient concentrations, microbial contamination, etc.) and frequency of disaster related events will be measured to determine the suitability of the collected rainwater in downstream processes.

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Puerto Rico has suffered from a multitude of disaster events that have negatively impacted clean water supply. In an effort to mitigate these community impacts, a team of students from the University of Illinois and Caras con Causa proposed and designed a modular rainwater collection system to accommodate local needs and support auxiliary water dependent activities. In addition to consolidating local rain water resources, the water system will supplement public infrastructures to address community needs after disaster related events, including consistent, abundant water for hygiene, irrigation, drinking, and other uses. The water volume (rate/day, rate per person), water quality parameters (e.g. pH, TDS, BOD, COD, NH3-N, Turbidity, Fe2+ and Zn2+), and the expectation of disaster related events will be analyzed to determine the suitability and scalability of approaches for rainwater collection that amplify community resilience and sustainability, both before and after disaster events, enabling the development of scalable auxiliary systems.