BBE senior capstone project summaries

Perfect Egg Depositor

Michael Foods Inc. (MFI) is a supplier of foodservice, food ingredient and retail offerings that help meet the dietary and ideological needs of all consumers. MFI produces a variety of precooked egg patty products. Liquid egg is injected into preformed mold oven pans and conveyed through the oven to be cooked. The depositors that add ingredients to the pans often have poor weight control, temperature restrictions, or challenges incorporating particulates (small pieces of diced veggies, meat crumbles, shredded cheese, etc.). MFI would like to design the perfect depositor for its precooked egg production line. The depositor would have exceptional weight control, reasonable temperature restrictions, easy operation, variable depositing weights, and be able to incorporate particulates into the liquid egg stream just prior to depositing liquid egg.

Protein Filtration System

HBW Solutions, Inc. does process design work for the pharmaceutical and food industries. For this project the team will work on a protein filtration. Team members will need to learn how filtration is used in industry, how to select the type of filter used, and how to size a filter for protein filtration. The team will size the filter and ancillary equipment around the filter and utility loading calculations. The team may need to develop a hydraulic model of the filter system. This project is expected to involve hard core engineering.

Cheese powder handling for Commercial Snack Production

Land O'Lakes produces spray dried cheese-based powders for topical coating on Snack foods (ex. Potato Chips). These cheese powders present several challenges during the manufacturing process to produce cheese coated snack foods. Powders can clump, dust, or stick to and coat processing equipment and the environment. Spray dried cheese powders typically are combinations of cheese, dairy powders, starches / maltodextrins, salt, flow agent (silicon dioxide) we will provide a range for typical attributes including moisture, fat, salt, and particle size. Land O’Lakes is interested in either a recommendation on testing methods to predict powder behavior or engineering solutions (equipment / powder handling) to help minimize issues with dried cheese powders.

Temporary Isolation of In-water Work in the Rum River Bridge Reconstruction Project

A TH10 bridge over the Rum River must be replaced. The single mass span bridge is relatively low over the water. The riverbed is dominated by rock over hard pan. Both factors prevent typical sheet pile installation for sequential bridge removal and new construction when traffic must be maintained. The team is expected to determine options for working within a water-free riverbed, allow river flow and recreational use during all (or at least most of the time when safe) bridge construction staged operations. The team must develop a cost effective climate resilient temporary in-water isolation design for each operation from demolition of the existing bridge to construction of two new bridges, calculate water bearing loads of the water isolation techniques to points of failure, write example construction specifications, develop example details (hand or CAD) suitable for communication of means and methods, estimate costs of various isolation options, and design a contingency plan for a flood condition (or safety criteria for when to vacate the work area). The team will be provided access to DOT stormwater and bridge design professionals, dewatering company, and a bridge contractor to aid in design contract delivery.

Coulee River Trails Study and Design 

Emmons and Olivier Resources is a water-centric engineering and environmental consulting firm. They are working with two non-profits, Coulee River Trails and Freedom Park. The two non-profits secured a National Park Service (NPS) technical assistance grant for rivers, trails and conservation (NPS-RTCA) and the assistance of a professional trail designer, Tim Wegner. The NPS is currently working with Coulee River Trails and Prescott’s Parks and Public Property Committee to amend the Prescott, WI comprehensive plan to include the proposed trail system. Once the plan for the trail system has been approved, Coulee River Trails will begin to seek grant funding to implement the trail plan. Apart from the proposed trail alignment, little engineering work has been completed for the proposed trail system to date. The team is expected to complete a feasibility study for the portion of the proposed Coulee River Trail System contained within the Magee Park Wilderness Area in Prescott, WI. The feasibility study will include a desktop assessment of existing site conditions, preliminary hydrologic and earthwork calculations, and preliminary sizing and design of stormwater BMPs and slope stabilization practices necessary to implement the trail project. The results of this study will provide valuable estimates and information that will be used by the Coulee River Trails and Friends of Freedom Park organizations to seek and apply for grant funding for the implementation phase of the trail project.

Assessing intensive irrigated agricultural crop production in NW MN.

Intensive agriculture production practices continue to move north with the warming climate and with it there will likely be changes in both surface and groundwater quality and quantity. This project will evaluate the impact of intensive agriculture on the Crow Wing River watershed in North Central MN. Impacts include water table changes due to irrigation and nitrate concentrations from fertilizer application on surface waters, groundwater quality (nitrate contamination), and aquatic ecosystems. The project will involve a general assessment of land use options in the region, how land uses are changing, water availability to support agricultural production and ecosystems. The project will use outputs from the groundwater model MODFLOW and the surface water/groundwater model SWAT in assessing land use change impacts on water quantity and water quality. Students working on the project will not be developing the MODFLOW or SWAT models as these are being developed by a graduate student involved in an ongoing study of the region. The assessments will allow students to provide engineering solutions that could potentially minimize the impacts of the intensive agricultural practices. Multi-objective planning within the framework of this project will be one of the outcomes provided by the students.

Stormwater Monitoring and Measurement

Faculty in the BBE department at the University of Minnesota are involved in a research project to develop a sensor suite for monitoring stormwater flow in real-time. The team will be required to design a monitoring system to measure flow rate and water quality sampler for a watershed managed by the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization. The monitoring systems needs to measure a range of flow rates and corresponding water quality data from rainfall and snowmelt events. The system will be constructed using tools available in the Maker Space. The design needs to be evaluated using the hydraulic flume in the BAE laboratory before installation. After testing, the system will be installed in the field. This will require the design of a supporting structure. 

Two stage anaerobic digester for 1700 cow dairy in Minnesota

Johnson Engineering Group (JEG) is an engineering consulting firm in Windom, MN. JEG is working with the owners of a 1700 cow dairy operation near Princeton MN. The dairy has the longest running anaerobic digester system in MN, operating for about 25 years. The existing digester is a plug flow digester. The farm owners are considering installing a two-stage digester design based on preliminary pilot scale testing by Johnson Engineering Group. The two-stage digester is expected to increase methane production and the possibility of producing hydrogen. The team is expected to develop a two-stage digester design, size related equipment and analyze process flows through and from the digester.