Research Areas and Publications

• Additive Manufacturing
  • Structure‑Processing Property Relationship of 3-D Multilayered Composites.
  • Powder grain size and mixtures in additive manufacturing
• Polymer and Polymer Composite Characterization and Fabrication
  • Polymer Composite Degradation Models
• Analysis of powder grain size and mixture of polymer and polymer composite effect on part density, warpage, and shrinkage of printed parts
• Systems Modeling for Biomass Waste and Energy Minimization

Project #1: Characterization of Tensile Properties of Wood Plastic Composites (WPC): An Innovative Micromechanical Modeling and Numerical Simulation.

Collaboration with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The aim of this project is to investigate and understand tensile strength of WPCs using polymers such as PLA and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and pecan wood as fillers fibers using predictive modeling and numerical simulation. Factors studied are fiber type, particle size, particle geometry, and weight. FEA simulation is used to estimate the effect of these factors in mechanical properties. Results are compared with micromechanical and experimental data.

Diaz-Mendoza Juan M., Valles-Rosales, D. J, Arias-Nava (2018) “Modeling and Characterization of Mechanical Properties Of Pecan Wood Plastic Composites” IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2018. Orlando Florida.

Diaz-Mendoza, Juan M, Valles-Rosales, Delia, Arias-Nava, Elias, Jaques, John. (2018). “Modeling and Characterization of Mechanical Properties of Pecan Wood Plastic Composites.” IISE Annual Conference & Expo 2018, Orlando, Fl.

Diaz-Mendoza, Juan M, Valles-Rosales, Delia, Arias-Nava Elias, Jaques, John. (2017). “Statistical analysis of mechanical properties of wood plastic composites (WPC).” INFORMS- Annual Conference 2017 Houston Texas.

Valles-Rosales, D. J., Méndez-González, L. C., Rodríguez-Picon, L. A., Del Valle, A., and Alodan, H. A., (2016). Wood chile peppers stalks-plastic composite production. Maderas-Cienc Tecnol, Vol. 18 No. 1, 179-190.

Valles-Rosales, D. J., Rodríguez-Picon, L. A., Méndez-González, L. C., and Del Valle, A. (2016). Analysis of the mechanical properties of wood-plastic composites based on agriculture Chili pepper waste. Maderas, Cienc. tecnol. vol. 18(1), 43-54.

Diaz-Mendoza Juan M., Valles-Rosales, D. J, Arias-Nava (2016) “Mechanical properties improvement of pecan shell wood plastic composite” IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2016. Los Angeles, California.

G. Escalera, B. M. Porta, A. Metta, I. Rodriguez, D. Valles, J. C. Noveron, (2009). “Metal-organic biopolymers: Self-assembly and thermoplastic properties.” Division of Polymer Chemistry 2009. Spring National ACS Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT.

Project #2 Degradation Models

Research in renewable products with the potential to replace fossilized matter as raw materials for energy and materials use is at the forefront of modern science and engineering. Polylactic acid has been studied by industry and academia showing great interest in the degradation process typically represented by degradation models. The accuracy of these models is a complex task to accomplish. It requires the quantification of the degradation rate of the materials with different variables. In this paper, tensile testing issued to characterize the lifetime of PLA material. Results demonstrate significant statistical effecting the mechanical properties of the material. The variables that made a difference on the degradation rate were temperature, humidity rate, and UV light.

Arias Nava, Elias, Delia J. Valles-Rosales, Brendan Sullivan, Hansuk Sohn. (2020). “Degradation models for biopolymers under accelerated destructive degradation tests”. International journal of industrial engineering: Theory, applications and application. Index: Journal Citation Reports. Submission April 2020, #6677.

Arias, E. and Valles-Rosales, D. J. (2018). “Mechanical Properties of Poly Lactic Acid: An Accelerated Destructive Degradation.” American Journal of Engineering Research (AJER), Vol. 7(9), 167-172.

Méndez‐González, L. C., Rodríguez‐Picón, L. A., Valles‐Rosales, D. J., Romero‐López, R., & Quezada‐Carreón, A. E. (2017). Reliability analysis for electronic devices using beta‐Weibull distribution. Quality and Reliability Engineering International, 33(8), 2521-2530.

Dr Luis Alberto Rodríguez-Picón, Dr Luis Carlos Méndez-González, and Dr. Delia J. Valles-Rosales. (2017). Reliability assessment of degradation processes with measurement error based on a gamma-Gaussian deconvolution. Journal of Quality and Reliability Engineering International. Manuscript ID is QRE-17-0490.

Rodriguez-Picon, L. A., Valles-Rosales, D. J., Rodriguez Brobon, M. I., Flores Ochoa, V. H. (2016). Modeling Degradation with Multiple Accelerated Processes. Journal of Quality and Reliability Engineering International, 13(3), 333-354. dx.doi.org/10.1080/16843703.2016.1189202.

Alvarado, A., Valles-Rosales, D., Garcia-Alcaraz, J.L., and Maldonado-Macias, A. (2012). “A Recurrent Neural Network for Warpage Prediction in Injection Molding.” Journal of Applied Research and Technology. Vol. 10, December 2012, pp. 912-919.

• Structure‑Processing Property Relationship of 3-D Multilayered Composites.
• Powder grain size and mixtures in additive manufacturing

Arias-Nava, E., Valles-Rosales, D., Diaz-Mendoza, J., Rodriguez-Picon, L., & Mendez-Gonzalez, L. (2018). “Effect Analysis of Fuse Deposition Modeling Processes on Mechanical Properties of Wood Plastic Composites”. International Journal of Engineering Sciences & Research Technology, 7(5), 318-323.

Unguez, G. A., Duran, C., Valles-Rosales, D. J., Harris, M., Salazar, E., McDowell, M., Tang, W. (2015). 3D-printed wearable backpack stimulator for chronic in vivo aquatic stimulation. Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2015 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE (pp. 2147-2150).

Valles-Rosales, D. J. Sullivan, B. Abdessattar, A. (2014). “Manufacturing a Portable Mobile Device: A Rapid Prototyping Approach,” SHPE National Conference, Detroit, Michigan.

Project #1: Pyrolysis of Wood Excelsior Residues for Biochar and Renewable Energy Production.

Collaboration with the Department of Chemical and Material Engineering

Summary: Profitable utilization of woody residues from the excelsior industry is an on-going challenge. About 50% of the wood log feedstock ends up as finished products with the remaining 50% becoming residue. Biochar production from the woody residue has the potential to generate income for the industry through biochars sales for soil amendments and water filtration materials. On-site pyrolysis has the added advantage of providing bio-energy to the excelsior processing facility. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the potential of adding pyrolysis to the excelsior production process and the potential of excelsior residue-derived biochar as a soil amendment for hybrid poplar growth in an agroforestry setting.

Sarpong, K., Brewer, C. E., Valles-Rosales, D. J., O’Neill, M. K., Djaman, K. (2018). Pyrolysis of Wood Excelsior Residues for Biochar and Renewable Energy Production (pp. 10). ASABE Conference Proceedings. ASABE Annual International Meeting, 1, 2018.

Brewer, C. E., Sarpong, K. A., Salazar, A., O’Neill, M. K., Valles-Rosales, D. J., and Christiansen, F. (2017). “Biochar from Excelsior Residues for Plantation Production of Hybrid Poplar,” AICHE Annual Meeting, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Minneapolis, MN.

Brewer, C. and Valles-Rosales, D.J. (2018). Woody Biomass Utilization and Biochar Research at NMSU. New Mexico Wood Industry Summit, Ruidoso, NM.

Project #2: Wind Energy

This work seeks to add a new approach to optimize a wind turbine blade’s performance by 7 implementing a surrogate model using the Kriging function with the chord, twist and the use of 3 8 different airfoils as design variables for the maximization of the Annual Energy Production. A 9 combination of Genetic Algorithms and the SQP method for Local Search are used to exploit the model. 10 A baseline design of the blade starts with a replica of the Phase VI blade utilized in a NASA-Ames 11 experiment and a MatLab script utilizes the Blade Element Momentum Theory (BEM) for the 12 aerodynamic analysis. Results show a 23% improvement in energy production by using this method.

Del Valle-Carrasco, A., Valles-Rosales, D., Mendez, L., and Alvarado-Iniesta, A. “A Site-Specific design of a Fixed-Pitch Fixed-Speed Wind Turbine Blade with multiple airfoils as design variable.” accepted for publication in international journal of energy and environment 2015.

Del Valle-Carrasco, A., Valles-Rosales, D., Mendez, L., and Rodriguez, M.I. “A Site-Specific design of a Fixed-Pitch Fixed-Speed Wind Turbine Blade for Energy Optimization using Surrogate Models.” Accepted for publication in Renewable Energy Journal 2015.

Project #3: Design and Development of a Mobile Detection Device

Collaboration with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences

Food and waterborne diseases pose considerable public health threat even in highly industrialized parts of the world. Examples of these pathogens in food can be Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella, and Listeria monocytogenes. Rapid, reliable detection of pathogens prevents such serious health problems and economic losses due to outbreaks and safeguard the food supply. In this study, we employed a smartphone-based apparatus to demonstrate quantitative detection of E. coli. To validate the applicability of the present smartphone-based fluorescence device, RNA was extracted from Escherichia coli K-12 strain and amplified via polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Different solutions with initial template RNA concentrations ranging 10 to 0.0001 ng μL-1 were prepared at the start of the PCR amplification and tested PCR products were detected by monitoring the increase in fluorescence by adding SYBR Green I to the PCR reaction mix. Our smartphone employed a novel algorithm to analyze fluorescence signals and read changes in E. coli DNA concentration.

2020. Rojas-Barboza¹, E. Park², G. Smith³, D. Valles-Rosalles⁴, E. Delgado¹, Y. H. Park.⁵ Rapid, Simple, and Low-cost smartphone based detection of a single bacterium for point-of-care application. Submitted for publication April 2020.

Project #4: Commercial Building Energy Efficiency Analysis

Collaboration with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Arrowhead Center

Cool roofs may reduce the temperature of a surface exposed to the sun and decrease the energy consumption inside buildings. This type of technology works under two different principles; solar reflectance and thermal emissivity and there is a wide variety of products in the market with different initial and aged reflectance and emissivity values. Reflectance is the fraction of solar energy that is reflected by the roof, and this value decreases over time. Roofs with high initial reflectance and low aged reflectance are currently the most common scenario. In this paper, energy simulation software, Energy 3D and Oak Ridge Cool Roof Calculator were used to determine energy savings when using high albedo cool roof technologies with albedo values fewer than 70%. For this study, we selected the cities with the most solar radiation in the U.S.A. and those with rebates and incentives available and approved by the Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC). Results show a significant difference between the values of solar reflectance and suggest supporting the application of high albedo coatings for substantial energy savings.

Carlos Murgia, Delia Valles, Young Ho Park, Sarada Kuravi. (2019). “Effect of High Aged Albedo Cool Roofs on Commercial Buildings Energy Savings in U.S.A. Climates”. International Journal of Renewable Energy Research (IJRER). Vol. 9(1), 65-72.

Project #5: Utilization of Sugar Cane Bagasse as a New Source of Phenolic Compounds

Collaboration with the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at NMSU and the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Instituto Tecnologico de Durango, TecNM.

Sugarcane bagasse is the byproduct obtained after pressing the cane to extract the juice that contains sugar. This research aims to extract, identify, and determine the shelf-life stability of the phenolic compounds present in sugarcane bagasse. The antioxidant compounds in sugarcane bagasse were extracted by treatment combinations of solvents (90% methanol and 90% ethanol) and methods such as sonication, and orbital shaker under different conditions  at a fixed temperature  of 50C. The bioactive compounds identified in the byproduct were flavonoids, alkaloids, and lignans. One of the identified compounds in sugarcane bagasse is the lignan (-) Podophyllotoxin, which has limited natural sources. The antioxidant capacity from sugarcane bagasse extracts showed the potential use as a source of bioactive compounds for further use as a food additive or nutraceutical.

Victor Velazquez-Martinez, Efren Delgado, Delia Valles-Rosales, Laura Rodriguez-Uribe, Jesus Rodriguez-Miranda, and Damian Reyes-Jaquez. (2020). “Extraction, Identification, and Shelf-life stability of antioxidant compounds from sugarcane bagasse.” Submitted to the Journal of food science and technology, April 2020.

Project #6: Exploring the creation of a sustainable system for the cotton seed and plant.

Collaboration with the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at NMSU and the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Instituto Tecnologico de Durango, TecNM.

The research group investigated the effect of extrusion process on cotton seed oil content on the functional properties and digestibility of shrimp. In addition, the group is also analyzing the effect of using the cottonseed lint to characterize new composite materials where the lint acts as a filler to improve polymer matrix mechanical properties. The group is also modeling degradation behavior of the resulted composite materials with Multiple Accelerated Processes.

E. Delgado, M. Gamero-Barraza, W. Flores-Rosas, D.J. Valles-Rosales, H. Medrano-Roldán and D. Reyes-Jáquez. (2020). “Effect of Lipids Content and Process Parameters on the Physicochemical, Rheological, Calorimetric and Structural Properties of an Extruded Canine Food.” Journal of Animal Nutrition and Feed Technology. Accepted for publication April 2020.

Efren Delgado, Luisa Valverde‐Quiroz, Denisse Lopez, Peter Cooke, Delia Valles‐Rosales, and Nancy Flores. (2019). Characterization of Soluble Glandless Cottonseed Meal Proteins Based on Electrophoresis, Functional Properties, and Microscopic Structure. Journal of Food Science, Vol. 84(10), 2820-2830.