Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Mathematics, August 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009. / Full text also available online. Scroll down for electronic link.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2004. / At head of title: City University of Hong Kong, Department of Physics and Materials Science, Master of Science in materials engineering & nanotechnology dissertation. Title from title screen (viewed on Aug. 31, 2006) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Worcester Polytechnic Institute. / Keywords: thermomechanical, SMAs, NiTiNOL, ACES, OEH. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Gall, Kenneth, Committee Member ; Leon, Roberto, Committee Member ; Kurtis, Kimberly, Committee Member ; Jacobs, Laurence, Committee Member ; DesRoches, Reginald, Committee Chair.

Active contours are now a very popular technique for shape extraction, achieved by minimising a suitably formulated energy functional. Conventional active contour formulations suffer difficulty in appropriate choice of an initial contour and values of parameters. Recent approaches have aimed to resolve these problems, but can compromise other performance aspects. To relieve the problem in initialisation, an evolutionary dual active contour has been developed, which is combined with a local shape model to improve the parameterisation. One contour expands from inside the target feature, the other contracts from the outside. The two contours are inter-linked to provide a balanced technique with an ability to reject weak’local energy minima. Additionally a dual active contour configuration using dynamic programming has been developed to locate a global energy minimum and complements recent approaches via simulated annealing and genetic algorithms. These differ from conventional evolutionary approaches, where energy minimisation may not converge to extract the target shape, in contrast with the guaranteed convergence of a global approach. The new techniques are demonstrated to extract successfully target shapes in synthetic and real images, with superior performance to previous approaches. The new technique employing dynamic programming is deployed to extract the inner face boundary, along with a conventional normal-driven contour to extract the outer face boundary. Application to a database of 75 subjects showed that the outer contour was extracted successfully for 96% of the subjects and the inner contour was successful for 82%. This application highlights the advantages new dual active contour approaches for automatic shape extraction can confer.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:36:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T13:59:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 12908.pdf: 2121499 bytes, checksum: c2d2abf4d18418855c9e93a43337b8ad (MD5) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IEA/D / Escola Politecnica, Universidade de Sao Paulo - POLI/USP

Thesis (MTech (Mechanical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2007. / Engineers and Technologists have found several approaches to control the shape of an aerofoil and improve the performance of a wing at different flow regimes; this research has been done at 2D level. In this work, a novel approach has been developed. The inspiration for this work comes from biological research. A 3D wing body has been modeled and flow conditions around it were simulated by advanced computer technology. The fabrication of the wing, based on the design optimization model, has been conducted using rapid prototyping technology. The unique thermal and mechanical properties that are exhibited by shape memory alloys (SMAs) have presented an exciting design possibility in the field of aerospace engineering. This kind of smart material was incorporated in the wing structure and when activated can alter the shape of the wing, thus effectively increasing the efficiency of a wing in flight, at several different flow regimes.

Thesis (DTech (Mechanical Engineering))--Peninsula Technikon, 2004. / Engineers and Technologists have always been identified as those individuals that put into practice the theories developed by scientists and physicists to enhance the lives of human beings. In the same spirit as those that came before, this thesis describes the development of a computational engineering tool that will aid Engineers and Technologists to design smart or intelligent structures comprising of NiTi shape memory alloy rods for actuation purposes. The design of smart actuators consisting of NiTi shape memory alloy structural members will be beneficial to industries where light weight, compactness, reliability and failure tolerance is of utmost importance. This is mainly due to the unique material responses exhibited by this smart material. The shape memory effect, one of these material responses consists out of two stages: a low temperature load induced phase transformation causing a macroscopic deformation (either extension, contraction, etc.) also known as quasi-plasticity; and a high temperature phase transformation that erases the low temperature macroscopic deformation and reverts the material to some predefined geometry. When designing actuators consisting of this smart material, the quasi-plastic material response produces the actuation stroke while the high temperature phase transformation produces the actuation force. The successful engineering design of smart structures and devices particularly suited for applications where they operate in a capacity, as actuators harnessing the shape memory effect are dependent on a few important factors. These include the engineers familiarity with the type of smart material used, the availability of sound experimental data pertaining to the complex material responses exhibited by the smart material, the engineers level of proficiency with existing constitutive models available to simulates these material responses, and the engineers knowledge of simulation tools consisting of a suitable control algorithm fo~ the modeling of not only the device or structure itself but also the actuator involved in the design.

Orientador: Maria Gabriela Caffarena Celani / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-17T19:10:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cruz_DeboradeMeloda_M.pdf: 9689477 bytes, checksum: 7872c69e499cbc1526337b817ab46dd0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: A gramática da forma, um formalismo desenvolvido por Stiny e Gips (1972) na década de 1970, tem sido utilizada principalmente na caracterização de linguagens de projetos. Além desse uso analítico, ela também tem sido utilizada para a síntese de formas. Este trabalho propõe como método comparativo o emprego de regras gramaticais de uma linguagem para a verificação de semelhanças em obras não pertencentes a ela. Caso não seja identificada a aplicabilidade das regras na obra analisada, em tese, pode-se concluir que não existe influência da linguagem na mesma, ou que essa influência é apenas superficial, não afetando sua estrutura compositiva de maneira significativa Alguns críticos da arquitetura moderna brasileira como Bruand (1998), Sanvitto (1992b) e Irigoyen (2002) sugerem a existência de uma influência das casas de pradaria de Frank Lloyd Wright sobre a primeira fase de João Batista Vilanova Artigas. Neste trabalho pretendia-se verificar se esta influência realmente poderia ser comprovada por meio da metodologia acima descrita, que explora a estrutura compositiva dos exemplares. Para isso, as regras referentes às coberturas da gramática das casas da pradaria de Wright, desenvolvidas por Koning e Eizenberg (1981), foram aplicadas no desenvolvimento das coberturas das casas de Artigas. O método não permitiu comprovar a influência compositiva de um arquiteto sobre o outro, ao contrário do esperado. Foi possível concluir que o método proposto é eficiente para a identificação de influências arquitetônicas de maneira clara e objetiva. O experimento realizado sugere ainda possibilidades de aplicação da gramática da forma no ensino de arquitetura, como auxiliar na comparação entre linguagens arquitetônicas / Abstract: Shape Grammar, a formalism developed by Stiny and Gips (1972) in the 1970s, has been applied mainly to characterize design languages. It has also been employed in shape synthesis. The present work proposes as a comparative method the use of grammatical rules of a certain language for the verification of similarities in works not belonging to the same language. In case the applicability of the rules is not identified in the analyzed work, in thesis, one could conclude that such influence of the language does not exist, or that this influence is only superficial, not affecting its compositional structure significantly. Some Brazilian modern architecture critics, such as Bruand (1998), Sanvitto (1992b) and Irigoyen (2002), have suggested that Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie houses have influenced João Batista Vilanova Artiga's early work. This study intends to verify this influence through the method described above, which exploits the compositional structure of the models. For this purpose the rules developed for the roofs of Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie houses were applied to the roofs of Artiga's houses, so that they could be compared. Contrary to expectations, it was impossible to prove the compositional influence of one architect on the other using this method. The proposed method proved to be efficient in indentifying architectural influences clearly and objectively. Thus the experiment suggests the possibility of applying shape grammars in architectural education, as an auxiliary method for comparing architectural languages / Mestrado / Arquitetura e Construção / Mestre em Engenharia Civil