Highway roughness is a concern for both the motoring public and highway authorities. Roughness may even increase the risk of crashes. Rail-highway grade crossings are particularly problematic. Roughness may be due to deterioration or simply due to the way the crossing was built to accommodate grade change, local utilities, or rail elevation. With over 216,000 crossings in the US, maintenance is a vast undertaking. While methods are available to quantify highway roughness, no method exists to quantitatively assess the condition of rail crossings. Conventional inspection relies on a labor-intensive process of qualitative judgment. A quantifiable, objective and extensible procedure for rating and prioritizing improvement of crossings is thus desired. In this dissertation, a 3D infrastructure condition assessment model is developed for evaluating the condition and performance of rail highway grade crossings. Various scanning techniques and devices are developed or used to obtain the 3D “point cloud” or surface as the first step towards quantifying crossing roughness. Next, a technique for repeatable field measurement of acceleration is presented and tested to provide a condition index. Acceleration-based metrics are developed, and these can be used to rate and compare crossings for improvement programs to mitigate potential vehicle damage and provide passenger comfort. A vehicle dynamic model is next customized to use surface models to estimate vertical accelerations eliminating the need for field data collection. Following, crossing roughness and rideability is estimated directly from 3D point clouds. This allows isolation of acceleration components derived from the surface condition and original design profile. Finally, a practice ready application of the 3D point cloud is developed and presented to address hump crossing safety. In conclusion, the dissertation presents several methods to assess the condition and performance of rail crossings. It provides quantitative metrics that can be used to evaluate designs and construction methods, and efficiently implement cost effective improvement programs. The metrics provide a technique to measure and monitor system assets over time, and can be extended to other infrastructure components such as pavements and bridges.

An optical surface roughness model is presented, which allows a reliable determination of the dielectric function of thin films with high surface roughnesses of more than 10 nm peak to valley distance by means of spectroscopic ellipsometry. Starting from histogram evaluation of atomic force microscopy (AFM) topography measurements a specific roughness layer (RL) model was developed for an organic thin film grown in vacuum which is well suited as an example. Theoretical description based on counting statistics allows generalizing the RL model developed to be used for all non-conducting materials. Finally, a direct input of root mean square (RMS) values found by AFM measurements into the proposed model is presented, which is important for complex ellipsometric evaluation models where a reduction of the amount of unknown parameters can be crucial. Exemplarily, the evaluation of a N,N’-dimethoxyethyl-3,4,9,10-perylene-tetracarboxylic-diimide (DiMethoxyethyl-PTCDI) film is presented, which exhibits a very high surface roughness, i.e. showing no homogeneous film at all.

The main objective of the project was to establish a fracture-mechanics energy-based approach for the design of structural adhesive joints under cyclic loading. This required understanding how an adhesive system behaved near its fatigue threshold, and how the key factors affected this behavior in a fresh undegraded joint. The investigated factors were mode ratio (phase angle), substrate material, surface treatment and surface roughness (both affecting the bond strength), bondline thickness and load ratio. It was first required to understand how the adhesive system behaved under quasi-static loading by examining a fracture mechanics-based design approach for adhesive systems with different substrate materials and geometries. Experiments were initially performed to characterize the strength of aluminum and steel adhesive systems based on the fracture envelope, critical strain energy release rate as a function of the mode ratio. Ultimate failure loads of aluminum and steel adhesive joints, having different overlap end conditions and different geometries were then experimentally measured. These values were compared with the failure loads extracted from the fracture envelope. Considering the toughening behavior of the adhesive in the fracture mechanics analyses, a very good agreement (average of 6%) was achieved between the predictions and experiments for all types of overlap end conditions and geometries. Different fatigue threshold testing approaches, which are commonly used in the literature or suggested by the ASTM standard, were evaluated for the cracked and intact fillet joints. Based on the experimental and analytical studies, the most appropriate technique for fatigue testing and characterization of adhesive systems was suggested. Comparing the mixed-mode near-threshold behavior of different adhesive systems with the fracture behavior and fatigue mode-I and mixed-mode high crack growth rates showed the high sensitivity of the mixed-mode near-threshold fatigue to the subtle changes in the interfacial bond strength. In order to make a baseline for the design of adhesive joints under cyclic loading, similar to the previous fracture tests and following the energy-based approach, fatigue behavior was characterized as a function of the loading mode ratio for aluminum and steel adhesive joints. The effect of substrate material, surface treatment, bondline thickness, surface roughness and fatigue testing load ratio on the near-threshold fatigue behavior of adhesives joints was evaluated experimentally. The experimental observations were then explained using finite element modeling. To generalize the conclusions, the majority of experiments and studies covered a broad range of crack growth rates, as low as fatigue threshold and as high as 10-2 mm/cycle. Having understood the significant testing and design parameters, an adhesive system can be designed based on a safe cyclic load that produces an insignificant (for automotive industry) or reasonably low but known crack growth rate (for aerospace industry).

An investigation was carried out into light scattering by Gaussian rough ice crystals. Gaussian rough crystal geometries were generated using roughness parameters derived from mineral dust grains, which have been reported to be suitable proxies for rough ice crystals. Light scattering data for these geometries was computed using the discrete dipole approximation (DDA) method. Phase functions, 2D scattering patterns, degree of linear polarisation patterns and asymmetry parameters were computed for smooth, moderately rough and highly rough crystals with a variety of orientations and size parameters. A sodium fluorosilicate ice analogue crystal with three partially roughened prism facets was created using focused ion beam (FIB) milling and 2D scattering patterns were collected from it using the small ice detector (SID) 3 cloud probe. It was found that roughness reduces features in the phase function compared to scattering by smooth hexagonal prisms, particularly when the roughness features were horizontally much larger than the wavelength. However, the most effective roughness model also takes account of horizontal features whose size is closer to that of the wavelength. Horizontal features smaller than the wavelength have very little effect.

Zentrales Thema des Oberflächenkolloquiums 2017 ist die anwendungsorientierte, funktionale geometrische Spezifikation und Messung der Oberfläche im Sinne der Gesamtgeometrie. Neben der Mikrogestalt wird dabei das Zusammenwirken mit der Makrogeometrie zur Erfüllung funktionaler Anforderungen diskutiert. Interessante Beiträge aus Industrie und Wissenschaft zeigen sowohl Lösungen als auch Probleme verschiedenster Fachbereiche auf. / Key issue of the International Colloquium on Surfaces 2017 is the application‐oriented, functional geometrical specification and verification of surfaces as part of the entire geometry. Therefore we discuss the interaction of micro and macro geometry, to fulfill functional requirements. Interesting articles from industry and research point out solutions as well as problems from multifaceted fields of expertise.

An experimental study was designed to investigate the effect of different parameters on the development and structure of turbulent 3D offset jets. The present investigation considered the effects of offset height ratio, expansion ratio, surface roughness and rib placement on the flow dynamics of a turbulent 3D offset jet. The velocity measurements were performed using an acoustic Doppler velocimetry (ADV) and particle image velocimetry (PIV). Measurements were conducted within the symmetry and lateral planes. For the PIV technique, the measurements in the symmetry and lateral planes were conducted over a streamwise range of 0 ≤ x/bo ≤ 80 and 12 ≤ x/bo ≤ 60, respectively (where bo is the nozzle height). Likewise, velocity measurements using the ADV technique were conducted over a range of 4 ≤ x/bo ≤ 45 in both the symmetry and lateral planes. The velocity measurements were analyzed using both one-point and multi-point statistics. The one-point statistics included profiles of the mean velocities, Reynolds stresses and some of the budget terms in the turbulent kinetic energy transport equation. The quadrant analysis technique was used to investigate the dominant events that contribute towards the Reynolds shear stress. The two-point correlation analysis was used to investigate how the turbulence quantities are correlated. Information obtained from the two-point correlation analysis was also used to investigate the inclination of vortical structures within the inner and outer shear layers of the 3D offset jet. The direction of the positive mean shear gradient played an active role in the inclination of these vortical structures within the inner and outer shear layers. The reattachment process resulted in the breakdown of these structures within the developing region. Similarly, various length scales were estimated from these structures. The proper orthogonal decomposition was used to examine the distribution of the turbulent kinetic energy within the offset jet flow. Also, the dynamic role of the large scale structures towards the turbulent intensities, turbulent kinetic energy and Reynolds shear stress was investigated. / October 2016

<p>Disertacija daje pregled novih i relevantnih istraživanja i stavova<br />u naučnoj zajednici na temu štamparskih formi i uticaja procesa<br />štampe na trošenje neštampajućih elemenata. U disertaciji je<br />ukazano na kontinualno praćenje topografskih promena<br />neštampajućih elemenata štamparskih formi kako bi se kontrolisao<br />period eksploatacije a time i proces reprodukcije. Takođe daje<br />prilog novim istraživanjima sa analizom velikog broja<br />eksperimentalnih uzoraka sa dobijenim izmerenim podacima i<br />odgovarajućim korelacijama i predstavlja napredak u shvatanju<br />mehanizma trošenja neštampajućih površina štamparskih formi i<br />njihov uticaj na tribološke promene u odnosu na strukturu osnove<br />aluminijuma i sloja aluminijum oksida.</p> / <p>Dissertation gives an overview of the current state, research and theories of<br />printing forms and influence of printing process on wearing of non-printing<br />elements within the science community. The dissertation points out the continuous<br />monitoring of topographic changes of printing form non-printing elements to control<br />the exploitation of a period of time and the process of reproduction. This work<br />contributes to new research with the analysis of large number of experimental<br />samples and calculated correlations and represents an advance in the<br />comprehension of the surface wear mechanism of printing form non-printing<br />elements and their influence on the tribological changes to the structure of the<br />base layer of aluminium and aluminium oxide.</p>

We propose a new method to perform functional principal component analysis (FPCA) for discretely observed functional data by solving successive optimization problems. The new framework can be applied to both regularly and irregularly observed data, and to both dense and sparse data. Our method does not require estimates of the individual sample functions or the covariance functions. Hence, it can be used to analyze functional data with multidimensional arguments (e.g. random surfaces). Furthermore, it can be applied to many processes and models with complicated or nonsmooth covariance functions. In our method, smoothness of eigenfunctions is controlled by directly imposing roughness penalties on eigenfunctions, which makes it more efficient and flexible to tune the smoothness. Efficient algorithms for solving the successive optimization problems are proposed. We provide the existence and characterization of the solutions to the successive optimization problems. The consistency of our method is also proved. Through simulations, we demonstrate that our method performs well in the cases with smooth samples curves, with discontinuous sample curves and nonsmooth covariance and with sample functions having two dimensional arguments (random surfaces), repectively. We apply our method to classification problems of retinal pigment epithelial cells in eyes of mice and to longitudinal CD4 counts data. In the second part of this dissertation, we propose a sparse Fisher’s discriminant analysis method with thresholded linear constraints. Various regularized linear discriminant analysis (LDA) methods have been proposed to address the problems of the LDA in high-dimensional settings. Asymptotic optimality has been established for some of these methods when there are only two classes. A difficulty in the asymptotic study for the multiclass classification is that for the two-class classification, the classification boundary is a hyperplane and an explicit formula for the classification error exists, however, in the case of multiclass, the boundary is usually complicated and no explicit formula for the error generally exists. Another difficulty in proving the asymptotic consistency and optimality for sparse Fisher’s discriminant analysis is that the covariance matrix is involved in the constraints of the optimization problems for high order components. It is not easy to estimate a general high-dimensional covariance matrix. Thus, we propose a sparse Fisher’s discriminant analysis method which avoids the estimation of the covariance matrix, provide asymptotic consistency results and the corresponding convergence rates for all components. To prove the asymptotic optimality, we provide an asymptotic upper bound for a general linear classification rule in the case of muticlass which is applied to our method to obtain the asymptotic optimality and the corresponding convergence rate. In the special case of two classes, our method achieves the same as or better convergence rates compared to the existing method. The proposed method is applied to multivariate functional data with wavelet transformations.

La topographie d'une surface se compose généralement de plusieurs échelles, depuis l'échelle macroscopique (sa géométrie physique), jusqu'aux échelles microscopiques ou atomiques appelées rugosité. L'évolution spatiale et géométrique de la rugosité fournit une description plus complète de la surface, et une interprétation physique de certains problèmes importants tels que le frottement et les mécanismes d'usure pendant le contact mécanique entre deux surfaces. La topographie d'une surface rugueuse est de nature aléatoire, ce qui traduit par des altitudes spatialement corrélées, appelées pics et vallées. La relation entre leurs densités de probabilité et leurs propriétés géométriques sont les aspects fondamentaux qui ont été développés dans cette thèse, en utilisant la théorie des champs aléatoires et la géométrie intégrale. Un modèle aléatoire approprié pour représenter une surface rugueuse a été mis en place et étudié au moyen des paramètres les plus significatifs, dont les changements influencent la géométrie des ensembles de niveaux (excursion sets) de cette surface. Les ensembles de niveaux ont été quantifiés par des fonctionnelles connues sous le nom de fonctionnelles de Minkowski, ou d'une manière équivalente sous le nom de volumes intrinsèques. Dans un premier temps, les volumes intrinsèques des ensembles de niveaux sont calculés analytiquement sur une classe de modèles mixtes, qui sont définis par la combinaison linéaire d'un champ aléatoire Gaussien et d'un champ de t-student (t-field), et ceux d'une classe de champs aléatoires asymétriques appelés skew-t. Ces volumes sont comparés et testés sur des surfaces produites par des simulations numériques. Dans un second temps, les modèles aléatoires proposés ont été appliqués sur des surfaces réelles acquises à partir d'une cupule d'UHMWPE (provenant d’une prothèse totale de hanche) avant et après les processus d'usure. Les résultats ont montré que le champ aléatoire skew-t est un modèle mieux approprié pour décrire la rugosité de surfaces usées, contrairement aux modèles adoptés dans la littérature. Une analyse statistique, basée sur le champ aléatoire skew-t, est ensuite proposée pour détecter les niveaux des pics/vallées de la surface usée et pour décrire le comportement et la fonctionnalité de la surface usée. / Surface topography is, generally, composed of many length scales starting from its physical geometry, to its microscopic or atomic scales known by roughness. The spatial and geometrical evolution of the roughness topography of engineering surfaces avail comprehensive understanding, and interpretation of many physical and engineering problems such as friction, and wear mechanisms during the mechanical contact between adjoined surfaces. Obviously, the topography of rough surfaces is of random nature. It is composed of irregular hills/valleys being spatially correlated. The relation between their densities and their geometric properties are the fundamental topics that have been developed, in this research study, using the theory of random fields and the integral geometry.An appropriate random field model of a rough surface has been defined by the most significant parameters, whose changes influence the geometry of its excursion. The excursion sets were quantified by functions known as intrinsic volumes. These functions have many physical interpretations, in practice. It is possible by deriving their analytical formula to estimate the parameters of the random field model being applied on the surface, and for statistical analysis investigation of its excursion sets. These subjects have been essentially considered in this thesis. Firstly, the intrinsic volumes of the excursion sets of a class of mixture models defined by the linear combination of Gaussian and t random fields, then for the skew-t random fields are derived analytically. They have been compared and tested on surfaces generated by simulations. In the second stage, these random fields have been applied to real surfaces measured from the UHMWPE component, involved in application of total hip implant, before and after wear simulation process. The primary results showed that the skew-t random field is more adequate, and flexible for modelling the topographic roughness. Following these arguments, a statistical analysis approach, based on the skew-t random field, is then proposed. It aims at estimating, hierarchically, the significant levels including the real hills/valleys among the uncertain measurements. The evolution of the mean area of the hills/valleys and their levels enabled describing the functional behaviour of the UHMWPE surface over wear time, and indicating the predominant wear mechanisms.

L'adhésion cellulaire est un processus biologique fondamental contrôlé par des liaisons moléculaires spécifiques entre ligands et récepteurs attachés à des surfaces. La formation et la rupture de ces liens dépendent de facteurs cinétiques, mécaniques et structurelles. Le but de ce travail était d'observer comment l'interaction ICAM-1 - anti ICAM-1 pouvait être modifié en jouant i) sur la multivalence de molécules impliquées dans la liaison ii) sur la topographie de surface et iii) sur la mobilité des ligands. A cette fin, on a principalement utilisé une chambre à flux laminaire, complété par une détection de molécule unique par fluorescence.L'étude sur les effets de multivalence, utilisant des monomères et dimères d'ICAM-1, a été réalisée en absence et en présence d'une force mécanique, montrant la plus grande stabilité des liaisons divalentes. En outre, un renforcement avec la force et le temps a été trouvé et décrit avec une fonction à deux paramètres, montrant, pour les liaisons divalentes, un comportement intermédiaire entre rupture parallèles et successives des liaisons. La fréquence d'adhésion des liaisons monovalentes et bivalentes présente différentes valeurs causées par la différence de longueur de ces molécules.Les expériences d'adhésions ont été effectuées en variant la topographie du substrat pour les molécules étudiées. Une comparaison des cinétiques de liaisons sur ces surfaces ne montrent pas de différences soit dans la formation ou dans la rupture. Pour interpréter ces résultats, un modèle qui prend en compte la zone de contact réel devrait être construit à partir des images AFM des échantillons.Dans l'écoulement, le temps de contact entre les molécules est contrôlé par la convection de microsphères. Des résultats récents montrent qu'un minimum de temps est requis pour former la liaison (Robert et al. 2011). Pour tester cette prédiction, les ligands sont ancrés à une bicouche lipidique (SLB) pour étudier comment la diffusion peut modifier l'adhésion. Expérimentalement, les fréquences d'adhésion des liaisons ont montré un comportement similaire pour les SLB fixes et fluides. Toutefois, la simulation numérique prédit un effet sur la formation de la liaison, même lorsque la diffusion des ligands est faible. Il semblerait que la diffusion joue un rôle dans la dissociation de la liaison, réduisant fortement la valeur de koff pour une bicouche fluide. Cet effet peut être expliqué par la présence éventuelle de liaisons multiples dues à l'accumulation des ligands sur la surface de contact. / Cell adhesion is a fundamental biological process mediated by specific molecular bonds formed by ligands and receptors attached to surfaces. Formation and rupture of these bonds depend on kinetic, mechanical and structural factors. The goal of this work was to observe how the ICAM-1 – anti ICAM-1 interaction can be modified by playing i) on the multivalency of molecules involved in the bond ii) on the topography of surface and iii) on the mobility of ligands. The main technique used for this purpose was the laminar flow chamber, completed by single-particle tracking in fluorescence.The study on multivalency effects, using monomeric and dimeric ICAM-1, was performed in absence and presence of mechanical force, showing the higher stability of divalent bonds. Also, a force- and time- strengthening dependence was found and described with a two-parameter function, showing, for divalent bonds, an intermediate behaviour between parallel and subsequent rupture of bonds. The adhesion frequency of monovalent and divalent bonds exhibit different values accounted by difference in length of these molecules.Adhesion experiments were performed varying the topography of the substrate for the investigated molecules. A comparison of bond kinetics on these surfaces did not show differences either in attachment or in rupture. To interpret these results, a model which takes into account the real contact area should be built from the AFM images of the samples.In the flow, the contact time between molecules is controlled by convection of microspheres. Recent results show that there is a minimal time required to form the bond (Robert et al. 2011). To test this prediction, ligands were anchored to supported lipid bilayer (SLB) to investigate how the diffusion can modify the adhesion. Experimentally, the adhesion frequencies of the bonds showed similar behaviour for fixed and fluid SLB. While, numerical simulation predicted an effect on bond formation even at low ligand diffusion. The diffusion seemed to play a role in bond dissociation, strongly reducing the value of koff for fluid bilayer. This effect can be explained by the possible presence of multiple bonds due to ligand accumulation on the contact area.