Packages are the means of preservation, distribution and convenience of use for food, medicine and other consumer products. Package opening is becoming complicated in many cases because of cutting cost in design and production of opening techniques. Introduction of new package opening technique, material or geometry for better opening experience, forces new design measurements which require a large number of prototype developments and physical testing. In order to achieve more rapid and accurate design, Finite Element Method (FEM) Simulations are widely used in packaging industries to compliment and reduce the number of physical testing. The goal of this work is to develop the building blocks towards complete package opening simulation. The study focuses on testing and simulation of shear fracture and shear delamination of packaging materials. A modified shear test specimen was developed and optimized by finite element simulation. Test method was validated for High-density polyethylene (HDPE) and Polypropylene (PP). The developed method has been accepted by international standards organization ASTM. Based on linear elastic fracture mechanics, a geometry correction factor of shear fracture toughness for the proposed specimen was derived. The study concluded that, for ease of opening, HDPE is a more favorable material for screw caps than PP. When performing the experiment with the shear specimen to find essential work of fracture, the ligament length should be varied between twice of the thickness and half of the width of the specimen ligament. Multi-layered thin laminate of Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and aluminum (Al), also known as Al/LDPE laminate, is another key object addressed in this study. Continuum and fracture testing of individual layers provided the base information and input for numerical modeling. The propagation of an interfacial pre-crack in lamination in Al-LDPE laminate was simulated using several numerical techniques available in the commercial FEM solver ABAQUS, and it was concluded that using the combination of VCCT technique to model the interfacial delamination and coupled elasto-plastic damage constitutive for Al and LDPE substrates can describe interfacial delamination and failure due to necking. It was also concluded that the delamination mode in a pre-crack tip is influenced by the ratio of fracture energy release rate of mode I and II. To address the challenge in quantifying shear energy release rate of laminate with very thin substrate, a convenient test technique is proposed. Additionally, scanning electron microscopic study provided useful information on fractured and delaminated surfaces and provided evidence that strengthened the conclusions of this work. The proposed test methods in this work will be crucial to measure the shear mechanical properties in bulk material and thin substrates. Laminates of Al and LDPE or similar material can be studied using the developed simulation technique which can be effectively used for decision support in early package development.

The primary objective of this masters thesis is to assess the eects of the length of crack and the angle, of which is this crack inclined on the stress and strain states at its front for the test sample loaded under shear. The rst part of this thesis will analyze the individual approaches that lead to the description of the aforementioned conditions. The second part deals with the FEM model assembly, which will lead to the fracture parameters, the values of which will be compared in part three.

This diploma thesis deals with computation modeling of spur gearing using FEM. The methodology of checking calculation was suggested for gears which are not possible to check only by using standard ČSN 01 4686. The analysis of influence of vicinity of stress concentration on stress distribution in tooth root was performed. It is possibility to use the gears with thinner rim than the standard ČSN 01 4686 recommends. The main part of this work is devoted to fatigue crack propagation study in gears with thin rim. Aiding T-stress the influence of constraint and stress multiaxiality on crack propagation was taking into account. The predicted fatigue crack propagation paths were compared with certain experimental data. It is demonstrated that the considering of influence of constraint improves estimation of consequent crack propagation direction and in some cases the influence of constraint can significantly change the estimated crack propagation path.

The main goal of this diploma thesis is the examination of the influence of structure directionality on fatigue properties of formed aluminium alloy 6082/T6. The main attention is focused on the study of the influence of structure directionality on kinetics of short fatigue cracks growth. The measurement of short fatigue cracks growth was performed on cylindrical samples. The samples were made in two different directions; one parallel with the forming direction and second perpendicular to the forming direction. Servo hydraulic machine MTS 880 was used for the cyclic loading. The samples were cycled at two different constant stress amplitudes. Cyclic loading was systematically interrupted in order to measure the length of short cracks by a light microscope. Tensile tests, measuring of cycling hardening-softening curves, observation of microstructure, observation of surface relief, measuring of microhardness and fractographical analysis of fracture surfaces were used for further examination of the influence of the structure directionality. Some of these measured characteristics did not show any influence of the structure directionality (microhardness, fatigue life curve, Young modulus). In other cases is this influence measurable, however insignificant (yield stress, ultimate stress, cyclic hardening-softening curves and kinetics of short fatigue cracks growth). It can be summarised that the material, though the directionality of its microstructure is apparent, shows relatively isotropic mechanical behaviour.

The first part of this master's thesis deals with the high cycle fatigue of materials, especially on growing cracks using linear elastic fracture mechanics. Much of this work is focused on the concept of stress intensity factor. This concept is nowadays one of the most widely used concepts for describing a body with crack. The first part ends with theoretical approaches to determine the residual fatigue life of the body with a crack. The second part of this master's thesis is focused on the determination of residual fatigue life of a specified railway wheelset. An existence of crack-like defect is assumed at the railway wheelset. The goal of this master's thesis is to estimate how long it will take to grow from initial defect to a critical crack length. The last part of this master's thesis is devoted to addiction order load cycles on crack growth rate.

Diplomová práce popisuje metodiku výpočtů částí náchylných k rozvoji mnoho-ohniskového únavového poškození (WFD). Nejdříve se práce zabývá rozborem předpisů letové způsobilosti souvisejících s WFD pro letadla certifikovaných podle FAR 23 v kategorii commuter. Následuje popis metodiky únavového výpočtu a predikce šíření trhliny. Dále jsou popsány řešení pro výpočet faktoru intenzity napětí pro základné konfigurace trhliny, tam kde to bylo možné v uzavřeném tvaru, jinak ve formě tabulky. Hlavní částí práce je návrh algoritmu AIMA schopného provést kompletní analýzu části náchylné k rozvoji únavového poškození na více místech (MSD). Model se validoval únavovou zkouškou vzorku přeplátovaného spoje dolního panelu křídla. Následně byla analyzována reálná konstrukce spoje dolních panelů křídla letounu L 410 NG.

In the past, the disagreement of near-threshold fatigue-crack growth (FCG) rate data generated from constant Kmax tests, high load ratio (minimum to maximum load) constant R tests, and ΔKeff based data was a mysterious issue. Because of the disagreement, a variety of test or analysis methods were created to correlate FCG rate data. It was suspected that the ASTM threshold test method using load reduction was inducing remote crack closure due to plastically deformed material, which caused elevated thresholds and slower rates than steady-state behavior. The first goal of this study was the development of a test method to eliminate remote closure during threshold testing. In order to avoid/minimize remote closure effect, compression-precracking methods were used to initiate a crack from a starter notch on compact specimens. Two materials with different fatigue crack surface profiles (flat or very rough) were tested and the results generated from the conventional ASTM precracking method and the compression-precracking test method were compared. In order to understand the disagreement of near-threshold data, crack-opening load measurements were performed from locally (near crack tip) installed strain gages instead of the remote gage (i.e., back face gage). Some careful specimen preparations were performed to avoid out-of-plane bending, to maintain straight crack fronts, and to ensure testing system linearity. It was known that remote gages, such as crack-mouth- opening-displacement-gages were insensitive to measuring load-strain records near threshold. By using local gages, the crack closure effects were clearly observed even in high load ratio (R) tests, like or higher than R = 0.7, and constant Kmax tests, which were believed to be crack closure free. By measuring load-reduced-strain records from local gages, crack-opening loads were able to correlate FCG rate data and showed that ΔKeff-rate data was unique for a wide variety of materials. By comparing (ΔKeff)th values, it may provide reasonable guidance for the material resistance against FCG. Because of “high R crack closure”, some theories considered in the past may need to be reconsidered. First, constant Kmax tests are not entirely crack-closure free. Second, there is no critical load ratio, Rc, to indicate the transition from crack-closure affected to crack-closure free data, and Kmax effects that appear in ΔKth-Kmax relations. Research has shown that the three dominate crack-closure mechanisms (plasticity-, roughness- and debris-induced crack closure) FCG rate behavior in the threshold regime from low to high load ratios.

No description available.

The structural optimization of a cantilever aircraft wing with curvilinear spars and ribs and stiffeners is described. The design concept of reinforcing the wing structure using curvilinear stiffening members has been explored due to the development of novel manufacturing technologies like electron-beam-free-form-fabrication (EBF3). For the optimization of a complex wing, a common strategy is to divide the optimization procedure into two subsystems: the global wing optimization which optimizes the geometry of spars, ribs and wing skins; and the local panel optimization which optimizes the design variables of local panels bordered by spars and ribs. The stiffeners are placed on the local panels to increase the stiffness and buckling resistance. The panel thickness, size and shape of stiffeners are optimized to minimize the structural weight. The geometry of spars and ribs greatly influences the design of stiffened panels. During the local panel optimization, the stress information is taken from the global model as a displacement boundary condition on the panel edges using the so-called "Global-Local Approach". The aircraft design is characterized by multiple disciplines: structures, aeroelasticity and buckling. Particle swarm optimization is used in the integration of global/local optimization to optimize the SpaRibs. The interaction between the global wing optimization and the local panel optimization is usually computationally expensive. A parallel computing technology has been developed in Python programming to reduce the CPU time. The license cycle-check method and memory self-adjustment method are two approaches that have been applied in the parallel framework in order to optimize the use of the resources by reducing the license and memory limitations and making the code robust. The integrated global-local optimization approach has been applied to subsonic NASA common research model (CRM) wing, which proves the methodology's application scaling with medium fidelity FEM analysis. Both the global wing design variables and local panel design variables are optimized to minimize the wing weight at an acceptable computational cost. The structural weight of the wing has been, therefore, reduced by 40% and the parallel implementation allowed a reduction in the CPU time by 89%. The aforementioned Global-Local Approach is investigated and applied to a composite panel with crack at its center. Because of composite laminates' heterogeneity, an accurate analysis of these requires very high time and storage space. In the presence of structural discontinuities like cracks, delaminations, cutouts etc., the computational complexity increases significantly. A possible alternative to reduce the computational complexity is the global-local analysis which involves an approximate analysis of the whole structure followed by a detailed analysis of a significantly smaller region of interest. We investigate here the performance of the global-local scheme based on the finite element method by comparing it to the traditional finite element method. To do so, we conduct a 2D structural analysis of a composite square plate, with a thin rectangular notch at its center, subjected to a uniform transverse pressure, using the commercial software ABAQUS. We show that the presence of the thin notch affects only the local response of the structure and that the size of the affected area depends on the notch length. We investigate also the effect of the notch shape on the response of the structure. Stiffeners attached to composite panels may significantly increase the overall buckling load of the resultant stiffened structure. Buckling analysis of a composite panel with attached longitudinal stiffeners under compressive loads is performed using Ritz method with trigonometric functions. Results are then compared to those from ABAQUS FEA for different shell elements. The case of composite panel with one, two, and three stiffeners is investigated. The effect of the distance between the stiffeners on the buckling load is also studied. The variation of the buckling load and buckling modes with the stiffeners' height is investigated. It is shown that there is an optimum value of stiffeners' height beyond which the structural response of the stiffened panel is not improved and the buckling load does not increase. Furthermore, there exist different critical values of stiffener's height at which the buckling mode of the structure changes. Next, buckling analysis of a composite panel with two straight stiffeners and a crack at the center is performed. Finally, buckling analysis of a composite panel with curvilinear stiffeners and a crack at the center is also conducted. ABAQUS is used for these two examples and results show that panels with a larger crack have a reduced buckling load. It is shown also that the buckling load decreases slightly when using higher order 2D shell FEM elements. A damage tolerance framework, EBF3PanelOpt, has been developed to design and analyze curvilinearly stiffened panels. The framework is written with the scripting language PYTHON and it interacts with the commercial software MSC. Patran (for geometry and mesh creation), MSC. Nastran (for finite element analysis), and MSC. Marc (for damage tolerance analysis). The crack location is set to the location of the maximum value of the major principal stress while its orientation is set normal to the major principal axis direction. The effective stress intensity factor is calculated using the Virtual Crack Closure Technique and compared to the fracture toughness of the material in order to decide whether the crack will expand or not. The ratio of these two quantities is used as a constraint, along with the buckling factor, Kreisselmeier and Steinhauser criteria, and crippling factor. The EBF3PanelOpt framework is integrated within a two-step Particle Swarm Optimization in order to minimize the weight of the panel while satisfying the aforementioned constraints and using all the shape and thickness parameters as design variables. The result of the PSO is used then as an initial guess for the Gradient Based Optimization using only the thickness parameters as design variables. The GBO is applied using the commercial software VisualDOC. / Ph. D.

Disertační práce se věnuje problematice obecných koncentrátorů napětí v anisotropních prostředích. Zejména se jedná o problém trhlin končících na rozhraní dvou různých materiálů, či problém obecného více-materiálového klínu. Cílem práce je vytvořit komplexní nástroj pro posuzování obecných koncetrátorů napětí tj, popis pole napětí v jeho okolí, zahrnutí případného vlivu přemostění trhliny do výsledného pole napětí a definici lomových kritérií pro obecný koncentrátor v anisotropním prostředí. U popisu pole napětí je využit tzv. Lechnického-Strohův formalismus a technika spojitě rozložených dislokací využívající teorii komplexních potenciálů. V práci je rovněž široce uplatněn tzv. dvoustavový "psí"-integrál (pro výpočet různých součinitelů asymptotického rozvoje pro napětí), založený na Bettiho recipročním teorému v kombinaci s metodou konečných prvků. Pro formulaci lomových kritérií je použita teorie tzv. „konečné lomové mechaniky“ a teorie sdružených asymptotických rozvojů. Studován je především vztah mezi ohybem trhliny podél rozhraní a její případnou pentrací do základního materiálu. Veškeré potřebné výpočty jsou prováděny v matematických softwarech MAPLE 10.0, MATLAB 7.1 a konečnoprvkovém systému ANSYS 10.0.