High-performance composite materials exhibit both anisotropic strength and stiffness properties. These anisotropic properties can be used to produce highly-tailored aircraft structures that meet stringent performance requirements, but these properties also present unique challenges for analysis and design. New tools and techniques are developed to address some of these important challenges. A homogenization-based theory for beams is developed to accurately predict the through-thickness stress and strain distribution in thick composite beams. Numerical comparisons demonstrate that the proposed beam theory can be used to obtain highly accurate results in up to three orders of magnitude less computational time than three-dimensional calculations. Due to the large finite-element model requirements for thin composite structures used in aerospace applications, parallel solution methods are explored. A parallel direct Schur factorization method is developed. The parallel scalability of the direct Schur approach is demonstrated for a large finite-element problem with over 5 million unknowns. In order to address manufacturing design requirements, a novel laminate parametrization technique is presented that takes into account the discrete nature of the ply-angle variables, and ply-contiguity constraints. This parametrization technique is demonstrated on a series of structural optimization problems including compliance minimization of a plate, buckling design of a stiffened panel and layup design of a full aircraft wing. The design and analysis of composite structures for aircraft is not a stand-alone problem and cannot be performed without multidisciplinary considerations. A gradient-based aerostructural design optimization framework is presented that partitions the disciplines into distinct process groups. An approximate Newton--Krylov method is shown to be an efficient aerostructural solution algorithm and excellent parallel scalability of the algorithm is demonstrated. An induced drag optimization study is performed to compare the trade-off between wing weight and induced drag for wing tip extensions, raked wing tips and winglets. The results demonstrate that it is possible to achieve a 43% induced drag reduction with no weight penalty, a 28% induced drag reduction with a 10% wing weight reduction, or a 20% wing weight reduction with a 5% induced drag penalty from a baseline wing obtained from a structural mass-minimization problem with fixed aerodynamic loads.

The following is a study of an attitude control system (ACS) for a low earth orbit nanosatellite. Control actuation is applied using three reaction wheels and three mutually orthogonal current-driven magnetorquers which produce torques by interacting with the earth’s magnetic field. Control torques are distributed amongst the actuators allowing them to work together in concert. This type of control is referred to as hybrid magnetic attitude control. To account for the nearly periodic behavior of the earth’s magnetic field, control torques are assigned using periodic and optimal control theory. The primary focus is to apply the time-varying Linear Quadratic Regulator controller to test the stability and energy consumption of the ACS when reaction wheels are removed from the control law, or are simulated to be missing. Other situations studied include the effects of control saturation, introducing uncertainty in the orbital inclination, and observing performance as the number of magnetic coils is increased.

In the formation process of soot in the flames of even-carbon-numbered fuels, acetylene and its derivatives are suspected to be dominant. The addition of an odd-carbon-numbered fuel into these flames introduces methyl radicals and/or C3 chemistries, which are believed to (de)activate certain chemical pathways towards the production of soot. The resultant soot formation rate of the mixture could be higher than the sum of the respective rates of the mixture components, i.e., synergistic eff ect. In this work, the mixtures of butane isomers, ethylene-butane isomers, and propane-butane isomers were studied on a co-flow and a counterflow burner. Chemical effects were isolated from those of thermal and dilution by mixing isomers and comparing the mixtures including one isomer to those including the counterpart. Line of sight attenuation (LOSA) and laser-light extinction techniques were used for measuring soot volume fraction. The results provide information on synergistic effects in soot formation for the fuels used.

Consideration of the environmental impact of aircraft has become critical in commercial aviation. The continued growth in air traffic has come with increasing concerns and demands to reduce aircraft emissions and this has imposed new constraints on the de- sign and development of future airplane concepts. In this work, an environmental design framework has been developed to design and optimize aircraft for specific environmental metrics. Multidisciplinary design optimization is used to optimize aircraft by simulta- neously considering airframe, engine and mission design. The environmental metrics considered include fuel burn, landing-takeoff NOx and fuel burn per distance flown. Additional concepts such as the design of large aircraft for short ranges are also presented. Multi-objective optimization is also used to illustrate the tradeoffs between the various environmental objective functions.

In the field of Evolutionary Robotics, the design, development and application of artificial neural networks as controllers have derived their inspiration from biology. Biologists and artificial intelligence researchers are trying to understand the effects of neural network learning during the lifetime of the individuals on evolution of these individuals by qualitative and quantitative analyses. The conclusion of these analyses can help develop optimized artificial neural networks to perform any given task. The purpose of this thesis is to study the effects of learning on evolution. This has been done by applying Temporal Difference Reinforcement Learning methods to the evolution of Artificial Neural Tissue controller. The controller has been assigned the task to collect resources in a designated area in a simulated environment. The performance of the individuals is measured by the amount of resources collected. A comparison has been made between the results obtained by incorporating learning in evolution and evolution alone. The effects of learning parameters: learning rate, training period, discount rate, and policy on evolution have also been studied. It was observed that learning delays the performance of the evolving individuals over the generations. However, the non zero learning rate throughout the evolution process signifies natural selection preferring individuals possessing plasticity.

A parallel, block-based, three-dimensional, hexahedral finite-volume scheme with adaptive mesh refinement has been developed for the solution of the 10-moment Gaussian closure for the modelling of fully three-dimensional micro-scale, non-equilibrium flows. The Gaussian closure has been shown to be a more effective tool for modelling rarefied flows lying within the transition regime than the Navier-Stokes equations, which encounter mathematical difficulties approaching free-molecular flows, and is computationally less expensive than particle-based methods for flows approaching the continuum limit. The hyperbolic nature of the moment equations is computationally attractive and the generalized transport equations can be solved in an accurate and efficient manner using Godunov-type finite-volume schemes as considered here. Details are given of the Gaussian closure, along with extensions for diatomic gases and slip-flow boundaries. Numerical results for several canonical flows demonstrate the potential of these moment closures and the parallel solution scheme for accurately predicting fully three-dimensional non-equilibrium flow behaviour.

Many space vehicles have been launched with large flexible components such as booms and solar panels. These large space structures (LSSs) have the potential to make attitude control unstable due to their lightly damped vibration. These vibrations can be controlled using a collection of control moment gyros (CMGs). CMGs consist of a spinning wheel in gimbals and produce a torque when the orientation of the wheel is changed. This study investigates the optimal distribution of these CMGs on LSSs for vibration suppression. The investigation considers a beam and a plate structure with evenly placed CMGs. The optimization allocates the amount of stored angular momentum possessed by these CMGs according to a cost function dependent on how quickly vibration motions are damped and how much control effort is exerted. The optimization results are presented and their effect on the motions of the beam and plate are investigated.

The effects of pressure on various properties of ten different syngas fueled flames were analyzed using one and two dimensional simulations. One-dimensional premixed flames were modeled in CANTERA. Flame speed, adiabatic flame temperature and thermal diffusivity as functions of equivalence ratio and pressure were quantified for the fuels using four chemical kinetic mechanisms. Data from the different mechanisms displayed good agreement with data from previous experimental benchmarks. Two-dimensional axisymmetric co-flow flames were simulated in a state of the art computational framework for modeling laminar flames. Flame structure comparisons were made with past experimental and numerical results as well as with theoretical predictions. Good agreement in stoichiometric flame height was observed with past theoretical and numerical flame height measurements. Visible flame heights had little correlation with the stoichiometric flame heights. The flame radius was also noted to be proportional to p^-0.35 at high pressures instead of p^-0.5 as predicted by theory.

High-performance composite materials exhibit both anisotropic strength and stiffness properties. These anisotropic properties can be used to produce highly-tailored aircraft structures that meet stringent performance requirements, but these properties also present unique challenges for analysis and design. New tools and techniques are developed to address some of these important challenges. A homogenization-based theory for beams is developed to accurately predict the through-thickness stress and strain distribution in thick composite beams. Numerical comparisons demonstrate that the proposed beam theory can be used to obtain highly accurate results in up to three orders of magnitude less computational time than three-dimensional calculations. Due to the large finite-element model requirements for thin composite structures used in aerospace applications, parallel solution methods are explored. A parallel direct Schur factorization method is developed. The parallel scalability of the direct Schur approach is demonstrated for a large finite-element problem with over 5 million unknowns. In order to address manufacturing design requirements, a novel laminate parametrization technique is presented that takes into account the discrete nature of the ply-angle variables, and ply-contiguity constraints. This parametrization technique is demonstrated on a series of structural optimization problems including compliance minimization of a plate, buckling design of a stiffened panel and layup design of a full aircraft wing. The design and analysis of composite structures for aircraft is not a stand-alone problem and cannot be performed without multidisciplinary considerations. A gradient-based aerostructural design optimization framework is presented that partitions the disciplines into distinct process groups. An approximate Newton--Krylov method is shown to be an efficient aerostructural solution algorithm and excellent parallel scalability of the algorithm is demonstrated. An induced drag optimization study is performed to compare the trade-off between wing weight and induced drag for wing tip extensions, raked wing tips and winglets. The results demonstrate that it is possible to achieve a 43% induced drag reduction with no weight penalty, a 28% induced drag reduction with a 10% wing weight reduction, or a 20% wing weight reduction with a 5% induced drag penalty from a baseline wing obtained from a structural mass-minimization problem with fixed aerodynamic loads.

The following is a study of an attitude control system (ACS) for a low earth orbit nanosatellite. Control actuation is applied using three reaction wheels and three mutually orthogonal current-driven magnetorquers which produce torques by interacting with the earth’s magnetic field. Control torques are distributed amongst the actuators allowing them to work together in concert. This type of control is referred to as hybrid magnetic attitude control. To account for the nearly periodic behavior of the earth’s magnetic field, control torques are assigned using periodic and optimal control theory. The primary focus is to apply the time-varying Linear Quadratic Regulator controller to test the stability and energy consumption of the ACS when reaction wheels are removed from the control law, or are simulated to be missing. Other situations studied include the effects of control saturation, introducing uncertainty in the orbital inclination, and observing performance as the number of magnetic coils is increased.