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The purpose of this study was primarily to promote the wider deployment of the hydraulic ram pump, and secondarily to provide the technical input into a programme aimed at using hydraulic ram pump technologies for third world development. Hitherto hydraulic ram pump technologies have been restricted by poor understanding of operational parameters, poor performance prediction, and poor design of pumps and installations. In pursuit of greater understanding the work utilised a computer simulation developed by the author as part of a previous research programme. This simulation was then greatly enhanced to provide improved accuracy and functionality. The enhanced simulation was then used to provide significant insight into the operation of a hydraulic ram pump and subsequently used to identify design improvements for the hydraulic ram pump. The simulation was used to investigate operational restrictions on the hydraulic ram, and was ultimately use to develop a model of hydraulic ram pump operation. The model of operation developed by the use of the simulation was computerised and used to predict the performance of hydraulic ram pump installations. This computerised model was then used to provide the most comprehensive design charts yet created for hydraulic ram pump, and was also used in the investigation of operational limits for the device. The study represents: the development of the first detailed simulation of the hydraulic ram pump and the most significant insight to date into the detail of operation of a hydraulic ram pump. The result of the study is the provision of an accurate method of pump calibration, an accurate method of pump performance prediction, and the first comprehensive design charts to be produced for the hydraulic ram pump.

In axial flow compressors and fans, the stable working range is restricted by the so called stall line where operation may become unstable and simultaneously a short fall in compressor performance appears. Stall margin improvement has been a major task and experimental observations over the last two decades have shown that modifying the shape of the outer annulus wall, above the tips of rotor blades, is effective in delaying the onset of stall to lower mass flow rates. A wide variety of wall modifications or casing treatments have been tried with a range of stall flow improvement which can amount to about 20% .(of the stalled flow) An alternative technique for stall margin improvement in a single stage axial flow machine has been studied and results will be described in the present thesis. The technique for delaying stall involves a large scale treatment to the outer casing of the compressor which extends partly over and mainly upstream of the rotor. The operating principle appears to be that as the flow is reduced towards the stall point some radially unbalanced cells are transported from the blade tips where they are collected in the treatment , turned by the treatment vanes , and re-introduced to the main flow upstream of the rotor. A rotor with and without outlet stators has been tested ( and also with and without casing treatment) over a range of speeds and flow conditions. Also the flow condition inside the recessed casing has been simulated by means of an existing computer code known as PHOENICS.

The ultimate strength assessment of steel tubular members is of the utmost importance to the design and maintenance of many structures including large offshore platforms. Ultimate strength assessments I using numerical solutions must model both nonlinear material and geometric behaviour. The latter must consider large displacements, very often large rotations, and possibly even large strains. These numerical solutions must be computationally efficient and be capable of running on generally available computer hardware, i.e. minicomputers. To achieve this efficiency, attention must be paid to programming considerations, and a new suite of data management modules has been developed and is described in this thesis, which minimise disk storage and speed program development. In addition, the structural modelling was carried out almost exclusively using the Semiiaaf thin shell element. The work described in this thesis considers most of the components which contribute to the numerical ultimate strength analysis of steel tubular members. Theoretically, attention has been focused in two areas, namely the geometric nonlinearity and the automatic solution of the resulting nonlinear equations. A detailed study has been carried out to understand fully the main methods of accounting for geometric nonlinearity from fundamentals of continuum mechanics. The study has considered both the Green-Lagrange and Logarithmic strain measures with a Total Lagrangian, Updated Lagrangian and Eulerian description of motion. These formulations have been included in the Semiiaaf shell element, firstly using a continuum mechanics based approach, and secondly using the more orthodox stress resultant approach. At all stages within the thesis attention is drawn to the effects of the approximations which have been made and their resulting limitations in the respective formulations. The solution of the nonlinear equations is also covered in detail using Newton-type algorithms coupled with line searches. The solution algorithms have been derived for a constrained environment where a modified version of the generalised arc-length constraint has been used. The inclusion of material nonlinearity has been well developed previously but has been included for completeness. To demonstrate the performance and limitations of the theory presented, several carefully chosen numerical examples have been included which include the analysis of tubular steel T and X joints connections and residual strength assessment of a dented pipeline riser. Where possible, results have been compared with experimental tests. The thesis concludes that for general engineering structures, the Total Lagrangian approach based on the stress resultant model gives good engineering results, even in the presence of moderately large rotations. Of the alternative formulations the Updated Lagrangian layered approach is probably the most effective for large rotations and small to moderate strains.