Dans l'industrie nucléaire, les composants en alliages de zirconium (Zr) sont utilisés comme éléments de structure dans les assemblages combustibles. La fabrication de ces éléments, leur utilisation en Réacteur à Eau Pressurisée (REP) et leur stockage avant retraitement induisent, entre autres, des sollicitations thermo-mécaniques complexes. Ce travail, grâce à une approche expérimentale multi-échelles, propose de mieux préciser les mécanismes de déformation qui sont à considérer. Pour cela, nous avons mené, sur des échantillons prélevés sur des composants en alliage de Zr destinés à être utilisés en REP, des essais mécaniques (fluage, traction, relaxation) et, d'autre part, des caractérisations microstructurales. Des essais de fluage multiaxial ont ainsi permis de mettre en évidence une anisotropie de comportement, dont l'origine physique a été montrée au moyen d'analyses en diffraction des électrons rétrodiffusés (EBSD) et d'observations en Microscopie Electronique en Transmission (MET). Par une démarche similaire, nous avons aussi identifié la nature des mécanismes accommodant la déformation à l'échelle du grain et à celle du polycristal. Ainsi, les incompatibilités de déformation intergranulaires et les cinétiques d'écoulement viscoplastiques identifiées expérimentalement s'expliquent par l'intervention de processus de traînage d'espèces en solutions par les dislocations, ainsi que l'activation locale de vieillissement dynamique. Enfin, nous avons esquissé des pistes pour l'utilisation de ces résultats dans des modélisations numériques. / In the nuclear industry, zirconium (Zr) based alloys are used as core structural materials in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs). The manufacturing of those components, and their environment during or after their use in PWRs induce complex thermo-mechanical loadings. This work, through a multi-scale experimental approach, proposes to focus on the deformation mechanisms that occur during those loadings. Using samples taken from Zr alloy components, we carried out different mechanicals tests (creep tests, tensile tests, relaxation tests) and microstructural characterizations. Results of multiaxial creep tests were correlated to Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) observations and Electron BackScattered Diffraction (EBSD) analyses. Therefore, the macroscopic creep anisotropy was related to the physical mechanisms observed at the dislocation scale and during mesoscopic measurements. Our conclusions also show that the viscoplastic properties obtained experimentally match a control of dislocation mobility by solute species dragging processes. Further, the intergranular strain incompatibilities that we observed could be explained by local activations of dynamic strain ageing mechanisms. Finally, we used our results to suggest improvements on physically-based modelling techniques.

The research in this dissertation was undertaken because of a need for a more accurate, reliable and relatively simple method for determining the combined loading (i.e., axial, flexure and shear) along rock bolts. This combined load determination and understanding also resulted in a relatively simple and reliable new rock bolt design methodology. The new design method was based on a clearer understanding of the actual loading along a grouted rock bolt. To accomplish these research goals, double shear tests were conducted in the lab with reinforced concrete specimens, and field trials were conducted in room and pillar coal mines, with the aim to measure in-situ rock shear. Strain measurements were obtained using rock bolts instrumented with optical fibers that possessed high spatial resolution (≈ 1.25 – 2.5 mm). Corroboration with a past database of rock bolt measurements in shale aided in the deduction of the final support design method. The scientific contributions from this research include the conceptualization of a ground reaction curve that considers time effects such as rock relaxation, long term weakening effects, and lateral rock movement. A new explanation as to why rock bolts creep in practice (i.e., dislocation creep) is described based upon field measurements, which also indicated that the process of in-situ rock shear involves slow episodic movements. Specifically, there are localized compression (i.e., rock pinch) and tensile zones (i.e., dilatation) prior to the occurrence of plastic relief (i.e., rock slip). Finally, the design method is developed using simple factors (i.e., strain and shape factors) and loading conditions (e.g., installed load, rock slip) that occurred throughout the rock bolt’s design life. This approach results in a methodology that considers effects on reinforcement with time and combined loadings. The method is then extended by producing survival and hazard functions for rock bolts to ultimately reduce risk associated with design.

[pt] A presença de estruturas salinas ao redor do mundo em águas profundas do golfo do México, do Brasil, de Angola, do norte e do oeste da África forma condições favoráveis para o aprisionamento dos hidrocarbonetos e aumenta a probabilidade de sucesso na prospecção de óleo e gás. Na Bacia de Santos, por exemplo, foram divulgadas recentemente novas descobertas de óleo abaixo de uma espessa camada salina. Por outro lado, muitos problemas operacionais, como o aprisionamento de coluna de perfuração e o colapso do poço, têm sido registrados pela indústria do petróleo quando se está perfurando através de espessas camadas de sal. Estes contratempos criam grandes desafios e geram oportunidade de evolução da Indústria do Petróleo. Desta forma, esta dissertação propõe um estudo do comportamento mecânico do sal em poços de petróleo. Analisaram-se os deslocamentos, deformações e tensões na parede do poço e em sua vizinhança para diversos pesos de fluido de perfuração com a utilização do método dos elementos finit os. Foram realizadas modelagens computacionais mediante o uso de um programa comercial de elementos finitos: o Abaqus. Através de análises de deformação plana e análises axissimétricas, estas simulações numéricas puderam prever o comportamento elástico e, principalmente, o de fluência (creep) do sal. Sendo assim, como contribuição técnica, este estudo auxilia o controle e o monitoramento do fechamento de poços de petróleo em estratos salinos, evitando deste modo, diversos problemas causados pelo comportamento de fluência do sal, como o colapso do poço. Com isso, é fundamental a inclusão das análises das seções salinas nos projetos de perfuração de poços de petróleo. No que diz respeito ao quesito econômico, a principal contribuição deste trabalho é a redução do tempo de intervenções do poço provocadas por problemas ocorridos em camadas de sal e, conseqüentemente, a redução do tempo necessário para perfuração do poço e a diminuição do tempo de aluguel da sonda. / [en] The presence of saline structures around the world, in deepwater like the ones of the Mexican Gulf, Brazil, Angola, North and West Africa, provides favorable conditions for hydrocarbons imprisonment. It increases the probability of success in oil and gas exploration. In the Santos Basin, for example, it was recently noticed that a light crude oil located below a thick salt layer was discovered. On the other hand many operational problems in salt drilling like the imprisonment of the drillstring and closing of the well have been registered in the industry. These types of problems create big challenges in the oil industry and at the same time opportunities for the evolution of the drilling technology. This work proposes the study of the mechanical behavior of salt in oil wells. Dislocations, strains and stresses were analyzed in the face of the wellbore and into the salt formation by finite element analysis. Several finite element analyses were developed to represent the possible scenarios in salt drilling using a program denominated Abaqus. These numerical simulations were analyzed through plane strain and axisymmetric techniques, could predict elastic and specially creep behavior. As a technical contribution, this study helps to avoid wellbore closure and casing collapse of salt sections, adding to the wellbore and drilling project an accurate salt section analysis and preventing workover operations due to salt mass deformation. Finally the economical contribution of this study is the reduction of workover time and of expenses in salt sections drilling. By reducing workover time, there is a notorious decrease in rig time use.

A fluência dos geossintéticos encontra-se entre as propriedades mais relevantes no projeto de estruturas de solo reforçado com esses materiais. A caracterização desse fenômeno emprega ensaios normalizados e de baixa complexidade, que apresentam dois aspectos negativos principais: a duração e o fato de não considerarem o efeito da interação dos geossintéticos com o solo circundante. Ensaios conduzidos em temperatura elevada e em câmaras que simulam o confinamento do solo apresentam-se como alternativas para solucionar cada um desses empecilhos, mas apenas separadamente. Diante disso, esta pesquisa visou desenvolver um novo equipamento para realização de ensaios de fluência em geossintéticos que incorpora, simultaneamente, ambas as medidas utilizadas para mitigar esses dois aspectos. Cinco tipos de geossintéticos (duas geogrelhas, dois geotêxteis não tecidos e um geotêxtil tecido) foram submetidos a ensaios de fluência em diferentes condições de confinamento e temperatura, de maneira combinada ou não. Ensaios de ruptura por fluência em condição confinada e a determinação da resistência à tração residual de corpos de prova submetidos à diferentes períodos de fluência também foram incluídos no programa experimental. O novo equipamento mostrou-se bastante versátil, permitindo a realização de quatro tipos de ensaios: convencionais, confinados, acelerados e confinado-acelerados. As deformações por fluência mostraram-se dependentes do confinamento nas geogrelhas e nos geotêxteis não tecidos e independentes no geotêxtil tecido. Assim, destaca-se que as geogrelhas tiveram um comportamento em fluência diferente daquele previsto na literatura técnica, uma vez que as deformações por fluência desses materiais são comumente referidas como independentes do confinamento. A elevação da temperatura de ensaio mostrou-se eficaz para a aceleração das deformações por fluência em todos os geossintéticos testados. Adicionalmente, verificou-se que a resistência residual dos geossintéticos é pouco afetada pela ocorrência de deformação por fluência. O novo equipamento para realização de ensaios de fluência em geossintéticos permite considerar um dos aspectos mais controversos no projeto de estruturas de reforço de solo com geossintéticos sob uma nova perspectiva. / Creep behavior plays an important role in geosynthetics reinforced soil structures. Its characterization is commonly performed by means of standard tests in which in-isolation specimens are subjected to a constant load while their elongation is measured over time. Despite their widespread use, standard creep tests present two main negative aspects. Firstly, they may last up to 10.000 hours. In addition, they do not consider the possibly significant effect of soil-geosynthetic interaction. Therefore, tests conducted under standard procedures may increase the costs of full creep behavior characterization and result in conservative parameters. Tests conducted at elevated temperature and with special chambers in which the specimens are subjected to confining stresses may be used provide an insight on the soil-geosynthetic interaction in accelerated tests. Both measures have been broadly published in the technical literature, but only independently. In this regard, this dissertation presents a new piece of equipment developed to conduct confined-accelerated creep tests on geosynthetics. Five different geosynthetics were subjected to creep tests with the new equipment (two geogrids, two nonwoven geotextiles and one woven geotextile). In addition, creep rupture tests were performed with both geogrids and the residual tensile strength of specimens were determined by tensile tests performed after creep tests in different conditions. The new creep test equipment was found to be able to performed four different types of test: conventional, confined, accelerated and confined-accelerated ones. The creep behavior of the geogrids was found to be confinement-dependent. This is not mentioned in technical literature. On the other hand, both types geotextiles behaved as expected regarding their confined creep behavior. The woven geotextile creep behavior was independent of confining stresses in sand whereas the nonwoven geotextile creep deformations were strongly reduced by confinement in sand. In addition, the creep deformations of every tested geosynthetic increased with temperature. The tensile tests performed after creep tests showed that the residual strength of the geosynthetics was approximately equal to the values found with virgin specimens. The new creep testing equipment performance was adequate, since it was able to simultaneously address both main concerns of standardized creep tests on geosynthetics.

Este trabalho apresenta resultados de ensaios de fluência confinada e não-confinada de geotêxteis não-tecidos agulhados. Algumas dificuldades encontradas durante o desenvolvimento dos equipamentos utilizados para realizar esses ensaios em laboratório são também apresentadas e discutidas. A etapa de investigação sem confinamento envolveu a utilização de geotêxteis de poliéster e de polipropileno. Os resultados confirmaram o grande potencial desses materiais em apresentar fluência assim como a maior susceptibilidade dos geotêxteis de polipropileno. No caso de ensaios com confinamento, tentativas de se tracionar um geotêxtil de polipropileno entre duas camadas de solo revelaram grandes dificuldades para manter a carga aplicada constante ao longo do corpo de prova, em virtude da existência de atrito nas interfaces solo-geotêxtil. Ensaios alternativos retirando-se o solo e envolvendo-se o geotêxtil em uma membrana de látex lubrificada apresentaram bons resultados, comprovando a redução da fluência em relação aos ensaios não confinados e denotando tratar-se de uma solução viável para investigar o real papel do confinamento na fluência dos geotêxteis. / This work presents results of confined and unconfined creep tests on nonwoven needle punched geotextiles. Withdraws found during the equipment development used to perform these tests are also highlighted and discussed. The unconfined tests encompassed the use of polyester and polypropylene geotextiles. Results confirm that these materials have a great potential to creep, being the polypropylene geotextiles the material with the greatest susceptibility. The confined tests where geotextile was placed between two soil layers revealed difficulties in keeping the applied load constant throughout the specimen due to soil-geotextile interface friction. Alternative tests performed without the soil and embedding the geotextile in a lubricated latex membrane showed good results, proving the decrease of creep in relation to unconfined tests. Thus, one can conclude that this is a viable solution towards the investigation of the real role that confinement plays in geotextile creep.

Thesis. 1978. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND SCIENCE. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Thomas Carson Tiearney, Jr. / Ph.D.

Thesis. 1978. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Ocean Engineering. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Includes bibliographical references. / Ph.D.

Orientador: Lafayette Nogueira Junior / Banca: Tarcísio José de Arruda Paes Junior / Banca: Fernanda de Cassia Papaiz Gonçalves / Banca: Rodrigo Máximo de Araújo / Banca: Jean Soares Miranda / Resumo: A sobrecarga do hexágono durante a inserção dos implantes dentários de hexágono externo pode gerar danos irreversíveis ao mesmo ocasionando problemas futuros na reabilitação. Sendo assim, esse trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar a deformação e resistência ao contra-torque dos hexágonos com o uso de um montador modificado proposto pelo autor para inserção dos implantes tipo hexágono externo (HE) tendo como hipótese de que o montador modificado apresente resultados diferentes do montador padrão. Para isso, 44 implantes foram divididos em dois grupos, controle (montador normal MN; n=12) e o teste (montador modificado MM; n=12), e foram submetidos ao teste de torção seguindo os parâmetros da norma ISO 13498:2013. Em seguida, a deformação dos hexágonos e possíveis deformações causadas às roscas internas dos implantes foram analisadas, respectivamente, de forma qualitativa por meio de microscopia eletrônica de varredura. Já para o teste de fadiga, controle (MN; n=10) e teste (MM; n=10), os parâmetros utilizados foram da norma ISO 14801:2007. Ao final de 1,2 x 106 (4Hz) ciclos, o valor de destorque dos pilares foi registrado. A desadaptação da junta pilar/implante foi avaliada qualitativamente por meio da microscopia MEV. Como resultados pudemos observar maior manutenção da estrutura da conexão pelo grupo MM comparado ao grupo MN, sugerindo-se que o grupo MM apresentaram comportamento mais seguro e previsível quando comparado ao grupo MN / Abstract: Hexagon overload during the insertion of external hexagon dental implants can lead to irreversible damage, leading to future problems in rehabilitation. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the deformation and reverse torque resistance of hexagons with the use of a modified mount proposed by the author for insertion of external hexagon (HE) implants with the hypothesis that the modified mount presents different results compared to the default assembler. For this, 44 implants were divided into two groups, control (normal mount MN; n = 12) and the test (modified mount MM; n = 12), and were submitted to torsion testing following the parameters of ISO 13498: 2013. Then, the deformation of the hexagons and possible deformations caused to the internal threads of the implants were analyzed qualitatively, respectively by scanning electron microscopy. For the fatigue test, control (MN; n = 10) and test (MM; n = 10), the parameters used were from ISO 14801: 2007. At the end of 1.2 x 106 (4Hz) cycles, the abutment value of the abutments was recorded. Abutment of the abutment / implant joint was qualitatively evaluated by SEM microscopy. As a result we could observe a better maintenance of the connection structure by the MM group compared to the MN group, suggesting that the MM group presented a safer and more predictable behavior when compared to the MN group / Doutor

Abstract not available

Softening deformation of iron ore in the form of sinter, pellet, and lump ore in the cohesive zone of an ironmaking blast furnace is an important phenomenon that has a significant effect on gas permeability and consequently blast furnace production efficiency. The macroscopic softening deformation behavior of the bed and the microscopic deformation behavior of the individual particles in the packed bed are investigated in this study using wax balls to simulate the fused layer behavior of the cohesive zone. The effects of softening temperature, load pressure, and bed composition (mono - single melting particles, including pure or blend particles vs binary ??? two different melting point particles) on softening deformation are examined. The principal findings of this study are: 1. At low softening temperatures, an increase in load pressure increases the deformation rate almost linearly. 2. At higher softening temperatures, an increase in load pressure dramatically increases the deformation rate, and after a certain time there is no more significant change in deformation rate. 3. The bed deformation rate of a mono bed is much greater than that of a binary one. 4. In a binary system, the softening deformation rate increases almost proportionally with the increase in the amount of lower melting point wax balls. 5. In a mono system with blend particles, the content of the lower melting point material has a more significant effect on overall bed deformation than the higher melting point one. 6. The macro softening deformation of the bed behaves the theory of creep deformation. 7. A mathematical model for predicting bed porosity change due to softening deformation based on creep deformation theory has been developed. 8. Increase in load pressure also reduces the peak contact face number of the distribution curves, and this is more prominent with higher porosity values. 9. The contribution of contact face number to bed porosity reduction is more pronounced in a mono system than in a binary system. 10. The porosity reduction in a binary bed is more due to the contact face area increase, presumably of the lower melting point particles. 11. The mono system has a single peak contact face number distribution pattern while the binary system exhibits a bimodal distribution pattern once the higher melting point material starts to deform. 12. In a binary system, an increase in deformation condition severity tends to reduce the contact face number of the higher melting point material without having to increase the contact face number of the lower melting point material accordingly to achieve a given porosity.