Objective: The goal of the present study was to investigate the effect of chairside surface treatments on biaxial flexural strength and subsurface damage of monolithic zirconia ceramics. Methods: Specimens (15x15x1.2 mm3) were prepared by sectioning from commercially available zirconia blanks (BruxZirTM) and sintering according to manufacturer's recommendations. Fully dense specimens were randomly divided into five groups (n=30) and treated as follows; 1) as-sintered (AS) 2) air abraded with 50 μm alumina fine particles (AAF), 3) air abraded with 250 μm coarse alumina particles (AAC), 4) ground (G), and 5) ground and polished (GP) to mimic chairside and dental laboratory treatments. Microstructural changes were thoroughly characterized by optical and scanning electron microscopy, surface profilometry and atomic force microscopy. Crystalline phases and their depth profile were investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and grazing incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXRD). Results were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis test and Tukey's adjustment for multiple comparisons. A 0.05 level of significance was used. Reliability was evaluated by Weibull analysis. Results: All treatment groups exhibited a significant difference in mean surface roughness (Rq) compared to the as-sintered group (p<0.05). The AAC group showed the highest surface roughness at 1.08 ± 0.17 μm, followed by the G, AAF and AS groups. The GP group exhibited the lowest surface roughness. The group air abraded with fine particles showed the highest mean biaxial flexural strength (1662.62 ± 202.58 MPa), but was not different from the ground and polished group (1567.19 ± 209.76 MPa). The groups air abraded with coarse particles or ground with diamond bur exhibited comparable mean biaxial flexural strength at 1371.37 ±147.62 MPa and 1356.98 ±196.77 MPa, respectively. The as-sintered group had the lowest mean biaxial flexural strength at 1202.29 ±141.92 MPa. The depth of compressive stress layer, measured by GIXRD was approximately 50 μm in the AAF group, followed by the AAC group with ~35 μm, ~10 μm for the ground group and ~5 μm for the ground and polished group. Deep subsurface cracks were observed in the AAC group (~80 μm in depth) and G group (~25 μm in depth), whereas shallower flaws were present in the AAF and GP groups at 10 and 3 μm, respectively. Weibull analysis represented a greater reliability in zirconia specimens treated with air abrasion groups. Conclusions: Surface treatments induced the t-m transformation in 3Y-TZP and associated development of compressive stresses to a depth that varied with the severity of the treatment performed. GIXRD revealed that AAF led to the thickest compressive stress layer, followed by AAC, G and GP. SEM revealed that subsurface damage was most severe with AAC, followed by G, AAF and GP. We propose that the flexural strength results can be explained by the difference between the depth of the compressive stress layer induced by the transformation and the depth of the subsurface flaws.

This research studies the green geopolymer incorporated with phase change material (PCM) for energy saving in buildings. First class F fly ash (FA) based-geopolymer binder was studied. In order to improve the mechanical properties, low calcium slag (SG) was added to the FA to produce geopolymer. The effect of different factors including SG content (at different relative amounts FA/SG = 0/100, 25/75, 50/50, 75/25 and 100/0), NaOH solution at different concentrations (7.5, 10 and 15 M), various curing times (1, 2, 4, 7, 14 and 28 days) and curing temperatures (25 (ambient), 45, 60, 75 and 90°C) was investigated. The unit weight and uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of the geopolymer specimens were measured. Scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were also performed to characterize the microstructure and phase composition of the geopolymer specimens. The results show that the incorporation of SG not only improves the strength of the geopolymer specimens but also decreases the initial water content and thus the NaOH consumption at the same NaOH concentration required for geopolymer production. In addition, the inclusion of SG increases the unit weight of the geopolymer specimens, simply because SG has a much greater specific gravity than FA. The results also show that the strength of the FA/SG-based geopolymer develops rapidly within only 2 days and no obvious gain of the strength after 7 days. The optimum curing temperature (the curing temperature at which the maximum UCS is obtained) at a FA/SG ratio of 50/50 is around 75°C. Second, FA-based geopolymer concrete was synthesized and the effect of different factors including sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide (SS/SH) ratio, aggregate shape, water to fly ash (W/FA) ratio, curing time, water exposure and PCM inclusion on the compressive strength of the geopolymer concrete specimens cured at different ambient temperatures was studied. The results show that the UCS of the specimens increases with higher SS/SH and W/FA ratios up to a certain level and then starts to decrease at higher ratios. The results also indicate that a major portion of the strength of the specimens cured at ambient temperatures develops within the first four weeks. In addition the strength of the FA-based geopolymer concrete is slightly decreased with water exposure and PCM incorporation. Third, the mechanical and thermal properties of geopolymer mortar synthesized with FA and different amount of PCM were studied and the effect of incorporated PCM on the unit weight and UCS of geopolymer mortar was evaluated. SEM imaging was performed to identify the change of micro structure of the geopolymer mortar after incorporation of PCM. The thermal properties of the geopolymer mortar containing different amount of PCM were also characterized using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. In addition model tests were performed using small cubicles built with geopolymer mortar slabs containing different amount of PCM to evaluate the effectiveness of geopolymer mortar wall with incorporated PCM in controlling the heat flow and internal temperature. The results indicate that both the unit weight and UCS of the geopolymer mortar decrease slightly after PCM is incorporated, mainly due to the small unit weight and low strength and stiffness of the PCM, respectively. However, the compressive strength of geopolymer mortar containing up to 20% PCM is still sufficiently high for applications in buildings. The results also show that the incorporation of PCM leads to substantial increase of heat capacity and decrease of thermal conductivity of the geopolymer mortar and is very effective in decreasing the temperature inside the cubicles. Finally, a numerical study on the thermal performance of geopolymer with incorporated PCM was carried out. In order to simulate the heat transfer through geopolymer containing PCM, a simplified method was first presented. The influence of phase transition was linked to the energy balance equation through variable specific heat capacity of the PCM-geopolymer. The thermal properties of the geopolymer containing PCM for the numerical analysis were determined using DSC and guarded heat flow (GHF) tests. The simplified method was validated based on the good agreement between the numerical and experimental results. With the validated model, the effect of various factors including the specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity and wall thickness on the thermal performance of PCM-geopolymer walls was studied. Then a modified numerical method was proposed for simulating the whole thermal transfer processes and the simulation results were used to conduct the economic evaluation of PCM-geopolymer walls for energy savings in buildings.

<p>This work focuses on the construction and application of coded apertures to compressive X-ray tomography. Coded apertures can be made in a number of ways, each method having an impact on system background and signal contrast. Methods of constructing coded apertures for structuring X-ray illumination and scatter are compared and analyzed. Apertures can create structured X-ray bundles that investigate specific sets of object voxels. The tailored bundles of rays form a code (or pattern) and are later estimated through computational inversion. Structured illumination can be used to subsample object voxels and make inversion feasible for low dose computed tomography (CT) systems, or it can be used to reduce background in limited angle CT systems. </p><p>On the detection side, coded apertures modulate X-ray scatter signals to determine the position and radiance of scatter points. By forming object dependent projections in measurement space, coded apertures multiplex modulated scatter signals onto a detector. The multiplexed signals can be inverted with knowledge of the code pattern and system geometry. This work shows two systems capable of determining object position and type in a 2D plane, by illuminating objects with an X-ray `fan beam,' using coded apertures and compressive measurements. Scatter tomography can help identify materials in security and medicine that may be ambiguous with transmission tomography alone.</p> / Dissertation

The aim of this research is to assess the material properties of concrete like modulus of elasticity, compressive strength, and Poisson’s ratio using various nondestructive Testing (NDT) methods like Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV) and Rebound Hammer (RH). Assessment of material properties of concrete is very important as they are used for structural design process. Various NDT methods are applied to ensure the quality of concrete specimens but they can also be used to find material properties. UPV is a NDT method which is used to test the internal condition of the concrete specimen. RH is a surface hardness testing method and can be used to test the homogeneity of the specimen. For this study, several batches of concrete samples with three different design strengths of 6000 psi, 8000 psi, and 12000 psi were casted. Modulus of elasticity and Poisson’s ratio were calculated from UPV P-wave and S-wave velocities. A Nomogram was developed by combining the longitudinal ultrasonic pulse velocities, rebound numbers, and compressive strengths measured from UPV, RH, and compressive strength tests respectively. This combined NDT correlation curve (Nomogram) can be used to estimate compressive strength of concrete if UPV and rebound values are known. The accuracy of these NDT methods were determined by comparing estimated strength to the actual strength. Furthermore, the effect of moisture content on UPV and rebound values was reviewed and also studied dynamic modulus of elasticity and its relation with static modulus of elasticity of the concrete was investigated for better understanding.

O enorme volume de dados textuais disponível na web caracteriza-se como um cenário ideal para inúmeras aplicações do Processamento de Língua Natural, tal como a tarefa da Sumarização Automática de Atualização (SAA), que tem por objetivo a geração automática de resumos a partir de uma coleção textual admitindo-se que o leitor possui algum conhecimento prévio sobre os textos-fonte. Dessa forma, um bom resumo de atualização deve ser constituído pelas informações mais relevantes, novas e atualizadas com relação ao conhecimento prévio do leitor. Essa tarefa implica em diversos desafios, sobretudo nas etapas de seleção e síntese de conteúdo para o sumário. Embora existam inúmeras abordagens na literatura, com diferentes níveis de complexidade teórica e computacional, pouco dessas investigações fazem uso de algum conhecimento linguístico profundo, que pode auxiliar a identificação de conteúdo mais relevante e atualizado. Além disso, os métodos de sumarização comumente empregam uma abordagem de síntese extrativa, na qual algumas sentenças dos textos-fonte são selecionadas e organizadas para compor o sumário sem alteração de seu conteúdo. Tal abordagem pode limitar a informatividade do sumário, uma vez que alguns segmentos sentenciais podem conter informação redundante ou irrelevante ao leitor. Assim, esforços recentes foram direcionados à síntese compressiva, na qual alguns segmentos das sentenças selecionadas para o sumário são removidos previamente à inserção no sumário. Nesse cenário, este trabalho de doutorado teve por objetivo a investigação do uso de conhecimentos linguísticos, como a Teoria Discursiva Multidocumento (CST), Segmentação de Subtópicos e Reconhecimento de Entidades Nomeadas, em distintas abordagens de seleção de conteúdo por meio das sínteses extrativas e compressivas visando à produção de sumários de atualização mais informativos. Tendo a língua Portuguesa como principal objeto de estudo, foram organizados três novos córpus, o CSTNews-Update, que viabiliza experimentos de SAA, e o PCSC-Pares e G1-Pares, para o desenvolvimento/avaliação de métodos de Compressão Sentencial. Ressalta-se que os experimentos de sumarização foram também realizados para a língua inglesa. Após as experimentações, observou-se que a Segmentação de Subtópicos foi mais efetiva para a produção de sumários mais informativos, porém, em apenas poucas abordagens de seleção de conteúdo. Além disso, foram propostas algumas simplificações para o método DualSum por meio da distribuição de Subtópicos. Tais métodos apresentaram resultados muito satisfatórios com menor complexidade computacional. Visando a produção de sumários compressivos, desenvolveram-se inúmeros métodos de Compressão Sentencial por meio de algoritmos de Aprendizado de Máquina. O melhor método proposto apresentou resultados superiores a um trabalho do estado da arte, que faz uso de algoritmos de Deep Learning. Além dos resultados supracitados, ressalta-se que anteriormente a este trabalho, a maioria das investigações de Sumarização Automática para a língua Portuguesa foi direcionada à geração de sumários a partir de um (monodocumento) ou vários textos relacionados (multidocumento) por meio da síntese extrativa, sobretudo pela ausência se recursos que viabilizassem a expansão da área de Sumarização Automática para esse idioma. Assim, as contribuições deste trabalho engajam-se em três campos, nos métodos de SAA propostos com conhecimento linguísticos, nos métodos de Compressão Sentencial e nos recursos desenvolvidos para a língua Portuguesa. / The huge amount of data that is available online is the main motivation for many tasks of Natural Language Processing, as the Update Summarization (US) which aims to produce a summary from a collection of related texts under the assumption the user/reader has some previous knowledge about the texts subject. Thus, a good update summary must be produced with the most relevant, new and updated content in order to assist the user. This task presents many research challenges, mainly in the processes of content selection and synthesis of the summary. Although there are several approaches for US, most of them do not use of some linguistic information that may assist the identification relevant content for the summary/user. Furthermore, US methods frequently apply an extractive synthesis approach, in which the summary is produced by picking some sentences from the source texts without rewriting operations. Once some segments of the picked sentences may contain redundant or irrelevant content, this synthesis process can to reduce the summary informativeness. Thus, some recent efforts in this field have focused in the compressive synthesis approach, in which some sentences are compressed by deletion of tokens or rewriting operations before be inserted in the output summary. Given this background, this PhD research has investigated the use of some linguistic information, as the Cross Document Theory (CST), Subtopic Segmentation and Named Entity Recognition into distinct content selection approaches for US by use extractive and compressive synthesis process in order to produce more informative update summaries. Once we have focused on the Portuguese language, we have compiled three new resources for this language, the CSTNews-Update, which allows the investigation of US methods for this language, the PCST-Pairs and G1-Pairs, in which there are pairs of original and compressed sentences in order to produce methods of sentence compression. It is important to say we also have performed experiments for the English language, in which there are more resources. The results show the Subtopic Segmentation assists the production of better summaries, however, this have occurred just on some content selection approaches. Furthermore, we also have proposed a simplification for the method DualSum by use Subtopic Segments. These simplifications require low computation power than DualSum and they have presented very satisfactory results. Aiming the production of compressive summaries, we have proposed different compression methods by use machine learning techniques. Our better proposed method present quality similar to a state-of-art system, which is based on Deep Learning algorithms. Previously this investigation, most of the researches on the Automatic Summarization field for the Portuguese language was focused on previous traditional tasks, as the production of summaries from one and many texts that does not consider the user knowledge, by use extractive synthesis processes. Thus, beside our proposed US systems based on linguistic information, which were evaluated over English and Portuguese datasets, we have produced many Compressions Methods and three new resources that will assist the expansion of the Automatic Summarization field for the Portuguese Language.

Esta pesquisa experimental destina-se à avaliação da resistência à compressão do concreto na estrutura através da análise das resistências de corpos-de-prova padrão moldados fc(M), denominada potencial e de testemunhos extraídos da estrutura fc(E), denominada efetiva objetivando quantificar o coeficiente de correção devido aos efeitos do broqueamento na extração - nesta tese considerado como a relação entre elas R(M/E) = fc(M)/fc(E) - a ser aplicado à resistência dos testemunhos de mesmas dimensões dos corpos-de-prova. Admitindo-se que a resistência dos testemunhos representa a resistência do concreto na estrutura, esta relação R(M/E) corresponde a parcela yc2 do coeficiente normativo de ponderação da resistência do concreto yc. A norma brasileira NBR 6118:2003 - Projeto de Estruturas de Concreto - Procedimento, para o caso de não-conformidade na aceitação do concreto, indica a extração de testemunhos segundo a NBR 7680:1983. Admite, neste caso de extração, dividir o valor de yc por 1,1 nas avaliações estruturais no estado limite último. Em sua versão anterior de 1978 e registrada como NBR 6118:1980 recomendava que os resultados dos testemunhos fossem corrigidos em virtude dos efeitos do broqueamento, sem, no entanto, especificar o coeficiente para a correção referida, sugerindo que os resultados fossem majorados em 10% ou 15%, dependendo da amostragem, por se tratar da resistência do concreto na própria estrutura. A NBR 6118:2003 estabelece para o coeficiente yc o valor de 1,4 sem especificar valor para a parcela yc2. O CEB igualmente recomenda 1,4 para o yc citando o valor de 1,10 para o yc2. Especificamente quanto à correção devida aos danos causados pela extração aos testemunhos, o ACI 214 4R-2003 indica o coeficiente de 1,06 para ser multiplicado pela resistência dos testemunhos nas avaliações estruturais. Trabalhando-se com corpos-de-prova padrão curados úmidos e com testemunhos extraídos de blocos tanto curados úmidos quanto curados ao ar buscou-se avaliar esse coeficiente referente aos danos causados pela extração. Utilizaram-se ainda corpos-de-prova padrão curados ao ar para comparação de resultados. No presente estudo procurou-se também verificar a viabilidade da utilização de testemunhos de diâmetros inferiores aos de 15cm e 10cm normalmente previstos na normalização nacional e internacional, extraindo-se, além daqueles, testemunhos de 7,5cm; 5,0cm e do diminuto diâmetro de 2,5cm; que podem vir a facilitar e agilizar as avaliações de estruturas acabadas. Permitem ainda evitar cortes de armaduras, reduzir custos, possibilitar a obtenção da relação altura/diâmetro igual a 2 e ainda o aumento significativo da amostragem. No programa de ensaios desenvolvido foram estudados concretos produzidos por central dosadora que atende à Região Metropolitana do Recife, em quatro níveis de resistência à compressão aos 28 dias, respectivamente de 20Mpa, 50Mpa e 70MPa e amostragem suplementar de 65MPa, para rupturas também aos 90 dias de idade. Foram realizados também ensaios esclerométricos, ultrassônicos e de massa específica aparente do concreto como subsídios aos ensaios de resistências à compressão. Após análise estatística chegou-se a um valor final promédio para o coeficiente de correção dos efeitos de broqueamento R(M/E) de 1,07; demonstrando-se ainda por correlações ao nível de significância de 1% a viabilidade da utilização dos testemunhos de diâmetros 7,5cm; 5,0cm e do minitestemunho de 2,5cm na avaliação de estruturas acabadas. / The present research aims to evaluate concrete\'s compressive strength in the structure through the analysis of the strength of cast concrete specimens fc(M), hereafter called \"potential\", and that of concrete cores extracted from the structure fc(E), hereafter called \"effective\". The objective was to quantify the coefficient to correct for drilling effects during core extraction - in the present work taken as the ratio R(M/E)=fc(M)/fc(E) - to be applied to the strength of cores with the same dimensions as the specimens. By assuming that the strength of the cores represents the strength of concrete within the structure, R(M/E) corresponds to the term yc2 of the normative coefficient of concrete strength yc. Brazilian Standard NBR 6118:2003 - Procedures for the Design of Concrete Structures - whenever non-conformity in concrete acceptance arises, indicates the extraction of cores in accordance with Standard NBR 7680:1983. It accepts, in this case, that yc be divided by 1.1 in structural evaluations at the ultimate limit state. Former versions of Standard 6118:1980 recommended that core results be corrected due to drilling effects, but made no mention to the correction coefficient itself, merely suggesting that results were increased in 10 to 15 %, depending on the sampling, because it is dealing with the strength of concrete in the structure. NBR 6118:2003 establishes a figure of 1.4 for yc without specifying any value for yc2. The European Concrete Committee (CEB) also recommends a figure of 1.4 for yc, mentioning a figure of 1.1 for yc2. With regard to the corrections due to the damage caused by core extraction, ACI 214 4R-2003 proposes a coefficient of 1.06 to be multiplied by core strength in structural evaluations. By working with wet-cured standard cast specimens and with cores extracted from concrete blocks - either wet-cured or air-cured - an attempt was made to assess this coefficient related to the damage caused by drilling. Standard air-cured cast specimens were used to verify the results. The present study also managed to verify the feasibility of using cores with diameter smaller than those nationally and internationally adopted (15 and 10 cm), namely, 7.5cm, 5.0cm and 2.5cm, which can potentially speed up the evaluation of finished structures. Smaller diameters also decrease the risk of reinforcement damage, lead to lower costs and allow that height: diameter ratios of 2:1 be obtained, thus increasing sampling. During the test programme developed for the present investigation concretes produced by one of the main suppliers in Recife\'s Metropolitan Region were studied, at four compressive strength levels at 28 days: 20, 50 and 70MPa, with a supplementary sampling at 65MPa, for rupture tests at 90 days. Sclerometric, ultrasound and apparent density tests were also performed, as further subsidies to compressive strength tests. The application of statistical analysis led to a final average figure of 1.07 for yc2. The feasibility of using cores with diameters of 7.5, 5.0 and even 2.5 cm was also established at a significance level of 1%.

Este trabalho apresenta resultados de uma análise teórico-experimental sobre a resistência à compressão de perfis I soldados de aço, formados por chapas cortadas a maçarico. A construção metálica no Brasil utiliza os perfis I soldados formados por chapas cortadas a maçarico em virtude da pouca disponibilidade no mercado dos perfis laminados. Os perfis soldados brasileiros apresentam dimensões (altura, largura de mesa e espessura) diferentes das encontradas nos perfis laminados e soldados, fabricados em outros países. Apresentam-se os principais parâmetros envolvidos na formulação das curvas de resistência à compressão para perfis soldados de pequenas dimensões, tais como: tensões residuais, imperfeições geométricas iniciais e seus efeitos no cálculo da resistência à compressão dos perfis soldados compostos por chapas cortadas a maçarico. Os perfis ensaiados são das séries PS 200x25, PS 225x29 e CS 150x25, sendo que foram obtidos resultados experimentais da força normal crítica e das imperfeições geométricas iniciais para três modelos de cada série com quatro índices de esbeltez diferente. / This work presents results of theoretical and experimental analysis about the compressive strength of steel welded I-shapes manufactured from flame-cut plates. Steel construction in brazil uses these welded I-shapes because of the limited availabilily of hot-rolled shapes in the market. The brazilian welded shapes have dimensions (height, flange width and thickness) that differ from steel welded shapes manufactured in other countries. It presents the main parameters in the formulation of the compressive strength curves for welded shapes of small dimensions as: residual stresses, geometrical initial crookedness and their effects in the evaluation of the compressive strength of the welded shapes manufactured from flame-cut plates. The tested shapes are of PS 200x25, PS 225x29 and CS 150x25 series. Test results were obtained for the critical axial load and the geometrical initial crookedness to three models with four different slenderness ratio in each serie.

Bakgrund: En bärande formbyggnad har uppgiften att bära den färska betongen tills bjälklaget uppnått tillräcklig hållfasthet. Kostnaden för formbyggnaden står för en stor andel av den totala kostnaden. En tidigare formrivning ligger därför i entreprenörens intresse att göra projektet mer effektivt och lönsamt. Syftet med den här studien är att studera vilka faktorer som begränsar en tidigare formrivning. Metod: En Revitmodell importerades till Robot Structural Analysis där linjärelastiska analyser har genomförts. Delmodeller skapades beroende på studerad fråga. Produktionsplanering Betong (PPB) användes för att simulera betongens hållfasthetsutveckling. Elasticitetsmodulen beräknades och reducerades med kryptal för att använda det effektiva kryptalet vid analyserna. Dimensioner på stämpen har hämtats från formleverantörens hemsida och laster från Eurocode. Resultat: Studien visar att sprickor uppstår över väggar vid en tidigare formrivning. Resultatet i den här studien visar även att de initiella nedböjningarna samt stämplasterna är obetydliga vid en tidigare formrivning. När stämpning sker mot bottenplattan tar säkerhetsstämpen upp den mesta av lasten. När säkerhetsstämpen avlastas helt från bottenvåningen utsätts betongbjälklagen för högre moment och nedböjning. / Background: A load bearing formwork has the task of carrying the fresh concrete until the floor has reached sufficient strength. The cost of the formwork account for a large proportion of the total cost. Therefore, an earlier removal of the formwork is in the entrepreneur´s interest, to make the project more efficient and profitable. The purpose of this work is to study which factors limit an earlier removal of the formwork. Method: A Revit model was imported into Robot Structural Analysis where linear elastic analyzes have been done. Sub-models were created depending on the question studied. Produktionsplanering Betong (PPB) was used to simulate the concrete´s strength development. The modulus of elasticity was calculated and reduced by the creep coefficient to use the effective modulus of elasticity in the analyzes. Dimensions of the shores have been taken from the supplier´s website and loads from Eurocode. Results: The study shows that cracks occur over walls when removing the formwork earlier. The results of this study also show that the initial deflections and the shoring loads are insignificant at an earlier removal of the formwork. While using reshores against the bottom plate, the reshores takes up most of the loads. When the reshores are fully unloaded from the ground floor, the concrete floor is exposed for higher moment and deflections.

Submitted by Rosimeri Vergara (rosimerivergara@unipampa.edu.br) on 2018-08-23T19:58:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Bruno Acosta Flores 2017.pdf: 951239 bytes, checksum: 51068a51a0979fb15f6a081dce6ed447 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Dayse Pestana (dayse.pestana@unipampa.edu.br) on 2018-08-24T12:49:49Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Bruno Acosta Flores 2017.pdf: 951239 bytes, checksum: 51068a51a0979fb15f6a081dce6ed447 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-24T12:49:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Bruno Acosta Flores 2017.pdf: 951239 bytes, checksum: 51068a51a0979fb15f6a081dce6ed447 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017 / A mineração é um setor importante no desenvolvimento global, no entanto a atividade é responsável pela geração de uma grande quantidade de rejeito nos processos de beneficiamento do mineral. Esse rejeito necessita de um destino ambientalmente correto, sendo o reaproveitamento do mesmo uma forma de destinação correta, mitigando os impactos ambientais. Este estudo consiste na utilização de resíduos da mineração para a confecção de tijolos ecológicos, resíduos tais como cinza mineral, cinza vegetal, areia calcária e areia de rio, além de aglomerantes como o cimento e a cal. Analisou-se o efeito do processo em cura úmida (saturada em água) e cura ambiente, com tempo de 7 e 28 dias, para testes de resistência à compressão. Para a obtenção das resistências mecânicas das amostras foi utilizado o procedimento da NBR 7215/1996 – Resistência à compressão do cimento Portland. Os resultados finais evidenciaram que 100% dos traços compostos com cimento apresentaram resistências satisfatórias, se enquadrando em pelo menos uma das classes das normas que norteiam o estudo. Conclui-se que é possível produzir tijolos ecológicos como o reaproveitamento de materiais e com custo menor que o preço do mercado. / The mining is an important sector in the global development, however the activity is responsible of a large reject generation in the mineral processing. This waste requires an environmentally correct destination, being the reuse an correct destination form, mitigating the environmental impacts. This study consists in the use of mining waste to manufacture ecological bricks, residues such as mineral ash, vegetable ash, limestone and river sand, as well as cement and lime. It was tested the effect of the process on wet (saturated in water) curing and ambient cure, with a time of 7 and 28 days, for compressive strength tests. To obtain the mechanical strength of the samples, the procedure of the NBR 7215/1996 standart - Resistance to compression of the Portland cement was used.The final results showed that 100% of the composite traces with cement presented satisfactory resistance, being classified in at least one of the classes of norms that guide the study. It is concluded that it is possible to produce ecological bricks which the reuse of materials and at a lower cost than the market price.

Compressive Sensing (CS) is a recently proposed signal processing technique that has already found many applications in microwave and millimeter-wave imaging. CS theory guarantees that sparse or compressible signals can be recovered from far fewer measure- ments than those were traditionally thought necessary. This property coincides with the goal of personnel surveillance imaging whose priority is to reduce the scanning time as much as possible. Therefore, this thesis investigates the implementation of CS techniques in personnel surveillance imaging systems with different array configurations. The first key contribution is the comparative study of CS methods in a switched array imaging system. Specific attention has been paid to situations where the array element spacing does not satisfy the Nyquist criterion due to physical limitations. CS methods are divided into the Fourier transform based CS (FT-CS) method that relies on conventional FT and the direct CS (D-CS) method that directly utilizes classic CS formulations. The performance of the two CS methods is compared with the conventional FT method in terms of resolution, computational complexity, robustness to noise and under-sampling. Particularly, the resolving power of the two CS methods is studied under various cir- cumstances. Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate the superiority of CS methods. The FT-CS and D-CS methods are complementary techniques that can be used together for optimized efficiency and image reconstruction. The second contribution is a novel 3-D compressive phased array imaging algorithm based on a more general forward model that takes antenna factors into consideration. Imaging results in both range and cross-range dimensions show better performance than the conventional FT method. Furthermore, suggestions on how to design the sensing con- figurations for better CS reconstruction results are provided based on coherence analysis. This work further considers the near-field imaging with a near-field focusing technique integrated into the CS framework. Simulation results show better robustness against noise and interfering targets from the background. The third contribution presents the effects of array configurations on the performance of the D-CS method. Compressive MIMO array imaging is first derived and demonstrated with a cross-shaped MIMO array. The switched array, MIMO array and phased array are then investigated together under the compressive imaging framework. All three methods have similar resolution due to the same effective aperture. As an alternative scheme for the switched array, the MIMO array is able to achieve comparable performance with far fewer antenna elements. While all three array configurations are capable of imaging with sub-Nyquist element spacing, the phased array is more sensitive to this element spacing factor. Nevertheless, the phased array configuration achieves the best robustness against noise at the cost of higher computational complexity. The final contribution is the design of a novel low-cost beam-steering imaging system using a flat Luneburg lens. The idea is to use a switched array at the focal plane of the Luneburg lens to control the beam-steering. By sequentially exciting each element, the lens forms directive beams to scan the region of interest. The adoption of CS for image reconstruction enables high resolution and also data under-sampling. Numerical simulations based on mechanically scanned data are conducted to verify the proposed imaging system.