Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2005. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 87 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-78).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 1992. / Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

No description available.

This thesis provides a study of different aspects of the mechanical and vibrational properties of disordered and amorphous solids. Resorting to the theoretical framework of non-affine lattice dynamics the attention is focused on the analysis of disordered networks and lattices which serve as tractable model systems for real materials. Firstly, we discuss the static elastic response and the vibrational spectra of defective fcc crystals. The connection to different types of microstructural disorder in the form of bond-depletion and vacancies is described within the context of the inversion symmetry breaking of the local particle configurations. We identify the fluctuations of the local inversion symmetry breaking, which is directly linked to the non-affinity of the disordered solid, as the source of different scalings behaviours of the position of the boson peak. Furthermore, we describe the elastic heterogeneities occurring in a bond-depleted two- dimensional lattice with long-range interactions. The dependence of the concomitant correlations of the local elastic moduli are studied in detail in terms of the interaction range and the degree of disorder. An analytical scaling relation is derived for the radial part of the elastic correlations in the affine limit. Subsequently, we provide an argument for the change of the angular symmetry of the elastic correlation function which was observed in simulations and experiments on glasses and colloids, respectively. Moving to the dynamical behaviour of disordered solids, a framework is developed based on the kernel polynomial method for the approximate computation of the non- affine correlator of displacement fields which is the key requirement to describe the linear viscoelastic response of the system within the quasi-static non-affine formalism. This approach is then extended to the case of multicomponent polymer melts and validated against molecular dynamics simulations at low non-zero temperatures. We also consider the dynamical behaviour of metallic glasses in terms of its shear elasticity and viscosity. A theoretical scheme is suggested which links the repulsive strength of the interatomic potential to the viscoelasticity and fragility in metallic glasses in the quasi-affine limit.

Predictive accuracy of the previously developed coupled code for the solution of the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations in conjunction with the radiative transfer equation was first assessed by applying it to the prediction of thermally radiating, hydrodynamically developed laminar pipe flow for which the numerical solution had been reported in the literature. The effect of radiation on flow and temperature fields was demonstrated for different values of conduction to radiation ratio. It was found that the steady-state temperature predictions of the code agree well with the benchmark solution. In an attempt to test the predictive accuracy of the coupled code for turbulent radiating flows, it was applied to fully developed turbulent flow of a hot gas through a relatively cold pipe and the results were compared with the numerical solution available in the literature. The code was found to mimic the reported steady-state temperature profiles well. Having validated the predictive accuracy of the coupled code for steady, laminar/turbulent, radiating pipe flows, the performance of the code for transient radiating flows was tested by applying it to a test problem involving laminar/turbulent flow of carbon dioxide through a circular pipe for the simulation of simultaneous hydrodynamic and thermal development. The transient solutions for temperature, velocity and radiative energy source term fields were found to demonstrate the physically expected trends. In order to improve the performance of the code, a parallel algorithm of the code was developed and tested against sequential code for speed up and efficiency. It was found that the same results are obtained with a reasonably high speed-up and efficiency.

Thesis (M.App.Sc.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 174-179). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

The world population is expected to increase to approximately 11 billion by 2100. The ageing population (aged 60 and over) is projected to exceed the number of children in 2047. This will be a situation without precedent. The number of citizens with disorders of old age like Dementia will rise to 115 million worldwide by 2050. The estimated cost of Dementia will also increase, from $604 billion in 2010, to $1,117 billion by 2030. At the same time, medical expertise, evidence-driven policymaking and commissioning of services are increasingly evolving the definitive architecture of comprehensive long-term care to account for these changes. Technological advances, such as those provided by computational science and biomedical engineering, will allow for an expansion in our ability to model and simulate an almost limitless variety of complex problems that have long defied traditional methods of medical practice. Numerical methods and simulation offer the prospect of improved clinically relevant predictive information, and of course optimisation, enabling more efficient use of resources for designing treatment protocols, risk assessment and urgently needed management of a long term care system for a wide spectrum of brain disorders. Within this paradigm, the importance of the relationship of senescence of cerebrospinal fluid transport to dementia in the elderly make the cerebral environment notably worthy of investigation through numerical and computational modelling. Hydrocephalus can be succinctly described as the abnormal accumulation (imbalance between production and circulation) of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) within the brain. Using hydrocephalus as a test bed, one is able to account for the necessary mechanisms involved in the interaction between cerebral fluid production, transport and drainage. The current state of knowledge about hydrocephalus, and more broadly integrative cerebral dynamics and its associated constitutive requirements, advocates that poroelastic theory provides a suitable framework to better understand the disease. In this work, Multiple-network poroelastic Theory (MPET) is used to develop a novel spatio-temporal model of fluid regulation and tissue displacement in various scales within the cerebral environment. The model is discretised in a variety of formats, through the established finite difference method, finite difference – finite volume coupling and also the finite element method. Both chronic and acute hydrocephalus was investigated in a variety of settings, and accompanied by emerging surgical techniques where appropriate. In the coupled finite difference – finite volume model, a key novelty was the amalgamation of anatomically accurate choroid plexuses with their feeding arteries and a simple relationship relaxing the constraint of a unique permeability for the CSF compartment. This was done in order to account for Aquaporin-4 sensitisation. This model is used to demonstrate the impact of aqueductal stenosis and fourth ventricle outlet obstruction. The implications of treating such a clinical condition with the aid of endoscopic third (ETV) and endoscopic fourth ventriculostomy (EFV) are considered. It was observed that CSF velocity in the aqueduct, along with ventricular displacement, CSF pressure, wall shear stress and pressure difference between lateral and fourth ventricles increased with applied stenosis. The application of ETV reduced the aqueductal velocity, ventricular displacement, CSF pressure, wall shear stress and pressure difference within nominal levels. The greatest reversal of the effects of atresia come by opting for ETV rather than the more complicated procedure of EFV. For the finite difference model incorporating nonlinear permeability, qualitatively similar results were obtained in comparison to the pertinent literature, however, there was an overall amplification of ventriculomegaly and transparenchymal pressure difference using this model. A quantitative and qualitative assessment is made of hydrocephalus cases involving aqueductal stenosis, along with the effects to CSF reabsorption in the parenchyma and subarachnoid space. The finite element discretisation template produced for the n^th- dimensional transient MPET system allowed for novel insight into hydrocephalus. In the 1D formulation, imposing the breakdown of the blood-CSF barrier responsible for clearance resulted in an increase in ventricular displacement, transparenchymal venous pressure gradient and transparenchymal CSF pressure gradient, whilst altering the compliance proved to markedly alter the rate of change of displacement and CSF pressure gradient. The influence of Poisson's ratio was investigated through the use of the dual-grid solver in order to distinguish between possible over or under prediction of the ventricular displacement. In the 2D model based on linear triangles, the importance of the MPET boundary conditions is acknowledged, along with the quality of the underlying mesh. Interesting results include that the fluid content is highest in the periventricular region and the skull, whilst after longer time scales, the peak CSF content becomes limited to the periventricular region. Venous fluid content is heavily influenced by the Biot-Willis constant, whilst both the venous and CSF/ISF compartments show to be strongly influenced by breakdown in the blood-CSF barrier. Increasing the venous compliance effects the arterial, capillary and venous compartments. Decreasing the venous compliance shows an accumulation of fluid, possibly helping to explain why the ventricles can be induced to compress rather than expand under decreased compliance. Finally, a successful application of the 3D-MPET template is shown for simple geometries. It is envisaged that future observations into the biology of cerebral fluid flow (such as perivascular CSF-ISF fluid exchange) and its interaction with the surrounding parenchyma, will demand the evolution of the MPET model to reach a level of complexity that could allow for an experimentally guided exploration of areas that would otherwise prove too intricate and intertwined under conventional settings.

Hydrodynamic vortex separators (HDVSs) are used in wastewater treatment to separate solids from wastewater. The aim of this research is to devise a CFD-based methodology that optimises their performance through modification of their design. A validation study is performed to assess whether OpenFOAM can be used to reliably model the flow of water in an HDVS. The results of the simulations are compared with experimental readings, showing a good fit when the appropriate boundary layer height and turbulence model are used. The continuous adjoint method is employed to derive the adjoint equations, associated with the drift flux equations used to model the flow of wastewater. They are specialised to the typical boundary conditions of ducted flows and are coded using OpenFOAM. An optimal design is found for boundary conditions, corresponding to typical values used in practice, and is shown to improve the performance of a simplified initial design by 40%. This optimal design is subsequently subjected to a different hydraulic loading rate and dispersed-phase volume fraction at the inlet, to assess the performance variation in these circumstances. Though the optimal design removes all the solids when the dispersed-phase fraction is reduced at the inlet, initial results suggest that the design is sensitive to hydraulic loading rate and further tests are recommended before drawing more explicit conclusions. This is the first time the adjoint drift flux equations have been derived. It is also the first time they have been coded and applied to an HDVS to optimise its performance. The methodology developed in this thesis could be applied to any device that separates solids from liquid or two immiscible liquids, in order to optimise its performance.

The thesis outlines a hierarchical modelling methodology for investigation in vehicle dynamics, in particular for combined ride and handling manoeuvres. The methodology involves the use of detailed multi-degrees of freedom models of vehicles with the inclusion of sources of non-linearity, using a multi-body approach, based on Lagrangian dynamics for constrained systems. It also includes the use of simpler and task-specific models, formulated in Newton-Euler approach. These simpler models with lower degrees of freedom, but with appropriate level of detail are more efficient in the study of specific, but non-trivial problems such as transient behaviour of vehicles in combined ride and handling, as encountered in many routine daily manoeuvres. The modelling methodology is supported by careful vehicle testing, both for validation of the proposed approach, and assessment of the extent of applicability of simple, intermediate and multi-degrees of freedom full-vehicle models. Certain important vehicle handling and ride characteristics in pitch plane dynamics, roll behaviour, vehicle body bounce and combination of these have been studied, as well as the effectiveness of restraining action of chassis elements, such as the semileading and trailing arms for passive control of vehicle squat and dive motions, arising from acceleration from coast to drive and deceleration/brake of vehicle from drive to coast. Combined pitch and bounce motions have been studied when negotiating speed traps such as bumps, which also combine with significant body roll when single event obstacles of this kind are introduced. The novelty of the research is in the detailed integrative numerical-experimental approach, and the development of intermediate models that adequately predict vehicle behaviour under steady and non-steady conditions for a wide range of ride and handling manoeuvres. The investigations have culminated in a significant number of findings of practical use, particularly the ineffectiveness of anti-squat and dive features when combined pitch and bounce motions limit the usefulness of these devices. On the contrary, excessive roll dynamic behaviour of the vehicle is effectively palliated by the anti-roll bar, even under complex combined pitch, roll and body bounce such as those experienced in negotiating single event speed bumps. Good agreement is found between the predictions of the intermediate model and those of the multi-body model and the actual vehicle tests, particularly for pitch and bounce dynamics.

Reliable flutter analysis of aircraft structures is a major requirement to determine safe flight envelops. Dynamically equivalent finite element model of an aircraft structure correlating well with experimental modal is a major requirement for a reliable flutter analysis. Currently available model updating techniques require enormous time and engineering work to achieve appropriate finite element models of aircraft structures. The method developed within the scope of this thesis work aims to remove important disadvantages of common model updating procedures. In doing this, the method starts with a simple finite element mesh obtained by connecting measurement points, used in the Ground Vibration Test of an aircraft structure, with 3 D Euler-Bernoulli beam elements. Initial estimates of the geometric and material properties are determined by solving structural identification equations derived from the mass and stiffness orthogonality of experimental modes. By using those initial estimates, an initial finite element model is constructed. Starting from this initial finite element model, structural identification equations are updated and solved iteratively by using experimental natural frequencies and eigenvectors of the v updated finite element model representing the same mode shapes with measured normal modes. Iterations are continued until eigen solution of the updated finite element model closely correlates with experimental modal data. The applicability of the method is illustrated on a scaled aircraft model and a real aircraft structure. The results are quite satisfactory but the method requires further improvements to achieve a much better correlation level in case of real aircraft structures.