A deposição de filmes finos resistentes ao desgaste é uma prática realizada com bastante frequência para melhorar o comportamento tribológico (atrito, desgaste, lubrificação) de diferentes peças e componentes. Afim de se garantir o adequado funcionamento do sistema revestido (substrato+filme), é importante avaliar o comportamento mecânico do mesmo. Um método para avaliação e estudo do comportamento mecânico destes sistemas é o ensaio de riscamento. O ensaio é utilizado para analisar a fratura superficial do revestimento (falha chamada coesiva), ou a resistência à adesão (falha chamada adesiva), e os modos de falha de revestimentos duros (HV>=5 GPa) e finos (<=30 ?m), depositados sobre substratos cerâmicos ou metálicos. A caracterização de alguns modos de falha nos sistemas revestidos está relacionada com modelos qualitativos de tensões presentes na região de contato e nas bordas do riscamento. Neste trabalho, foi estudado o comportamento das tensões Sxx e Szz desenvolvidas durante o riscamento de sistemas compostos por combinações de revestimentos/substratos. O trabalho foi baseado no desenvolvimento de modelos de simulação em 3D e 2D, utilizando o método dos elementos finitos (MEF), nos quais, uma partícula rígida com características de indentador Rockwell C, aplica carga progressiva até 2 N, ao longo de uma distância de 0,5 mm. No estudo, variou-se a dureza, traduzida em valores de tensão de escoamento do revestimento e do substrato, da mesma forma, analisou-se o efeito da tensão residual do revestimento, o efeito da espessura, o atrito, e a rugosidade, na superfície e na interface do sistema. O fato de obter valores de tensão que ultrapassam o valor do escoamento do revestimento pressupõe a possível ocorrência de falhas nos sistemas revestidos. Os resultados obtidos por simulação indicaram que as combinações de revestimento com tensão de escoamento baixa (Sy<3000 MPa) levam a experimentar tensões ao nível da tensão de escoamento do revestimento. Os revestimentos com tensão de escoamento Sy>5000 MPa apresentaram valores de tensão inferiores aos da tensão do revestimento, bem como o uso de tensão residual de -3 GPa no revestimento, assim como o aumento da espessura do revestimento têm grande importância nos sistemas revestidos, em particular nos casos em que a tensão de escoamento no revestimento é Sy>=5000MPa. O efeito do coeficiente de atrito leva à obtenção de valores de tensão (Sxx ou Szz) suficientemente altos na maioria das combinações, sendo esta a variável de estudo que levou ao maior número de vezes que foi atingido o valor da tensão de escoamento do revestimento. Da mesma forma, a rugosidade afeta os valores de tensão Sxx (interior do sulco). Ao aumentar a rugosidade do sistema aumenta a possibilidade de ultrapassar valores da tensão do revestimento na superfície e na interface do conjunto. Finalmente, pela complexidade do número de variáveis que afetam o ensaio, a simulação numérica sugere que o fato de analisar unicamente a dureza dos materiais, assim como as diferentes variáveis de forma isolada, não permite a reprodução de um mapa de falhas próximo ao proposto na literatura. / The deposition of wear resistant thin films is a common practice to improve the tribological behavior (friction, wear, lubrication) of several mechanical components. In order to guarantee the adequate performance of the coated systems, it is important to evaluate the mechanical behavior. A method for evaluation and study of the coated systems is the scratch test. The test is used to analyze the fracture of the coating (cohesive failure), or the adhesion of the coating (adhesive failure), and the failure modes of hard coatings (HV>=5 GPa) and thin (<=30 ?m) deposited on ceramic or metallic substrates. The characterization of some failure modes in coated systems is related to qualitative stress models at the contact region and the scratch edges. In this work, the behavior of the Sxx and Szz stresses developed during the scratch test was analyzed in different combinations of coatings/substrates. The work was based on the development of 3D and 2D simulation models using the finite element method (FEM). In the simulation, a rigid particle (with the geometry of Rockwell C indenter) applied progressive load to 2N along a 0.5 mm distance. In the study, the hardness was expressed as yield stress values in the coating and the substrate. In addition, it was examined the effect of coating residual stress (-3 GPa), as well as the effect of the thickness, the friction coefficient, and roughness of the surface and interface in the stresses behavior. The fact of obtaining tension values, which exceed the yield stress of coating implies the possible occurrence of failure. The results obtained by simulation indicated that the coating combinations with low yield stress (Sy < 3000 MPa) lead to Sxx and Szz stress values in the level of the coated yield stress. The coatings with yield stress Sy > 5000 MPa enable to obtain low Sxx and Szz values. The use of the residual stresses (-3 GPa) as well as increasing the thickness of the coating are very important factors in the coated systems, especially in the case of coatings with Sy > 5000 MPa. The effect of the friction coefficient leads to stress values (Sxx or Szz) sufficiently high in most of the combinations. This factor is the most important variable leading to the greater number of times that the value of the coating yield stress was reached. The roughness is responsible for Sxx stress values (inside groove). Increasing the roughness of the system increased the possibility of exceeding stress values in the surface and interface coating. Finally, by the complexity of the number of variables that affect the scratch test, the numerical simulation suggests that the fact of only analyzing the hardness of materials, as well as other isolated variables of the scratch test does not allow reproduction of a map of failures similar to that proposed in the literature.

Enfrentar situações de falha é o principal desafio do engenheiro estrutural. Parece paradoxal, mas a fim de obter um projeto bem sucedido, o engenheiro estrutural deve estudar e examinar todos os possíveis modos de falha de uma estrutura. Na otimização estrutural não é diferente. Assim, na otimização estrutural deve-se considerar os custos esperados de falha. No projeto de engenharia estrutural, economia e segurança são aparentemente objetivos conflitantes. No entanto, quando custos esperados de falha são considerados, nota-se que investimentos em segurança são necessários a fim de não arcar com os custos esperados de falha. O ponto ideal de compromisso pode ser encontrado por uma otimização de risco, onde a função objetivo inclui todos os custos ao longo do ciclo de vida da estrutura: construção, operação, manutenção inspeção, descarte e as consequências de falha esperadas. Este último é um remanescente que não pode ser desconsiderado dos modos de falha contra os quais a estrutura precisa ser projetada. Esta dissertação aborda a otimização de sistemas estruturais simples, considerando o equilíbrio entre modos de falha concorrentes, tais como escoamento (esmagamento), flambagem e snap-through. O estudo mostra como os diferentes modos de falha, associados a diferentes custos de falha, levam a diferentes projetos ótimos. Uma estrutura de treliça plana é estudada como exemplo de aplicação. A forma (posições nodais) e tamanho dos elementos são consideradas como variáveis de projeto. Resultados mostram que projetos ótimos suficientemente diferentes são obtidos quando o equilíbrio entre modos de falha concorrentes é alterado. / Defying failure is the primary challenge of the structural engineer. It sounds paradoxical, but in order to achieve a successful design, the structural engineer must think about and account for all possible failure modes of a structure. This is not different in structural optimization. Hence, in structural optimization one has to consider the expected costs of failure. In structural engineering design, economy and safety are apparently conflicting goals. However, when expected costs of failure are considered, one notes that investments in safety are necessary in order not to pay for the expected costs of failure. The optimum point of compromise can be found by a risk optimization, where the objective function includes all costs over the life-cycle of the structure: construction, operation, inspection maintenance, disposal, and the expected consequences of failure. The latter are an undeletable remainder of the failure modes that the structure needs to be designed against. This paper addresses the optimization of simple structural systems, considering the balance between competing failure modes such as yielding (squashing), buckling and snap-through. The study shows how different failure modes, associated to different costs of failure, lead to different optimal designs. A plane truss structure is studied as application example. The shape (nodal positions) and member size are considered as design variables. Results show that quite different optimal designs are obtained when the balance between competing failure modes is changed.

Trends such as increasing awareness of sustainable production, shorter product life cycles and personalised products create challenges for the mining industry. A solution to these challenges may be a functional product business model, where the provider sells the hardware’s function under a service contract and is responsible for delivering the combination of hardware and services over the duration of the contract. Under a functional product contract, it is of great importance to predict the availability performance of the hardware. For the mining company to strengthen its competitiveness even further, the reliability and maintainability are also crucial factors to reduce costs, maximise profits, minimise downtime, and improve forecasting of operating hours. The feasibility of performance modelling would be increased if it could be performed by a tool.In prior research related to the reliability of mining vehicles in underground mines, a research gap for drilling rigs was identified. The aim of the thesis was to build a prototype tool and develop a realistic test case to apply it to as a demonstration of how it can help mining vehicle (drilling vehicle) providers understand the impact of their failure modes, particularly from the perspective of providing those vehicles under functional product contracts. The focus was to develop a tool that can be accessible for decision makers within mine operating and mine vehicle provider companies who are not specialists in reliability and maintenance modelling.A simulation model was developed in JaamSim, a graphical user interface developed in Qt designer and the integration between them developed in the Python programming language. A realistic test case was constructed with the purpose of imitating a jumbo drill rig, specifically the Boomer M2 manufactured by Epiroc, used to develop tunnels in an underground mine. Three critical failure modes of the Boomer M2 were identified. Simulations of the test case show that the bent boom arm failure mode had greatest influence on the availability of the drill rig.The developed prototype tool demonstrates the value of decision support tools for measuring the impact of failure modes on functional product contracts and its potential for aiding their negotiation and adoption. The tool has a low complexity regarding usage which should increase its usefulness for decision makers. To increase the tools usefulness further, extending its flexibility of application to other mining vehicles and different maintenance policies has been identified as the next steps for future work.Key words:

This master's thesis deals with the issue of risk management in the selected company, which focuses mainly on production of technical fabrics. The theoretical basis of the thesis includes the definition of basic concepts related to risk management, identification, analysis and evaluation, as well as the precise procedures established according to the relevant ISO standards issued by the Office for Technical Standardization, Metrology and State Testing. The following section describes the current situation in the company, including introducing a process that identifies and identifies risks. These are then evaluated by the FMEA analysis and measures are proposed to reduce, possibly eliminate the risks.

The presented doctoral thesis is focused on solving reliability of operation and optimization of maintenance of rotary machines. In the theoretical part, the RCM method is analyzed in detail including several available modifications of this method. Furthermore, the most commonly used methods of technical diagnostics are presented. The practical part is focused on the design of a new methodology based on the RCM method.

The diploma thesis is focused on a business plan proposal, which will be used for an invest project implementation for an already existing company. The project comes out of basic theoretical experience. The opening part of the work concerns the project analysis, which is made by fixed methods. There is an elaboration of a proposed procedure for a successful implementation of the project in the last part including financial plan and its economic evaluation.

An integrated experimental and numerical research program investigating the elastic and inelastic performance as well as the kinematic behaviour of shearwalls with openings is presented in this study. The influence of the geometrical dimensions of the wall configurations and the mechanical properties and configurations of hold-downs on both elastic and inelastic behaviours including the possible kinematic modes of the shearwalls are investigated. The research also proposes the concept of equivalent-frame-model applicable for shearwalls where openings are cut-out from CLT panels. Are also presented, five racking tests performed on full scale CLT walls in order to validate the numerical models as well as the equivalent frame model. From review of the available literature emerges that for CLT shearwalls with openings, studies are not at the same level of abundance in research compared to walls without openings, due to the simple reason that SSW is generally a widespread technique. Thus, the kinematic behaviour and the coupling effect are inexistent and presented here. The investigations of the wall’s behaviour in the elastic and inelastic ranges demonstrate the important effect of the lintel and wall segment slenderness as well as the hold-down stiffness effect on the mechanical behaviour and the global kinematic behaviour as well. It is found that the kinematic modes can change when the walls are stressed beyond their elasticity limit. The failure mode and the global ductility are highly dependent on the hold-down configurations particularly for walls with door openings. The degree of coupling decrease with increased hold-down stiffness and the wall segment width. With regards to the equivalent frame model, a reasonable fit is found between the proposed EFM and a detailed 2D area element model when the global elastic stiffness and tensile load in the hold-down were compared. The model is successfully validated through five full-scale tests on CLT shearwalls with door or window opening as well as two published studies on walls with door openings. The EFM is capable of predicting the behaviour in the wall with reasonable accuracy, especially for walls whose behaviour was dominated by the hold-down behaviour.

NOx-sensorn är grundläggande i det moderna efterbehandlingssystemet och dess pålitlighet är avgörande för att kunna leva upp till rådande emissionslagkrav. Livslängden samt sensorns beteende i slutet av denna varierar betydligt. Om en NOx sensor med oberäkneligt beteende inte upptäcks av fordonets styrsystemet kan det orsaka omfattande verkstadsbesök eller i värsta fall brott mot emissionslagkrav. Examensarbetet involverar identifiering av olika sensorfellägen, tidiga tecken till dessa fellägen, förstå och identifiera förhållanden mellan olika sensorparametrar och analysera sensorbeteendet vid sensorlivslängdens slutskede. NOx sensorn är en relativt ny sensor och fordonsindustrin har ännu inte en fullständig förståelse för dess beteende. Litteraturstudien täcker olika fellägena så som fastnat värde, förskjutet värde, förstärkning av värdet, felaktiga svängningar samt långsam respons. Även effekterna av åldrande i NOx sensorn beskrivs. Litteraturstudien diskuterar också diagnoser av sensorer i allmänhet samt diagnoser specifikt för NOx sensorer. Uppsatsarbetet involverar också en experimentell studie där NOx sensorer utsätts för statiska och fluktuerande gasflöden i en motortestbädd. Fellägen i NOx sensorer kan observeras i parametrarna för NOx-värde och oxidationsnivå. I den version av NOx sensorn som användes observerades det också att parametrarna felaktig NOx och felaktig O2 visar samma felkod samtidigt. Dock är inte parametrarna för felaktig NOx och felaktig O2 relaterade till parametrarna för värmningsstatus, felaktig värmare och värmeelementets temperatur. Sensorns status gällande ogiltiga NOx-mätningar är större än eller lika med antalet ogiltiga O2-mätningar. Resultatet gäller framför allt sensormodell Continental 2.8 NOx sensorer. Även logik för en monitor gällande felaktiga svängningar utvecklas baserat på standardavvikelse och NOx statusparametern för ogiltig mätning. / The NOx sensor is essential in the modern after-treatment system and the reliability of the sensor is crucial for any emission-based legislation. The life span of a sensor varies a lot as well as the behaviour previous to its end of life. If a NOx sensor with erratic behaviour is not discovered by the control system it may cause extensive workshop effort or in worst case exceed legal requirements. The thesis work involves identifying different sensor failure modes, precursors to these failure modes, understanding and identifying relationships between different sensor parameters, and analysing the sensor behaviour especially towards the end of life. The NOx sensor is a relatively new sensor and the vehicle industry does not yet have a complete understanding of its behaviour. The literature study covers the different failure modes namely stuck, offset, gain, oscillations, and slow response and their causes along with the effects of ageing in NOx sensors. It also discusses the diagnosis of faulty sensors in general and faulty NOx sensors. The thesis work also involves an experimental study where the NOx sensors are subjected to static and transient gas flow tests in an engine testbed. Failure modes in NOx sensors are observable in NOx concentration and actual oxidation measurement parameters. It was also observed in the version of the NOx sensor used that Error NOx and Error O2 parameters show the same fault code at the same time. Although, the Error NOx and Error O2 parameters are not related to the heater parameters, Heater status, Error heater, and Temperature of heating element. The number of invalid flags set in NOx status is greater than or equal to the number of invalid flags in O2 status. The mentioned parameters are concerning Continental 2.8 NOx sensors. The logic for the oscillatory fault monitor is developed based on standard deviation and an invalid flag check on the NOx status parameter.

There is much dialogue in the global aviation industry about Safety Management Systems (SMS) and how it should be integrated across all domains of the industry including aircraft design, production, flight operations, overhaul and maintenance, suppliers, service providers, airports, and so forth (Johnson, 2012). Regulators have made significant progress in recent years to implement ICAO’s SMS into airlines, albeit as a required or recommended practice. More recently the regulators are seeking to implement SMS into the aircraft manufacturing and aircraft maintenance domains. This research reviewed regulatory publications from multiple countries to assess the technical makeup of SMS, and understand what regulators are requiring, or recommending, and when. It was found that global regulators accept the ICAO published definition of SMS, but different regulators have varying approaches regarding implementation. However, they are consistent in initially targeting airlines for SMS implementation. SMS comments range from “The best thing since sliced bread” to “Worst thing since the creation of the FAA; I don’t need anyone telling me what’s safe when I already know it; waste of time and money”. This investigation experimented with field tests to connect the engineering, production and airline domains into one ICAO SMS model. Results indicate that because the different domains are risk-specific, the application of one safety risk management model to all domains is not viable. The SMS model applies to airlines because airlines’ primary risk is about operational safety. Aircraft production and maintenance is about production risk – therefore the risk model must be centric to process risk. Field test 3 tailored the ICAO SMS risk architecture to assess and mitigate process risk as applicable to the aircraft manufacturing and maintenance. Although the SMS architecture was usable, the content and focus was significantly adjusted to be production process-risk centric, to the point where the term “SMS’ was deemed out of place. The resulting model was therefore named Production Risk Management System (PRMS). Following the emergence of PRMS from field tests, this investigation reviewed industry, research and regulatory arguments for and against SMS in the airline industry, and correlated those arguments with the benefits and non-benefits of PRMS for the manufacturing and aircraft maintenance domains. The researcher advocates PRMS as a viable model that meets ICAO SMS-like architecture for aircraft production and maintenance. Methods were identified for developing and implementing PRMS, and for evaluating its ROI. If and when “SMS” is truly mandated in these domains, the researcher proposes PRMS as a viable model that should be considered. Furthermore, the researcher proposes that PRMS can be an effective production risk management system that can enhance the organization’s existing QMS, regardless of “SMS” regulations.

Cellular beams became increasingly popular as an efficient structural form in steel construction since their introduction. Their sophisticated design and profiling process provides greater flexibility in beam proportioning for strength, depth, size and location of circular holes. The purpose of manufacturing these beams is to increase overall beam depth, the moment of inertia and section modulus, which results in greater strength and rigidity. Cellular beams are used as primary or secondary floor beams in order to achieve long spans and service integration. They are also used as roof beams beyond the range of portal-frame construction, and are the perfect solution for curved roof applications, combining weight savings with a low-cost manufacturing process. The purpose of the current research is to study optimum design, ultimate load capacity under applied load and finite element analysis of non-composite cellular beams. The first part of the research program focuses on the optimum design of steel cellular beams using one of the stochastic search methods called &ldquo / harmony search algorithm&rdquo / . The minimum weight is taken as the design objective while the design constraints are implemented from the Steel Construction Institute. Design constraints include the displacement limitations, overall beam flexural capacity, beam shear capacity, overall beam buckling strength, web post flexure and buckling, vierendeel bending of upper and lower tees and local buckling of compression flange. The design methods adopted in this publication are consistent with BS5950. In the second part of the research, which is the experimental work, twelve non-composite cellular beams are tested to determine the ultimate load carrying capacities of these beams under using a hydraulic plug to apply point load. The tested cellular beam specimens have been designed by using harmony search algorithm. Finally, finite element analysis program is used to perform elastic buckling analysis and predict critical loads of all steel cellular beams. Finite element analysis results are then compared with experimental test results for each tested cellular beam.