Structures made of the thermoplastic polymer polyether ether ketone (PEEK) are widely used in dynamically-loaded applications due to their high-temperature resistance and high mechanical properties. To design these dynamic applications, in addition to the well-known stiffness and strength properties the vibration-damping properties at the given frequencies are required. Depending on the application, frequencies from a few hertz to the ultrasonic range are of interest here. To characterize the frequency-dependent behavior, an experimental approach was chosen and applied to a sample polymer PEEK. The test setup consists of a piezoelectrically driven base excitation of the polymeric specimen and the non-contact measurement of the velocity as well as the surface temperature. The beam’s bending vibrations were analyzed by means of the Timoshenko theory to determine the polymer’s storage modulus. The mechanical loss factor was calculated using the half-power bandwidth method. For PEEK and a considered frequency range of 1 kHz to 16 kHz, a storage modulus between 3.9 GPa and 4.2 GPa and a loss factor between 9 103 and 17 103 were determined. For the used experimental parameters, the resulting mechanical properties were not essentially influenced by the amplitude of excitation, the duration of excitation, or thermal degrad.ation due to self-heating, but rather slightly by the clamping force within the fixation area.

The carbon nanotube-based field effect transistor (CNTFET) possesses the potential to overcome limitations of state-of-the-art technologies such as silicon-based complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors. However, the carbon nanotube (CNT) technology is still at its infancy and technology development is still necessary to exploit the CNT properties such as high charge carrier mobility, high current carrying capability, one-dimensional charge transport and their versatile integrability. Within this work significant progress has been achieved scientifically and technologically in the advance of high frequency (HF) CNTFETs for analog applications. According to simulations by others, a technology flow has been developed based on electron beam lithography for bottom gated HF CNTFETs which outperform state-of the art top gate architectures with respect to their parasitic capacitances. Moreover, the impact of electrostatic doping on the CNTFETs has been investigated. In particular, the dynamics of water desorption from the CNTFETs and the related reduction of p-type doping was investigated and the different impact of the n-type dopant polyethylenimine onto the channel region and contact region could be separated for the first time. Furthermore, the impact of doped CNT bundles on the device performance has been studied. It could be shown in detail for the first time, that high off-state source-drain leakage currents can be due to bundled semiconducting CNTs and does not necessarily imply the presence of metallic CNTs. The within the framework of this thesis designed and realized HF CNTFETs are operating in the GHz range with cut-off frequencies up to 14 GHz and maximum frequencies of oscillation up to 6 GHz at a channel length of 280 nm. Moreover, the impact of the spacer between the source-/ drain- to the gate electrode on the HF properties of the CNTFETs has been investigated experimentally for the first time. Simulations by others have successfully confirmed that a symmetrical reduction of the source to gate electrode spacer results in an increased device speed. By asymmetrically reducing the source to gate electrode spacer and in parallel increasing the drain-to-gate electrode spacer the device speed can be further enhanced. Moreover, within this work it has been experimentally indicated for the first time that the device properties of HF CNTFETs can be tuned by different device geometries towards either highest linearity or speed.

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Even in the 21st century, modern communication technology is still affected by natural disasters and political turmoil which threaten people’s lives and make the internet or mobile phone networks unavailable for use. This work uses systems theory which resulted in a proof of concept system that uses shortwave radio technology to provide a one-way communication system. A message a user writes on their smartphone, which is connected to a small pre-set transmitter, is sent out to a receiver in another part of the world where the message can then be posted on the internet. This system is a cheaper alternative to other shortwave radio transmitters, and has potential for improvement.

The advent and proliferation of planar technologies for power converters are driven in part by the overall trends in analog and digital electronics. These trends coupled with the demands for increasingly higher power quality and tighter regulations raise various design challenges. Because inductors and transformers constitute a rather large part of the overall converter volume, size and performance improvement of these structures can subsequently enhance the capability of power converters to meet these application-driven demands. Increasing the switching frequency has been the traditional approach in reducing converter size and improving performance. However, the increase in switching frequency leads to increased power loss density in windings and core, with subsequent increase in device temperature, parasitics and electromagnetic radiation. An accurate set of reduced-order modeling methodologies is presented in this work in order to predict the high-frequency behavior of inductors and transformers. Analytical frequency-dependent expressions to predict losses in planar, foil windings and cores are given. The losses in the core and windings raise the temperature of the structure. In order to ensure temperature limitation of the structure is not exceeded, 1-D thermal modeling is undertaken. Based on the losses and temperature limitation, a methodology to optimize performance of magnetics is outlined. Both numerical and analytical means are employed in the extraction of transformer parasitics and cross-coupling. The results are compared against experimental measurements and are found to be in good accord. A simple near-field electromagnetic shield design is presented in order to mitigate the amount of radiation. Due to inadequacy of existing winding technology in forming suitable planar windings for PCB application, an alternate winding scheme is proposed which relies on depositing windings directly onto the core. / Master of Science

Research has shown that the extent of students' vocabulary in the language of learning and teaching, as an important component of overall language proficiency, plays a crucial role in reading and academic success, whether students are studying through their mother tongue or not. This study compares the vocabulary size of Grade 7 English second language immersion students with that of their English mother tongue classmates, focusing primarily on receptive vocabulary. Two aspects of immersion that South African children may experience are identified: length and quality. It is assumed that the longer the immersion, and the richer the immersion environment, the more positive the effect on vocabulary size will be. Overall results suggest that length has a slightly stronger effect on receptive vocabulary size than quality, though both are generally positive, and that most immersion students are beginning to develop a basic receptive vocabulary size comparable with that of their English mother tongue peers. / Linguistics / (M.A. (Linguistics))

In More Electric Aircraft, different power system activities are attributed to electrical means such as the start-up of the main engine. In this context, the study of the sensorless control of the Brushless Synchronous Starter Generator (BSSG) that is used to electrically start the main engine is revealed to be a very interesting issue. For long time, the elimination of the mechanical sensor was highly recommended for reliability, cost, weight, integration issues.Hence, this work aims to transpose the results obtained in the research area to an avionic testbench. It presents an adaptive sensorless technique to use when electrically starting the main engine of the aircraft. This is achieved by elaborating three different methods selected depending on the speed of the machine and based on the :- injection of a high frequency signal- use of the back-emf of the Permanent Magnet Generator (PMG)- use of the extended Kalman Filter EKFIn this work, it is shown that the …first method gives good position estimation results from standstill up to 8% of the rated speed. Then, the back-emfs of the PMG are used to detect the position of the BSSG when the speed exceeds the 8% of the rated speed. Good results are observed with this method at medium and high speed.For redundancy reasons, the EKF was also used in this work. Thus, the estimated position can be delivered via two different estimation algorithms in medium and high speed region.The implementation of the algorithm was achieved on an FPGA board since the latter can ensure a very tiny execution time. The fastness of the treatment ensures quasi-instantaneous position estimation and does not practically introduce any phase lag in the position estimation. / Aujourd'hui, l'aviation est en train de vivre des évolutions technologiques concernant surtout l'attribution de différentes fonctionnalités aux équipements électriques et ceci au détriment d'équipements hydrauliques et mécaniques assurant les mêmes fonctionnalités.Dans le cadre de l'avion plus électrique, le démarrage électrique sans capteurs mécaniques de la turbine de l'avion préoccupe les avionneurs de nos jours. Les problèmes introduits par ce capteur ont été identifiés : problèmes de coût et de poids, problèmes de fiabilité et d'intégration.Ce travail présente alors une commande sans capteurs pour la machine synchrone à trois étages à utiliser durant le démarrage électrique de l'avion. Ceci est réalisé avec trois méthodes de détection de la position selon la vitesse de rotation, basées sur :- l'injection d'un signal à haute fréquence- l'utilisation d'un filtre de Kalman étendu FKE- les fém. du PMG (Permanent Magnet Generator) La première méthode donne de bons résultats d'estimation depuis l'arrêt jusqu'à 8% de la vitesse nominale de la machine. Au-delà de cette vitesse, es valeurs des fém. du PMG deviennent assez élevées pour être utilisées dans l'estimation de la position. De bons résultats sont obtenus à moyenne et haute vitesse.Pour des questions de redondance, le FKE est aussi utilisé. Ainsi, la position estimée peut être fournie par l'un des deux algorithmes à moyenne et haute vitesse.L'implémentation de ces algorithmes est réalisée via une carte FPGA étant donné que celui-ci garantit un temps d'exécution. La rapidité de traitement garantit une estimation de la position quasi-instantanée et donc n'introduit pratiquement pas des retards dans l'estimation.