Sport, once an amateur pursuit has evolved in to a lucrative industry. The most recent development in the evolution of Australian sport has been the emergence of industrial regulation. Unlike other Australian labour markets, the sports administrators labour market was entirely market regulated until 1994. Over the last five years the sports administrators labour market has transformed into a centralised award based system. On the surface it appears that there is no obvious explanation for the dramatic re-regulation of this labour market. In order to determine the factors behind the re-regulation, this thesis investigated Australian sports administrators attitudes to unionism, awards and enterprise bargaining, including their preferences to awards and enterprise bargaining agreements. The attitudes of 229 Australian sports administrators were surveyed. The response rate was 67.25%. Findings from the survey indicated a number of points: (1) union membership predicted 8% of their attitude to unionism, (2) non union members were more likely to have positive and accepting attitudes to unions, (3) sports administrators working under Enterprise Bargaining agreements had more positive and accepting attitudes of unions, (4) Enterprise Bargaining was considered to be more beneficial than not in sport, (5) Enterprise Bargaining had more than double the support of Award regulation, and (6)Award regulation had almost equal amounts of rejection and support. Other results indicated that the sports administrators labour market remained market regulated until 1994 because a majority of sports administrators belonged to demographic groups which were less inclined to become union members. Factors behind the reregulation were determined to be: strong support for targeted services within workplaces rather than generic services across an industry, and strong support for increased union interaction when negotiating terms and conditions of employment which effects sports administrators' attitudes to unionism. It was evident that the re-regulation was not caused by a large shift in the attitudes of sports administrators or a result of problems stemming from the market being entirely by market regulation. It is more than likely that the sudden re-regulation of the sports administrators labour market was the sports industry's first step towards industrial maturity.

Cette étude se focalise principalement sur la modélisation et l’amélioration d’un accumulateur industriel de bande. Le premier chapitre présente la modélisation non-linéaire, puis la linéarisation autour d'un point de fonctionnement, d’un accumulateur industriel comportant un chariot pneumatique ou motorisé. Cette modélisation complète prend en compte les non-linéarités des différents types d’actionneurs du chariot. Les paramètres mécaniques les plus influents sur les performances de ces accumulateurs sont mis en évidence, puis les stratégies de commandes industrielles classiques sont testées sur ces accumulateurs. Le second chapitre présente l’optimisation des performances de l’accumulateur. Des améliorations de la commande sont réalisées : prise en compte de la robustesse, optimisations multi-objectifs, nouvelles structures de commandes. Ces améliorations montrent un net gain des performances concernant la tension de bande à la sortie de l'accumulateur. De nouvelles structures d’accumulateurs incluant un danseur sont proposées, améliorant fortement les performances. Une comparaison des performances des différents accumulateurs est présentée. Le dernier chapitre présente l’étude du frottement bande textile/rouleau. Le comportement au frottement de bandes textiles glissant sur un rouleau est identifié. L'évolution du coefficient de frottement est déterminée expérimentalement pour différents paramètres et types de bandes. Suite à ces mesures, un modèle de bande défilant sur un rouleau, incluant coefficient de frottement et perte d’adhérence est proposé et montre l’influence du coefficient de frottement sur la réponse du système à une variation de vitesse de bande. / This study focuses mainly on modeling and optimization of industrial web accumulators. The chapter one presents the nonlinear model of an industrial accumulator including a pneumatic actuated or a motorized carriage. The nonlinear model is then linearized around a working point. This model takes into account nonlinearities of both carriage actuators. The most influent mechanical parameters on the accumulator performances are highlighted and then, classical industrial control strategies are tested on the modeled accumulators. The chapter two concerns the accumulator performances optimization. Firstly, controllers are improved by taking into account the robustness against parameter variations, by using multi-objective controllers optimization or by using new control strategies. All these improvements show drastic performances gain. New accumulator structures including a dancer roll are proposed and improve also the accumulator performances. A performances comparison of the entire presented accumulator is presented at the end of this chapter. The last chapter presents the study of the friction between textile fabric and roll. The friction behavior of a web sliding on a roll is identified. The friction coefficient evolution is experimentally determined for different experimental parameters and kind of webs. These measures have permitted to build a model of a web sliding on a roll. This model, including the friction coefficient and the adherence loss between web and roll highlights the response of the web/roll system against web velocity variation.