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<p>This thesis presents the mechanical design and dimensioning of a pressure vessel, which is to be used as housing for a marine substation in a wave power park. A concept for generation of electricity from ocean waves is being developed at the Division of electricity at Uppsala University. The concept is based on the use of a permanent magnet linear generator, placed on the seabed, connected via a line to a buoy at the surface. The generated electricity from a group of generators is transmitted in sea cables to a marine substation where conversion and transformation takes place before the electricity is transmitted to shore. To reduce the risk of water leakage, the gas pressure inside the marine substation is larger than the surrounding water pressure. The substation can be pressurized before submersion, which requires the housing to be designed as a pressure vessel. The pressure vessel has been dimensioned with formula based methods according to EN 13445, the European standard for unfired pressure vessels. The construction has been based on modifying a standard pressure tank. The housing has been designed for installation and sealing of a large number of electrical connectors. The connectors have been placed in a way that allows for future cable coupling with remotely operated vehicles and simplifies maintenance of the substation. Another design consideration has been to facilitate submersion by reducing the buoyancy of the substation.</p>

This thesis presents the mechanical design and dimensioning of a pressure vessel, which is to be used as housing for a marine substation in a wave power park. A concept for generation of electricity from ocean waves is being developed at the Division of electricity at Uppsala University. The concept is based on the use of a permanent magnet linear generator, placed on the seabed, connected via a line to a buoy at the surface. The generated electricity from a group of generators is transmitted in sea cables to a marine substation where conversion and transformation takes place before the electricity is transmitted to shore. To reduce the risk of water leakage, the gas pressure inside the marine substation is larger than the surrounding water pressure. The substation can be pressurized before submersion, which requires the housing to be designed as a pressure vessel. The pressure vessel has been dimensioned with formula based methods according to EN 13445, the European standard for unfired pressure vessels. The construction has been based on modifying a standard pressure tank. The housing has been designed for installation and sealing of a large number of electrical connectors. The connectors have been placed in a way that allows for future cable coupling with remotely operated vehicles and simplifies maintenance of the substation. Another design consideration has been to facilitate submersion by reducing the buoyancy of the substation.

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Robotic rehabilitation and assessment of the human upper-limb following stroke is currently limited in part by the inability of robots to replicate natural motion. In particular, motion of the shoulder girdle is usually neglected, despite the fact that the shoulder girdle is necessary to stabilize and orient the upper-limb during activities of daily living. Without direct control of the shoulder girdle, it is not possible to monitor or prevent a patient from making compensatory movements, which inhibits functional recovery, nor is there a means to properly regain strength and coordination. The more the robot is able to realistically mimic upper-limb motion, the more able the robot will be to assist with true functional movement training, which gives the patient the best chance of motor recovery. To address this issue, a new adjustable robotic exoskeleton called MEDARM is proposed for rehabilitation and assessment of the shoulder complex. MEDARM provides independent control of six degrees of freedom of the upper-limb: two at the sternoclavicular joint, three at the glenohumeral joint and one at the elbow. A key design feature of the new robot is an innovative curved track mechanism actuated by a cable-drive transmission system. To facilitate a performance evaluation of this new mechanism, a planar version of MEDARM was designed. A full prototype of this planar robot was constructed and several fundamental metrics, including friction, inertia, and compliance, were used to test its mechanical performance. Additionally, the functionality of the robot was examined using preliminary data recorded during a standard reaching task, and by implementing some basic rehabilitation algorithms. This thesis describes the design of MEDARM and its planar counterpart in detail and the performance evaluation of the prototype is presented. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2008-08-13 21:19:14.335

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Though lots of numerical methods have been proposed in the literature to optimize me-chanical structures at the final stage of the design process, few designers use these tools since the first stage. However, a minor modification at the first step can bring significant change to the global performances of the structure. Usually, during the initial stage, models are based on theoretical and empirical equations, which are often characterized by mixed variables: continuous (e.g. geometrical dimensions), discrete (e.g. the cross section of a beam available in a catalogue) and/or integer (e.g. the number of layers in a composite material). Furthermore, the functions involved may be non differentiable, or even discontinuous. Therefore, classical algorithms based on the computation of sensi-tivities are no more applicable. Consequently, to solve these problems, the most wide-spread meta-heuristic methods are evolutionary algorithms (EAs), which work as follows: the best individuals among an initial population of randomly generated potential solutions are favoured and com-bined (by specific operators like crossover and mutation) in order to create potentially better individuals at the next generation. The creation of new generations is repeated till the convergence is reached. The ability of EAs to explore widely the design space is useful to solve single-objective unconstrained optimization problems, because it gener-ally prevents from getting trapped into a local optimum, but it is also well known that they do not perform very efficiently in the presence of constraints. Furthermore, in many industrial applications, multiple objectives are pursued together. Therefore, to take into account the constrained and multicriteria aspects of optimization problems in EAs, a new method called PAMUC (Preferences Applied to MUltiobjectiv-ity and Constraints) has been proposed in this dissertation. First the user has to assign weights to the m objectives. Then, an additional objective function is built by linearly aggregating the normalized constraints. Finally, a multicriteria decision aid method, PROMETHEE II, is used in order to rank the individuals of the population following the m+1 objectives. PAMUC has been validated on standard multiobjective test cases, as well as on the pa-rametrical optimization of the purge valve and the feed valve of the Vinci engine, both designed by Techspace Aero for launcher Ariane 5. The second step of the thesis consists in incorporating an inference engine within the optimization scheme in order to take expert rules into account. First, information about conception and design is collected among engineers expert in a specific domain. In the case of the valves designed by Techspace Aero, the expert rules are rules of thumb based upon experience, and related to the leakages, the choice of the materials for the different parts of the structure, etc. Then, each potential design generated by the EA is tested and repaired (with a given probability) according to the user-defined rules. This approach seems very efficient in reducing the size of the search space and guiding the EA towards the global feasible optimum.

Engineers recognize the need for innovation in product design, and many methods are available for creating more innovative products and better satisfying customer needs. Empathic Experience Design (EED) is one such method. The EED method exposes the designer to empathic experiences, which are intended to help the designer empathize with customers who use the product under a variety of non-ideal conditions and then transfer that enhanced understanding to an ensuing concept generation activity. This thesis studies the effectiveness of the EED methodology when used in conjunction with three types of empathic experiences: sensory, physical, and cognitive. Experiments were conducted over the course of two years, in which students were asked to develop concepts for a next-generation alarm clock or litter collection device; the resulting concepts were analyzed to determine the originality and technical quality of each concept. The subject group concepts, which were developed after participating in empathic experiences, were compared with the control group concepts, which were developed without empathic experiences. The subject group concepts demonstrated significantly higher originality than the control group concepts, without measurable sacrifices in technical quality, as well as significant increases in innovative features related to user interactions. The method has been shown to be effective for enhancing innovation when the empathic experiences are aimed at sensory and kinematic priming activities that challenge a user’s sensory or physical capabilities. / text

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