<p>In this paper the possibilities to replace metal with plastic in products for the building industry were looked into. The first part was a market examination where several suitable products were found. After evaluation the door latch for in-house doors was selected to be re-designed to better suit the properties of plastic.</p><p>New types of mechanisms were designed with different functions that use the benefits of plastic materials. Models of these mechanisms were developed to evaluate their function. The components in the different mechanisms were adapted for manufacturing with injection moulding.</p><p>To confirm that the plastic material could handle the appearing stresses calculations on the most vulnerable parts were carried out. The result of the re-design process was three types of door latches that all fit in the doors standard cut-out. Model Classic is similar to the existing mechanism but the number of components is less than half and assembly and manufacturing is simplified. Model Magneto uses a magnet to move the locking part when the door is closed. Opening and locking is the same as Classic. Model Push/Pull uses a pushing or pulling motion to open the door depending on which side it is operated from.</p> / <p>I arbetet undersöktes ersättning av metallprodukter med plast inom byggindustrin. Första delen är en enkel marknadsundersökning där produkter som kan vara lämpliga och lönsamma att ersätta söks. Marknadsundersökningen ledde till att flera lämpliga produkter hittades och efter sållning valdes dörrmekanismen till innedörrar för vidareutveckling.</p><p>I den andra delen som kallas Re-design har dörrmekanismen omkonstruerats och en ny funktion har utvecklats för att passa för tillverkning i plast och för att kunna dra nytta av de fördelar som plastmaterialet erbjuder. Efter idégenerering och sållning har modeller byggts för att testa funktioner. Därefter anpassades de utvalda mekanismerna för tillverkning med formsprutning.</p><p>Beräkningar av mekanismens mest belastade delar utfördes i beräkningsprogrammet Abaqus. Arbetet resulterade i tre varianter av innerdörrsmekanismen som alla passar i dörrens standarduttag, dessa fick namnen Classic, Magneto och Push/pull. Classic har samma funktion som den existerande varianten men antalet delar är mindre än hälften och monteringen och tillverkning är enklare. Magneto liknar i stor utsträckning Classic men vid öppen dörr ligger kolven jämns med dörren och dras in i låsblecket av en magnet istället för av en fjäder som i Classic. Push/pull har en annorlunda öppningsfunktion där drag/tryck används för att öppna dörren istället för en vridrörelse.</p>

In this paper the possibilities to replace metal with plastic in products for the building industry were looked into. The first part was a market examination where several suitable products were found. After evaluation the door latch for in-house doors was selected to be re-designed to better suit the properties of plastic. New types of mechanisms were designed with different functions that use the benefits of plastic materials. Models of these mechanisms were developed to evaluate their function. The components in the different mechanisms were adapted for manufacturing with injection moulding. To confirm that the plastic material could handle the appearing stresses calculations on the most vulnerable parts were carried out. The result of the re-design process was three types of door latches that all fit in the doors standard cut-out. Model Classic is similar to the existing mechanism but the number of components is less than half and assembly and manufacturing is simplified. Model Magneto uses a magnet to move the locking part when the door is closed. Opening and locking is the same as Classic. Model Push/Pull uses a pushing or pulling motion to open the door depending on which side it is operated from. / I arbetet undersöktes ersättning av metallprodukter med plast inom byggindustrin. Första delen är en enkel marknadsundersökning där produkter som kan vara lämpliga och lönsamma att ersätta söks. Marknadsundersökningen ledde till att flera lämpliga produkter hittades och efter sållning valdes dörrmekanismen till innedörrar för vidareutveckling. I den andra delen som kallas Re-design har dörrmekanismen omkonstruerats och en ny funktion har utvecklats för att passa för tillverkning i plast och för att kunna dra nytta av de fördelar som plastmaterialet erbjuder. Efter idégenerering och sållning har modeller byggts för att testa funktioner. Därefter anpassades de utvalda mekanismerna för tillverkning med formsprutning. Beräkningar av mekanismens mest belastade delar utfördes i beräkningsprogrammet Abaqus. Arbetet resulterade i tre varianter av innerdörrsmekanismen som alla passar i dörrens standarduttag, dessa fick namnen Classic, Magneto och Push/pull. Classic har samma funktion som den existerande varianten men antalet delar är mindre än hälften och monteringen och tillverkning är enklare. Magneto liknar i stor utsträckning Classic men vid öppen dörr ligger kolven jämns med dörren och dras in i låsblecket av en magnet istället för av en fjäder som i Classic. Push/pull har en annorlunda öppningsfunktion där drag/tryck används för att öppna dörren istället för en vridrörelse.

Lithium ion batteries (LIB) are one of the most commercially significant secondary batteries, but in order to continue improving the devices that rely on this form of energy storage, it is necessary to optimize their components. One common problem with anode materials that hinders their performance is volumetric expansion during cycling. One of the methods studied to resolve this issue is the confinement of metal oxides with the interest of improving the longevity of their performance with cycling. Confinement of metal oxide nanoparticles within carbon nanotubes has shown to improve the performance of these anode materials versus unconfined metal oxides. Here, electrostatic spray deposition (ESD) is used to create thin films of nano-confined tin oxide/CNT composite as the active anode material for subsequent property testing of assembled LIBs. This thesis gives the details of the techniques used to produce the desired anode materials and their electrochemical characterization as LIB anodes.

Biochar’s high porosity and negative surface charge allows for numerous soil and plant benefits such as increased water retention, high nutrient availability, and plant growth. By analysing biochar’s effect of all of these factors, a system can be put in place in which soils can be remediated with the proper soil amendments. This report discusses and tests the effects of varying rates of biochar on pH levels, cation exchange capacity, and nutrient exchangeability (of calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium) in soil. Corn plants were also grown in soils of varying amendment types and analysed for plant growth and germination to determine soil effects on the plant. Testing showed significant differences between treatment types in all areas tested except plant germination. A 2:1 ratio of biochar to compost produced the best overall results for the soil used in testing. This treatment maintained acceptable levels of exchangeable nutrients while raising pH and cation exchange capacity, and also raised the plant growth in the soil by 30%. However, for added soil health, gypsum or calcium fertilizer should be added to the soil to remediate low calcium exchangeability. This testing confirmed that biochar does have a strong positive influence on soil and plant health when used in combination with compost.

<p>The experiment work pertaining to this thesis can be divided into two parts: a) The study of the ion beam mixing process in the platinum-iron system and b) Electrocatalysis measuremnts on the mixed platinum-iron alloys. The ion beam mixing was studied using a 120 keV Fe+ ion over a rang of temperatures from 298K to 523K. A thin film of platinum was evaporated onto an oxide free substrate of iron to form a bi-layer sample. In order to check whether the interface was clean and oxide-free, Auger electron spectrometry was used along with sputtering. The mixing was studied primarily using RBS. The TEM was also used to characterize the samples before and after mixing.</p> <p>At low temperatures (<373 K), the mixing is very small and found to take place by collisional processes. At higher temperatures (>473 K) iron moves rapidly into the platinum. The activation energy for the platinum migration into the iron was found to be ~0.5 eV. This suggests that the vacancy mechanism is operating about 423 K. The films produced by mixing at low temperatures are highly stressed and there are a considerable amount of twins formed. It was also found that the grain size increases with dose and temperature.</p> <p>The surface concentration Pt in the mixed film is high ~90%. This results in an improvement of ~25% in the overvoltage for the ion beam mixed films compared to an iron electrode. Ion beam mixed films were found to be more stable than iron electrodes simply coated with films with an evaporated platinum layer. This appears to be the result of the improved adhesion between the platinum and iron as a result of the ion beam mixing process. For unmixed samples, an oxide layer is able to form on the iron surface at the platinum./iron interface, possibly because of cracks in the platinum layer, and this results in platinum pealing off the electrode leaving just the iron electrode.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>This research study has been devoted to the study of magnetic properties and magnetic transport of nanocrystalline Ni and Ni-15% Fe alloys consisting of randomly oriented grains with an average size of 23 and 12 (nm), respectively. The structures of the deposits were confirmed by the XRD analysis using Rietveld refinement technique. The as-deposited Ni and Ni-15%Fe sample was comprised exclusively of the γ phase with lattice parameter of 3.5270 (nm) and 3.5424 (nm), respectively. The small increase in lattice parameter was attributed to the replacement of iron solutes in the Ni sites in lattice. Texture analysis of nanocrystalline Ni and Ni-15%Fe revealed that textures components of both materials is qualitatively the same and vary in terms of volume fraction. Both material showed strong <100> fibre texture with some contribution of the <111> component. The calculated volume fraction of the <100> and <111> components were respectively 17.157% and 3.201% for Ni and, 22.032% and 6.160% for Ni-15%Fe and the rest being confined to the random texture.</p> <p>Magnetic measurements show that all samples exhibit low loss hysteresis loops with high permeabilities. The presence of 15%Fe in Ni leads to enhancement of the saturation magnetization (M_s) regardless of the direction of the applied field. M_s shows an increase from 60.169 (emu/gr) in nanocrystalline Ni to 93.67 (emu/gr) in Ni-15%Fe sample at T=2K. No strong temperature–dependence of the magnetization was observed for samples, but the magnetization of the Ni-15%Fe samples at T=2K were slightly higher than that of T=298K. The coercivity values of nanocrystalline Ni-15%Fe were in all cases smaller than that of nanocrystalline Ni samples. Good agreement between random anisotropy model (RAM) theory and experiment for nanocrystalline Ni and Ni-15%Fe samples was observed. The ferromagnetic exchange length (L_ex) was larger than the average grain size (D) for samples at all times. The effective magnetic anisotropy constants (K_eff) of the nanocrystalline Ni and Ni-15%Fe alloys were measured using the law of approach to saturation. At T=2K, the K_eff of Ni-15%Fe samples were measured to be 1.7037´10⁵ (erg/cm³) and 2.71996 ´10⁵ (erg/cm³) at field parallel and perpendicular, respectively. These values were almost half of the values obtained for nanocrystalline Ni samples 4.66091´10⁵ (erg/cm³) and 4.19703´10⁵ (erg/cm³). Temperature dependence measurements showed that K_eff constants decrease with increasing temperature. The angular dependence MR studies on nanocrystalline Ni and Ni-15%Fe resulted in a twofold, and a fourfold symmetric behaviour, respectively. The field dependence MR measured at various sample tilt with respect to the applied field, showed various trends from pure positive MR to pure negative MR, which partially could be explained by magnetocrystalline anisotropy of the samples.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p>Anodic protection has shown to be a viable method for reducing corrosion rates of stainless steels over a wide range of temperatures and is used to protect equipment in H₂SO₄ manufacturing. While effective at controlling corrosion in H2SO4 manufacturing, Impressed Current Anodic Protection (ICAP) systems have shown to have a number of issues. They require a constant source of current to ensure reliable corrosion protection; are relatively complex systems and expensive to install; improper potential control can lead to loss of corrosion protection; and some issues with cathode fouling and erosion have been reported. Galvanic Coupled Anodic Protection (GCAP) systems have not been widely utilized in industry, but offer some solutions to these issues. GCAP systems have been developed using Pt and Au as the cathode materials for use in H2SO4. Previous work on the oscillatory behaviour of austenitic stainless steels indicates that nickel sulphide (NiS) could be used as cathode material in a GCAP system in concentrated H₂SO₄ to protect stainless steel. The objective of this study was to develop a better understanding of the behaviour of NiS when galvanically coupled to Type 430 stainless steel to determine whether it can be used in a GCAP system. NiS and NiS(Ni) electrodes are able to provide the Icrit needed to passivate Type 430 at anode/cathode ratios of 10:1, while NiS(Ni) electrodes were able to provide the Icrit needed to passivate the Type 430 stainless steel at a ratio of 20:1. In addition it was shown that the NiS(Ni) electrode was able to maintain passivity of the Type 430 stainless steel array using an anode/cathode surface area ratio of 100:1. NiS was shown not to be inert in concentrated H₂SO4 and corrosion rate calculated via Tafel extrapolation and shown to be 0.014 mm/yr at room temperature and 0.128 mm/yr at 60 ºC.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p>This thesis investigates the wall pressure distributions of the single-slot impinging jet and multiple-slot impinging jet as a function of various parameters and compares the results obtained with the computational study of Tamadonfar [2010]. The process of gas wiping is used in many industrial applications such as tempering of the plate glass, the chemical mixing process, and turbine blade cooling. One of the most important industrial applications of gas jet wiping is the production of galvanized steel strip in a continuous hot-dip galvanizing line. In this process, an impinging jet is used to remove the excess zinc alloy from the steel strip and control the final coating weight by applying wall pressure and shear stress on the moving substrate emerging from the bath of molten zinc. Changing the various operating parameters such as jet Reynolds number (<em>Re</em>), the jet to strip distance (<em>z</em>), the jet slot width (<em>d</em>), and jet inclination angles (<em>α</em>) allows manufacturers manipulate the final coating weight on the substrate. Production of high quality sheet steels, which have a very thin coating weight and high uniformity quality, is one of the goals of the automotive industry. In order to obtain thinner and more uniform coating weight, a new model of impinging jet which is comprised of one main jet with two auxiliary jets, one on each side of the main jet, called a multiple-slot impinging jet, is of considerable interest.</p> <p>For the current study, a multiple-slot impinging jet was designed and manufactured and measurements were performed for both the single-slot impinging jets, the current model used in continuous hot-dip galvanizing lines, and the multiple-slot impinging jet subjected to a wide range of gas wiping parameters which include the main jet Reynolds number (<em>Re_m</em>), the auxiliary jet Reynolds number (<em>Re_a</em>), and the plate-to-nozzle ratio (<em>z/d</em>). A comparison between the measured results obtained for the two impinging jet configurations and the numerical results by Tamadonfar [2010] has been provided. The similarities and differences between the experimental and numerical results are presented and discussed.</p> / Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME)

Portable energy storage devices, which drive advanced technological devices, are improving the productivity and quality of our everyday lives. In order to meet the growing needs for energy storage in transportation applications, the current lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery technology requires new electrode materials with performance improvements in multiple aspects: (1) energy and power densities, (2) safety, and (3) performance lifetime. While a number of interesting nanomaterials have been synthesized in recent years with promising performance, accurate capabilities to probe the intrinsic performance of these high-performance materials within a battery environment are lacking. Most studies on electrode nanomaterials have so far used traditional, bulk-scale techniques such as cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. These approaches give an ensemble-average estimation of the electrochemical properties of a battery electrode and does not provide a true indication of the performance that is intrinsic to its material system. Thus, new techniques are essential to understand the changes happening at a single particle level during the operation of a battery. The results from this thesis solve this need and study the electrical, mechanical and size changes that take place in a battery electrode at a single particle level. Single nanowire lithium cells are built by depositing nanowires in carefully designed device regions of a silicon chip using Dielectrophoresis (DEP). This work has demonstrated the assembly of several NW cathode materials like LiFePO4, pristine and acid-leached α-MnO2, todorokite – MnO2, acid and nonacid-leached Na0.44MnO2. Within these materials, α-MnO2 was chosen as the model material system for electrochemical experiments. Electrochemical lithiation of pristine α-MnO2 was performed inside a glove box. The volume, elasticity and conductivity changes were measured at each state-of-charge (SOC) to understand the performance of the material system. The NW size changes due to lithiation were measured using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) in the tapping mode. Electronic conductivity changes as a function of lithiation was also studied in the model α-MnO2 NWs and was found to decrease substantially with lithium loading. In other measurements involving a comparison between the alpha and todorokite phases of this material system, it was observed that the rate capability of these materials is limited not by the electronic but, by the ionic conductivity. Mechanical degradation of a battery cathode represents an important failure mode, which results in an irreversible loss of capacity with cycling. To analyze and understand these degradation mechanisms, this thesis has tested the evolution of nanomechanical properties of a battery cathode. Specifically, contact-mode AFM measurements have focused on the SOC-dependent changes in the Young’s modulus and fracture strength of an α-MnO2 NW electrode, which are critical parameters that determine its mechanical stability. These changes have been studied at the end of the first discharge step, 1 full electrochemical cycle, and 20 cycles. The observations show an increase in Young’s modulus at low concentrations of lithium loading and this is attributed to the formation of new Li-O bonds within the tunnel-structured cathode. As the lithium loading increases further, the Young’s modulus was observed to reduce and this is hypothesized to occur due to the distortions of the crystal at high lithium concentrations. The experimental-to-theoretical fracture strength ratio, which points to the defect density in the crystal at a given stoichiometry, was observed to reduce with electrochemical lithium insertion / cycling. This capability has demonstrated lithiation-dependent mechanical property measurements for the first time and represents an important contribution since degradation models, which are currently in use for materials at any size scale, always assume constant values regardless of the change in stoichiometry.

Supercapacitors, as promising energy storage devices, have been of interest for their long lifespan compared to secondary batteries, high capacitance and excellent reliability compared to conventional dielectric capacitors. Transition metal oxides can be applied as the electrode materials for pseudocapacitors and offer a much higher specific capacitance. Co3O4 is one of the most investigated transition metal oxides for supercapacitor. Besides simple monometallic oxides, bimetallic transition oxides have recently drawn growing attention in electrochemical energy storage. They present many unique properties such as achievable oxidation states, high electrical conductivities because of the coexistence of two different cations in a single crystal structure. This study focuses on the bimetallic iron cobalt oxide based materials for the application of energy storage. We selected iron as the substituent in spinel Co3O4, by virtue of its abundant and harmless character. Four types of iron cobalt oxides based electrode materials with different morphologies and components have been synthesized for the first time. The hydrothermal method was the main strategy for the synthesis of iron cobalt based materials, which achieved the control of morphology and ratio of components. Multiple characterization methods, including SEM, TEM, XRD, XPS, TGA, BET, have been applied to study the morphologies and nano/submicron structures. The electrochemical properties of as-fabricated samples were performed by electrochemical workstation. In addition, in order to investigate the practical application of electrode materials, asymmetric supercapacitors have been assembled by using as-prepared samples as the positive electrodes and activated carbon as the negative electrodes.