Orientador: Paulo Roberto de Aguiar / Resumo: O chatter corresponde a movimentos instáveis e caóticos no sistema de usinagem, resultando em flutuação das forças de corte e na impressão de ondulações na superficie da peça usinada. É um fenômeno indesejável ao processo de usinagem, especialmente ao processo de retificação, pois a sua ocorrência acentuada resulta em um produto acabado com tolerâncias dimensionais e geométricas fora dos padrões, ou até mesmo em danos irreversíveis, como por exemplo, alteração na dureza, alta rugosidade e queima superficial da peça usinada. Na literatura, poucos trabalhos tratam da análise e monitoramento do chatter com técnicas de processamento digital de sinais, especialmente de aceleração. O objetivo desse trabalho é propor uma nova técnica de processamento digital utilizando os sinais de aceleração baseados no cálculo da STFT - Short Time Fourier Transform (Transformada de Fourier de curta duração) e na estatística Relação de Potência (ROP – ratio of power), com a finalidade de detecção do fenômeno de chatter na retificação tangencial plana com rebolo superabrasivo de nitreto cúbico de boro (CBN) e óxido de alumínio. Para tanto, ensaios de retificação foram realizados em corpos de prova de aço ABNT 1045. Um acelerômetro piezelétrico foi acoplado ao suporte das peças e sinais de aceleração foram coletados à uma frequência de amostragem de 2MHz. Dentre as variáveis de saída, obteve-se a dureza Vickers (HV), rugosidade média (Ra) e a análise microestrutural das peças retificadas. Os sinais d... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Chatter corresponds to unstable and chaotic movements in the machining system, resulting in fluctuation of the cutting forces. It is a serious and undesired physical phenomenon that occurs in the grinding process during parts manufacturing. The intense occurrence of this phenomenon during machining can generate a finished part outside the dimensional and geometric tolerances or even cause irreversible damage, such as: changes to the hardness, high surface roughness, and thermal damages to the ground part. Few vibration signal processing techniques have been proposed for monitoring chatter during grinding. Thus, the objective of this study is to propose and validate a new vibration signal processing technique based on the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and the ratio of power (ROP) statistic for the detection of chatter during the tangential surface grinding of ABNT 1045 steel with different grinding wheels. Experimental grinding tests were conducted, and the vibration signals were recorded at 2 MHz. The Vickers hardness (HV), roughness (Ra) and metallography of the ground workpiece surfaces were performed. Subsequently, a digital processing technique based on the STFT and ROP was applied to the vibration signals to extract the characteristics of the chatter in the grinding process. The results show that this technique can be used to characterize over time the spectral patterns of a frequency band related to chatter. The observed patterns have a strong relationship with th... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

Pension schemes are facing more difficulties on matching their underlying liabilities with assets, mainly due to faster mortality improvements for their underlying populations, better environments and medical treatments and historically low interest rates. Given most of the pension schemes are relatively much smaller than the national population, modelling and forecasting the small populations' longevity risk become urgent tasks for both the industrial practitioners and academic researchers. This thesis starts with a systematic analysis on the influence of population size on the uncertainties of mortality estimates and forecasts with a stochastic mortality model, based on a parametric bootstrap methodology with England and Wales males as our benchmark population. The population size has significant effect on the uncertainty of mortality estimates and forecasts. The volatilities of small populations are over-estimated by the maximum likelihood estimators. A Bayesian model is developed to improve the estimation of the volatilities and the predictions of mortality rates for the small populations by employing the information of larger population with informative prior distributions. The new model is validated with the simulated small death scenarios. The Bayesian methodologies generate smoothed estimations for the mortality rates. Moreover, a methodology is introduced to use the information of large population for obtaining unbiased volatilities estimations given the underlying prior settings. At last, an empirical study is carried out based on the Scotland mortality dataset.