Future launch vehicle payload fairings will be manufactured from advanced lightweight composite materials. The loss of distributed mass causes a significant increase in the internal acoustic environment, causing a severe threat to the payload. Using piezoelectric actuators to control the fairing vibration and the internal acoustic environment has been proposed. The control authority of these actuators for this problem has not yet been determined. To help determine the acoustic control authority of piezoelectric actuators mounted on a rocket fairing, the internal acoustic response created by the actuators needs to be determined. In this work the internal acoustic response of a closed simply-supported (SS) cylinder actuated by piezoelectric (PZT) actuators is presented. A research-grade SS cylinder is created and the modal properties are analyzed experimentally. The experimental modal properties are compared to finite element analysis (FEA) and to results predicted by Love shell theory. The experimental results indicate that the created cylinder has dynamic properties that are similar to the analytical and FEA results. The formulation for the structural response uses an impedance model to predict transverse vibration of the cylinder excited by PZT actuators. The model is also shown to be valid. To obtain the internal acoustic response of the cylinder a boundary element analysis using the Kirchoff-Helmholtz integral is used. The motion of the structure is assumed to be uncoupled with the internal acoustics, and so the structural-acoustic interaction is not considered in this analysis. An analytical solution to the internal acoustic response within the cylinder is derived for a single mode structural vibration. The numerical and analytical models are shown to be in agreement. The numerical model is also verified experimentally by measuring the acoustic field within the cylinder. The experimental results and the results predicted by the acoustic model are in agreement. A measure of the acoustic loss factor for the aluminum cylinder is also determined experimentally. The validated model is used to extrapolate results for a SS cylinder that emulates a Minotaur payload fairing. The internal cylinder acoustic levels are investigated for PZT actuation between 35 and 400 Hz. It is found that changes in cylinder parameters (stiffness and material density) do not have a large effect on the magnitude of the structural response. Likewise the interior acoustic response is not greatly affected by changes to the cylinder parameters. As the applied voltage increases linearly, the internal sound pressure level (SPL) varies logarithmically. This behavior is a limiting factor in using a PZT actuator to generate high internal SPLs. Significant reductions in the structural response due to increased damping do not equate to similar reductions in the acoustic SPLs for the cylinder. The sound levels at the acoustic resonant frequencies are essentially unaffected by the significant increase in structural damping while the acoustic levels at the structural resonant frequencies are mildly reduced. The interior acoustic response of the cylinder is dominated by the acoustic modes and therefore significant reductions in the overall interior acoustic levels will not be achieved if only the structural resonances are controlled. The model indicates that the maximum acoustic levels generated by the baseline PZT actuator are sufficient at the higher frequency range but are not commensurate with the levels found in a typical fairing in the lower frequency range (below ~200 Hz). Since the baseline actuator's applied voltage can not be increased, additional actuators are required in order to increase the response of the cylinder at some of the lower frequencies. The baseline actuator is clearly better at generating sound within the cylinder as the frequency increases. This implies that more actuators will be required to control the lower frequency modes than the higher frequency modes. As the actuation frequency is reduced, the number of actuators required to generate acoustic levels commensurate to that found in the fairing increases to impractical values. Below approximately 100 Hz, the current demands reach levels that are extremely difficult to achieve with a practical system. The results of this work imply that PZT actuators do not have the authority to control the payload fairing internal acoustics below ~100 Hz. / Ph. D.

Reinforced concrete deep beams are vital structural members serving as load transferring elements. The behavior of reinforced concrete deep beams is complex. Nonlinear distribution of strain and stress must be considered. Prior to 1999, ACI 318 Codes included an empirical design equation for reinforced concrete deep beams. Since 2002, the strut and tie model and nonlinear analysis have been required. However, both methods have disadvantages of complexity or lack of transparency. The objective of this study is to produce a simple, reliable design equation for reinforced concrete deep beams. A nonlinear finite element program, ATENA, was used for analyzing and predicting the behavior of concrete and reinforced concrete structures. First, applicability of ATENA was verified by developing the computer models of simply supported and two span continuous deep beams based on Birrcher’s tests of simply supported deep beams. Tests by Rogowsky and Macgregor and by Ashour are the basis for the models of continuous two span deep beams. Those tests were selected because the researchers reported adequate details of the experimental program and on specimen behavior. Then a series of simply supported and two span continuous deep beam models were developed based on the details and geometry of Birrcher's beams. The computer models were used to investigate the following parameters: the compressive strength of concrete, shear span to depth ratios, longitudinal reinforcement ratios, web reinforcement, effect of member depth, and loading conditions. Finally, a proposed design equation for shear strength of reinforced concrete deep beams was derived based on the observed the behavior of reinforced concrete deep beam tests, the results of the analytical study, and a plastic truss model. The proposed equations were in good agreement with test values and provide an alternate approach to current design procedures for deep beams. / text

This thesis has investigated the application of CFRP and GFRP bars as longitudinal reinforcement for continuously supported concrete beams. Two series of simply and continuously supported CFRP and GFRP reinforced concrete beams were tested in flexure. In addition, a continuously supported steel reinforced concrete beam was tested for comparison purposes. The FRP reinforced concrete continuous beams were reinforced in a way to accomplish three possible reinforcement combinations at the top and bottom layers of such continuous beams. The experimental results revealed that over-reinforcing the bottom layer of either the simply or continuously supported FRP beams is a key factor in controlling the width and propagation of cracks, enhancing the load capacity, and reducing the deflection of such beams. However, continuous concrete beams reinforced with CFRP bars exhibited a remarkable wide crack over the middle support that significantly influenced their behaviour. The ACI 440.1R-06 equations have been validated against experimental results of beams tested. Comparisons between experimental results and those obtained from simplified methods proposed by the ACI 440 Committee show that ACI 440.1R-06 equations can reasonably predict the load capacity and deflection of the simply and continuously supported GFRP reinforced concrete beams tested. However, The potential capabilities of these equations for predicting the load capacity and deflection of continuous CFRP reinforced concrete beams have, however, been adversely affected by the de-bonding of top CFRP bars from concrete. An analytical technique, which presents an iterative procedure based on satisfying force equilibrium and deformation compatibility conditions, has been introduced in this research. This technique developed a computer program to investigate flexural behaviour in particular the flexural strength and deflection of simple and continuously supported FRP reinforced concrete beams. The analytical modelling program has been compared against different prediction methods, namely ACI 440, the bilinear method, mean moment inertia method and Benmokrane's method. This comparison revealed the reliability of this programme in producing more enhanced results in predicting the behaviour of the FRP reinforced beams more than the above stated methods.

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The recent improvement of additive manufacturing has allowed designers to achieve a level of complexity and customizability that is difficult or impossible to accomplish using traditional manufacturing processes. As a result, much research has been conducted on developing new methods to utilize the larger design space brought by additive manufacturing. One such research area is in the design of mesoscale lattice structures. Mesoscale lattice structures are a type of cellular structure with support element sizes on the order of magnitude of centimeters. These types of structures are engineered for high performance and have applications in industries where both low weight and high strength are desired. However, due to the small size of their struts, these structures can easily have hundreds to thousands of individual struts. As a result, design poses a unique challenge. Current methods approach design of mesoscale lattice structures as a topological optimization problem, treating each strut diameter in the structure as a design variable. For structures with a fewer number struts, these optimization methods can converge, but will generally be very time-consuming. For structures with a large number of struts, the optimization problem becomes too large for current algorithms to solve. In previous research, a new, highly efficient design method for mesoscale lattice structures was presented that eliminates the need for global size or topological optimization. This method, termed the Size, Matching and Scaling method, used a unique combination of a solid-body finite element analysis and a library of pre-defined lattice configurations, termed the "unit-cell library," to generate lattice topologies. The results from this method were highly promising: design time was significantly reduced when compared to optimization methods. Furthermore, lattices designed using the SMS method had performance results that were either comparable or better than their optimized counterparts. However, the method developed was highly conceptual, lacking a true systematic methodology for generating topologies and suffering from some gaps in implementation. In this research, we present a modified Size Matching and Scaling (SMS) design method. Firstly, we introduce and outline the modified methodology. This methodology particularly includes an optimization step for determining strut diameters that replaces the manual search used in the original method. Secondly, we expand and explore the unit-cell library in an attempt to improve the performance of lattices generated using the SMS method. In particular, we optimize several unit-cell configurations and compare their performance in the context of the SMS method. Finally, we test the updated SMS methodology and unit-cell library using various design examples. Results from the various example problems indicate that optimization is not only a viable systematic method for determining diameter values, but is actually preferred to the manual, iterative process used in the original method. Furthermore, various optimization algorithms and approaches yield different results. Between the two optimization algorithms utilized in this method: constrained optimization and least-squares minimization, constrained minimization converges faster, but least-squares minimization yields slightly improved performance results. In addition to these algorithms, a one-variable approach using an untested, simplifying assumption, dubbed the "28% approach," was tested. Results indicate that this assumption was incorrect and cannot be utilized. Finally, results from the expanded unit-cell library indicate that the best unit-cell configuration is still the same original unit-cell configuration utilized in the first SMS method. The addition of more unit-cell does not improve the performance of structures generated using the SMS method. In fact, both performance and design time worsen when additional configurations are utilized.

Stiffness and strength models are derived for simply supported composite sandwich panels comprised of fibre-reinforced face sheets and polymer cores subject to symmetric four point bending and uniformly distributed loading. Optimal trajectories for minimum mass design are calculated using the models and situated on failure mechanism maps. A stiffness constraint is also derived to omit beam designs of excessive compliance. Analytical models were validated through an extensive series of experiments, considering beams comprised of GFRP face sheets with ROHACELL 51-IG and extruded polystyrene (EPS) polymer cores. An alternate loading fixture was used to simulate uniform pressure loads. In general, experiments were able to validate most analytical expressions for a range of experimental conditions. Though the predictions worked well with most beam cases, analytical models were noted to become unreliable for short or slender beams.