In this thesis, natural convective heat transfer through an impermeable and fluid saturated porous medium is investigated numerically. A FORTRAN based code is developed and used in order to present the outputs of the applied model and the assumptions. The solutions of flow fields and temperature fields are presented within the medium. Moreover, Nusselt number variations for different values of Darcy, Prandtl, and Rayleigh numbers, and some other thermodynamic properties are investigated and presented. Comparisons with previous studies are also presented. Finally, the transition from convection to conduction in the heat transfer regime inside the porous medium is examined and an equation for estimating the heat transfer inside the porous medium is presented.

This thesis analyzes procedure of generation of hyperbolic grids formulated by two constraints, which specify grid orthogonality and cell volume. The procedure was applied on a wide range of geometries and high quality two and three dimensional hyperbolic grids were generated by using grid control and smoothing procedures, which supply grid clustering in all directions and prevent grid deformation (grid shock), respectively.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of a spherical solar collector by using numerical and experimental methods. For this analysis, equations were obtained by choosing appropriate control volumes in the system and applying The First Law of Thermodynamics. The experiments were realized at four different mass flow rates and non-flow situation. For the numerical simulation of the system, a computer program in Mathcad was written. Another computer program in Mathcad was written for the variation of the absorbed solar radiation through out the day. Finally, the performance of the spherical solar collector is compared theoretically to that of flat plate solar collectors.

In this Thesis study, aerodynamic interactions of vehicle models in close following and passing situations were investigated expeimentally. Effect of the inter-vehicle spacing and lateral distance on drag coefficients of two close-following vehicles were observed. Two different types of vehicle models were used in order to investigate the shape effect on aerodynamic vehicle interactions. Drag froces and surface pressures of the models at each situation were measured. Two different blockage correction methods on the basis of drag coefficient results were applied. Linear increments of drag coefficients were observed on leading and trailing MIRA models. Beacuse of their blunter shapes and sharp edges, the leading and trailing Ahmed Body models feel the presence of aerodynamic interactions substantially. The most important reduction in drag force occurs at the least vehicle spacing for both vehicle types. In the passing situations, it was observed that drag coefficients of MIRA models did not change considerably. However, big amount of changes were observed at all positions for Ahmed Body. Maximum values of drag coefficients were reached when the models were at side by side position for both vehicle types. In conclusion, it is possible to obtain more drag reductions with more numbers of vehicles in close-following. the lower drag coefficients in close-following operations caues to increase fuel savings and to reduce air pollution.

Large displacement and large strain problems of mechanical systems can be solved mainly by four methods. These are Floating Frame of Reference, Incremental Finite Element, Large Rotation Vector and Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulations (ANCF). Due to exact rigid body representation, simple mass matrix structure and non-incremental formulation, ANCF is more convenient in analyzing flexible multibody systems. However, it is limited to problems with regular boundaries, currently. The aim of the thesis is to improve the current ANCF in order to handle various problems with irregular boundaries. For this purpose, firstly meshfree ANCF has been developed to analyze flexible multibody systems. Verification of the developed meshfree formulation has been performed for beam type structures and accurate results have been obtained. Then, &ldquo / ANCF with Virtual Element Mapping Method&rdquo / has been proposed to overcome the boundary problems of the current formulations. The proposed method has been implemented to plane stress, plane strain, plate/shell and 3D solid finite elements. Verification of the proposed method has been performed by using the patch test problems available in the literature. Besides, it has been verified by various flexible multibody problems with large deformations. Additionally, shape function polynomials for thin plate assumption have been derived. It is observed that developed formulations and methods can be useful not only for flexible multibody systems but also for structural mechanics problems subjected to large deformations and/or rotations. The proposed methods and formulations are more efficient than the current formulations in the literature due to extended shape limits of finite elements.

Radiative heat transfer in nanostructures with sub-wavelength dimensions can exceed that predicted by Planck&#039 / s blackbody distribution. This increased effect is due to the tunneling of infrared radiation between nanogaps, and can allow the eventual development of nano-thermo-photo-voltaic (Nano-TPV) cells for energy generation from low temperature heat sources. Although near field radiation effects have been discussed for many years, experimental verification of these effects is very limited so far. In this study, silica coated silicon wafer sample chips have been manufactured by using MEMS fabrication methods for testing the near field radiation effects. A variety of samples with 1&times / 1, 2&times / 2 and 5&times / 5 mm2 area, and with 25 nm, 50 nm, 100 nm and 200 nm (nano-gap) separations have been prepared. 3D structures with vacuum gaps have been obtained by bonding of the silica coated wafers. The samples have been tested in an experimental setup by a collaborative group at &Ouml / zyegin University, Istanbul. An increase in the net radiation heat transfer with decreasing nano-gap size has been reported by the &Ouml / zyegin group who used these samples in a parallel study. The thesis outlines the micro-fabrication techniques used for the sample preparation. Also, the manufacturing problems we have faced during this research program are discussed.

Within the scope of this thesis study, an optimization tool for the ballistic design of three-dimensional grains in solid propellant rocket motors is developed. The modeling of grain geometry and burnback analysis is performed analytically by using basic geometries like cylinder, cone, sphere, ellipsoid, prism and torus. For the internal ballistic analysis, a quasi-steady zero-dimensional flow solver is used. Genetic algorithms have been studied and implemented to the design process as an optimization algorithm. Lastly, the developed optimization tool is validated with the predesigned rocket motors.

This thesis aims to examine the performance of Stockbridge dampers used to suppress aeolian vibrations on overhead transmission lines arising from the wind. In this respect, a computer program, based on the Energy Balance Method, is developed using MATLAB. The developed computer program has also a graphical user interface (GUI), which allows the program to interactively simulate Stockbridge damper performance for vibration control of overhead transmission lines. Field tests results obtained from literature are used in various case studies in order to validate and evaluate the developed software. Moreover, sample Stockbridge damper characterization tests, which then could be introduced to the software, are performed. A custom test fixture is designed due to its unavailability of commercial alternatives in the market. In the design of the test fixture, modal and transmissibility analyses are done by using ANSYS Workbench. To further validate the test setup, transmissibility test is done and consistent results with the transmissibility analyses are observed in the range of expected aeolian vibration frequencies. Finally, the stepped-sine and swept-sine tests are performed with and without damper for the characterization test, where the latter one is performed to eliminate the negative effects of the test setup. Both tests yield almost same damper power dissipation curves.

ABSTRACT POSSIBILISTIC INTERPRETATION OF MISTUNING IN BLADED DISKS BY FUZZY ALGEBRA Karatas, Hamit &Ccedil / aglar M.S., Department of Mechanical Engineering Supervisor: Prof. Dr. H. Nevzat &Ouml / zg&uuml / ven Co-supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Ender Cigeroglu September 2012, 103 pages This study aims to define the possibilistic interpretation of mistuning and examine the way of determining the worst case situations and assessing reliability value to that case by using possibilistic methods. Furthermore, in this study, benefits of using possibilistic interpretation of mistuning in comparison to probabilistic interpretation of mistuning are investigated. For the possibilistic analysis of mistuned structures, uncertain mistuning parameters are modeled as fuzzy variables possessing possibility distributions. In this study, alpha-cut representations of fuzzy numbers are used which makes fuzzy variables to be represented by interval numbers at each and every confidence level. The solution of fuzzy equations of motion is governed by fuzzy algebra methods. The bounds of the solution of the fuzzy equation of motion, i.e. fuzzy vibration responses of the mistuned structure, are determined by the extension principle of fuzzy functions. The performance of the method for possibilistic interpretation of mistuning is investigated by comparing it to the probabilistic methods both computational and accuracy wise. For the comparison study, two different optimization tools &ndash / genetic algorithm as the global optimization tool and constrained nonlinear minimization method as the gradient based optimization tool- are utilized in possibilistic analysis and they are compared to solutions of probabilistic methods resulted from Monte-Carlo method. The performances of all of the methods are tested on both a cyclically symmetric lumped parameter model and a realistic reduced order finite element model.

This study aims to define the possibilistic interpretation of mistuning and examine the way of determining the worst case situations and assessing reliability value to that case by using possibilistic methods. Furthermore, in this study, benefits of using possibilistic interpretation of mistuning in comparison to probabilistic interpretation of mistuning are investigated. For the possibilistic analysis of mistuned structures, uncertain mistuning parameters are modeled as fuzzy variables possessing possibility distributions. In this study, alpha-cut representations of fuzzy numbers are used which makes fuzzy variables to be represented by interval numbers at each and every confidence level. The solution of fuzzy equations of motion is governed by fuzzy algebra methods. The bounds of the solution of the fuzzy equation of motion, i.e. fuzzy vibration responses of the mistuned structure, are determined by the extension principle of fuzzy functions. The performance of the method for possibilistic interpretation of mistuning is investigated by comparing it to the probabilistic methods both computational and accuracy wise. For the comparison study, two different optimization tools &ndash / genetic algorithm as the global optimization tool and constrained nonlinear minimization method as the gradient based optimization tool- are utilized in possibilistic analysis and they are compared to solutions of probabilistic methods resulted from Monte-Carlo method. The performances of all of the methods are tested on both a cyclically symmetric lumped parameter model and a realistic reduced order finite element model.