The recent earthquakes in Christchurch have made it clear that issues exist with current RC frame design in New Zealand. In particular, beam elongation in RC frame buildings was widespread and resulted in numerous buildings being rendered irreparable. Design solutions to overcome this problem are clearly needed, and the slotted beam is one such solution. This system has a distinct advantage over other damage avoidance design systems in that it can be constructed using current industry techniques and conventional reinforcing steel. As the name suggests, the slotted beam incorporates a vertical slot along part of the beam depth at the beam-column interface. Geometric beam elongation is accommodated via opening and closing of these slots during seismically induced rotations, while the top concrete hinge is heavily reinforced to prevent material inelastic elongation. Past research on slotted beams has shown that the bond demand on the bottom longitudinal reinforcement is increased compared with equivalent monolithic systems. Satisfying this increased bond demand through conventional means may yield impractical and economically less viable column dimensions. The same research also indicated that the joint shear mechanism was different to that observed within monolithic joints and that additional horizontal reinforcement was required as a result. Through a combination of theoretical investigation, forensic analysis, and database study, this research addresses the above issues and develops design guidelines. The use of supplementary vertical joint stirrups was investigated as a means of improving bond performance without the need for non-standard reinforcing steel or other hardware. These design guidelines were then validated experimentally with the testing of two 80% scale beam-column sub-assemblies. The revised provisions for bond within the bottom longitudinal reinforcement were found to be adequate while the top longitudinal reinforcement remained nominally elastic throughout both tests. An alternate mechanism was found to govern joint shear behaviour, removing the need for additional horizontal joint reinforcement. Current NZS3101:2006 joint shear reinforcement provisions were found to be more than adequate given the typically larger column depths required rendering the strut mechanism more effective. The test results were then used to further refine design recommendations for practicing engineers. Finally, conclusions and future research requirements were outlined.

Darbo tikslas – ištirti žemės dirbimo ir sėjos mašinų darbo procesą įtakojančių rudeninių ir peržiemojusių žieminių kviečių, vasarinių miežių šiaudų nutraukimo ir nukirpimo jėgas. Taikant aplinką tausojančias žemės dirbimo technologijas sudėtingėja žemės dirbimas ir sėklų įterpimas. Žemės dirbimo mašinų darbą įtakoja šie pagrindiniai veiksniai: dirvos fizikinės-mechaninės savybės, klimatinės sąlygos, augalinės derliaus liekanos, jų rūšis ir savybės, dirvos reljefas, kitos technologinės operacijos ir mašinos. Vienas iš svarbiausių veiksnių yra augalinės derliaus liekanos dirvos paviršiuje. Jos trukdo žemės dirbimo ir ypač sėjos noragėlių darbui. Energetiniu požiūriu svarbiausia yra žemės dirbimo mašinų ir sėjamosios noragėlio horizontalioji pasipriešinimo jėga, kuri sudaro 80–90% visos žemės dirbimo mašinos ar sėjamosios pasipriešinimo jėgos. Ji priklauso nuo noragėlio konstrukcijos, augalinių derliaus liekanų savybių ir kt. Analizuojant noragėlių darbą, nustatyta, kad augalinės liekanos dirvos paviršiuje gali būti perpjautos, nukirptos arba nutrauktos. Klimatinės sąlygos bei augalų savybės įvairiose pasaulio šalyse yra labai skirtingos. Iki šiol nėra ištirta, kokios jėgos reikalingos žemės dirbimo ir sėjos mašinų darbo procesą įtakojančių rudeninių ir peržiemojusių žieminių kviečių, ir vasarinių miežių šiaudų nutraukimui, ir nukirpimui mūsų regiono klimatinėmis sąlygomis. Eksperimentiniais tyrimais nustatyta, kad rudeninio žieminio kviečio šiaudo nutraukimo jėga yra 68%... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The aim of the research - to investigate the cultivation of soil and work process of tillage machinery affecting the autumn and overwinter wheat, summer barley straw and the forces of cutting and tearing the straw. The environmentally friendly soil cultivation technologies were applied for the complex soil tillage and sowing. Soil physical-mechanical properties, climatic conditions, crop plant residues, their types and characteristics, soil texture, the other technological operations and machines affect the work process of sowing. One of the most important factors influencing the tillage is crop residues on the soil surface. They make the cultivation of soil and plowing with coulter process particularly difficult. From the energetic point of view the horizontal drag force of tillage machinery and sowing coulter are the most important factors, which comprise the 80-90% of the total resistance forces. It depends on the coulter design, kind of crop residues and other features. The analysis of the coulter work revealed that the crop residues can be cut, snipped or teared. The climatic conditions and plant characteristics differ greatly around the world. No thorough research has been carried out on forces required for cutting and tearing of the autumn and overwinter wheat and the straw of summer barley straw under the regional climatic conditions. The experimental studies have shown that the force required for tearing the straw of the autumn wheat is 68% higher than the force... [to full text]

La stabilité des plasmas de fusion est un enjeu crucial dans le cadre du développement de nouvelles sources d'énergie. L'interaction entre le plasma et le champ magnétique peut en effet amener à la destruction du confinement : c'est une disruption. Le sujet de cette thèse porte sur les îlots magnétiques, une des causes des disruptions. Ces îlots magnétiques sont observés expérimentalement et analytiquement. Les théories peuvent prévoir la croissance d'un îlot magnétique et sa taille, mais les restrictions sur le domaine de validité de la théorie sont fortes et elles dé-corrèlent largement les domaines de validité théoriques et expérimentaux. Dans une première partie, nous montrons que, génériquement, les méthodes de contrôle dynamiques d'évolution des îlots magnétiques, basées notamment sur une relation entre la taille de l'îlot et la perturbation de flux magnétique à la résonance, devraient prendre en compte la modification du flux magnétique moyenné le long de la ligne de champ. Nous donnons aussi des limites quand au cadre de notre assertion (coalescence des îlots, effondrement du point X, ...). la seconde partie de la thèse aborde un nouvel effet dû au courant de part et d'autre de l'îlot magnétique. Il change la dynamique de l'îlot et la perception que l'on en a. Jusqu'à présent la dynamique de l'îlot était étudiée principalement au travers de mécanisme actifs au niveau de la résonance. Nous démontrons que la présence de courant aux abords de l'îlot peuvent jouer un rôle très important sur sa croissance et sur sa taille finale. La troisième partie détaille comment la turbulence aux abords d'un îlot magnétique peut affecter sa croissance. / The fusion plasma stability is a critical point for the developpement of newenergy source. The interaction between the plasma and the magnetic field can drive to the confinement descrution : it is a disruption. The topic of this thesis is the magnetic island, one of disruption causes. Those magnetic islands are observed theoretically and numerically. The theory can predict the growth and the final size of magnetic islands, but restrictions of its validity range are strong and they decorrelate the experimental and theoritical validity domain. In the first part, we show that the dynamic method of magnetic island control, based on the link between the island size and the perturbed magnetic flux at the resonance, should take in account the modification of the magnetic flux averaged along the field line. We show aswell the limitation of our assertion (magnetic island coalescence, X point collapse ...). The second part of the thesis address a new effet du to the current on sides of the magnetic island. This effect changes the magnetic island dynamics and the perception we got on it. Until now, the magnetic island dynamics have been studied through active mechanisms at the resonance. We show that the presence of current on sides can play an important role on the growth and saturation of the magnetic island. The last part of thesis details how the turbulence on the outskirts of a magnetic island can affect the island growth. We show that a turbulence generate by an interchange instability can penetrate into a stable zone concerning tearing mode and induce by a 3D mechanisme the growth of an magnetic island.

"Aluminum-Silicon and Aluminum-Copper alloys are important non-ferrous casting alloys. Different methods have been applied to improve their casting characteristics, their microstructure and consequently, their mechanical properties. Application of mechanical vibrations to the mold during solidification of the alloy is one of these methods. In this study, the effect of controlled mechanical vibrations on the dendrite coherency point, the hot tearing tendency, and the microstructure of B206, B390, and binary Al-7%Si alloys was evaluated. The dendrite coherency point was determined using the two-thermocouple method. The hot tearing tendency was evaluated using the crack susceptibility criterion (CSCb) and by means of measurements using a specially designed ring mold. Microstructure characterization was performed using optical and scanning electron microscopy coupled with image analysis. It was found that mechanical vibrations refine the microstructure of the alloys; and, in the case of B390 alloy, it resulted in significant improvement in the distribution of the primary silicon particles. In the case of B206 and Al-7%Si alloys, where aluminum is the primary phase, mechanical vibrations caused the dendrite coherency point to shift towards lower temperature, i.e., towards higher fraction solid. This shift, together with the refinement of the grain structure, manifested itself in significant reduction in the incidence of hot tearing in B206 castings. "

Observations from the Earth's geomagnetic tail have established that the current sheet is often bifurcated with two peaks in the current density. These so-called bifurcated current sheets have also been reported in a variety of simulations and often occur in conjunction with significant temperature anisotropy. In this work, a new self-consistent Vlasov equilibrium is developed that permits both the current profile and temperature anisotropy to be independently adjusted. This new equilibrium has a sufficient flexibility to model a wide variety of bifurcated sheets observed in both kinetic simulations and space observations, and transforms continuously back to the standard Harris sheet model with a single peak in the current density. The linear stability of these layers with respect to the tearing mode is examined in the framework of resistive MHD and full Vlasov theory. From the simplified fluid theory, it is demonstrated that a bifurcated current profile has a stabilizing influence on the resistive tearing instability. However, the resistive MHD model is not really appropriate to model the highly collisionless plasma conditions in the magnetosphere. To obtain reliable predictions, Vlasov theory is required and the approach in this thesis employs both standard analytic techniques and a formally exact treatment in which the full orbit integral is numerically evaluated. The resulting linear growth rate for the collisionless tearing instability and the mode structure are verified with 2D full kinetic particle-in-cell simulations. The simplified analytic theory is reasonably accurate in capturing these dependencies for long wavelength modes, but the short wavelength regime generally requires the full numerical treatment to accurately compute the growth rate. The results from these different approaches consistently demonstrate that a bifurcated current profile has a strong stabilizing influence on the collisionless tearing mode in comparison to centrally peaked layers with a similar thickness. In collisionless tearing, electron temperature anisotropy is strongly destabilizing in the limit $T_{e \perp} > T_{e \parallel}$ and strongly stabilizing when $T_{e \perp} < T_{e \parallel}$. Thus, the collisionless tearing instability is determined by the competition between these two influences.

No description available.

The occurrence of hot tearing during solidification is one of the major factors influencing both the quality and productivity of aluminum castings. In order to reduce the formation of hot tears, quantitative information regarding both hot tearing formation and semi-solid deformation is essential. In this study, the mechanisms of hot tearing and semi-solid deformation have been investigated via two novel techniques: x-ray micro-tomography on material deformed in the semi-solid region, and development of a three phase microstructural model based on a geometry derived from a Voronoi diagram with rounded corners and porosity. Numerical techniques were utilized to quantify both the size evolution and orientation of internal damage relative to void growth. In order to conduct the above research, a new semi-solid tensile deformation methodology was devised which uses a two thermocouple control technique to enable accurate measurement of semi-solid tensile strength and ductility. The experimental work was conducted on the aluminum – magnesium alloy AA5182 in the as-cast and hot isostatic pressing (HIP) states. The x-ray micro-tomography technique was used to observe that semi-solid deformation is accommodated by internal damage via growth of as-cast porosity and the nucleation of new damage-based voids. As the volume fraction of damage increases, the growth of voids occurs in an orientation perpendicular to the loading direction, both through expansion within the grain boundary liquid and via coalescence between voids. The damage then localizes, causing failure. The finite element semi-solid microstructural model was used to explore the effects of fraction solid, fraction porosity, and grain size on semi-solid constitutive behaviour. The simulations revealed that increased grain size and fraction porosity lead to a reduction in flow stress for a given fraction solid. Furthermore, local strain accumulation was linked to hot tearing, since strain localizes in the liquid very early in the deformation process. Based on the model predictions, a new constitutive relationship was developed over the range 0.75 < fs < 0.95. Together, these two techniques have provided powerful new insight, such as the critical role played by as-cast porosity, on the phenomena of hot tearing and semi-solid deformation in aluminum alloys.

No description available.

Sheet metal hydroforming(flexforming) is a process generally used in the manufacturing of aerospace parts in which a rubber diaphragm forms the sheet on a die with the help pressurized fluid and by this aspect it is different from the conventional stamping process. Some defects occur in the parts that are manufactured by this method and they are not different from the general sheet metal forming defects. Wrinkling, tearing and springback are among those defects. Variety of parts makes difficult to encounter these defects arising the detailed investigation of this process. In this work, the flexforming process was modeled by finite element method in order to investigate the operation windows of the problem. Various two and three-dimensional models were established with and without diaphragm, using explicit and implicit approach for time integration and using solid and shell elements for the blank. Using the material Aluminum 2024-T3 alclad sheet alloy, three basic experiments were conducted: Bending of a straight flange specimen, bending of a contoured flange specimen and bulging of a circular specimen. By these experiments the effects of blank thickness, die bend radius and forming pressure have been investigated. Experimental results were compared with finite element results to verify the computational models. Then, three selected aerospace sheet parts were analyzed and success of the model in the real life applications is proved.

No description available.