This document presents a novel active magnetic levitation system. In the pursued of this endeavour different topics related with wave energy were explore. Climate change and energy security are the main motivation to pursued new options for non-fossil fuels energy generation. An overview of renewable energy and specifically of wave energy was presented. The potential for wave energy in The United Kingdom turn out to be 75 TWh/year from wave energy, 3 times more of what wind energy has produced in 2013. This means a massive impact on the energy market and emission reduction. In order to achieve this, improvements on wave energy devices have to be done. An overview of wave energy converters was covered selecting the C-Gen as the generator topology this document will base its studies. Linear generator bearings are desired to have long lifespan with long maintenance intervals. The objective is to come with an active magnetic levitation design that can replace traditional bearings augmenting the reliability of the system. Therefore magnetic bearings option have been reviewed and simulation experimentations has resulted in a novel active magnetic levitation system using an air-cored coils Halbach array acting over a levitation track. The configuration would generate bi directional repulsion forces with respect of the levitating body. Different software were used to analyse the magnetic field and forces generation. Additionally a prototype was built and tested to corroborate the results. As part of the modelling a mathematical model was explored and robust control implementation was also realised. Finally a scalability study of the device as well as a reliability analysis was done. Although the reliability studies shows an increase of ten times of the mean time to failure, the concept is not able to endure the loads acting on the generator unless the magnetic bearings became bigger than the generator and therefore economically unfeasible.

Orientador: Kátia Lucchesi Cavalca Dedini / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-17T14:50:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alves_DiogoStuani_M.pdf: 4752857 bytes, checksum: 6027628d11d6b6a8db09521349fd47b8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: Os mancais lubrificados hidrodinamicamente estão presentes em muitas aplicações modernas, especialmente em maquinas rotativas que necessitam de operações mais precisas. Nestes casos, a lubrificação é essencial para a máquina, pois, diminui o atrito entre as peças internas e previne o contato metal-metal, além de agir como elemento de vinculo dinâmico para as pistas do mancal. Devido ao cisalhamento do lubrificante durante a operação, tem-se o aquecimento do fluido e com isso uma modificação nas condições de lubrificação, já que a viscosidade, parâmetro que caracteriza as particularidades do escoamento, diminui com o aumento da temperatura. A diminuição da viscosidade causa diminuição do atrito viscoso, o que acarreta em diminuição da capacidade de carga, gerando efeitos negativos nos coeficientes equivalentes e sendo possível, em alguns casos, a observação de contato direto entre as partes metálicas. Sendo assim, o estudo do atrito e das condições de lubrificação durante a operação de máquinas é de extrema importância em problemas como manutenção, durabilidade e confiabilidade de máquinas. Utilizando o método das diferenças finitas, é possível resolver simultaneamente as equações de Reynolds e da energia, que são responsáveis pelas distribuições de pressão e temperatura, respectivamente. Com isso, é possível analisar as diferenças de pressão, disposição do eixo no interior do mancal e coeficientes equivalentes de rigidez e amortecimento, de um modelo em que se usa viscosidade variante com a temperatura (termohidrodinâmico) e de um modelo que não apresenta esse fenômeno (isotérmico). Finalmente, utilizando um software de dinâmica de rotores, foi obtida a resposta dinâmica de um sistema mancal-rotor para turbocompressores / Abstract: The hydrodynamic lubricated bearings are present in modern applications, especially in rotational machines that need precisely operations. In those cases, the lubrication is essential for the machine, because it reduces the wear between the internal parts and prevents the metallic contact, and also, acts like an element of dynamic link for the bearing. Due to the lubricant shear, the fluid heats up and modifications on the lubrication conditions occurs, since the viscosity, parameter that characterize the flow, decreases with the increase of the temperature. The decrease of visco ity causes a decrease in the viscous friction, which entails in a decrease of the load sustaining capacity, negative effects in the equivalent coefficients and possible observation of metallic contact. So, the study of friction and lubrication conditions during the machine operation is extremely important on maintenance, durability and reliability of machines. Using the finite difference method it is possible to solve, simultaneously, the Reynolds and the energy equations that are responsible for the pressure and temperature distribution, respectively. Therewith, it is possible to analyze the differences in pressure, shaft position in the bearing and equivalent stiffness and damping coefficients, for a model that uses changes in viscosity with the temperature (thermohydrodynamic) and for a model that does not take it in account (isothermal). Finally, using a rotordynamic software (ROTORTEST), the dynamic response of a turbocharger bearing-rotor system was obtained and analyzed / Mestrado / Mecanica dos Sólidos e Projeto Mecanico / Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

Diagnostics and prognostics in rotating machinery is a subject of much on-going research. There are three approaches to diagnostics and prognostics. These include experience-based approaches, data-driven techniques and model-based techniques. Bayesian data-driven techniques are gaining widespread application in diagnostics and prognostics of mechanical and allied systems including slow rotating bearings, as a result of their ability to handle the stochastic nature of the measured data well. The aim of the study is to detect incipient damage of slow rotating bearings and develop diagnostics which will be robust under changing operating conditions. Further it is required to explore and develop an optimal prognostic model for the prediction of remaining useful life (RUL) of slow rotating bearings. This research develops a novel integrated nonlinear method for the effective feature extraction from acoustic emission (AE) signals and the construction of a degradation assessment index (DAI), which is subsequently used for the fault diagnostics of slow rotating bearings. A slow rotating bearing test rig was developed to measure AE data under variable operational conditions. The proposed novel DAI obtained by the integration of the PKPCA (polynomial kernel principal component analysis), a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) is shown to be effective and suitable for monitoring the degradation of slow rotating bearings and is robust under variable operating conditions. Furthermore, this study integrates the novel DAI into alternative Bayesian methods for the prediction of RUL. The DAI is used as input in several Bayesian regression models such as the multi-layer perceptron (MLP), radial basis function (RBF), Bayesian linear regression (BLR), Gaussian mixture regression (GMR) and the Gaussian process regression (GPR) for RUL prediction. The combination of the DAI with the GPR model, otherwise, known as the DAI-GPR gives the best prediction. The findings show that the GPR model is suitable and effective in the prediction of RUL of slow rotating bearings and robust to varying operating conditions. Further, the models are also robust when the training and tests sets are obtained from dependent and independent samples. Finally, an optimal GPR for the prediction of RUL of slow rotating bearings based on a DAI is developed. The model performance is evaluated for cases where the training and test samples from cross validation approach are dependent as well as when they are independent. The optimal GPR is obtained from the integration or combination of existing simple mean and covariance functions in order to capture the observed trend of the bearing degradation as well as the irregularities in the data. The resulting integrated GPR model provides an excellent fit to the data and improvements over the simple GPR models that are based on simple mean and covariance functions. In addition, it achieves a near zero percentage error prediction of the RUL of slow rotating bearings when the training and test sets are from dependent samples but slightly different values when the estimation is based on independent samples. These findings are robust under varying operating conditions such as loading and speed. The proposed methodology can be applied to nonlinear and non-stationary machine response signals and is useful for preventive machine maintenance purposes. Keywords: acoustic emission, Bayesian linear regression, Bayesian techniques, covariance function, data-driven, degradation assessment index, diagnostics, experience-based, exponentially weighted moving average, Gaussian mixture model, Gaussian mixture regression, Gaussian process regression, integration, mean function, model-based, multi-layer perceptron, polynomial kernel principal component analysis, prognostics, radial basis function, remaining useful life. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / PhD / unrestricted

Orientador: Katia Lucchesi Cavalca / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T16:47:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Nonato_Fabio_M.pdf: 2576321 bytes, checksum: 620be5d1e8be22816a88e01fd2596425 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Com a necessidade da diminuição do tempo de projeto, a utilização de modelos computacionais para simulação de componentes mecânicos se torna rota obrigatória para se evitar excessivos testes físicos. Com base nesta premissa, se torna necessário estudar a dinâmica de componentes anteriormente considerados rígidos, como mancais de elementos rolantes, e assim conhecer sua influência sobre o sistema completo. Assim, utilizando um modelo por diferenças finitas em múltiplos níveis, foi avaliada a condição de lubrificação no contato em rolamentos sujeitos a lubrificação Elastohidrodinâmica (EHD) transiente. Desta forma foi possível caracterizar dinamicamente o contato, aproximando o filme de óleo a um conjunto de mola e amortecedor não lineares. Portanto introduz-se um elo flexível ao mancal, possibilitando a sua análise dinâmica como parte do sistema. / Abstract: With the need of time reduction on mechanical projects, the use of computational models for the analysis of mechanical components becomes mandatory in order to avoid excessive physical tests. Based on this assumption, is necessary to study the dynamic of previously assumed rigid components, as the rolling elements bearings, and thus knowing its influence on the complete system. Utilizing a multi-level finite difference method, the lubrication condition on the contact in bearings under Elastohydrodynamic (EHD) transient lubrication was evaluated. Therefore the dynamic characterization of the contact was possible, adjusting the oil film to a nonlinear spring-damper set. Hence a flexible joint is introduced in the bearing, making it possible its dynamic analyses as part of the system. / Mestrado / Mecanica dos Sólidos e Projeto Mecanico / Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

The aim of this work is to set similar tribological conditions at different levels of testing and to determine the resultant parameters, which can be compared with a special testing device for testing of journal bearings.

Heraldry has been called the "shorthand of history" and with its own specific rules, symbols and shields in use for over eight hundred years, it is still of value today. Heraldry was first used as identification method in battle, but spread to other spheres of society. Heraldry was always part of the military and is still more visible in use by the military than other parts of society. It is these rules, terminology, and symbolism that influenced the choice of topic to understand the meaning of the emblems. Heraldry is a science that studies the rules and terminology of armorial bearings, as well as the colourful and artistic emblems of individuals, families, communities or nations. In ancient times man used symbols to distinguish and to identify with his world view. Ancient man's symbolic illustrative or carved signs evolved from totems being used as emblems of identification with clan members, to flags, badges and shields used in the army and logos used as trademarks. It grew into a science of heraldry with hereditary and regulating rules and systems. Symbols can mean different things to different people, the construction and reconstruction of meaning rely on the different cultural contexts in which it is used. It is these cultural contexts and the cohesion between them that will unveil the deeper meaning and worth of heraldic emblems. The study aims at compiling a catalogue of South African Army military units by presenting the emblems of the different units to understand the significance of the emblem for its users. To achieve this an exploratory and descriptive investigation on heraldry and South African military heraldry was done, defining esprit de corps, symbolism, identity, traditions, indigenous elements and totemism. The study focuses on the period 1994 to 2014 to give a snapshot of emblems in use during this period. It was mostly the emblems of higher headquarters that changed. The colours of the old flag of orange, white and blue changed to green, gold or yellow, red, blue, black and white. In spite of changes, the unit emblem still forged a strong bond of identity amongst members. / Mini Dissertation (MHCS)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Historical and Heritage Studies / MHCS / Unrestricted

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