Considerando a importância da maciez dentre os atributos de qualidade de carnes, a necessidade do estabelecimento de um método mais rápido e moderno, que forneça resultados mais precisos, com baixa variabilidade e que possa ser utilizado para a determinação da maciez instrumental de diferentes cortes cárneos é uma demanda evidente. Sendo assim, o objetivo desta tese foi estudar a maciez instrumental de diferentes cortes cárneos bovinos, testando diferentes temperaturas finais de cocção e tempos de resfriamento no preparo das amostras e utilizando diferentes equipamentos, bem como estabelecer correlações entre a maciez instrumental e diversos outros atributos de qualidade de carnes. Foram avaliados os efeitos de três temperaturas finais de cocção (65, 70 e 75 °C) e dois tempos de resfriamento das amostras (4 e 24 horas) e ainda a utilização de três diferentes equipamentos (Texturômetro TAXT2icon equipado com lâminas de 1 e 3 mm de espessura e Warner-Bratzler clássico) na determinação da força de cisalhamento de cinco cortes cárneos bovinos. Os cortes foram caracterizados quanto aos atributos pH, índice de fragmentação miofibrilar, temperaturas de desnaturação das proteínas Actina e Miosina, cor instrumental, teor de colágeno, comprimento de sarcômeros, composição química e perda de peso por cocção. Foram determinadas as correlações lineares entre estes atributos, entre estes atributos e as forças de cisalhamento e entre as forças de cisalhamento. Foram estudados ainda, os comportamentos mecânico e estrutural dos cortes durante a realização dos testes de determinação da força de cisalhamento por meio da microestrutura das superfícies cisalhadas e das curvas mecânicas geradas durante os testes no texturômetro. Não houve efeito significativo do tempo de resfriamento nos resultados dos testes de determinação da força de cisalhamento. O Texturômetro com lâmina de 1 mm produziu valores mais baixos, enquanto que o Warner-Bratzler provocou os maiores valores. O Texturômetro com lâmina de 3 mm provocou menor precisão nos resultados. Em quase todos os casos, a temperatura de 65 °C produziu os menores valores de força de cisalhamento, enquanto que a utilização de 75 °C provocou os maiores valores. Foram observadas baixas correlações entre os atributos de qualidade avaliados e a força de cisalhamento dos cortes em estudo. Foram determinadas quatro equações de predição de força de cisalhamento de uma técnica com base nos resultados de outra. Os equipamentos e temperaturas finais de cocção utilizados ocasionaram diferentes comportamentos mecânicos e estruturais nos cortes cárneos avaliados. O Texturômetro com lâmina de 1 mm produziu menor variação nos resultados mas ao mesmo tempo, na maioria dos casos, provocou corte ao invés de cisalhamento nas amostras. Foi possível concluir que a utilização de diferentes equipamentos e pequenas variações na temperatura final de cocção das amostras pode ser uma grande fonte de variação nos resultados de testes de determinação da força de cisalhamento de carnes e que comparações entre resultados devem ser feitas com cautela observando estes detalhes. / Considering the importance of tenderness among the meat quality attributes, the need to establish a faster and more modern method that provides more accurate results with low variability and can be used to determine the instrumental tenderness of different meat cuts is an obvious demand. Thus, the objective of this thesis was to study the instrumental tenderness of different beef cuts, by testing different cooking endpoint temperatures and cooling times in the sample preparation step and using different equipment, as well as to establish correlations among the instrumental tenderness and several other meat quality attributes. The effects of using three cooking endpoint temperatures (65, 70 and 75 °C) and two cooling times of the samples (4 and 24 hours) and the use of three different equipment (TAXT2icon Texturometer equipped with shear blades of 1 and 3 mm thick, and a classical Warner-Bratzler) in the shear force determination of five beef cuts were evaluated. The cuts were evaluated for pH, myofibrillar fragmentation index, denaturation temperatures of Actin and Myosin proteins, instrumental color, collagen content, sarcomere length, chemical composition and cooking loss. Linear correlations between these attributes, between these attributes and shear force results and between shear force results were determined. The mechanical and structural behaviors of the cuts during the shear force tests were studied through the microstructure of the sheared surfaces and the mechanical curves generated during the tests in the texturometer. There was no significant effect of the cooling time on shear force results. The texturometer equipped with a 1 mm blade produced lower values, while Warner-Bratzler produced the higher ones. The texturometer equipped with a 3 mm blade resulted in decreased precision in the results. In most cases, the temperature of 65 °C produced the lowest shear force values, whereas the use of 75 °C resulted in the highest ones. Low correlations among the quality attributes evaluated and the shear force results of the cuts under study were observed. Four prediction equations of shear force were determined from one technique based on the results of another. The equipment and cooking endpoint temperatures used resulted in different mechanical and structural behaviors in the beef cuts evaluated. The texturometer equipped with a 1 mm blade produced less variation in the results, but at the same time, in most cases, it caused cutting rather than shearing of the samples. It is possible to conclude that the use of different equipment and small variations in the cooking endpoint temperature of the samples may be a great source of variation in the meat shear force results and that comparisons between results should be made with caution and observing these details.

The thesis deals the preliminary draft of the small two-seat helicopter with a piston engine. The aim of the thesis is not to propose a helicopter across the extent of the problems. Therefore we have chosen only selected issues which can be managed in the range of work. The introduction is focused on defining the general requirements imposed on proposed helicopter, formulating the basic conceptual and structural design according to the building regulation the relevant category. These ranges create a based assumption for right evaluation of the statistical analysis of the helicopters of the same or very near parameters category. Subsequently, there were defined the basic parameters of the proposed helicopter which make possible to solve the performance characteristics in the vertical and backward flight. The work is also focused on design of the rotor head of main rotor for the proposed helicopter, the definition of load acting on the rotor head, waving analysis and calculation of centrifugal forces acting on the main rotor blades. The design of the rotor head and also the helicopter as a whole will be graphically processed in the program Dassault Systemes Catia.

Heat transfer study on gas turbine blades is very important due to the resultant increase in cycle thermal efficiency. This study is focused on the heat transfer effects on a reference nozzle guide vane and test rig component preparation in heat and power technology division at KTH. In order to prepare the current test rig for heat transfer experiments, some feature should be changed in the current layout to give a nearly instant temperature rise for heat transfer measurement. The heater mesh component is the main component to be added to the current test rig. Some preliminary design parameters were set and the necessary power for the heater mesh to achieve required step temperature rise was calculated. For the next step, it is needed to estimate the heat transfer coefficient and the other parameters for study on the reference blade using numerical methods. Boundary layer analysis is very important in heat transfer modeling so to model the reference blade heat transfer and boundary layer properties, a 2D boundary layer code TEXSTAN is used and the velocity distribution around the vane was set to an input dataset file. After elements refinement to ensure the numerical accuracy of TEXSTAN code, various turbulence modeling was check to predict the heat transfer coefficient and boundary layer assessments. It was concluded from TEXTAN calculations that both suction and pressure side have transition flow while for the suction side it was predicted that the flow regime at trailing edge is fully turbulent. Based on the Abu-Ghannam –Shaw Transition model and by the aid of shape factor data, momentum Reynolds number and various boundary layer properties, it was concluded that the pressure side remains in transient region.

Many Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (SUAV) are driven by small scale, fixed blade propellers. The flow produced by the propeller, known as the propeller slipstream, can have significant impact on SUAV aerodynamics. In the design and analysis process for SUAVs, numerous Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations of the coupled aircraft and propeller are often conducted which require a time-averaged, steady-state approximation of the propeller for computational efficiency. Most steady-state propeller models apply an actuator disk of momentum sources to model the thrust and swirl imparted to the flow field by a propeller. These momentum source models are based on simplified theories which lack accuracy. Currently, the most common momentum source models are based on blade element theory. Blade element theory discretizes the propeller blade into airfoil sections and assumes them to behave as two-dimensional (2D) airfoils. Blade element theory neglects many 3D flow effects that can greatly affect propeller performance limiting its accuracy and range of application. The research work in this dissertation uses a surrogate modeling method to develop a more accurate momentum source propeller model. Surrogate models for the time averaged thrust and swirl produced by each blade element are trained from a database of timeurate, highidelity 3D CFD propeller simulations. Since the surrogate models are trained from these highidelity CFD simulations, various 3D effects on propellers are inherently accounted for such as tip loss, hub loss, post stall effect, and element interaction. These efficient polynomial response surface surrogate models are functions of local flow properties at the blade elements and are embedded into 3D CFD simulations as locally adaptive momentum source terms. Results of the radial distribution of thrust and swirl for the steady-state surrogate propeller model are compared to that of time-dependent, highidelity 3D CFD propeller simulations for various aircraft-propeller coupled situations. This surrogate propeller model which is dependent on local flow field properties simulates the time-averaged flow field produced by the propeller at a momentum source term level of detail. Due to the nature of the training cases, it also captures the accuracy of time-dependent 3D CFD propeller simulations but at a much lower cost.

There is a growing interest in extracting more power per turbine by increasing the rotor size in offshore wind turbines. As a result, the turbine blades will become longer and therefore more flexible and a flexible blade is susceptible to flow-induced instabilities, such as classical flutter. In order to design and build stable large wind turbine blades, the onset of instability should be considered in the design process. To observe flow-induced instabilities in wind turbine blades, a small-scale flexible blade was built based on NREL 5MW reference wind turbine blade. The blade was placed in the test section of a wind tunnel and its tip displacement was measured using a non-contacting displacement measurement device. The blade was non-rotating and was subjected to uniform incoming flow. For a range of blade angles of attack, instability was observed beyond a critical wind speed. The amplitude of oscillations increases for wind speeds higher than the critical speed, and the frequency of oscillations remains constant. Flow visualizations and force measurements are conducted and the influence of various system parameters including the angle of attack and the blade twist was examined.

No description available.

Inlet distortion is an important consideration in fan performance. Distortion can be generated through flight conditions and airframe-engine interfaces. The focus of this paper is a series of high-fidelity, time-accurate Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of a multistage fan, investigating distortion transfer, distortion generation, and the underlying flow physics under different operating conditions. The simulations are full annulus and include 3 stages and the inlet guide vane (IGV). The code used to carry out these simulations is a modified version of Overflow2.2 that was developed as part of the Computational Research and Engineering Acquisition Tools and Environment (CREATE) program. The inlet boundary condition is a single revolution (sinusoidal pattern with one period over the circumference ) total pressure distortion. Simulations at choke, design, and near stall are analyzed and compared to experimental data. Distortion transfer and generation is analyzed under these different operating conditions. Analysis includes the phase and amplitude of total temperature and pressure distortion through each stage of the fan, level of distortion transfer and generation in each stage, and blade loading. An understanding of the flow physics associated with distorted flows will help fan designers account for unsteady flow physics at design and off-design operating conditions, in order to build more robust fans offering a greater stability margin.

A detailed study of the fatigue life of wooden wind turbine blades for a new 10 kilowatt system was undertaken. A numerical model of the blades was created using the technical software package MATLAB in order to estimate the maximum stress occurring within the blade in response to changes in wind velocities based on a wind profile approximating the location where these turbines are expected to operate. The material properties of the wooden laminate were measured using an Instron tensile test machine and were found to be in line with published values. In parallel with this effort, a three dimensional part scanner was utilized to compare the as-built blade to the theoretical profile and large differences between these two profiles were observed. These studies were then used to guide the creation of a full scale fatigue test which subjected two blades to accelerated fatigue loads in order to monitor the damage accumulation within each blade. It was ultimately determined that this new blade design has a fatigue life greater than 20 years.

A new method for predicting forced vibratory blade response to total pressure distortion has been developed using modal and harmonic analysis. Total pressure distortions occur in gas turbine engines when the incoming airflow is partially blocked or disturbed. Distorted inlet conditions can have varying effects on engine performance and engine life. Short-term effects are often in the form of performance degradation where the distorted airflow causes a loss in pressure rise, and a reduction in mass flow and stall margin. Long-term effects are a result of vibratory blade response that can ultimately lead to high cycle fatigue (HCF), which in turn can quickly cause partial damage to a single blade or complete destruction of an entire compressor blade row, leading to catastrophic failure of the gas turbine engine. A better understanding and prediction of vibratory blade response is critical to extending engine life and reducing HCF-induced engine failures. This work covers the use of finite element modeling coupled with computational fluid dynamics-generated pressure fields to create a generalized forcing function. The first three modes of a low-aspect-ratio, transonic, first stage blade of a two-stage fan were examined. The generalized forcing function was decomposed to the frequency domain to identify the dominant harmonic magnitude present, as well as other contributing harmonics. An attempt to define the relationship between modal force with varying total pressure distortion levels produced a sensitivity factor that describes the relationship in the form of a simple multiplier. A generalized force was applied to the blade and varied harmonically across a frequency range known to contain the first natural frequency. The mean rotor stress variation was recorded and compared to experimental results to validate the accuracy of the model and verify its ability to predict vibratory blade response accurately. / Master of Science

A flex-fan has flexible blades which undergo large deformation under centrifugal forces to give the desired air-flow and power-consumption characteristics with speed. The finite element technique has been used to obtain the deflected shape of the blade of such a fan used for automobile radiator cooling. The natural frequencies of vibration are also evaluated at different speeds, up to 5,000 rpm. A partially conforming deflection function has been used in the analysis. The blade has been treated as a thin shell, idealized as an assembly of thin flat triangular elements. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)