The concertmaster position has evolved into one of the most essential positions in an orchestra. The demands associated with the position make it a rigorous chair to occupy. The concertmaster is responsible for a number of duties that are critical for an orchestra’s success. These duties include serving as a liaison between the orchestral musicians and the conductor, being in excellent form as a violinist, and being prepared to lead any score and play any solos in the pieces being performed. A vast knowledge of string instruments and an understanding of an orchestra’s capability is also important. These are key factors for teaching specific techniques and clearly interpreting the composer’s and conductor’s interpretive wishes. Interpretive ideas are unified throughout a string section using specified bowing techniques. Bowings solidify musical ideas for the entire string section. Concertmasters decide bowings primarily based on the first violin part. Subsequently, the bowing decisions are distributed to the other principals. Through the specification of bowing, concertmasters define articulations and other important elements of bowing to shape musical phrases. Concertmasters are relied upon for careful consideration of bowings that will obtain appropriate results, based on knowledge of a bow’s physical qualities and its relationship to various musical styles. Bowing challenges for a concertmaster involve coordinating orchestra members’ inherently different styles of string playing and musical interpretations. Concertmasters, like orchestras, are unique and must adapt to diverse situations. In addition to determining bowing, the concertmaster leads the string section from the front desk through his/her sound and through gestures, which communicate musical intent. This essay presents various approaches for bowing different styles of music. One chapter provides an overview of the concertmaster position. The second chapter concentrates on the various bow strokes required in a score, each accompanied by brief descriptions. Finally, the third chapter explores different ways to play a variety of musical examples ranging from the classical era to modern day compositions. Each example demonstrates multiple approaches for deciding on reasonable bowings. The Appendix consists of bowings of major compositions that were used in performances. A glossary of terms every concertmaster should know is also included.

This thesis explores Lucien Capet's bowing technique and identifies connections to contemporary violin bowing practices. It includes a developed biography of Capet; a review of the Capet treatise; a historical analysis linking Capet's bowing technique back to his predecessor Baillot and forward to the present day; a detailed comparative analysis that determines Capet's pedagogical connections to Ivan Galamian and Simon Fischer; and an examination of the ramifications of the results including the the finding that Capet's technique is a viable and important component to developing refined contemporary bowing technique.

No description available.

The United States' fleet of Light Water Reactors (LWRs) produces a large amount of spent fuel each year; all of which is presently intended to be stored in a fuel repository for disposal. As these LWRs continue to operate and more are built to match the increasing demand for electricity, the required capacity for these repositories grows. Georgia Tech's Subcritical Advanced Burner Reactor (SABR) has been designed to reduce the capacity requirements for these repositories and thereby help close the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle by burning the long-lived transuranics in spent nuclear fuel. SABR's design is based heavily off of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). It is important to understand whether the SABR design retains the passive safety characteristics of the IFR. A full safety analysis of SABR's transient response to various possible accident scenarios needs to be performed to determine this. However, before this safety analysis can be performed, it is imperative to model all components of the reactivity feedback mechanism in SABR. The purpose of this work is to develop a calculational model for the fuel bowing reactivity coefficients that can be used in SABR's future safety analysis. This thesis discusses background on fuel bowing and other reactivity coefficients, the history of the IFR, the design of SABR, describes the method that was developed for calculating fuel bowing reactivity coefficients and its validation, and presents an example of a fuel bowing reactivity calculation for SABR.

Neste trabalho é apresentado um estudo experimental e numérico acerca do comportamento em situação de incêndio de pilares de aço e mistos de aço e concreto inseridos em paredes. Tendo em vista que o aquecimento ocorre em apenas uma das faces do pilar, são instaurados gradientes térmicos ao longo da seção, adicionando momentos e tensões que alteram significativamente o comportamento termoestrutural do pilar. O estudo experimental foi realizado na Universidade de Coimbra, onde foram realizados ensaios em temperaturas elevadas de pilares de aço e mistos de aço e concreto, considerando o preenchimento entre as mesas do perfil. Dentre os parâmetros analisados, foram considerados dois tipos de perfis metálicos, três espessuras de paredes e a orientação do perfil em relação à parede. Todos os ensaios consideraram o pilar com restrição axial e rotacional nas extremidades. A partir da análise experimental, foi possível observar que os pilares com o gradiente térmico ao longo das mesas do perfil, que desenvolvem um gradiente térmico menos pronunciado, apresentam um comportamento mais semelhante aos pilares aquecidos uniformemente. Já com o gradiente térmico ao longo da alma, o comportamento obtido é bastante diferente, sendo que o desenvolvimento das forças de restrição no pilar apresenta dois ramos ascendentes até o valor de pico. Considerações acerca do efeito térmico e estrutural da espessura da parede e do tipo de perfil utilizado são apresentados no trabalho. Adicionalmente, foram realizadas análise numéricas térmicas e termoestruturais em elementos finitos a fim de compreender melhor o comportamento dos pilares ensaiados previamente. Por fim, em âmbito teórico é apresentada uma metodologia para a obtenção das curvas de interação da força normal e momento fletor para os pilares de aço e mistos de aço e concreto submetidos à gradientes térmicos ao longo das mesas e da alma do perfil. / The present work presents an experimental and numerical study concerning the behaviour in fire of steel and composite steel and concrete columns embedded on walls. Considering that the heating occurs at only one side of the column, thermal gradients are developed along the cross section, adding bending moments and tensions which significantly changes the behaviour of the column in fire. The experimental study was conducted at the University of Coimbra, where tests were carried out at elevated temperatures on steel and composite columns with concrete between the flanges of the profile. Among the analysed parameters, were considered two types of steel profiles, three wall thicknesses and the column position in its two principal direction in comparison to the wall. All tests considered the column with axial and rotational restrictions on its ends. From the experimental analysis, we observed that the columns with the thermal gradient along the profile flanges, which develops a less pronounced thermal gradient, have a more similar behaviour with the columns uniformly heated. Considering the thermal gradient along the web, the behaviour obtained is quite different, with the development of axial forces presenting two ascending branches until the peak value. Considerations concerning the thermal and structural effect of wall thickness and type of profile used are presented along the results discussion. In addition, thermal and thermomechanical finite element analysis were developed in order to better understand the behaviour of the columns previously tested. Finally, in a theoretical scope a methodology for obtaining the normal force and bending moment interaction diagrams (N-M diagrams) for steel and composite columns subjected to thermal gradients along the flanges and the web is presented and compared with the experimental data.

Deformations of nuclear fuel assemblies have been observed in nuclear power plants since the mid-90s. Such deformations are generally called bowing effects. Fuel assemblies under high irradiation undergo growth and creep induced by high loading forces and low skeleton stiffness of the assemblies which gives permanent deformations and modifies moderation regions. Hence, giving an unpredicted neutron flux spectrum, power distribution, and isotopic concentrations in the burnt fuel. The aim of this thesis is to study the effects of local fuel bowing in terms of power distribution and isotopic composition changes through simulations of the reactor core.  The reactor is simulated with realistic bowing maps and previous deterministically simulated realistic fuel data from a present reactor by deploying the Monte Carlo method using the nuclear reactor code Serpent 2. Two subparts of a full reactor core with fuel from separate fuel cycles are investigated in 2D using burnup. To quantify the impact of the bowing, the change in power distribution and the induced isotopic composition change are calculated by a relative difference between a nominal case and a simulation with perturbed fuel assemblies. The results are presented in colormaps, for visualization. The isotopic composition for U235, U238, Pu239, Nd148, and Cm244 are investigated. Also, statistical uncertainty estimations in the composition of the depleted fuel are done by multiple calculations of the same geometry while changing the seed of random variables in the Monte Carlo calculation. The mean value and the standard deviation in the mass density of U235 and Pu239 are calculated for two pins together with histograms with a normal fit for each case to clarify the mathematical distribution of the calculations.  The simulations performed in this thesis have detected clear impacts of the reactor behavior in terms of power distribution and isotopic composition in the burnt fuel introduced by the bowing. Assembly perturbations of about 10 mm may locally introduce a 10 % relative difference in power density and U235 content between the nominal and the bowed case at 15 MWd/kgU burnup. The power and the isotopic composition changes agree with expectations from the bowing maps.

No description available.

Neste trabalho é apresentado um estudo experimental e numérico acerca do comportamento em situação de incêndio de pilares de aço e mistos de aço e concreto inseridos em paredes. Tendo em vista que o aquecimento ocorre em apenas uma das faces do pilar, são instaurados gradientes térmicos ao longo da seção, adicionando momentos e tensões que alteram significativamente o comportamento termoestrutural do pilar. O estudo experimental foi realizado na Universidade de Coimbra, onde foram realizados ensaios em temperaturas elevadas de pilares de aço e mistos de aço e concreto, considerando o preenchimento entre as mesas do perfil. Dentre os parâmetros analisados, foram considerados dois tipos de perfis metálicos, três espessuras de paredes e a orientação do perfil em relação à parede. Todos os ensaios consideraram o pilar com restrição axial e rotacional nas extremidades. A partir da análise experimental, foi possível observar que os pilares com o gradiente térmico ao longo das mesas do perfil, que desenvolvem um gradiente térmico menos pronunciado, apresentam um comportamento mais semelhante aos pilares aquecidos uniformemente. Já com o gradiente térmico ao longo da alma, o comportamento obtido é bastante diferente, sendo que o desenvolvimento das forças de restrição no pilar apresenta dois ramos ascendentes até o valor de pico. Considerações acerca do efeito térmico e estrutural da espessura da parede e do tipo de perfil utilizado são apresentados no trabalho. Adicionalmente, foram realizadas análise numéricas térmicas e termoestruturais em elementos finitos a fim de compreender melhor o comportamento dos pilares ensaiados previamente. Por fim, em âmbito teórico é apresentada uma metodologia para a obtenção das curvas de interação da força normal e momento fletor para os pilares de aço e mistos de aço e concreto submetidos à gradientes térmicos ao longo das mesas e da alma do perfil. / The present work presents an experimental and numerical study concerning the behaviour in fire of steel and composite steel and concrete columns embedded on walls. Considering that the heating occurs at only one side of the column, thermal gradients are developed along the cross section, adding bending moments and tensions which significantly changes the behaviour of the column in fire. The experimental study was conducted at the University of Coimbra, where tests were carried out at elevated temperatures on steel and composite columns with concrete between the flanges of the profile. Among the analysed parameters, were considered two types of steel profiles, three wall thicknesses and the column position in its two principal direction in comparison to the wall. All tests considered the column with axial and rotational restrictions on its ends. From the experimental analysis, we observed that the columns with the thermal gradient along the profile flanges, which develops a less pronounced thermal gradient, have a more similar behaviour with the columns uniformly heated. Considering the thermal gradient along the web, the behaviour obtained is quite different, with the development of axial forces presenting two ascending branches until the peak value. Considerations concerning the thermal and structural effect of wall thickness and type of profile used are presented along the results discussion. In addition, thermal and thermomechanical finite element analysis were developed in order to better understand the behaviour of the columns previously tested. Finally, in a theoretical scope a methodology for obtaining the normal force and bending moment interaction diagrams (N-M diagrams) for steel and composite columns subjected to thermal gradients along the flanges and the web is presented and compared with the experimental data.

No description available.

This thesis addresses sound production in bowed-string instruments from two perspectives: the physics of the bowed string, and bow control in performance. Violin performance is characterized by an intimate connection between the player and the instrument, allowing for a continuous control of the sound via the main bowing parameters (bow velocity, bow force and bow-bridge distance), but imposing constraints as well. In the four included studies the focus is gradually shifted from the physics of bow-string interaction to the control exerted by the player. In the first two studies the available bowing parameter space was explored using a bowing machine, by systematically probing combinations of bow velocity, bow force and bow-bridge distance. This allowed for an empirical evaluation of the maximum and minimum bow force required for the production of a regular string tone, characterized by Helmholtz motion. Comparison of the found bow-force limits with theoretical predictions by Schelleng revealed a number of striking discrepancies, in particular regarding minimum bow force. The observations, in combination with bowed-string simulations, provided new insights in the mechanism of breakdown of Helmholtz motion at low bow forces. In the second study the influence of the main bowing parameters on aspects of sound quality was analyzed in detail. It was found that bow force was totally dominating the control of the spectral centroid, which is related to the perceived brightness of the tone. Pitch flattening could be clearly observed when approaching the upper bow-force limit, confirming its role as a practical limit in performance. The last two studies were focused on the measurement of bowing gestures in violin and viola performance. A method was developed for accurate and complete measurement of the main bowing parameters, as well as the bow angles skewness, inclination and tilt. The setup was used in a large performance study. The analyses revealed clear strategies in the use of the main bowing parameters, which could be related to the constraints imposed by the upper and lower bow-force limits and pitch flattening. Further, it was shown that two bow angles (skewness and tilt) were systematically used for controlling dynamic level; skewness played an important role in changing bow-bridge distance in crescendo and diminuendo notes, and tilt was used to control the gradation of bow force. Visualizations and animations of the collected bowing gestures revealed significant features of sophisticated bow control in complex bowing patterns. / QC 20100809