In this dissertation, a numerical method to design a curved surface for accurately flank milling with a general tool of revolution is presented. Instead of using the ruled surface as the design surface, the flank millable surface can better match the machined surface generated by flank milling techniques, and provide an effective tool to the designer to control the properties and the specifications of the design surface. A method using the least squares surface fitting to design the flank millable surface is first discussed. Grazing points on the envelope of the moving tool modeled by the grazing surface are used as the sample points and a NURBS surface is used to approximate the given grazing surface. The deviation between the grazing surface and the NURBS surface can be controlled by increasing the number of the control points. The computation process for this method is costly in time and effort. In engineering design, there is a need for fast and effortless methods to simplify the flank millable surface design procedure. A technique to approximate the grazing curve with NURBS at each tool position is developed. Based on the characteristics of the grazing surface and the geometries of the cutting tool, these NURBS representations at a few different tool positions, namely at the start, interior and end, are lofted to generate a NURBS surface. This NURBS surface represents the grazing surface and is treated as the design surface. Simulation results show that this design surface can accurately match the machined surface. The accuracy of the surface can be controlled by adding control points to the control net of the NURBS surface. A machining test on a 5-axis machine was done to verify the proposed flank millable surface design method. The machined surface was checked on a CMM and the obtained results were compared with the designed flank millable surface. The comparison results show that the machined surface closely matches the design surface. The proposed flank millable surface design method can be accurately used in the surface design.

This thesis develops strain and kinetic energy functions and a finite beam element useful for analyzing curved beams which go through large deflections, such as a hockey stick being swung and bent substantially as it hits the ice. The resulting beam model is demonstrated to be rotation invariant and capable of computing the correct strain energy and reaction forces for a specified deformation. A method is also described by which the model could be used to perform static or dynamic simulations of a beam.

Curved bridges with steel/concrete composite girders are used frequently in the recent years. Analysis of these structural systems presents a variety of challenges. Finite element method offers the most elaborate treatment for these systems, however its use is limited in routine design practice due to modeling requirements. In recent years, a finite element program named UTrAp was developed to analyze construction stages of curved/straight composite bridges. The original Graphical User Interface could not be used with the modified computation engine. It is the focus of this thesis work to develop a brand new Graphical User Interface with enhanced visual capabilities compatible with the engine. Pursuant to this goal a Graphical User Interface was developed using C++ programming language together with OPENGL libraries. The interface is linked to the computational engine to enable direct interaction between two programs. In the following thesis work the development of the GUI and the modifications to the computational engine are presented. Moreover, the analysis results pertaining to the newly added features are checked against analytical solutions and recommendations presented in design specifications.

In this study, a laminated glass unit which consists of two glass sheets bonded together by PVB is analyzed as a curved beam and as a cylindrical shell. Laminated glass curved beams and shells are used in architecture, aerospace, automobile and aircraft industries. Curved beam and shell structures differ from straight structures because of their initial curvature. Because of mathematical complexity most of the studies are about linear behavior rather than nonlinear behavior of curved beam and shell units. Therefore it is necessary to develop a mathematical model considering large deflection theory to analyze the behavior of curved beams and shells. Mechanical behavior of laminated glass structures are complicated because they can easily perform large displacement since they are very thin and the materials with the elastic modulus have order difference. To be more precise modulus of elasticity of glass is about 7*104 times greater than the modulus of elasticity of PVB interlayer. Because of the nonlinearity, analysis of the laminated glass has to be performed by considering large deflection effects. The mathematical model is developed for curved beams and shells by applying both the variational and the minimum potential energy principles to obtain nonlinear governing differential equations. The iterative technique is employed to obtain the deflections. Computer programs are developed to analyze the behavior of cylindrical shell and curved beam. For the verification of the results obtained from the developed model, the results from finite element models and experiments are used. Results used for verification of the model and the explanation of the bahavior of the laminated glass curved beams and shells are presented in figures.

Free liquid-jet impingement is well researched due to its high heat transfer ability and ease of implementation. This study considers both the steady state and transient heating of a patterned plate under slot-free-liquid jet impingement. The primary working fluid was water (H2O) and the plate material considered was silicon. Calculations were done for Reynolds number (Re) ranging from 500 to 1000 and indentation depths from 0.000125 to 0.0005 m for three different surface configurations. The effect of using different plate materials and R-134a as the working fluid were explored for the rectangular step case. The distributions of the local and average heat-transfer coefficient and the local and average Nusselt number were calculated for each case. A numerical model based in the FIDAP computer code was created to solve the conjugate heat transfer problem. The model used was developed for Cartesian coordinates for both steady state and transient conditions. Results show that the addition of surface geometry alters the fluid flow and heat transfer values. The highest heat-transfer coefficients occur at points where the fluid flow interacts with the surface geometry. The lowest heat-transfer coefficients are found in the indentations between the changes in geometry. The jet velocity has a large impact on the heat transfer values for all cases, with increasing jet velocity showing increased local heat-transfer coefficients and Nusselt number. It is observed that increasing the indentation depth for the rectangular and sinusoidal surfaces leads to a decrease in local heat transfer whereas for triangular patterns, a higher depth results in higher heat-transfer coefficient. The transient analysis showed that changing surface geometry had little effect on the time required to reach steady state. The selection of plate material has an impact on both the final maximum temperatures and the time required to reach steady state, with both traits being tied to the thermal diffusivity (α) of the material.

The majority of a bridge designer’s time is spent ensuring strength and serviceability limit states are satisfied for the completed structure under various dead and live loads. Anecdotally, the profession has done an admirable job designing safe bridges, but engineering the construction process by which bridges get built plays a lesser role in the design offices. The result of this oversight is the complete collapse of a few large bridges as well as numerous other serviceability failures during construction. According to the available literature there have been only a few attempts to monitor a full-scale bridge in the field during the entire construction process. Another challenge for engineers is the lack of analysis tools available which predict the behavior of the bridge during the intermediate construction phases. During construction, partial bracing is present and the boundary conditions can vary significantly from the final bridge configuration. The challenge is magnified for complex bridge geometries such as curved bridges or bridges with skewed supports. To address some of the concerns facing engineers a three span curved steel I-girder bridge was monitored throughout the entire construction process. Field studies collected data on the girder lifting behavior, partially constructed behavior, and concrete deck placement behavior. Additional analytical studies followed using the field measurements to verify the finite element models. Finally, conclusions drawn from the physical and analytical testing were utilized to derive equations that predicted behavior, and analysis tools were developed to provide engineers with solutions to a wide range of construction related problems. This dissertation describes the development of two design tools, UT Lift and UT Bridge. UT Lift is a macro-enabled Excel spreadsheet that predicts the behavior of curved I-girders during lifting. The derivation of the equations necessary to accomplish these calculations and the implementation are described in this dissertation. UT Bridge is a PC-based, user-friendly, 3-D finite element program for I-girder bridges. The basic design philosophy of UT Bridge aims to allow an engineer to take the information readily available in a set of bridge drawings and easily input the necessary information into the program. A straight or curved I-girder bridge with any number of girders or spans can then be analyzed with a robust finite element analysis for either the erection sequence or the concrete deck placement. The development of UT Bridge as well as the necessary element formulations is provided in this dissertation. / text

This thesis analyzes different light localization phenomena in waveguide arrays. We report on the observation of quasi-Bloch oscillations, a new type of dynamic localization in the spatial evolution of light in curved, coupled optical waveguides. The delocalization and final relocalization of an optical beam in a waveguide array is shown by spatially resolving the optical intensity at various propagation distances. Through comparison to different structures, quasi-Bloch oscillations are shown to be robust beyond the nearest-neighbor tight-binding approximation.

This thesis analyzes different light localization phenomena in waveguide arrays. We report on the observation of quasi-Bloch oscillations, a new type of dynamic localization in the spatial evolution of light in curved, coupled optical waveguides. The delocalization and final relocalization of an optical beam in a waveguide array is shown by spatially resolving the optical intensity at various propagation distances. Through comparison to different structures, quasi-Bloch oscillations are shown to be robust beyond the nearest-neighbor tight-binding approximation.

In highway bridge construction, composite curved girder bridges are becoming more popular recently. Reduced construction time, long span coverage, economics and aesthetics make them more popular than the other structural systems. Although there exist some methods for the analysis of such systems, each have shortcomings. The use of Finite Element Method (FEM) among these methods is limited except in the academic environments. The use of commercial FEM software packages in the analysis of such systems is cumbersome as it takes too much time to form a model. Considering such problems a computational software was developed called UTRAP in 2002 which analyzes bridges for construction loads by taking into account the early age deck concrete. As the topic of this thesis work, this program was restructured and new features were added. In the following thesis work, the program structure, modeling considerations and recommendations are discussed together with the parametric studies.

Free energy techniques provide the basis for an analysis of aspects of the liquid-vapour interface undertaken in this study. The main focus of this work is an extensive theoretical investigation into properties of the surface tension, including curvature dependence and supersaturation effects, using Monte Carlo computer simulation techniques.