This record of study presents the findings of industry research projects performed during a one-year doctoral internship with the Austin Rail Group of HNTB Corporation. Four main internship objectives were established that address infrastructure problems related to the railroad industry and required the integration of engineering and financial analysis to develop effective project evaluation tools. Completion of the objectives resulted in: 1. Transformation of the Federal Railroad Administration methodology currently used to perform highway-railroad grade crossing analyses to a system of equations that can easily be used to evaluate regional rail infrastructure investments. Transportation engineering equations based on queuing theory were extended to new but equivalent formulations that accommodate unlimited, discrete train performance data from computer simulations of rail networks. 2. Application of risk assessment methods and railroad accident statistics to recommend a cost-effective alternative to legislative proposals to relocate hazardous materials transported by rail around metropolitan areas. A risk analysis model was developed to predict the risk of exposure from the release of a hazardous material following a train derailment so that changes in exposure achieved by alternative risk mitigation strategies could be observed. 3. A new method of measuring the susceptibility of railroads to financial distress following the catastrophic loss of a timber railroad bridge. Economic and finance principles were used to predict financial distress by determining of the number of revenue periods required to offset economic loss. 4. Demonstration of the use of financial market data in calculating the discount rate of public railroad companies for engineering analyses that involve negotiations with the public agencies. Surface Transportation Board rulings on the determination of a railroad?s cost of equity were applied to a comparative assessment of costs of capital for Class I railroads. A hypothetical example was used to demonstrate the interrelationship between engineering design strategies and their effects on the pricing of compensation to a railroad for right-of-way acquisition. These results, in fulfillment of the doctoral internship objectives, have provided HNTB with economic decision analysis tools and a series of conclusions used to provide recommendations to the Illinois, Missouri, and Texas Departments of Transportation, the Texas Legislature, and the railroad industry.

The purpose of this article is twofold, first to promote the use of patterns in the analysis phase of the software life-cycle by proposing an outline template for analysis patterns that strongly supports the whole analysis process from the requirements analysis to the analysis model and further on to its transformation into a flexible design. Second we present, as an example, a family of analysis patterns that deal with a series of pressing problems in cooperative work, collaborative information filtering and sharing, and knowledge management. We present the step-by-step evolution of the analysis pattern virtual library with active agents starting with a simple pinboard. In this paper we propose that using patterns in the analysis phase has the potential to reducing development time by introducing reuse already at the analysis stage and by improving the interface between analysis and design phase. To quantify our proposal we present results from the Virtual University project of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, where the analysis patterns developed in this paper were used to implement several information systems. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers on Information Systems, Information Business and Operations

The research work presented here deals with problems associated with finite element analysis of laminated composite thin-shell structures. The specific objective was to develop a thin shell finite element to model the linear elastic behavior of these shells, which would be efficient and simple to use by the practicing engineer. A detailed discussion of the issues associated with the development of thin shell finite element has been presented. It has been pointed out that the problems encountered with formulation of these elements stem from the need for satisfaction of the interelement normal slope continuity and the rigid body displacement condition by the assumed displacement functions. These difficulties have been surmounted by recourse to the discrete Kirchhoff theory approach and an isoparametric representation of the shell middle surface. A detailed derivation of the strain energy density in a thin laminated composite shell, based on a linear shear deformation theory formulated in a general curvilinear coordinate system, has been presented. The strain-displacement relations are initially derived in terms of the displacement and rotation vectors of the shell middle surface, and are subsequently expressed in terms of the cartesian components of these vectors to enable an isoparametric representation of the shell geometry. A three-node curved triangular element with the tangent and normal displacement components and their first-order derivatives as the final nodal degrees of freedom has been developed. The element formulation, however, starts with the independent interpolation of cartesian components of the displacement and rotation vectors using complete cubic and quadratic polynomials, respectively. The rigid-body displacement condition is satisifed by isoparametric interpolation of the shell geometry within an element. A convergence to the thin shell solution is achieved by enforcement of the Kirchhoff hypothesis at a discrete number of points in the element. A detailed numerical evaluation through a number of standard problems has been carried out. Results of application of the "patch test solutions" to spherical shells demonstrate a satisfactory performance of the element under limiting states of deformation. It is concluded that the DKT approach in conjunction with isoparametric representation results in a simple and efficient thin shell element.

The finite axisymmetric deformation of a thin shell of revolution is treated in this analysis. The governing differential equations are given for hyperelastic shell materials with Mooney-Rivlin and exponential strain energy density functions. These equations are solved numerically using a 4th order Runge-Kutta integration procedure. A generalized Newton-Raphson iteration process is used to systematically improve trial solutions of the differential equations. The governing differential equations are differentiated with respect to time to derive associated rate equations. The rate equations are solved numerically to generate the tangent stiffness matrix which is used to determine the load deformation history of the shell with incremental loading. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the major characteristics of the nonlinear shell behavior and recommendations are made for future research.

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Three fundamental problems of mechanical reliability are addressed. (1) computing the probability of failure, p(f), of a component having design factors with known statistical distributions and a limit state with a closed form algebraic expression (2) computing the probability of failure of a component having design factors with known distributions and a limit state which can only be expressed by a computer algorithm, and (3) deriving safety check expressions in a "design by reliability" approach. An algorithm for generating estimates of p(f) is presented. The method is an extension of, and demonstrated to be a significant improvement to, the widely used Rackwitz-Fiessler (R-F) method--a fast and efficient numerical method for performing reliability analysis. Comparisons were made for numerous examples, it was found that the error in p(f), using the proposed method, is typically about half of the error in R-F estimates. A method was proposed for computing p(f) when the relationship between design factors can be defined only using a computer algorithm, e.g., finite element analysis. A second order polynomial is constructed, using a simple curve fitting routine, to approximate the limit state in the neighborhood of the design point (i.e., a point close to the most likely value of the design variables at failure). Then the R-F method can be applied easily. It is demonstrated that this scheme is much faster than the Monte Carlo method in producing reasonable estimates of p(f). Methods of deriving safety check expressions for design codes and design criteria documents are studied. A Level I format employing partial safety factors derived from Level II methods is used to construct the safety check expressions which are suitable for code development. The procedures are demonstrated using numerous examples which include the problems where the limit states are complicated, i.e., the limit states are not explicitly defined.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The goal of submitted thesis relates to investment as business purpose, used to evaluation of real situation in První brněnská strojírna Velká Bíteš, a.s. and in the areas of its activities. Theoretic part describes basic terms, present problems in investigated area and deal with theoretical description of business purpose. The analytical part is focused on stakeholders, mainly on competitors and on firm itself too. The proposal part includes interpretation of possible options and recommendation of appropriate solution for given investment choice.