Thesis (S.M.)--Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2006. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-96). / Blainville's beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris) use broadband, ultrasonic echolocation signals (27 to 57 kHz) to search for, localize, and approach prey that generally consist of mid-water and deep-water fishes and squid. Although it is well known that the spectral characteristics of broadband echoes from marine organisms are a strong function of size, shape, orientation and anatomical group, little is known as to whether or not these or other toothed whales use spectral cues in discriminating between prey and non-prey. In order to study the prey-classification process, a stereo acoustic tag was mounted on a Blainville's beaked whale so that emitted clicks and corresponding echoes from prey could be recorded. A comparison of echoes from prey selected by the whale and those from randomly chosen scatterers suggests that the whale may have, indeed, discriminated between echoes using spectral features and target strengths. Specifically, the whale appears to have favored prey with one or more deep nulls in the echo spectra as well as ones with higher target strength. A three-dimensional, acoustic scattering model is also developed to simulate broadband scattering from squid, a likely prey of the beaked whale. / (cont.) This model applies the distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) to a weakly-scattering, inhomogeneous body using a combined ray trace and volume integration approach. Scatterer features are represented with volume elements that are small (less than 1=12th of the wavelength) for the frequency range of interest (0 to 120 kHz). Ranges of validity with respect to material properties and numerical considerations are explored using benchmark computations with simpler geometries such as fluid-filled spherical and cylindrical fluid shells. Modeling predictions are compared with published data from live, freely swimming squid. These results, as well as previously published studies, are used in the analysis of the echo spectra of the whale's ensonified targets. / by Benjamin A. Jones. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Biology; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2008. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references. / Ecological processes at deep-sea hydrothermal vents on fast-spreading mid-ocean ridges are punctuated by frequent physical disturbance. Larval dispersal among disjunct vent sites facilitates the persistence of sessile invertebrate species in these geologically and chemically dynamic habitats despite local extinction events. Regional population extension and rapid recolonization by the siboglinid tubeworm Riftia pachyptila have been well documented along the East Pacific Rise and the Galápagos Rift. To analyze spatial and temporal population genetic patterns and the processes governing them at ephemeral and disjunct habitats, a suite of 12 highly variable microsatellite DNA markers were developed for this species. Eight of these loci were used to assess the regional and within-ridge genetic structure of recent colonists and resident adults collected from nine sites in the eastern Pacific Ocean over period of three to seven years. A significant seafloor eruption during the seven-year sampling period allowed investigation into the role of local extinction in population genetic diversity at the Tica vent site at 9°N EPR, while collections within two and five years of an eruption that created the Rosebud vent field at 86°W GAR provided insights into genetic diversity input over population establishment. For the first time, this thesis demonstrated significant genetic differences between Riftia populations on the East Pacific Rise and Galápagos Rift. Moreover, the separate treatment of colonist and resident subpopulations revealed a high potential for local larval retention at vent sites. This mechanism for recruitment likely sustains disjunct populations and supports the recolonization of locally extinct areas after disturbance events, while episodic long-distance dispersal maintains genetic coherence of the species. / (cont.) Temporal population genetic consideration at the Tica site on the East Pacific Rise suggests that the 2005-2006 seafloor eruption had little to no discernable effect on local population genetic composition. Yet local populations appear to exhibit a small degree of genetic patchiness, with a high degree of relatedness (half-sibs) among subsets of individuals within both colonist and resident cohorts. This thesis broadens the application of recently developed molecular techniques to study the effect of ridge-crest processes and offers new perspectives into marine dispersal, gene flow, and population differentiation. / by Abigail Jean Fusaro. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 54-56). / Landmines and mine-like traps are effective weapons that are difficult to detect and discriminate from a safe distance. The ability to detect landmines in their host environment at a distance and to discriminate them from other objects would be valuable for countering the landmine threat. This paper explores a standoff acoustic/laser technique to discriminate landmines from other forms of man-made objects (clutter) in an urban environment. A novel approach currently under investigation by MIT Lincoln Labs, University of Mississippi, and other groups employs a non-contact acoustic/laser technique to detect landmines from a safe standoff range. This technique uses a sound source to excite vibrations in targets with an acoustic wave. These vibrations are in turn measured remotely with a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV). In this thesis, the vibration responses of landmine variants are measured, analyzed, and compared to those of common urban objects likely to be found on a landmine field or roadside. The Fourier Transform of the vibration of the target as measured by the LDV is used to generate a target vibration spectrum. Target vibration spectra in response to a sound source were experimentally measured for 59 trials, 28 of which were of simulated landmine variants and the remaining trials were of urban clutter objects. Using an algorithm adapted from a methodology for mass spectral analysis, parameters of the target signatures are estimated; then individual target signatures are classified using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) with a training set composed of parameters from the remaining members of the total population. The best results obtained from this methodology had a 71% probability of detection and a 3% false alarm rate corresponding to 20 of 28 of the simulated landmine variants correctly identified and a single clutter object misidentified as a landmine variant. / by John Houston Doherty. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-170). / This thesis formulates an estimation framework for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) that addresses the problem of scalability in large environments. We describe an estimation-theoretic algorithm that achieves significant gains in computational efficiency while maintaining consistent estimates for the vehicle pose and the map of the environment.We specifically address the feature-based SLAM problem in which the robot represents the environment as a collection of landmarks. The thesis takes a Bayesian approach whereby we maintain a joint posterior over the vehicle pose and feature states, conditioned upon measurement data. We model the distribution as Gaussian and parametrize the posterior in the canonical form, in terms of the information (inverse covariance) matrix. When sparse, this representation is amenable to computationally efficient Bayesian SLAM filtering. However, while a large majority of the elements within the normalized information matrix are very small in magnitude, it is fully populated nonetheless. Recent feature-based SLAM filters achieve the scalability benefits of a sparse parametrization by explicitly pruning these weak links in an effort to enforce sparsity. We analyze one such algorithm, the Sparse Extended Information Filter (SEIF), which has laid much of the groundwork concerning the computational benefits of the sparse canonical form. The thesis performs a detailed analysis of the process by which the SEIF approximates the sparsity of the information matrix and reveals key insights into the consequences of different sparsification strategies. We demonstrate that the SEIF yields a sparse approximation to the posterior that is inconsistent, suffering from exaggerated confidence estimates. / (cont) This overconfidence has detrimental effects on important aspects of the SLAM process and affects the higher level goal of producing accurate maps for subsequent localization and path planning. This thesis proposes an alternative scalable filter that maintains sparsity while preserving the consistency of the distribution. We leverage insights into the natural structure of the feature-based canonical parametrization and derive a method that actively maintains an exactly sparse posterior. Our algorithm exploits the structure of the parametrization to achieve gains in efficiency, with a computational cost that scales linearly with the size of the map. Unlike similar techniques that sacrifice consistency for improved scalability, our algorithm performs inference over a posterior that is conservative relative to the nominal Gaussian distribution. Consequently, we preserve the consistency of the pose and map estimates and avoid the effects of an overconfident posterior. We demonstrate our filter alongside the SEIF and the standard EKEF both in simulation as well as on two real-world datasets. While we maintain the computational advantages of an exactly sparse representation, the results show convincingly that our method yields conservative estimates for the robot pose and map that are nearly identical to those of the original Gaussian distribution as produced by the EKF, but at much less computational expense. The thesis concludes with an extension of our SLAM filter to a complex underwater environment. We describe a systems-level framework for localization and mapping relative to a ship hull with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) equipped with a forward-looking sonar. The approach utilizes our filter to fuse measurements of vehicle attitude and motion from onboard sensors with data from sonar images of the hull. We employ the system to perform three-dimensional, 6-DOF SLAM on a ship hull. / by Matthew R. Walter. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Biology; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2008. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references. / The benthic habitat is the terminal destination for marine animals in terms of their reproductive lifecycle. Recruitment dynamics relating to seasonal changes in the benthic habitat may be the best source of information for predicting recruit abundance and for marine resources management. The transition from the pelagic to the benthic phases is the last stage in the connectivity between benthic populations. The transition to the benthos may be a process that dominates recruitment dynamics to the exclusion of other characteristics of larvae such as their quality and their density. Recruitment of benthic marine animals is influenced by two seasonally varying factors of the benthic habitat. First, the availability of suitable habitat for recruitment can in large part determine the survival probability for settlers, a trend that is most pronounced for low or no survival when the settlement substrate is saturated by conspecifics from a recruitment cohort. Preemption is caused by the presence of current occupants from a recruit cohort, and it influences the settlement rate or the survival probability of conspecifics. Descriptive statistics (Chapter 2) and a field experiment (Chapter 4) highlight the role of preemption on barnacle recruitment. The second factor results from seasonal changes in environmental conditions that settlers experience in the benthic habitat, which could affect the physiology and survival probability of barnacle settlers. Highly unpredictable features of recruitment dynamics also play a role, such as wind that enhances wave action in the rocky intertidal that has been linked to the rate of settlement. Day to day variability in wind may cause patterns of settlement to be highly unpredictable. Predator induced mortality is spatially aggregated, and the random pattern of mortality in space is highly unpredictable. In contrast to these high frequency sources of recruitment variability, seasonal factors that vary at lower frequencies and that often change monotonically lend great predictive ability for recruitment dynamics. It appears that barnacles have evolved to compete for suitable habitat and have mechanisms to cope with seasonally varying environmental conditions in the benthic habitat, which may be the basis for why these features dominate the barnacle recruitment dynamic. / by Jonathan N. Blythe. / Ph.D.

The solar cell technology based on Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin-films provides a promising route to cost competitive solar electricity. The standard device structure is ZnO:Al/ZnO/CdS/CIGS/Mo films on a glass substrate, where the first three layers are n-type semiconductors with wide bandgaps, forming a pn-junction with the p-type CIGS absorber layer; the Mo layer serves as a back contact. This thesis deals with analysis of the generation and recombination of electron-hole pairs throughout the device. These processes determine the maximum output power: generation limits the current; recombination limits the voltage. The generation is calculated with an optical model based on complex refractive indices determined for the individual layers. The main features of the optical response of the solar cell can be reproduced with a specular model neglecting scattering. A model including ideally Lambertian scattering at the front and back surface of the CIGS absorber layer is introduced to investigate the possibility to maintain a high current generation with thin absorber layers. The result highlights the relatively poor optical performance of the Mo back contact. TiN and ZrN are explored as alternatives, and improved optical performance is experimentally demonstrated for both materials. The recombination analysis emphasizes that, in general, more than one recombination path of comparable magnitude are operative in parallel. For cells with absorber bandgap increasing from 1.0 eV (CuInSe2) to 1.7 eV (CuGaSe2), a relative increase of interface recombination is found. When these cells are subject to accelerated ageing, degradation is smallest for intermediate bandgaps; an explanation involving different sensitivity to decreased absorber band bending and activation of grain boundaries is suggested. The optical gain with ZrN back contacts is counteracted by increased back contact recombination and contact resistance, but an intermediate layer of MoSe2 is shown to alleviate these problems, allowing for an overall improved efficiency.

In this work, we study the galaxy cluster MS0735.6+7421 that hosts the most energetic observed active galactic nucleus (AGN) outburst so far. Explaining this very energetic AGN outburst is found to be challenging. McNamara et al. 2009 grappled with this problem and proposed two possible solutions: either the black hole (BH) must be an ultra massive one (with mass $> 10^{10} \ \text{M}_\odot$), or the efficiency of the mass to energy conversion ($\epsilon$) should be higher than the generally assumed value of $\epsilon \sim 0.1$. However, the efficiency of the mass to energy conversion depends on the BH's spin {Benson and Babul 2009}; higher $\epsilon$ can be achieved with a higher spinning BH. Here, we explore the second solution in detail, and ask the question: How did the BH spin up to the very high spins in advance of the outburst? We also explore the attendant physical processes, such as star formation, during the spin-up mode and investigate the associated observational implications. Comparing our results with what is generally expected from simulations and observational studies suggests that for all intents and purposes, the existence of an ultra massive BH is the simplest solution. / Graduate

Quando ocorrem solicitações dinâmicas nos solos, torna-se indispensável a determinação do módulo de cisalhamento máximo (Go) para elaboração de projetos de Engenharia Geotécnica. Este parâmetro pode ser determinado a partir da velocidade de propagação das ondas S (Vs). Em campo, os ensaios mais empregadas para determinação de Vs são o cross-hole e o down-hole. O down-hole tem sido bastante empregado com a incorporação de geofones em ponteiras de piezocone. Esse ensaio tem se mostrado uma maneira rápida, econômica e muito confiável para determinação de Go, apresentando resultados consistentes com os obtidos no ensaio cross-hole. O objetivo deste trabalho é o desenvolvimento de um sistema para realização do ensaio sísmico down-hole e sua implantação. Inúmeros ensaios foram realizados no campus da Universidade Estadual Paulista, em Bauru/SP a fim de testar os procedimentos para execução do ensaio, os equipamentos utilizados e as técnicas de interpretação, onde se observou que a manutenção do eixo de vibração dos geofones paralelo a direção de aplicação do golpe foi o fator que mais influenciou na qualidade dos sinais. Para analisar a resposta dos geofones instalados na ponteira desenvolvida, realizaram-se ensaios em laboratório, onde se verificou que os geofones apresentavam resposta idêntica ao dos acelerômetro de referência. Por fim, foram realizados ensaios em três campos experimentais no interior do Estado de São Paulo, onde estão disponíveis resultados de ensaios cross-hole e ensaios down-hole realizados com equipamentos comerciais. Os resultados obtidos com o sistema desenvolvido nestes campos permitiram validar o sistema desenvolvido. / In the design stages of geotechnical engineering of a given project, it is imperative to ascertain the maximum shear modulus (Go) of those soils experiencing dynamic loads. One common method to determine Go is to measure shear wave velocity. Most field experiments are the cross-hole and down-hole tests to determine the velocity of shear waves. The downhole test has been widely used in conjunction with geophones placed behind the tip of piezocones. The down-hole test has proven to be a fast, economic, and very reliable method to determine Go, it has produced data consistent with results obtained in cross-hole tests. The objective of this work is to present a comprehensive system for the down-hole test, which includes its implementation, execution, and the interpretation of data collected. Several tests were performed at the campus of Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP, in Bauru, S.P. The objective of those experiments was to test the execution procedures and method of interpretation. It was observed the quality of the results obtained was chiefly dependent on maintaining the axis of vibration of the geophones parallel to the direction of application of the original blow. The analysis of the response by the geophones installed at the tip of the cone included experiments performed at the laboratory, where it was observed that the geophones responded identically to those accelerometers used as reference. Further, downhole experiments using system proposed here were performed in three experimental research sites of the state of São Paulo. The objective was to compare results to the data available in literature, which were obtained using commercial SCPT equipment and cross-hole tests. The down-hole testswere performed within the guidelines of the system proposed here and the results of the experiment served to corroborate the suitability of the developed system.

A ventosa de trÃplice funÃÃo atua na admissÃo e/ou expulsÃo de ar contido na tubulaÃÃo, protegendo tubulaÃÃo e equipamentos contra os efeitos decorrentes do acÃmulo de ar e golpe de arÃete. AtravÃs do orifÃcio cinÃtico, ela admite grande quantidade de ar quando a pressÃo no interior da tubulaÃÃo torna-se inferior à atmosfÃrica, e expulsa ar apÃs a separaÃÃo da coluna a uma pressÃo superior à atmosfÃrica. Na regiÃo de admissÃo de ar, a ventosa com orifÃcio âNon Slamâ admite grande volume de ar atravÃs do orifÃcio cinÃtico, e inicia a expulsÃo de ar, atravÃs do mesmo orifÃcio. A partir de um determinado valor de pressÃo positiva, o orifÃcio cinÃtico à fechado e abre-se um orifÃcio de menor diÃmetro, chamado de orifÃcio de "Non Slam", amortecendo, assim, o choque das colunas lÃquidas que estavam separadas. Neste trabalho, propÃe-se uma metodologia para o cÃlculo dos coeficientes de admissÃo e expulsÃo de ar no regime transiente a partir das curvas disponibilizadas pelos fabricantes. O trabalho visa minimizar a falta de informaÃÃes experimentais sobre as ventosas com base nas curvas dos fabricantes para a determinaÃÃo dos coeficientes de admissÃo e expulsÃo de ar. Nesse estudo nÃs comparamos o efeito de se usar um Ãnico coeficiente de descarga de ar para entrada e outro Ãnico para a saÃda de ar versus considerar a variaÃÃo desses coeficientes de descarga à medida que as pressÃes variam. O programa computacional UFC7, escrito em Java, implementa o transiente hidrÃulico com suas condiÃÃes de contorno. / sucker triple function acts on admission and / or expulsion of air in the pipe, protecting piping and equipment against the effects of air and accumulation water hammer. Through kinetic hole, she admits lot of air when the pressure inside the pipe becomes lower than atmospheric, and expels air after separation column at a superatmospheric pressure. The inlet region air, the suction orifice "Non slam" admits large volume of air through the orifice Kinetic and starts expelling air through the same hole. From a certain Positive pressure value, the kinetic orifice is closed and opens a lower orifice diameter hole called "Non slam", cushioning, thus, the shock of columns they were separated liquid. In this paper, we propose a methodology for calculating the admission rates and expulsion of air in transient from the curves provided by the manufacturers. The work aims to minimize the lack of information Experimental suction cups on the basis of the curves for the determination of makers the admission rates and expulsion of air. In this study we compared the effect of using a single air discharge coefficient for input and another for output only Air versus consider the variation of these coefficients discharge pressures as range. The UFC7 computer program written in Java, implements the transient Hydraulic with its boundary conditions

Capítulo 1. Objetivos: Medir e comparar o perfil de tensão residual da cerâmica de recobrimento aplicada sobre infraestruturas em zircônia tetragonal policristalina estabilizada por ítria (Y-TZP), em um compósito de alumina/zircônia (ZTA) e em uma alumina policristalina (AL). Material e Métodos: Os perfis de tensão residual de cada um dos materiais foi medido por meio do método \"hole-drilling\" em discos de 19 mm de diâmetro e 2,2 mm de espessura (0,7 mm de infraestrutura + 1,5 mm de porcelana de cobertura) .Resultados: Os espécimes de AL exibiram tensões de compressão que aumentaram numericamente com a profundidade, enquanto que as tensões compressivas mudaram para tensões de tração no interior das amostras de Y-TZP. As amostras de ZTA exibiram tensões de compressão na superfície, decrescendo com a profundidade até 0,6 mm, tornando-se compressivas novamente próximo à infraestrutura. Conclusão: O ZTA não apresentou tensões de tração em nenhum ponto ao longo da espessura da cerâmica de recobrimento. A AL apresentou um perfil de tensão residual mais favorável, gerado pelas tensões compressivas. A Y-TZP apresentou o perfil mais desfavorável, por apresentar tensões de tração próximo à infraestrutura. Capítulo 2. Objetivos: 1) Comparar os coeficientes de susceptibilidade ao crescimento subcrítico (n), de uma zircônia tetragonal policristalina estabilizada por ítria, obtidos por meio de dois ensaios de fadiga: cíclica e dinâmica. 2) Verificar o efeito da frequência usada no ensaio de fadiga cíclica no tempo de vida característico. Material e Métodos: Espécimes em forma de barras (25 mm x 4 mm x 3 mm) foram confeccionadas de acordo com as recomendações do fabricante. Os ensaios de fadiga dinâmica (n=70) e de fadiga cíclica (n=75) foram realizados por meio de resistência à flexão em quatro pontos para a obtenção dos parâmetros de crescimento de trincas subcrítico (SCG). O ensaio de fadiga cíclica também foi realizado em duas frequências (2 e 10 Hz), utilizando valores de tensão máxima entre 350 e 600 MPa. Todos os espécimes fraturados foram inspecionados em microscópio eletrônico de varredura para que fosse identificada a origem da fratura. Os dados de fadiga dinâmica foram analisados por meio das fórmulas apresentadas na ASTM C 1368-00. Os dados de fadiga cíclica foram analisados por meio da estatística de Weibull e por meio de análise tipo \"General Log Linear Model\". Resultados: A Y-TZP apresentou valores dos parâmetros de SCG obtidos no ensaio de fadiga dinâmica de ?fo = 667 MPa e n = 54. Os parâmetros de Weibull obtidos a partir dos resultados do mesmo ensaio foram de m = 7,9, ?0 = 968,9 MPa e ?5% = 767 MPa. Os parâmetros de Weibull obtidos no ensaio de fadiga cíclica foram estatisticamente semelhantes para as duas frequências utilizadas, o m* foi de 0,17 para 2Hz e de 0,21 10Hz; os tempos de vida característicos (?, em número de ciclos) foram de 1,93 x 106 e 40.768, respectivamente para 2 e 10 Hz. O valor de n obtido na fadiga cíclica foi de 48 e 40, nas frequências de 2 e 10 Hz, respectivamente. Não foi observado o efeito da frequência da aplicação da tensão, do nível de tensão, nem da interação dos dois no tempo de vida da Y-TZP, quando analisados pelo General Log Linear Model. Conclusão: Os coeficientes de susceptibilidade ao crescimento subcrítico (n) obtidos por meio de fadiga cíclica e dinâmica foram semelhantes para a Y-TZP testada. Os extensos intervalos de confiança obtidos nos ensaios de fadiga cíclica indicaram não haver efeito da frequência usado nesse método de fadiga nos tempos de vida característicos da Y-TZP testada. / Chapter 1. Objective: was: to measure and compare the residual stress profile in the veneering ceramic layered on three different polycrystalline ceramic frame-work materials: Y-TZP, alumina polycrystalline (AL) and zirconia toughened alumina (ZTA).Materials and Methods. The stress profile was measured with the hole-drilling method in bilayered disk samples of 19 mm diameter with a 0.7 mm thick Y-TZP, AL or ZTA framework and a 1.5 mm thick layer of the corresponding veneering ceramic. Results: The AL samples exhibited increasing compressive stresses with depth, while compressive stresses switching into interior tensile stresses were measured in Y-TZP samples. ZTA samples exhibited compressive stress at the ceramic surface, decreasing with depth up to 0.6 mm from the surface, and then becoming compressive again near the framework. Conclusions: Y-TZP samples exhibited a less favorable stress profile than those of AL and ZTA samples. Chapter 2. Objectives: 1) To compare the stress corrosion coefficient (n) of a Y-TZP, obtained by two fatigue tests: cyclic and dynamic and 2) Evaluate the effect of frequency used in the cyclic fatigue test in the characteristic lifetime. Methods: Bar shaped specimens (4 mm x 25 mm x 3 mm) were prepared according to the manufacturer\'s recommendations. The dynamic fatigue test (n = 70) and cyclic fatigue (n = 75) were performed by four-point bending to obtain the slow crack growth parameters (n) .The cyclic fatigue test was also conducted in two frequencies (2 and 10Hz), using stress levels between 350 and 600 MPa. All fractured specimens were inspected by SEM so that the origin of the fracture were identified. The dynamic fatigue data were analyzed using the formulas given in ASTM C 1368-00. Cyclic fatigue data were analyzed using Weibull statistics and by the Log General Linear Model. Results: The material showed values of parameters obtained in the SCG assay dynamic fatigue ?fo = 667 and n = 54. The Weibull parameters obtained from the same test results were m = 7.9, ?0 = 968, 9 and ?5% = 767. The Weibull parameters obtained by cyclic fatigue were statistically similar for the two frequencies used, the m* was 0.17 (2 Hz) and 0.21 (10 Hz); characteristic lifetimes (?) were 1.93 x 106 and 40768, respectively. The n value obtained by cyclic fatigue was 48 and 40 at frequencies of 2 and 10 Hz, respectively. There was no effect of the frequency, the stress level or the interaction of the two in the Y-TZP lifetime, when analyzed by General Log Linear Model. Conclusion: The n values obtained by cyclic and dynamic fatigue tests were similar to Y-TZP tested. The extensive confidence intervals obtained in cyclic fatigue tests showed no effect of frequency used this method in fatigue characteristic lifetimes of the Y-TZP tested.