The purpose of this investigation was to provide quality dynamic strength properties for a solid grade severe-weather (SW) brick material and to illustrate the need for careful evaluation of the strain-rate effects on geomaterials. A split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) was used to perform a series of tests on specimens from a solid grade SW brick to determine the mechanical response of this material at high strain-rates. Both classical and modified SHPB tests were performed. The results from the classical SHPB tests provided evidence that modifications to the SHPB are necessary when testing geomaterials such as brick. To modify the SHPB, a small copper disk was placed at the impact end of the SHPB incident bar to increase the rise time of the initial pulse. The material response from the modified SHPB tests provided an average compressive strength of 104 MPa, which resulted in a dynamic increase factor of 1.42.

The effects of microcracking on the mechanical properties of Salem limestone were investigated in three phases: introduction of quantifiable levels of microcracks by thermal treating, mechanical testing of limestone samples with varying levels of microcracks, and modification of a numerical model to incorporate the measured effects. This work demonstrated that this approach is useful for examination of the effects of microcracking on quasi-brittle materials and can be used to improve the predictive capabilities of material models. Thermal treating was found to consistently induce quantifiable levels of microcracks in Salem limestone. Sonic wave velocities indicated that the induced microstructural changes were a function of the maximum temperature. The wave velocities showed little variability demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach for inducing consistent levels of microcracking. X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis confirmed that no composition changes occurred for the temperature range of interest. Computed tomography scanning, scanning electron microscopy, and optical microscopy (OM) were used to observe microstructural changes caused by the heat treatments. OM analysis was the primary method used in the microcrack characterization and yielding qualitative and quantitative data. OM images showed an increase in grain boundary and intragranular cracking with increasing maximum heat treatment temperatures. Stereological evaluation provided microcrack data indicating that microcrack density increased as function of the maximum heat treatment temperatures. Mechanical testing was performed to characterize the mechanical response of the intact and damaged limestone. Quasi-static tests included uniaxial compression, triaxial compression, hydrostatic compression, and uniaxial strain / constant volume tests. Microcracking did not affect the limestone’s strength at pressures greater than 10 MPa. Dynamic tests were performed using a modified split Hopkinson pressure bar. Microcracking did not have an effect on the dynamic strength of the limestone. The results of the mechanical tests were used to modify the HJC model. Modifications were made to account for shear modulus degradation and failure surface changes. The original and modified HJC models were used in a numerical analysis of the mechanical tests performed in this work. The modified HJC provided better results for damaged material when compared with the quasi-static and dynamic experiments.

Three-phase voltage source inverters are increasingly employed in power systems and industrial applications. Various pulse width modulation strategies have been applied to control the voltage source inverters. This dissertation presents a hybrid 2D-3D space vector modulation algorithm for three-phase voltage source inverters with both three-wire and four-wire topologies. The voltage magnitude and phase angle of the inverters fundamental output phase voltage are precisely controlled under either balanced or unbalanced load conditions, and hence, the space vector algorithm offers synchronization controllability over generation control in distributed generation systems. The numerical efficiency and simplicity of the proposed algorithm are validated through conducting MATLAB/Simulink simulations and hardware experiments. Mathematical description and harmonic analyses of output phase voltages of three-phase voltage source inverter which employs a hybrid 2D-3D SVM are presented in this dissertation. Explicit time domain representation of the harmonic components in addition to the total harmonic distortion of the output phase voltages are given in terms of system and switching parameters. The dissertation also investigates the harmonic characteristics and low total harmonic distortion performance against the linearity of modulation region which helps in the harmonic performance and design studies of such inverters employing the hybrid 2D-3D SVM. Experimental results are used to validate these analyses. In addition, the performance and the harmonic contents of the inverter output phase voltage when applying the proposed hybrid 2D-3D SVM are compared to that obtained from conventional 2D SVM and 3D SVM. As a result, the proposed new algorithm shows advantages in terms of low total harmonic distortion and reduced harmonic contents in both three-wire and four-wire systems.

No description available.

The gas turbine engine is an integral component of the global energy infrastructure and, through widespread use, contributes significantly to the emission of harmful pollutants and greenhouse gases. As such, the research and industrial community have a significant interest in improving the thermal efficiency of these devices. However, after nearly a century of development, modern gas turbine technology is nearing its realizable efficiency limit. Thus, using conventional approaches, including increased compression ratios and turbine inlet temperatures, only small future efficiency gains are available at a high cost. If a significant increase in gas turbine engine efficiency is to be realized, a deviation from this convention is necessary. Pressure gain combustion is a new combustion technology capable of delivering a step increase in gas turbine efficiency by replacing the isobaric combustor found in conventional engines with an isochoric combustor. This modification to the engine's thermodynamic cycle enables the loss in stagnation pressure typical of an isobaric combustor to be replaced with an overall net gain in stagnation pressure across the heat addition process. In this work, a pressure gain combustion technology known as the resonant pulse combustor is studied experimentally and numerically to bridge the gap between lab-scale experiments and practical implementations. First, a functional novel active valve resonant pulse combustor was designed and prototyped, thereby demonstrating naturally aspirated resonant operation with an air inlet valve-driven at a fixed frequency. Then, a series of experimental and numerical studies were carried out to increase the pressure gain performance of the combustor, and the performance and applicability of the active valve resonant pulse combustor concept were then experimental demonstrated in atmospheric conditions with both gaseous and liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Finally, the improved active valve resonant pulse combustor's pressure gain and NOX emissions performance was characterized within a high-pressure shroud in a configuration applicable to gas turbine applications and with varied inlet pressures extending up to 3 bar. This study demonstrates the low NOX capability of the pulse combustor concept and provides insight into how the device's performance may scale with increasing inlet pressure, as would exist in a practical application.

The pulse compression scheme implemented on the Imaging Wind and Rain Air-borne Profiler (IWRAP) is described. Developed at the UMASS Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory (MIRSL), IWRAP is a dual-band (C and Ku) conically scanning Doppler scatterometer designed to map the atmospheric boundary layer wind fields, ocean surface wind fields, and precipitation within tropical cyclones. IWRAP has previously been deployed using a pulsed transmit waveform with a peak transmit power of 80 watts. This limits the average transmit power and sensitivity for the system which affects the more distant range gates (especially at Ku-band). As a result, IWRAP could operate only at lower altitudes (approx. 5000 ft) causing safety concerns and limiting the missions for which it can be deployed. Increasing sensitivity was achieved by converting IWRAP to a pulse compression radar system. Pulse compression is a technique that combines the increased energy of a longer pulse with the high resolution of a short pulse by implementing a frequency modulated (FM) “chirped” transmit waveform. This method requires advanced signal processing, in which the received signal is passed through a filter to compress the pulse on the receiving end. A system with various chirp/filtering schemes as well as a new control system which UMASS has recently developed will be discussed in this thesis.

INTRODUCTION: Following damaging stimuli, skeletal muscle exhibits coordinated interplay between intra- and extra-cellular processes resulting in satellite cell (SC) recruitment. SCs are known to play a central role in muscle plasticity post-injury by differentiating into myoblasts (MBL) and fusing with damaged tissue to donate myonuclei. Yet, their role within skeletal muscle remodeling through paracrine signaling remains to be fully elucidated. Thus, the purpose of this project was two-fold: 1) develop an in vitro model of MBL intercellular communication following myotube damage and 2) to determine if MBL proximity alone is adequate for improving tissue repair and reducing cellular stress during recovery. METHODS: C2C12 myotubes were exposed to 1 hour of electrical pulse stimulation (EPS) with 15Hz pulse for 5s and 5Hz pulse for 5s, separated by a 5s break. Myotubes were then introduced to non-electrically stimulated (NS) MBL adhered to a porous cell insert to allow paracrine signaling and samples were collected at varying timepoints post-EPS. RESULTS: EPS induced Z line sarcomeric disorganization and creatine kinase release into the cell culture media, which was mitigated in MBL+ groups (p<0.05). A significant main effect of MBL exposure was observed in EPS myotubes where MBL+ myotubes had greater Hsp70 gene expression, calpain 3 protein and gene expression, and t-ACC, p-ACCSer79, t-ULK, p-ULKSer555 protein expression than MBL- myotubes when recovering from EPS (p<0.05). A main effect of time was observed where B-dystroglycan and p-mTORSer2448 protein expression decreased in the EPS myotubes, and myotube diameter only decreased in the MBL+ condition (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: MBL signaling to damaged myotubes is evident and may increase catabolic processes through upregulating contraction-mediated protease activity and autophagy, as well as increase ATP generation through oxidative phosphorylation during regeneration. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / When muscle damage occurs, whether through rigorous exercise or physical trauma, the muscle relies on a specific group of stem cells to help repair itself. These stem cells, termed satellite cells, can migrate to specific sites of muscle damage, differentiate into myoblasts, and donate nuclei and genetic material to the injured muscle. This increase in nuclear content helps the muscle synthesize more protein to rebuild and regenerate and promotes muscle growth. However, when the satellite cell becomes dysfunctional, as seen in aging muscle and certain genetic conditions, the muscle struggles to repair itself in response to damage and cannot grow in response to exercise. Satellite cell biology has clearly defined the role of nuclear donation in muscle function, however very little is known about how this stem cell ‘talks’ to the muscle through signaling molecules. As such, this thesis elucidates the effect of myoblast signaling on electrically stimulated damaged immature muscle fibers, otherwise known as myotubes, by preventing myoblast-myotube physical interactions in cell culture experimentation. Interestingly, the data presented here demonstrate that myoblast exposure to damaged myotubes may increase muscle protein breakdown as myotube diameters are reduced in size acutely post-damage, likely resulting from the increase in protease and autophagy protein expression markers. Additionally, myoblast exposure to damaged myotubes may increase mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation to generate energy, which is the fuel of choice during muscle regeneration.

Continuous phase modulation (CPM) is often plagued by high receiver complexity. One successful method of dealing with this is the well-known pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) representation of CPM, which was first proposed by Laurent. It is shown that the PAM representation also applies to multi-h CPM and ternary CPM, two previously unconsidered cases. In both cases it is shown that many PAM components may be required to exactly represent the signal. This is especially true of partial-response systems where the memory of the signal is long. Therefore, approximations are proposed which require only a limited number of terms. These extensions of the PAM representation are used to construct reducedcomplexity detectors for CPM. These are generalizations of the detector first proposed by Kaleh. These detectors can be used in an optimal configuration, or in a suboptimal reduced-complexity configuration. The PAM complexity-reduction principle is shown explicitly. An exact expression is given for the pairwise error probability for the entire class of PAM-based CPM detectors, not just the extended cases proposed herein. The analysis is performed for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. The performance bound that results from this pairwise error probability is shown to be tighter than a previously published bound for PAM-based CPM detectors. The analysis shows that PAM-based detectors are a special case of the broad class of mismatched CPM detectors. However, it is shown that the metrics for PAM-based detectors accumulate distance in a different manner than metrics for other mismatched and suboptimal detectors. These distance properties are especially useful in applications with greatly reduced trellis sizes. The proposed detectors are included in two case studies. The first is for a multi-h CPM standard used in aeronautical telemetry. Many reduced-complexity detectors are studied in addition to PAM-based detectors. The second case study is for a ternary CPM known as shaped offset QPSK (SOQPSK). Here, the performance of serially concatenated coded SOQPSK is studied along with uncoded systems. It is shown that the coded systems achieve large gains over uncoded systems. However, the design proposed herein achieves these gains with less complexity than previously published designs.

From past experiments conducted with high intensity lasers, it has been known for some time that laser matter interactions result in the emission of short, transient electromagnetic pulses. Previous investigations into laser generated electromagnetic pulses provide basic information regarding frequencies where such pulses may be present, along with the time duration of the pulses. Such investigations have also demonstrated a number of measurement techniques in which basic information on the pulses may be obtained. The purpose of this current investigation is to obtain a more thorough description and understands of electromagnetic pulses generated for laser matter interaction. To this end, spatial radiation patterns emanating from various laser excited matter sources was predicted using antenna theory for far field radiators. Experimentally, it is the intention of this investigation to gather comprehensive time and frequency domain data on laser matter generated electromagnetic pulses using a number of specific laser targets. Radiation detection techniques using broadband, calibrated EMC horn antennas were devised. A unique measurement system known as an inverse superhetereodyne receiver was designed, tested and demonstrated. An experimental setup using such instrumentation was established. Using the above instrumentation and experimental setup should yield comprehensive time and frequency domain data over a spectra range of 1-40 GHz and with a time resolution of 50 ps. Because the experimental system employed is calibrated, measurements can be corresponded to incident electromagnetic fields. Several tests were conducted to ensure the proper operation of experimental apparatus. A modulation test was conducted on the inverse superhetereodyne receiver to ensure that the experimentally observed signals appeared when and where predicted within the receiver's bandwidth. The experimental setup was used to measure radiation emitted from an electrostatic discharge source of known distance and discharge voltage. Frequency domain data from the discharges were collected and compiled using a Matlab application ultimately intended to measure laser matter interaction generated electromagnetic pulses, resulting in a compiled frequency domain description comprising 1-17 GHz. The inverse Fourier transform was used to retrieve the time domain response from the compiled data. The discharge gaps characteristics where systematically altered as to allow a parametric study of the compiled data. The discharge measurements demonstrate the measurement system's ability to analyze unknown, short duration; broadband microwave signals.

In food processing, inadequate surface sanitation procedures lead to the formation of biofilms in which bacteria attach and aggregate in a hydrated polymeric matrix of their own synthesis. Formation of these sessile communities and their inherent resistance to existing sanitation procedures and agents are at the root of the risk of bacterial infections for consumers. Due to this existing problem, an effective method for reducing biofilm formation in dairy processing equipment is necessary for dairy products processing. Ultraviolet Pulsed light Technology has shown a positive effect in eliminating microorganism populations on food products. The objective of this work is to evaluate the effect of Pulsed light Technology on a biofilm of different dairy component matrices (e.g. Water (control); whey protein isolates (WPI), lactose, and sweet whey). This evaluation will be performed using the three strains of spore forming Bacillus species most common in commercial milk powder (B. subtilis, B. coagulans, and B. licheniformis). The matrix in which the evaluation was made consisted on allowing the attachment of endospores to on to a square 2.5cm x 2.5cm ASI 304 stainless steel coupon. Four Xenon light treatment levels (no treatment, 5 bursts, 10 seconds, 20 seconds and 30 seconds) were applied to the coupon surfaces using the Xenon model RC847 machine. The attachment of Bacillus to stainless steel in water as matrix was 1000 to 3000/ sq cm as measured in our laboratory. Results showed that there was a significant difference in spore reduction depending on the matrix of the biofilm and with the intensity of the Xenon treatment. Reduction in spores ranged from 1 to 4.7 logarithmic reduction cycles depending on the material of the biofilm, the strain of spores and the intensity of treatment. We conclude that there is significant potential to use this technology in maintaining low spore counts in commercial dairy powders.