O conjunto estaca-solo submetido a carregamentos horizontais é caracterizado por um comportamento não-linear. A propagação das tensões no solo próximo à estaca decai rapidamente em função do espaçamento, porém para estacas próximas, caracterizando um grupo de estacas, pode haver uma sobreposição de tensões, gerando zonas com tensões elevadas, que formam áreas de plastificação maiores. A interação da sobreposição destas zonas plastificadas, resultam em maiores deformações para o grupo de estacas, ante comparadas com o equivalente de soma da capacidade individual de cada estaca (Chaudhry, 1994). Deste comportamento, deriva-se o chamado efeito de grupo, que age como um redutor da eficiência total das estacas. Através de modelos numéricos tridimensionais, avaliou-se o efeito de espaçamento entre estacas em solo natural, onde fatores de eficiência do grupo foram propostos. O comportamento de estacas carregadas lateralmente é conhecido por ter seu comportamento diretamente relacionado com as características da parte superior do solo. Recomendações feitas há mais de 30 anos já lidavam com este comportamento {e.g. Simons eMenzies (1975); Broms (1972)}, e tratavam com soluções que melhoravam a capacidade de carga lateral, com a substituição da parte superior do solo por um material mais rígido. Embora estas soluções melhorassem a capacidade de carga lateral, a técnica reflete uma prática de substituição de material. Neste trabalho, uma técnica de melhoramento de solo, lidando com areia cimentada é apresentada, estudando numericamente o comportamento de grupos de estacas submetidos a carregamentos laterais. As conclusões apontam fatores de eficiência próximos a unidade em espaçamentos superiores a 6 diâmetros, porém com a tendência a inexistir somente em espaçamentos superiores a 10 diâmetros. A inserção da camada de solo cimento no topo do grupo de estaca, mostrou uma expressiva melhora de seu comportamento, eliminando por total a perda de eficiência devido ao efeito de grupo. / The soil-pile set when subjected to lateral loads is characterized by a non-linear behavior. The stress distribution on the soil near the pile decays rapidly in magnitude with radial distance, but for closely spaced piles within a group, these yielded zones of the soil around individual piles overlap, forming larger yielded zones in the soil surrounding the pile group. The interaction arising due to overlapping of these yielded zones results in a larger deflection for the group of piles before the lateral resistance equivalent to that for a single pile (Chaudhry, 1994). Based on this behavior, the group effect is derived, which acts as a reducer of the piles efficiency. Through tridimensional numerical models, the effects of the pile spacing in natural soil were evaluated, and group efficiency factors had been proposed. The behavior of laterally loaded piles is well known to be straightly related to characteristics of the upper part of the soil. Recommendations of over 30 years in past already dealt with this behavior {e.g. Simons and Menzies (1975); Broms (1972)}, and treated with solutions that improved the lateral resistance, by substituting the upper part of the soil with a more rigid material. Besides those solutions improved the lateral resistance, the technique reflects a practice of material replacement. Here, a ground improvement technique, dealing with cemented sand is presented, studying numerically the behavior of piles subjected to lateral forces. Conclusions shows group efficiency factors close to unity on spacing larger than 6 diameters, but tending to disappear only on spacing larger than 10 diameters. The insertion of a soil cement layer on the top of the pile group has shown an expressive improvement on its behavior, eliminating the loss of efficiency due to the group effect.

O conjunto estaca-solo submetido a carregamentos horizontais é caracterizado por um comportamento não-linear. A propagação das tensões no solo próximo à estaca decai rapidamente em função do espaçamento, porém para estacas próximas, caracterizando um grupo de estacas, pode haver uma sobreposição de tensões, gerando zonas com tensões elevadas, que formam áreas de plastificação maiores. A interação da sobreposição destas zonas plastificadas, resultam em maiores deformações para o grupo de estacas, ante comparadas com o equivalente de soma da capacidade individual de cada estaca (Chaudhry, 1994). Deste comportamento, deriva-se o chamado efeito de grupo, que age como um redutor da eficiência total das estacas. Através de modelos numéricos tridimensionais, avaliou-se o efeito de espaçamento entre estacas em solo natural, onde fatores de eficiência do grupo foram propostos. O comportamento de estacas carregadas lateralmente é conhecido por ter seu comportamento diretamente relacionado com as características da parte superior do solo. Recomendações feitas há mais de 30 anos já lidavam com este comportamento {e.g. Simons eMenzies (1975); Broms (1972)}, e tratavam com soluções que melhoravam a capacidade de carga lateral, com a substituição da parte superior do solo por um material mais rígido. Embora estas soluções melhorassem a capacidade de carga lateral, a técnica reflete uma prática de substituição de material. Neste trabalho, uma técnica de melhoramento de solo, lidando com areia cimentada é apresentada, estudando numericamente o comportamento de grupos de estacas submetidos a carregamentos laterais. As conclusões apontam fatores de eficiência próximos a unidade em espaçamentos superiores a 6 diâmetros, porém com a tendência a inexistir somente em espaçamentos superiores a 10 diâmetros. A inserção da camada de solo cimento no topo do grupo de estaca, mostrou uma expressiva melhora de seu comportamento, eliminando por total a perda de eficiência devido ao efeito de grupo. / The soil-pile set when subjected to lateral loads is characterized by a non-linear behavior. The stress distribution on the soil near the pile decays rapidly in magnitude with radial distance, but for closely spaced piles within a group, these yielded zones of the soil around individual piles overlap, forming larger yielded zones in the soil surrounding the pile group. The interaction arising due to overlapping of these yielded zones results in a larger deflection for the group of piles before the lateral resistance equivalent to that for a single pile (Chaudhry, 1994). Based on this behavior, the group effect is derived, which acts as a reducer of the piles efficiency. Through tridimensional numerical models, the effects of the pile spacing in natural soil were evaluated, and group efficiency factors had been proposed. The behavior of laterally loaded piles is well known to be straightly related to characteristics of the upper part of the soil. Recommendations of over 30 years in past already dealt with this behavior {e.g. Simons and Menzies (1975); Broms (1972)}, and treated with solutions that improved the lateral resistance, by substituting the upper part of the soil with a more rigid material. Besides those solutions improved the lateral resistance, the technique reflects a practice of material replacement. Here, a ground improvement technique, dealing with cemented sand is presented, studying numerically the behavior of piles subjected to lateral forces. Conclusions shows group efficiency factors close to unity on spacing larger than 6 diameters, but tending to disappear only on spacing larger than 10 diameters. The insertion of a soil cement layer on the top of the pile group has shown an expressive improvement on its behavior, eliminating the loss of efficiency due to the group effect.

O conjunto estaca-solo submetido a carregamentos horizontais é caracterizado por um comportamento não-linear. A propagação das tensões no solo próximo à estaca decai rapidamente em função do espaçamento, porém para estacas próximas, caracterizando um grupo de estacas, pode haver uma sobreposição de tensões, gerando zonas com tensões elevadas, que formam áreas de plastificação maiores. A interação da sobreposição destas zonas plastificadas, resultam em maiores deformações para o grupo de estacas, ante comparadas com o equivalente de soma da capacidade individual de cada estaca (Chaudhry, 1994). Deste comportamento, deriva-se o chamado efeito de grupo, que age como um redutor da eficiência total das estacas. Através de modelos numéricos tridimensionais, avaliou-se o efeito de espaçamento entre estacas em solo natural, onde fatores de eficiência do grupo foram propostos. O comportamento de estacas carregadas lateralmente é conhecido por ter seu comportamento diretamente relacionado com as características da parte superior do solo. Recomendações feitas há mais de 30 anos já lidavam com este comportamento {e.g. Simons eMenzies (1975); Broms (1972)}, e tratavam com soluções que melhoravam a capacidade de carga lateral, com a substituição da parte superior do solo por um material mais rígido. Embora estas soluções melhorassem a capacidade de carga lateral, a técnica reflete uma prática de substituição de material. Neste trabalho, uma técnica de melhoramento de solo, lidando com areia cimentada é apresentada, estudando numericamente o comportamento de grupos de estacas submetidos a carregamentos laterais. As conclusões apontam fatores de eficiência próximos a unidade em espaçamentos superiores a 6 diâmetros, porém com a tendência a inexistir somente em espaçamentos superiores a 10 diâmetros. A inserção da camada de solo cimento no topo do grupo de estaca, mostrou uma expressiva melhora de seu comportamento, eliminando por total a perda de eficiência devido ao efeito de grupo. / The soil-pile set when subjected to lateral loads is characterized by a non-linear behavior. The stress distribution on the soil near the pile decays rapidly in magnitude with radial distance, but for closely spaced piles within a group, these yielded zones of the soil around individual piles overlap, forming larger yielded zones in the soil surrounding the pile group. The interaction arising due to overlapping of these yielded zones results in a larger deflection for the group of piles before the lateral resistance equivalent to that for a single pile (Chaudhry, 1994). Based on this behavior, the group effect is derived, which acts as a reducer of the piles efficiency. Through tridimensional numerical models, the effects of the pile spacing in natural soil were evaluated, and group efficiency factors had been proposed. The behavior of laterally loaded piles is well known to be straightly related to characteristics of the upper part of the soil. Recommendations of over 30 years in past already dealt with this behavior {e.g. Simons and Menzies (1975); Broms (1972)}, and treated with solutions that improved the lateral resistance, by substituting the upper part of the soil with a more rigid material. Besides those solutions improved the lateral resistance, the technique reflects a practice of material replacement. Here, a ground improvement technique, dealing with cemented sand is presented, studying numerically the behavior of piles subjected to lateral forces. Conclusions shows group efficiency factors close to unity on spacing larger than 6 diameters, but tending to disappear only on spacing larger than 10 diameters. The insertion of a soil cement layer on the top of the pile group has shown an expressive improvement on its behavior, eliminating the loss of efficiency due to the group effect.

It was hypothesized that field dependence and attention measures would differentiate accident-loaded and accident-free employees of a petroleum services company. Analysis of variance revealed main effects and a three-way interaction for the Rod-and-Frame Test. Main effects occurred for the Attention-Diagnostic Method and Embedded- Figures Test. No differences occurred for the Closure Test. Regression analysis produced an R (76) = .41, p < .01, with the Attention-Diagnostic Method contributing more to prediction. Equality-symmetry violations occurred in the data. Cautious interpretation was advised because of the assumption violations. The accident-loaded subjects produced consistently greater performance variances, which suggested general performance characteristics in several respects. Future research should be longitudinal-predictive, oriented from Kerr 's complementary safety theories.

This report presents a project that has been made to present the design of a planar transformer as a part of a series loaded resonant DC/DC converter in a power unit. The design is based on an existing transformer that is not planar and so the characteristics of the transformer is translated into a planar version. A multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) design was made to fit a chosen magnetic ferrite core that was chosen based on the magnetic characteristics of the old core. Calculations were made for the loss of both core and windings and the final results show that it is possible to design a planar transformer from a traditional transformer.

No description available.

No description available.

The strength and durability of proton exchange membranes for use in fuel cells has received much attention recently due to the increased push for sustainable alternatives to the internal combustion engine. To be viable, these alternatives must have comparable lifetimes and power outputs to the internal combustion engines they replace. Chemical degradation was once viewed as the most common culprit of early fuel cell failure, but as membranes and catalysts improved, mechanical failure became an important factor. As a result, fundamental research on the mechanically-induced failure mechanisms of fuel cell membranes, coupled with development and processing of less expensive membranes, has become an important topic. The use of the blister test geometry, along with digital image correlation of the deformed shape, creates a self-contained analysis tool useful for measuring the biaxial strength of membranes. In this work, blister tests are used to measure biaxial stress and strain for fuel cell membranes subjected to ramped pressure loading to form stress-strain curves that indicate the onset of yielding under biaxial stress conditions. Stress-life curves are developed experimentally for Gore-Selec? series 57 members using data collected under constant pressure conditions. These results are used to predict blister failure under ramped and fatigue loadings. A newly implemented hydrocarbon membrane system is evaluated with constant-pressure-to-leak blister testing. Improved strength following an isothermal hold at 100°C (pretreatment) is shown to occur. Ramped pressure testing indicates that the material after the pretreatment is stiffer and has a higher yield stress than the material before treatment. Morphological and constitutive characterization indicated differences in the materials that are consistent with the improved performance. / Master of Science

The laterally-loaded pile has long been a topic of research interest. Several models of the soil surrounding a pile have been developed for simulation of lateral pile behavior, ranging from simple spring and dashpot models to sophisticated three-dimensional finite-element models. However, results from the available pile-soil models are not accurate due to inherent approximations or constraints. For the springs and dashpots representation, the real and imaginary stiffness are calculated by idealizing the soil domain as a series of plane-strain slices leading to unrealistic pile behavior at low frequencies while the three-dimensional finite-element analysis is very computationally demanding. Therefore, this dissertation research seeks to contribute toward procedures that are computationally cost-effective while accuracy of the computed response is maintained identical or close to that of the three-dimensional finite-element solution. Based on the fact that purely-elastic soil displacement variations in azimuthal direction are known, the surrounding soil can be formulated in terms of an equivalent one-dimensional model leading to a significant reduction of computational cost. The pile with conventional soil-slice model will be explored first. Next, models with shear stresses between soil slices, including and neglecting the soil vertical displacement, are investigated. Excellent agreement of results from the proposed models with three-dimensional finite-element solutions can be achieved with only small additional computational cost. / text

Near field imaging using microwave in medical applications has gain much attention recently as various researches show its high ability and accuracy in illuminating object comparing to the well-known screening tools such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), digital mammography, ultrasound etc. This has encourage and motivate scientists continue to exploit the potential of microwave imaging so that a better and more powerful sensing tools can be developed. This thesis documents the development of antenna design for microwave imaging application such as breast cancer detection. The application is similar to the concept of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) but operating at higher frequency band. In these systems a short pulse is transmitted from an antenna to the medium and the backscattered response is investigated for diagnose. In order to accommodate such a short pulse, a very wideband antenna with a minimal internal reflection is required. Printed monopole and planar metal plate antenna is implemented to achieve the necessary operating wide bandwidth. The development of new compact printed planar metal plate ultra wide bandwidth antenna is presented. A generalized parametric study is carried out using two well-known software packages to achieve optimum antenna performance. The Prototype antennas are tested and analysed experimentally, in which a reasonable agreement was achieved with the simulations. The antennas present an excellent relative wide bandwidth of 67% with acceptable range of power gain between 3.5 to 7 dBi. A new compact size air-dielectric microstrip patch-antenna designs proposed for breast cancer detection are presented. The antennas consist of a radiating patch mounted on two vertical plates, fed by coaxial cable. The antennas show a wide bandwidth that were verified by the simulations and also confirmed experimentally. The prototype antennas show excellent performance in terms the input impedance and radiation performance over the target range bandwidth from 4 GHz to 8 GHz. A mono-static model with a homogeneous dielectric box having similar properties to human tissue is used to study the interaction of the antenna with tissue. The numerical results in terms the matching required of new optimised antennas were promising. An experimental setup of sensor array for early-stage breast-cancer detection is developed. The arrangement of two elements separated by short distance that confined equivalent medium of breast tissues were modelled and implemented. The operation performances due to several orientations of the antennas locations were performed to determine the sensitivity limits with and without small size equivalent cancer cells model. In addition, a resistively loaded bow tie antenna, intended for applications in breast cancer detection, is adaptively modified through modelling and genetic optimisation is presented. The required wideband operating characteristic is achieved through manipulating the resistive loading of the antenna structure, the number of wires, and their angular separation within the equivalent wire assembly. The results show an acceptable impedance bandwidth of 100.75 %, with a VSWR &lt; 2, over the interval from 3.3 GHz to 10.0 GHz. Feasibility studies were made on the antenna sensitivity for operation in a tissue equivalent dielectric medium. The simulated and measured results are all in close agreement.