The McTronX research group at the North–West University designs and develops Active Magnetic Bearings (AMBs). The group’s focus shifted to the design and development of AMB supported drive systems. This includes the electromagnetic and mechanical design of the electric machine, AMBs, auxiliary bearings as well as the development of the control system. The research group is currently developing an AMB supported high speed Induction Machine (IM) drive system that will facilitate tests in order to verify the design capability of the group. The research presented in this thesis describes the mechanical design and manufacturing of a high speed IM rotor section. The design includes; selecting the IM rotor topology, material selection, detail stress analysis and selecting appropriate manufacturing and assembly procedures. A comprehensive literature study identifies six main design considerations during the mechanical design of a high speed IM rotor section. These considerations include; magnetic core selection, rotor cage design, shaft design, shaft/magnetic core connection, stress due to operation at elevated temperatures and design for manufacture and assemble (DFMA). A critical overview of the literature leads to some design decisions being made and is used as a starting point for the detail design. The design choices include using a laminated cage rotor with a shrink fit for the shaft/magnetic core connection. Throughout the detail design an iterative process was followed incorporating both electromagnetic and mechanical considerations to deliver a good design solution. The first step of the iterative design process was, roughly calculating the material strengths required for first iteration material selection followed by more detailed interference fit calculations. From the detail stress analysis it became apparent that the stress in the IM rotor section cannot be calculated accurately using analytical methods. Consequently, a systematically verified and validated Finite Element Analysis (FEA) model was used to calculate the interferences required for each component. The detail stress analysis of the assembly also determined the allowable manufacturing dimensional tolerances. From the detail stress analysis it was found that the available lamination and squirrel cage material strengths were inadequate for the design speed specification of 27,000 r/min. The analysis showed that a maximum operating speed of 19,000 r/min can be achieved while complying with the minimum factor of safety (FOS) of 2. Each component was manufactured to the prescribed dimensional tolerances and the IM rotor section was assembled. With the failure of the first assembly process, machine experts were consulted and a revised process was implemented. The revised process entailed manufacturing five small lamination stacks and assembling the stack and squirrel cage afterwards. The end ring/conductive bar connection utilises interference fits due to the fact that the materials could not be welded. The process was successful and the IM rotor section was shrink fitted onto the shaft. However, after final machining of the rotor’s outer diameter (OD), inspections revealed axial displacement of the end rings and a revised FEA was implemented to simulate the effect. The results indicated a minimum FOS 0.6 at very small sections and with further analytical investigation it was shown that the minimum FOS was reduced to only 1.34. Although the calculations indicated the FOS was below the minimum prescribed FOS ? 2, the rotor spin tests were scheduled to continue as planned. The main reasons being that the lowest FOS is at very small areas and is located at non critical structural positions. The fact that the rotor speed was incrementally increased and multiple parameters were monitored, which could detect early signs of failure, further supported the decision. In testing the rotor was successfully spun up to 19,000 r/min and 27 rotor delevitation test were conducted at speeds of up to 10,000 r/min. After continuous testing a secondary rotor inspection was conducted and no visible changes could be detected. The lessons learnt leads to mechanical design and manufacturing recommendations and the research required to realise a 27,000 r/min rotor design. / Thesis (M.Ing. (Mechanical Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Benford’s Law states that the first significant digit for most data is not uniformly distributed. Instead, it follows the distribution: P(d = d1) = log10(1 + 1/d1) for d1 ϵ {1, 2, …, 9}. In 2006, my supervisor, Dr. Mary Lesperance et. al tested the goodness-of-fit of data to Benford’s Law using the first significant digit. Here we extended the research to the first two significant digits by performing several statistical tests – LR-multinomial, LR-decreasing, LR-generalized Benford, LR-Rodriguez, Cramѐr-von Mises Wd2, Ud2, and Ad2 and Pearson’s χ2; and six simultaneous confidence intervals – Quesenberry, Goodman, Bailey Angular, Bailey Square, Fitzpatrick and Sison. When testing compliance with Benford’s Law, we found that the test statistics LR-generalized Benford, Wd2 and Ad2 performed well for Generalized Benford distribution, Uniform/Benford mixture distribution and Hill/Benford mixture distribution while Pearson’s χ2 and LR-multinomial statistics are more appropriate for the contaminated additive/multiplicative distribution. With respect to simultaneous confidence intervals, we recommend Goodman and Sison to detect deviation from Benford’s Law.

L’analyse statique est une tâche essentielle dans l’optimisation des requêtes et la vérification de la base de graphes RDF. Nous étudions des techniques d’analyse statique pour SPARQL, le langage standard pour l’interrogation des données du Web sémantique. Plus précisément, nous étudions le problème d’inclusion des requêtes et de l’analyse de l’indépendance entre les requêtes et la mise à jour de la base de graphes RDF.Nous sommes intéressés par le développement de techniques grâce à des réductions au problème de la satisfaisabilité de la logique.Nous nous traitons le problème d’inclusion des requêtes SPARQL en présence de l’opérateur OPTIONAL. L’optionalité est l’un des constructeurs les plus compliqués dans SPARQL et aussi celui qui rend ce langage plus expressif que les langages de requêtes classiques, comme SQL.Nous nous concentrons sur la classe de requêtes appelée "well-designed SPARQL", proposées dans la littérature comme un fragment du langage avec de bonnes propriétés en matière d’évaluation des requêtes incluent l’opération OPTIONAL. À ce jour, l’inclusion de requête a été testée à l’aide de différentes techniques: homomorphisme de graphes, bases de données canoniques, techniques de la théorie des automates et réduction au problème de la validité d’une logique. Dans cette thèse, nous utilisons la dernière technique pour tester l’inclusion des requêtes SPARQL avec OPTIONAL utilisant une logique expressive appelée «logique K». En utilisant cette technique, il est possible de régler le problème d’inclusion des requêtes pour plusieurs fragment de SPARQL, même en présence de schémas. Cette extensibilité n’est pas garantie par les autres méthodes.Nous montrons comment traduire a graphe RDF en un système de transitions, ainsi que une requête SPARQL en une formula K. Avec ces traductions, l’inclusion des requêtes dans SPARQL peut être réduite au test de la validité d’une formule logique. Un avantage de cette approche est d’ouvrir la voie pour des implémentations utilisant solveurs de satisfiabilité pour K.Nous présentons un banc d’essais de tests d’inclusion pour les requêtes SPARQL avec OPTIONAL. Nous avons effectué des expériences pour tester et comparer des solveurs d’inclusion de l’état de l’art.Nous présentons également un aperçu préliminaire du problème d’indépendance entre requête et mise à jour. Une requête est indépendante de la mise à jour lorsque l’exécution de la mise à jour ne modifie pas le résultat de la requête. Bien que ce problème ait été intensivement étudié pour des fragments de calcul relationnel, il n’existe pas de travaux pour le langage de requêtes standard pour le web sémantique. Nous proposons une définition de la notion de l’indépendance dans le contexte de SPARQL et nous établissons des premières pistes de analyse statique dans certains situations d’inclusion entre une requête et une mise à jour. / Static analysis is a core task in query optimization and knowledge base verification. We study static analysis techniques for SPARQL, the standard language for querying Semantic Web data. Specifically, we investigate the query containment problem and the query-update independence analysis. We are interested in developing techniques through reductions to the validity problem in logic.We address SPARQL query containment with optional matching. We focus on the class of well-designed SPARQL queries, proposed in the literature as a fragment of the language with good properties regarding query evaluation. SPARQL is interpreted over graphs, hence we encode it in a graph logic, specifically the modal logic K interpreted over label transition systems. We show that this logic is powerful enough to deal with query containment for the well-designed fragment of SPARQL. We show how to translate RDF graphs into transition systems and SPARQL queries into K-formulae. Therefore, query containment in SPARQL can be reduced to unsatisfiability in K.We also report on a preliminary overview of the SPARQL query-update problem. A query is independent of an update when the execution of the update does not affect the result of the query. Determining independence is especially useful in the contest of huge RDF repositories, where it permits to avoid expensive yet useless re-evaluation of queries. While this problem has been intensively studied for fragments of relational calculus, no works exist for the standard query language for the semantic web. We report on our investigations on how a notion of independence can be defined in the SPARQL context

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2016-07-26T20:55:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PhilippeEduardoDeMedeiros_DISSERT.pdf: 9213681 bytes, checksum: 456aa340b29b57fa922a34d7d76e21bf (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-08-08T23:12:13Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 PhilippeEduardoDeMedeiros_DISSERT.pdf: 9213681 bytes, checksum: 456aa340b29b57fa922a34d7d76e21bf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-08T23:12:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PhilippeEduardoDeMedeiros_DISSERT.pdf: 9213681 bytes, checksum: 456aa340b29b57fa922a34d7d76e21bf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-01 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES) / Estruturas e sistemas inteligentes tem como principal caracter?stica a capacidade de emular o comportamento de organismos vivos, os quais possuem comportamento autorregulado. Deste modo, devido a presen?a de um mecanismo de est?mulo-resposta, este tipo de estrutura possui propriedades adaptativas. O termo estrutura inteligente vem sendo usado para identificar sistemas estruturais capazes de modificar sua geometria e/ou propriedades f?sicas no intuito de executar determinada tarefa. Neste trabalho, um controlador por modos deslizantes com compensa??o difusa ? empregado para o controle ativo de vibra??es em uma treli?a de Von Mises feita de liga com mem?ria de forma. Este sistema possui uma din?mica bastante rica e complexa, podendo apresentar comportamento ca?tico mesmo quando submetido a carregamentos de frequ?ncias moderadas. Simula??es num?ricas s?o apresentadas para comprovar a efic?cia da estrat?gia utilizada. / Smart structures and systems have the main purpose to mimic living organisms, which are essentially characterized by an autoregulatory behavior. Therefore, this kind of structure has adaptive characteristics with stimulus-response mechanisms. The term adaptive structure has been used to identify structural systems that are capable of changing their geometry or physical properties with the purpose of performing a specific task. In this work, a sliding mode controller with fuzzy inference is applied for active vibration control in an SMA two-bar truss. In order to obtain a simpler controller, a polynomial model is used in the control law, while a more sophisticated version, which presents close agreement with experimental data, is applied to describe the SMA behavior of the structural elements. This system has a rich dynamic response and can easily reach a chaotic behavior even at moderate loads and frequencies. Therefore, this approach has the advantage of not only obtaining a simpler control law, but also allows its robustness be evidenced. Numerical simulations are carried out in order to demonstrate the control system performance.

The subject of this thesis is analysis of the plastic bearability of plates. The first part is dedicated to a description of pertinent theories. It is primarily a theory of material nonlinearity and plasticity, including a description of plasticity models, which are commonly used in engineering analysis. Next is the hinted theory of geometric nonlinearity and discusses the key principles of limit plastic bearability of plates. This thesis includes ultimate strength calculations of plates of selected shapes, their solution by both, a manual calculation and using computational software. The obtained values are subsequently evaluated. The appendices contain the procedures for modelling in the computational programs RFEM and ANSYS.

In the last half of the XX century and the first years of the XXI century a large amount of methods for the determination of mechanical and tribological properties of materials on the micro- and nano-scale were developed. However, some problems and disadvantages are kept up to now. The combined application of normal and lateral forces allows to extend the possibilities of conventional contact mechanical approaches for investigations of mechanical and tribological behaviour of bulk and coated materials. Due to the unique construction of the Lateral Force Unit (LFU) the lateral force can be applied to the sample during normal indentation by the commercial nanoindenter UMIS 2000. Thus, the presented thesis reports the detailed study of the LFU capabilities for the determination of mechanical properties and tribological behavior on the micro-scale. At first it was found that the most appropriate standard position for the correct combined application of normal and lateral forces is the LFU inclination by 3.3° with respect to the UMIS stage. This standard position allows to minimize the influence of different factors on the measuring process. It was shown that the shape of normal displacement-time curves is the most convenient after the thermal drift correction for the simplification of the determination of such parameters as the maximal normal displacement and the residual normal deformation obtained by lateral force application. It was found that the crack formation can be detected as the observation of sudden change of lateral displacement in lateral force-displacement curve together with normal displacement in normal displacement-time curve. These investigations were performed for single-crystal sapphire. For the first time the crack in single-crystal sapphire was detected by the contact mechanical method in situ. The critical tensile stress for the crack formation in single-crystal sapphire was determined as 9.68+-0.22 GPa. It was established that the onset of plastic deformation can be detected by the observation of shape change of lateral force-displacement curve together with the appearance of residual normal deformation in normal displacement-time curve. These investigations were done for bulk BK7 glass and silicon dioxide film with thickness of 951 nm on silicon substrate. The yield strength for the silicon dioxide film was evaluated as 6.83+-0.02 GPa. It was found that the static friction of materials couples can be evaluated by the analysis of lateral force-displacement curves with the error of 5-10 %. The static friction coefficients for fused silica, BK7 glass, single-crystal sapphire as well as SiO2, DLC and CrN0.08 coatings were determined against diamond, tungsten carbide and sapphire spherical indenter with different radii. The effect of normal load on static friction for fused silica and BK7 glass against 10.5 µm diamond spherical indenter was also studied. It was found that the onset of plastic deformation leads to a significant change of static friction. / In der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts und während den ersten Jahren des 21. Jahrhunderts wurden zahlreiche Methoden zur Untersuchung mechanischer und tribologischer Materialeigenschaften auf der Mikro- und Nanometerskala entwickelt. Trotz der Fortschritte auf diesem Gebiet blieben vielfältige Fragestellungen unbeantwortet oder waren mit den vorhandenen experimentellen Untersuchungsmethoden nicht zugänglich. Mit der kombinierten Belastung aus Lateral- und Normalkräften wurden die etablierten Messverfahren um einen viel versprechenden Ansatz zur Charakterisierung mechanischer sowie tribologischer Eigenschaften erweitert, der sowohl für Massiv- als auch Schichtmaterialien anwendbar ist. Die einzigartige Konstruktion einer Lateralkrafteinheit bietet als separates Bauteil die Möglichkeit während eines Standardeindringversuches mittels des kommerziellen Nanoindenters UMIS 2000 bei normaler Last, eine laterale Belastung zu überlagern. Die vorliegende Arbeit zeigt eine detaillierte Studie der Einsatzmöglichkeiten der Lateralkrafteinheit hinsichtlich der Charakterisierung mechanischer Eigenschaften und tribologischen Materialverhaltens auf der Mikrometerskala. Zunächst wurde herausgefunden, dass eine Verkippung der Lateralkrafteinheit von 3,3° gegenüber dem UMIS-Rahmen notwendig ist, um eine hochgenaue und definierte Belastung aus lateraler und normaler Kraft auf die Probe auszuüben. Mit dieser durchgeführten Korrektur der Ausrichtung gelang es weitere auf den Messprozess einwirkende Effekte zu minimieren. Nach der Korrektur der thermischen Drift scheinen die gemessenen Normalverschiebungs-Zeit-Kurven für die Bestimmung von mechanischen Parametern wie maximaler Verschiebung oder bleibender Eindrucktiefe bei lateraler Belastung geeignet zu sein. Als ein weiteres Ergebnis gelang es, durch die kombinierte Belastung der Kraftkomponenten Bruchversagen nachzuweisen. Das Materialversagen wurde durch eine abrupte Änderung der lateralen Verschiebung im Last-Verschiebungs-Diagramm angezeigt. Mit dieser Methode wurde erstmalig in-situ das Bruchversagen am Beispiel des einkristallinen Saphirs detektiert. Die kritische Zugspannung, die zur Bruchbildung bei Saphir führte, war 9,68+-0,22 GPa. Die Analyse der Kurvenform der Kraft-Verschiebungs-Kurven für die Lateralbelastung im Zusammenhang mit dem Auftreten von bleibender Deformation in den zugehörigen Verschiebungs-Zeit-Kurven der normalen Belastung liefert den Beginn der plastischen Deformation. Massive BK7-Glasproben sowie SiO2-Schichten wurden untersucht. Für die Fließspannung der SiO2-Schicht wurde ein Wert von 6,83+-0,02 GPa ermittelt. Der Haftreibungskoeffizient für verschiedene Materialpaarungen wurde aus den Last-Verschiebungs-Kurven mit einer Genauigkeit von 5-10 % berechnet. Zu den untersuchten Materialien gehörten Quarz, einkristallines Saphir, BK7-Glas sowie SiO2-, DLC- und CrN0.08-Schichten, die mit Diamant, Wolframkarbid und Saphir-Indentern gepaart wurden. Zusätzlich wurde der Einfluss der Normallast auf den Haftreibungskoeffizienten für Quarz und BK7-Glas gegen Diamant studiert. Es zeigte sich, dass der Beginn der plastischen Deformation zu signifikanten Änderungen der Haftreibung führt.

Mechanische Eigenschaften, wie z.B. der Elastizitätsmodul oder die Fließspannung, sind wichtige Materialgrößen, um ein Material zu charakterisieren. Dies kann beispielsweise dazu dienen, ein Bauelement eines MEMS unter Berücksichtigung seiner Funktion zu optimieren. Daher ist es nötig, eine Messmethode zur Verfügung zu haben, die diese Größen auch in kleinen Dimensionen korrekt bestimmen kann, insbesondere auch in dünnen Schichten. Deshalb wurde ein eigenes Konzept basierend auf der Kombination von elastischer Modellierung und Nanoindentationsexperimenten in unserer Arbeitsgruppe entwickelt. Dieses Konzept beruht auf der Theorie der sphärischen Indentation in geschichtete Materialien (Image Load Method). In einem nächsten Schritt wurde dieser theoretische Ansatz erweitert, indem das Modell eines effektiven Indentors mittels des Erweiterten Hertzschen Ansatzes in das ursprüngliche Modell implentiert wurde. Zur gleichen Zeit wurden neue experimentelle Möglichkeiten entwickelt, die auf der Applikation einer definierten Lateralkraft in einem Indentationsexperiment beruhen. Bei der Auswertung dieser neuen experimentellen Methoden stellte sich heraus, dass die auf dem theoretischen Modell basierenden Fittingprozeduren einen subjektiven Faktor aufweisen, sodass je nach Nutzer der Auswertesoftware unterschiedliche Ergebnisse erhalten werden. Der Einfluss intrinsischer Spannungen auf Indentationsexperimente wurde ebenfalls bisher noch nicht systematisch untersucht. Daher ist es die Aufgabe dieser Arbeit, ebendiese offenen Fragen zu beantworten und die Methode der Nanoindentation weiter zu optimieren, um dieser Messmethode neue Anwendungsgebiete zu eröffnen. Die Untersuchungen zum Einfluss der intrinsischen Spannung auf die experimentell erhaltenen mechanischen Eigenschaften einer dünnen Schicht beinhalten ein Modellexperiment mit einer Formgedächtnislegierung (NiTinol), in welcher mittels einer eigens konstruierten Biegevorrichtung definierte biaxiale Spannungszustände eingestellt werden können. Dabei konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Berechnung des Von- Mises-Spannungsfeldes mit dem Wert der intrinsischen Spannung korrigiert werden kann, so dass das erhaltene Maximum der Von-Mises-Spannung dem tatsächlichen Wert der Fließspannung des Materials entspricht. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden des Weiteren detaillierte Untersuchungen der Entlastungskurven von Referenzmaterialien (BK7-Glas) und geschichteten Materialien (CrN Schicht auf Si) durchgeführt, die auf Berkovich- Indentationsmessungen beruhen. Dabei wurde insbesondere die Auswerteroutine basierend auf dem Konzept des effektiven Indentors dahingehend weiterentwickelt, dass der bisherige subjektive Einfluss erheblich reduziert werden konnte. Diese generell anwendbare Auswerteroutine (d0-Fit) zeichnet sich vor allem durch ein hohes Maß an Nachvollziehbarkeit und Reproduzierbarkeit aus. Mit der gleichzeitigen Anwendung einer Normal- und einer Lateralkraft in einem Indentationsexperiment mit einem spitzen Indentor (Berkovich) ist es möglich, weitere Informationen über die mechanischen Eigenschaften der untersuchten Probe zu gewinnen. Dabei wurde eine kritische Lateralkraft gefunden, die der kritischen Normalkraft einer partiellen Be- und Entlastung mit sphärischen Indentoren analog ist. Hierbei konnte die Möglichkeiten sowie Grenzen demonstriert werden, die das Modell des effektiven Indentors mit dem erweiterten Hertzschen Ansatzes bei der Auswertung der erhalten Messkurven bereitstellt. Diese Untersuchungen mit den bereits erwähnten Referenzmaterialien haben den Charakter eines empirischen Ansatzes. / Mechanical parameters, such as Young’s modulus or yield strength, are important material properties to characterize a material. These parameters can be used to optimize a construction unit of a MEMS with respect to its function for example. Therefore a measurement technique is needed that allows the determination of such mechanical properties even at very small length scales and especially in thin films. To assess the mechanical properties at small length scales and/or layered structures an experimental approach based on nanoindentation measurements and corresponding elastic modeling was developed within our working group. This approach uses the elastic theory of spherical indentation in layered structures based on a potential theory (Image Load Method). In a next step this theoretical approach was extended with implementation of the concept of the effectively shape indenter employing an extended Hertzian approach. At the same time new experimental techniques were developed opening the possibility to apply well defined lateral loads to nanoindentation experiments accompanied with precise measurement of the lateral loads and displacements. The theoretical model bases on fitting procedures of the experimentally obtained curves. During the evaluation of this new experimental nanoindentation approach a subjective factor within the fitting procedures was found, so that depending on the user different results can be derived. Furthermore the influence of intrinsic stresses on the nanoindentation data was not investigated systematically so far. The task of this work is therefore the answering of these open questions and to optimize the method of nanoindentation to open new application possibilities for this new nanoindentation approach. The investigations of the influence of the intrinsic stress on experimentally obtained mechanical properties of a thin film bases on a model experiment with a shape memory alloy (NiTinol). With the help of special designed bending device biaxial stress state can be induced in this material. It was shown that the calculation of the von Mises stress field can be corrected with the value of the intrinsic stress so that the obtained maximum of the von Mises stress corresponds to the yield strength of the material. Moreover it was shown that the onset of phase transformation from austenite to martensite under indentation loads corresponds to the von Mises stress criterion. In the present work detailed analysis of the unloading curves obtained with Berkovich nanoindentation on reference materials (BK7 borosilicate glass) and layered materials (CrN on Si substrate) was performed. The evaluation procedure was refined with respect to the subjective factor. The found procedure (d0-fit) is applicable in a general way and is characterized by a high degree of traceability and reproducibility. Using mixed loading conditions with a normal and a lateral load application at the same time with a sharp indenter (Berkovich) further information on the mechanical characteristics of a material can be derived. A critical lateral force (CLF) was found which is analogous to the critical normal force in loading-partial unloading indentation with spherical indenters. During this investigation the possibilities as well as the limitations of the theoretical model based on the effectively shaped indenter together with the extended Hertzian approach for the analysis of experimentally obtain unloading curves was shown. It should be noted that these investigations with reference materials have empirical character.

Le style artistique parisien et la langue française ont tous deux attiré des artistes du monde entier à travers l'histoire. Suivant cette tendance, de nombreux compositeurs brésiliens du début du XXe siècle se sont inspirés de cette culture pour créer des oeuvres pour voix et piano à partir de poèmes en français. Cette thèse nous permet de découvrir une large collection de pièces de ce type de répertoire. Cela nous aide également à localiser l'emplacement de chaque composition. Ce document révèle aussi l'influence du sens musical parisien sur les compositeurs brésiliens tels que Villa-Lobos, Mignone, Nepomuceno et plusieurs autres. L'auteur décrit la relation entre le texte et la musique et explique le défi que représente la mise en musique de la langue française. Il appuie ses données sur des discussions de musiciens et d'experts. Son expérimentation personnelle sur des sujets tels que la prononciation et les subtilités de la langue française à travers son exploration de cette musique fournit une preuve significative des résultats de ses recherches. Cette recherche vise principalement les chanteurs brésiliens qui ressentent un intérêt particulier pour les collections musicales de ce type. / The Parisian art style and the French language have both attracted artists around the world through history. In that tendency, many Brazilian composers of the turn of the 20th century were inspired by that culture to create works for voice and piano using poems in French. This dissertation enables us to discover a large collection of pieces of that kind of repertoire. It also helps us to track down the location of each composition. This document also discloses the influence of the Parisian musical savvy on Brazilian composers such as Villa-Lobos, Mignone, Nepomuceno and many others. The author describes the relationship between text and music and explains the challenge that setting the French language to music represents. He supports his information on discussions of musicians and experts. His personal experimentation on matters such as pronunciation and the French language subtleties through his exploration of this music provides significant evidence of the results of his research. The main target of this research is Brazilian singers who feel a particular interest for music collections of this kind.

Total ankle replacement (TAR) implants are an effective option to restore the range of motion of the ankle joint for arthritic patients. An effective tool for analyzing these implants’ mechanical performance and longevity in-silico is finite element analysis (FEA). ABAQUS FEA was used to statically analyze the von Mises stress and contact pressure on the articulating surface of the bearing component in two newly installed fixed-bearing total ankle replacement implants (the Wright Medical INBONE II and the Exactech Vantage). This bearing component rotates on the talar component to induce primary ankle joint motion of plantarflexion and dorsiflexion. The stress response was analyzed on this bearing component since it is made of the least strong material in the implant assembly (ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). This bearing component commonly fails and is the cause for surgeon revisions. Six different FEA models for various gait percentages during stance (10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, and 60%) were created. They varied in magnitude of the compressive load and the ankle dorsiflexion/plantarflexion angle. This study captured the variation in stress magnitudes based on the portion of the stance phase. The results indicated that the stress distribution on the articulating surface increased as compressive load increased, and the largest magnitudes occurred at high dorsiflexion angles (15-30°). The von Mises stress and contact pressure tended to occur in regions where the thickness of the bearing was the least. Additionally, high contact pressures were examined in areas near the talar component's edge or at the bearing's edges. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study available to the research community that analyzes the Vantage implant with FEA. This study lays an essential foundation for future researchers in presenting a thorough literature review of TAR and for a simple model setup to capture the stress distributions of two TAR implants. This study provides valuable information that can be beneficial to medical company designers and orthopedic surgeons in understanding the stress response of TAR patients.

Le style artistique parisien et la langue française ont tous deux attiré des artistes du monde entier à travers l'histoire. Suivant cette tendance, de nombreux compositeurs brésiliens du début du XXe siècle se sont inspirés de cette culture pour créer des œuvres pour voix et piano à partir de poèmes en français. Cette thèse nous permet de découvrir une large collection de pièces de ce type de répertoire. Cela nous aide également à localiser l'emplacement de chaque composition. Ce document révèle aussi l'influence du sens musical parisien sur les compositeurs brésiliens tels que Villa-Lobos, Mignone, Nepomuceno et plusieurs autres. L'auteur décrit la relation entre le texte et la musique et explique le défi que représente la mise en musique de la langue française. Il appuie ses données sur des discussions de musiciens et d'experts. Son expérimentation personnelle sur des sujets tels que la prononciation et les subtilités de la langue française à travers son exploration de cette musique fournit une preuve significative des résultats de ses recherches. Cette recherche vise principalement les chanteurs brésiliens qui ressentent un intérêt particulier pour les collections musicales de ce type. / The Parisian art style and the French language have both attracted artists around the world through history. In that tendency, many Brazilian composers of the turn of the 20th century were inspired by that culture to create works for voice and piano using poems in French. This dissertation enables us to discover a large collection of pieces of that kind of repertoire. It also helps us to track down the location of each composition. This document also discloses the influence of the Parisian musical savvy on Brazilian composers such as Villa-Lobos, Mignone, Nepomuceno and many others. The author describes the relationship between text and music and explains the challenge that setting the French language to music represents. He supports his information on discussions of musicians and experts. His personal experimentation on matters such as pronunciation and the French language subtleties through his exploration of this music provides significant evidence of the results of his research. The main target of this research is Brazilian singers who feel a particular interest for music collections of this kind.