Diante das atuais questões ambientais, o uso eficiente da energia é uma premissa em todos os setores de atividades. Sabe-se que as edificações são grandes consumidores de energia e boa parcela desse consumo se dá em sistemas de condicionamento artificial. São três os principais fatores que atuam no balanço térmico e influenciam esse consumo: arquitetura, ocupação e clima. A arquitetura atua como intermediária nesse balanço térmico, podendo ajudar ou prejudicar as condições internas. Este trabalho estuda o desempenho térmico e energético dos edifícios de escritórios em São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro, cidades que apresentam condições extremas de calor durante o verão e até em outras estações do ano. O tipo de ocupação e a atividade realizada em edifícios de escritórios nos dias de hoje criam, por si sós, cargas térmicas elevadas que dificultam ainda mais a obtenção de conforto. Este trabalho parte do pressuposto de que existem soluções arquitetônicas de edifícios de escritórios na cidade de São Paulo capazes de garantir conforto térmico aos usuários durante parte do período de ocupação sem uso de condicionamento artificial, porém acreditar que é possível obter conforto apenas com sistemas passivos durante o ano todo nos atuais edifícios de escritórios das cidades de São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro é ilusão. Diante desse desafio, o sistema de modo misto de condicionamento ambiental une as vantagens do sistema ativo às do passivo, operando com sistemas naturais sempre que possível, reduzindo o consumo de energia e acionando o sistema ativo em situações fora das condições de conforto. Utilizar o sistema de modo misto não significa abrir as janelas de qualquer edifício no inverno. O edifício deve estar preparado para o sistema desde as etapas de projeto. Com base nesse pensamento, a pesquisa analisa o desempenho térmico e energético de três tipologias arquitetônicas operando com o sistema de modo misto em São Paulo e investiga o desempenho das mesmas tipologias sob as condições climáticas da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. As avaliações de desempenho térmico e energético das tipologias são feitas por meio de análises e comparações de resultados de simulações computacionais com o programa TAS (9.0.7 maio, 2005). / Considering current environmental issues, all sectors of activities are premised on the efficient use of energy. Its known that constructions are great energy consumers and part of this consumption is given by artificial conditioning systems. Therere three main factors in thermal balance that influences this consumption: architecture, occupation and climate. The architecture acts as intermediate in this thermal balance, being able to help or harm internal conditions. This research treats office building thermal and energy performance in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, cities with high temperatures not only during the summer but also in other seasons. Nowadays, offices occupation and activity are themselves great heat producers, what makes thermal comfort even more difficult to achieve. This project considers that there are office building design solutions able to produce thermal environmental conditions acceptable to a majority of occupants, without air-conditioning system, during part of the working period, in São Paulo. However, believing the possibility of achieving comfort conditions in actual office buildings, only with passive cooling strategies, during all year, in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is an illusion. Facing this challenge, mixed mode system combines the best of air-conditioning and natural ventilation, operating with natural strategies whenever its possible, reducing energy consumption and using the air-conditioning system only when thermal environmental conditions are not acceptable. Mixed mode operation does not mean to open any building windows during the winter. The building must have been designed for the mixed mode system since its first projects. This research is based on this thought and thermal analysis and energy performance of three architectural design buildings operating with mixed mode system in São Paulo and investigates the performance of these building types under climate conditions of Rio de Janeiro city. The thermal and energy performance evaluations of the building types are based on the analysis and comparison of computer simulations results, with the software TAS (9.0.7 May, 2005).

Diante das atuais questões ambientais, o uso eficiente da energia é uma premissa em todos os setores de atividades. Sabe-se que as edificações são grandes consumidores de energia e boa parcela desse consumo se dá em sistemas de condicionamento artificial. São três os principais fatores que atuam no balanço térmico e influenciam esse consumo: arquitetura, ocupação e clima. A arquitetura atua como intermediária nesse balanço térmico, podendo ajudar ou prejudicar as condições internas. Este trabalho estuda o desempenho térmico e energético dos edifícios de escritórios em São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro, cidades que apresentam condições extremas de calor durante o verão e até em outras estações do ano. O tipo de ocupação e a atividade realizada em edifícios de escritórios nos dias de hoje criam, por si sós, cargas térmicas elevadas que dificultam ainda mais a obtenção de conforto. Este trabalho parte do pressuposto de que existem soluções arquitetônicas de edifícios de escritórios na cidade de São Paulo capazes de garantir conforto térmico aos usuários durante parte do período de ocupação sem uso de condicionamento artificial, porém acreditar que é possível obter conforto apenas com sistemas passivos durante o ano todo nos atuais edifícios de escritórios das cidades de São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro é ilusão. Diante desse desafio, o sistema de modo misto de condicionamento ambiental une as vantagens do sistema ativo às do passivo, operando com sistemas naturais sempre que possível, reduzindo o consumo de energia e acionando o sistema ativo em situações fora das condições de conforto. Utilizar o sistema de modo misto não significa abrir as janelas de qualquer edifício no inverno. O edifício deve estar preparado para o sistema desde as etapas de projeto. Com base nesse pensamento, a pesquisa analisa o desempenho térmico e energético de três tipologias arquitetônicas operando com o sistema de modo misto em São Paulo e investiga o desempenho das mesmas tipologias sob as condições climáticas da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. As avaliações de desempenho térmico e energético das tipologias são feitas por meio de análises e comparações de resultados de simulações computacionais com o programa TAS (9.0.7 maio, 2005). / Considering current environmental issues, all sectors of activities are premised on the efficient use of energy. Its known that constructions are great energy consumers and part of this consumption is given by artificial conditioning systems. Therere three main factors in thermal balance that influences this consumption: architecture, occupation and climate. The architecture acts as intermediate in this thermal balance, being able to help or harm internal conditions. This research treats office building thermal and energy performance in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, cities with high temperatures not only during the summer but also in other seasons. Nowadays, offices occupation and activity are themselves great heat producers, what makes thermal comfort even more difficult to achieve. This project considers that there are office building design solutions able to produce thermal environmental conditions acceptable to a majority of occupants, without air-conditioning system, during part of the working period, in São Paulo. However, believing the possibility of achieving comfort conditions in actual office buildings, only with passive cooling strategies, during all year, in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is an illusion. Facing this challenge, mixed mode system combines the best of air-conditioning and natural ventilation, operating with natural strategies whenever its possible, reducing energy consumption and using the air-conditioning system only when thermal environmental conditions are not acceptable. Mixed mode operation does not mean to open any building windows during the winter. The building must have been designed for the mixed mode system since its first projects. This research is based on this thought and thermal analysis and energy performance of three architectural design buildings operating with mixed mode system in São Paulo and investigates the performance of these building types under climate conditions of Rio de Janeiro city. The thermal and energy performance evaluations of the building types are based on the analysis and comparison of computer simulations results, with the software TAS (9.0.7 May, 2005).

The aim of this study is to model three dimensional surface crack problems in fillet welds. It is assumed that weld material has the same material properties with the sheet metals. The surface crack is considered to occur at two regions / one at the weld root and the other at the weld toe. The surface crack is assumed to have a semi &ndash / elliptical crack front profile. The surface crack problem is analyzed under mechanical loading and the models are built up by three dimensional finite elements. Around the crack front, strain singularity is taken into account by using degenerated 20 &ndash / node quarter &ndash / point solid elements. The main results of this work are the stress intensity factors around the crack front for the test specimen model subjected to axial and bending loads.

The main objective of this study is to model and analyze a three dimensional inclined semi-elliptic surface crack in a Functionally Graded Material (FGM) coating bonded to a homogeneous substrate with a bond coat. The parametric analyses on FGMs are based upon zirconia-yttria (ZrO2-8wt%-Y2O3) FGM coating bonded to a substrate made of a nickel-based superalloy. It is assumed that there is a nickel-chromium&amp / #8211 / aluminum&amp / #8211 / zirconium (NiCrAlY) bond coat between the FGM coating and substrate. Metal-rich, linear variation, ceramic-rich and homogeneous ceramic FGM coating types are considered in the analyses. The inclined semi-elliptic surface crack problem in the FGM coating-bond coat-substrate system is analyzed under transient thermal loading. This problem is modeled and analyzed by utilizing three dimensional finite elements. Strain singularity around the crack front is simulated using collapsed 20 &amp / #8211 / node quarter &amp / #8211 / point brick elements. Three &amp / #8211 / dimensional displacement correlation technique is utilized to extract the mixed mode stress intensity factors around the crack front for different inclination angles of the semi-elliptic surface crack. The energy release rates around the crack front are also calculated by using the evaluated mixed mode stress intensity factors. The results obtained in this study are the peak values of mixed mode stress intensity factors and energy release rates around the crack front for various inclination angles of the semi-elliptic surface crack embedded in the FGM coating of the composite structure subjected to transient thermal loading.

The main aim of this study is to utilize a Jk-integral based computational method in order to calculate crack tip parameters for orthotropic functionally graded materials (FGMs). The crack is subjected to mixed mode thermal loading. Mixed mode thermal fracture analysis requires the calculation of mode-I and mode-II stress intensity factors (KI ,KII ). In addition to stress intensity factors, energy release rate and T-stress are calculated by means of Jk-integral. Jk-integral is defined as a line integral over a vanishingly small curve. Since it is difficult to deal with a line integral on a vanishing curve , Jk-integral is converted to a domain independent form containing area and line integrals by the help of plane thermoelasticity constitutive relations. Steady-state temperature distribution profiles in FGMs and the components of the Jk-integral are computed by means of the finite element method. In both thermal and structural analyses, finite element models that possess graded isoparametric elements are created in the general purpose finite element analysis software ANSYS. In the formulation of Jk-integral, all required engineering material properties are assumed to possess continuous spatial variations through the functionally graded medium. The numerical results are compared to the results obtained from Displacement Correlation Technique (DCT). The domain independence of Jk-integral is also demonstrated. The results obtained in this study show the effects of crack location and material property gradation profiles on stress intensity factors, energy release rate and T-stress.

Experimental studies have shown that the yield strength of many important engineering materials such as polymers, ceramics and metallic glasses is dependent on hydrostatic stress. In addition, these materials may also exhibit plastic dilatancy. These deviations from the assumptions of classical plasticity theories have also been observed for some metallic alloys, although to a lesser extent compared to non-metals. In pressure independent plastic solids, it has been found that the level of crack tip constraint can affect the near-tip stress and deformation fields and hence the fracture resistance. The objective of the present work is to study the effects of pressure sensitive yielding, plastic dilatancy and constraint loss on the ductile fracture processes under mode-I conditions. Further, the three-dimensional (3D) structure of elastic-plastic near-crack front fields in a pressure independent plastic solid under mixed mode (combined modes I and II) loading is also examined. A finite element study of 3D crack tip fields in pressure sensitive plastic solids under mode-I, small scale yielding (SSY) conditions is first carried out. The material is assumed to obey a small strain, Extended Drucker-Prager (EDP)yield criterion. The roles of pressure sensitive yielding, plastic dilatancy and yield locus shape on the 3D plastic zone development and near-crack front fields are systematically investigated. It is found that while pressure sensitivity leads to a significant drop in the hydrostatic stress all along the 3D crack front, it enhances the plastic strain and crack opening displacements. However, plastic incompressibility results in elevation of both near-tip hydrostatic stress and notch opening. The implications of these observations on micro-void growth and interaction near a notch tip are studied in detail subsequently. The effects of constraint loss on void growth near a notch tip under mode-I loading in materials exhibiting pressure sensitive yielding and plastic dilatancy are investigated by performing large deformation elastic-plastic finite element analyses. To this end, two-dimensional (2D)plane strain and 3Dmodified boundary layer formulations are employed by prescribing the elastic K-T field as remote boundary conditions. The results are generated for different combinations of K (or J ) and T -stress. The material is assumed to obey a finite strain, EDP yield condition. The distributions of hydrostatic stress and plastic strain in the ligament connecting the notch and a nearby void (cylindrical or spherical) as well as the growth of the notch and the void are studied. The results show that void growth with respect to J is enhanced due to pressure sensitivity, and more so when the plastic flow is non-dilatational, which corroborates with the trends exhibited by the 3D crack tip fields. However, the evolution of ductile fracture processes like void growth, plastic strain localization and ligament length reduction with respect to J is retarded in the case of spherical voids. Further, irrespective of pressure sensitivity, loss of crack tip constraint can significantly slow down void growth. The effects of pressure sensitive yielding and plastic dilatancy on near-tip void growth and multiple void interaction mechanisms in single edge notched bend (SENB) and center cracked tension (CCT) specimens which display high and low constraint levels, respectively, are investigated next. It is observed that the latter mechanism which is favored by high initial porosity is further accelerated by pressure sensitive yielding and high constraint. The predicted resistance curves based on a simple void coalescence mechanism show enhancement in fracture resistance when constraint level is low and when pressure sensitivity is suppressed. Finally, detailed elastic-plastic finite element simulations are carried out using a boundary layer (SSY) formulation to investigate the 3D nature of near-crack front fields in a von Mises solid under mixed mode (combined modes I and II)loading. The plastic zones and radial, angular and thickness variations of the stresses are studied corresponding to different levels of remote elastic mode mixity and applied load, as measured by the plastic zone size with respect to the plate thickness. The 3D results are compared with those obtained from 2D simulations and asymptotic solutions to establish the validity of 2D plane stress and plane strain approximations near a crack front. It is found that, in general, plane stress conditions prevail at a distance from the crack front exceeding half the plate thickness, although it could be slightly smaller for mode-II predominant loading.

Park and resource management agencies are looking for less costly ways to undertake park visitor surveys. The use of the Internet is often suggested as a way to reduce the costs of these surveys. By itself, however, the use of the Internet for park visitor surveys faces a number of methodological challenges that include the potential for coverage error, sampling difficulties and nonresponse error. A potential way of addressing these challenges is the use of a mixed-mode approach that combines the use of the Internet with another survey mode. The procedures for such a mixed-mode approach, however, have not been fully developed and evaluated. This study develops and evaluates a new mixed-mode approach –a face-to-face/web response – for a provincial park camper survey in British Columbia. The five key steps of this approach are: (a) selecting a random sample of occupied campsites; (b) undertaking a short interview with potential respondents; (c) obtaining an email address at the end of the interview; (d) distributing a postcard to potential respondents that contains the website and an individual access code; and (e) undertaking email follow-ups with nonrespondents. In evaluating this new approach, two experiments were conducted during the summer of 2010. The first experiment was conducted at Goldstream Provincial Park campground and was designed to compare a face-to-face/paper response to face-to-face/web response for several sources of survey errors and costs. The second experiment was conducted at 12 provincial park campgrounds throughout British Columbia and was designed to examine the potential for coverage error and the effect of a number of email follow-ups on return rates, nonresponse error and the substantive results. Taken together, these experiments indicate: a low potential for coverage error (i.e., 4% non-use Internet rate); a high email collection rate for follow-ups (i.e., 99% at Goldstream; a combined rate of 88% for 12 campgrounds); similar return rates between a paper mode (60%) and a web (59%) mode; the use of two email follow-ups reduced nonresponse error for a key variable (i.e., geographic location of residence), but not for all variables; low item nonresponse for both mixed-modes (about 1%); very few differences in the substantive results between each follow-up; a 9% cost saving for the web mode. This study suggests that a face-to face/web approach can provide a viable approach for undertaking park visitor surveys if there is high Internet coverage among park visitors. / Graduate / 0366 / 0344 / 0814 / brdyckfam@yahoo.com

With increasing climate change the automotive industry is facing increasing demands regarding emissions and environmental impact. To lower emissions and environmental impact the automotive industry strives to increase the efficiency of vehicles by for example reducing the weight. This can be achieved by the implementation of lightweight products made of composite materials where different materials must be joined. A key technology when producing lightweight products is adhesive joining. In an effort to expand the implementations of structural adhesives Volvo Buses wants to increase their knowledge about adhesive joining techniques. This thesis is done in collaboration with Volvo Buses and aims to increase the knowledge about numerical simulations of adhesively bonded joints. A numerical model of an adhesively bonded T-joint is presented where the adhesive layer is modelled using the Cohesive Zone Model. The experimental extraction of cohesive laws for adhesives is discussed and implemented as bi-linear traction-separation laws. Experiments of the T-joint for two different load cases are performed and compared to the results of the numerical simulations. The experimental results shows a similar force-displacement response as for the results of the numerical simulations. Although there were deviations in the maximum applied load and for one load case there were deviations in the behavior after the main load drop. The deviations between numerical and experimental results are believed to be due to inaccurate material properties for the adhesive, the use of insufficient bi-linear cohesive laws, the occurrence of a combination of adhesive and cohesive fractures during the experiments and dissimilar effective bonding surface areas in the numerical model and the physical specimens.

Des hormones gonadotropiques sont utilisées pour la maîtrise de la reproduction dans le domaine vétérinaire. Ces hormones sont actuellement extraites de tissus ou de fluides animaux. L’entreprise CEVA Santé Animale a récemment fait le choix stratégique de produire ces hormones par voie recombinante. L’objectif de cette étude était d’obtenir une gonadotropine chorionique équine recombinante, reCG, pure et biologiquement active, à partir d’une lignée de cellules mammifères CHO. Les étapes de production, de purification et de caractérisation de l’hormone recombinante ont été développées. Les cellules CHO ont été cultivées en fiole d’Erlenmeyer dans différents milieux de culture. Le suivi de la croissance cellulaire et de la quantité d’hormone produite a permis de sélectionner deux milieux. Le procédé de production, avec ces deux milieux, a été optimisé en bioréacteur en contrôlant les paramètres de culture (température, pH). Les protéines produites dans le surnageant, de ces deux cultures, ont été nommées reCG 1 et reCG 2. Un procédé de purification en 3 étapes a été mis au point pour la reCG 1. Plusieurs résines et conditions chromatographiques ont été criblées en microplaques. Les résines multimodales utilisées ont permis d’éliminer des contaminants majeurs grâce à leur sélectivité. Les agrégats de la reCG ont été éliminés grâce à une résine anionique. Le procédé de purification global a été validé pour la reCG 1 et la reCG 2. Il a permis d’obtenir une pureté de 98 % avec un rendement de 80 %. L’activité biologique de la reCG 1 et la reCG 2, in vitro et in vivo, est comparable à celle de la protéine naturelle. L’activité biologique in vivo des reCG est cohérente avec l’étude réalisée sur les glycosylations des hormones et notamment avec leur degré de sialylation. / The gonadotrophic hormones are used for reproduction control in farming animals. Up to now, these hormones were extracted from animal fluids or tissues. The company CEVA Santé Animal has recently decided to produce recombinant versions of these hormones. The objective of this study was to obtain a pure and biologically active recombinant equine chorionic gonadotropin (reCG) after expression in CHO mammalian cells. The production, purification and characterization steps have been developed. CHO cells were grown in Erlenmeyer flasks with different culture media. Two media were selected based on their cell growth potency and of the amount of reCG produced. By using a bioreactor to control key parameters (temperature, pH), the production process was then optimized. The recombinant proteins that accumulated in the supernatant of the two conditions were called reCG 1 and reCG 2. A 3-steps purification process was then developed using reCG 1. Several resins and chromatographic conditions were screened in microplates. Multimodal resins were used to eliminate the main contaminants thanks to their selectivity. reCG aggregates were efficiently eliminated by a chromatographic step with an anionic resin. The overall purification process was finally validated for reCG 1 and reCG 2. Purity and yield were respectively, 98 % and 80 % for the two reCG. We verified that the in vitro and in vivo activities of reCG 1 and reCG 2 were comparable to those of the CG extracted from natural sources. The in vivo assays also confirmed previous studies showing that the degree of glycosylation of an hormone, and most notably their level of sialytation, is important for their biological activity.

This thesis concerns some aspects that have influence on the strength of adhesive layers. The strength is determined by the stress deformation-relation of the layer. This relation is also referred to as cohesive law. The aspects having influence on the cohesive laws that are studied in this work are temperature, fatigue, multi-axial fatigue and mixed mode loading. For each aspect, a model is developed that can be used to describe the influence of the aspects on the cohesive laws numerically, e.g. by using the finite element method. These models are shown to give good agreement with the experimental results when performing simulations that aims at reproducing the experiments. For the aspect of temperature, a FE-model is suggested that can be used to simulate the mechanical behaviour in pure mode loadings at any temperature within the evaluated temperature span. Also, a damage law for modelling high cycle fatigue in a bonded structure in multi-axial loading is presented. Lastly, a new experimental set-up is presented for evaluating strength of adhesives during mixed mode loading. The set-up enables loading with a constant mode-mix ratio and by the experimental results, a potential model for describing the mechanical behaviour of the evaluated adhesive is presented.