Thesis (Ph.D.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2001. / Bibliography: leaves 166-174.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000. / Restricted until November 2001. Bibliography: leaves 93-99.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 168-170.

No description available.

This thesis presents results of research aimed at developing an improved understanding of the behavior of column panel zones reinforced with doubler plates in seismic resistant steel moment frames. A primary goal of the research was to develop data to support the development of improved design guidelines for welding doubler plates to columns, with and without the presence of continuity plates. The research addressed several issues and questions related to welding and detailing of doubler plates. This included evaluation of the effects of welding the top and bottom of the doubler plate in addition to the vertical edges, the effects of extending the doubler plate beyond the panel zone, and the impact of welding a continuity plate to a doubler plate. These issues were investigated through detailed finite element models of a simplified representation of the panel zone region, subjected to monotonic loading. The results of the research suggest that, in general, there is little benefit in welding the top and bottom edges of a doubler plate if the vertical edges are welded, particularly in terms of overall panel zone strength and stiffness. However, the top and bottom welds provide some benefit in reducing stresses on the vertical welds. The results also suggest that extending the doubler plate above and below the panel zone has little benefit for heavy columns of shallow depth, such as the W14x398 considered in this analysis. However, extending the doubler plate did result in approximately a 10-percent increase in panel zone strength for deeper columns, such as the W40x264 considered in this analysis. Finally, the results showed that welding a continuity plate directly to a doubler plate had no adverse effects on the doubler plate in terms of increased forces or stresses. Interestingly, welding the continuity plate to the doubler plate simply changed the load path for transfer of load from the beam flange to the column web and doubler plate, but did not change the stresses in the doubler plate. Further research is needed to validate these findings for more accurate representations of the panel zone region of the column and for cyclic loading. / text

Applications involving high electrical conduction require complex components that are difficult to be manufactured by conventional processes. Laser sintering (LS) is an additive manufacturing technique that overcomes these drawbacks by offering design flexibility. This study focuses upon optimizing the process of laser sintering to manufacture functional prototypes of components used in high electrical conduction applications. Specifically, components for two systems – high current sliding electrical contacts and fuel cells – were designed, manufactured and tested. C-asperity rails were made by LS and tested in a high current sliding electrical setup. Corrugated flow field plates were created by LS and their performance in a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) was tested. This is the first experimental attempt at using laser sintering for manufacturing such complex components for use in high electrical conduction applications. The second part of this study involves optimization the laser sintering process. Towards this, efforts were made to improve the green strength of parts made by LS. Particle size of graphite/ phenolic resin and addition of nylon/11 and wax were tested for their effect upon green strength. Of these, significant improvement of green strength was observed by altering the particle size of the graphite/ phenolic resin system. New methods of improving green strength by employing fast cure phenolic resins with carbon fiber additions were successfully demonstrated. This study also identified a binder system and process parameters for indirect LS of stainless steel –for bipolar plate compression/ injection mold tooling. All the experimental results of this study lead us to believe that laser sintering can be developed as a robust and efficient process for the manufacture of specialized components used in advanced electrical conduction systems. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Mechanical Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

In the simulation of deformations of plates it is well known that we have to use a special treatment of the thickness dependence. Therewith we achieve a reduction of dimension from 3D to 2D. For linear elasticity and small deformations several techniques are well established to handle the reduction of dimension and achieve acceptable numerical results. In the case of large deformations of plates with non-linear material behaviour there exist different problems. For example the analytical integration over the thickness of the plate is not possible due to the non-linearities arising from the material law and the large deformations themselves. There are several possibilities to introduce a hypothesis for the treatment of the plate thickness from the strong Kirchhoff assumption on one hand up to some hierarchical approaches on the other hand.

We consider the application of least-squares variational principles and the finite element method to the numerical solution of boundary value problems arising in the fields of solidand fluidmechanics.For manyof these problems least-squares principles offer many theoretical and computational advantages in the implementation of the corresponding finite element model that are not present in the traditional weak form Galerkin finite element model.Most notably, the use of least-squares principles leads to a variational unconstrained minimization problem where stability conditions such as inf-sup conditions (typically arising in mixed methods using weak form Galerkin finite element formulations) never arise. In addition, the least-squares based finite elementmodelalways yields a discrete system ofequations witha symmetric positive definite coeffcientmatrix.These attributes, amongst manyothers highlightedand detailed in this work, allow the developmentofrobust andeffcient finite elementmodels for problems of practical importance. The research documented herein encompasses least-squares based formulations for incompressible and compressible viscous fluid flow, the bending of thin and thick plates, and for the analysis of shear-deformable shell structures.

Disertaciniame darbe, pasitelkus deformuojamo kūno mechanikos energinius principus ir matematinio programavimo teoriją, iš vieningų pozicijų išnagrinėtos tiek tamprių, tiek tamprių-plastinių sistemų deformacijų darnos (Sen-Venano) lygtys. Sprendžiant energinio principo apie papildomos energijos minimumą pagrindu sudarytą ekstremumo analizės uždavinį, įrodoma, kad yra tik trys nepriklausomos Sen-Venano lygtys su atitinkamai performuotomis kraštinėmis sąlygomis. Prisitaikomumo teorija nagrinėja tamprių-plastinių konstrukcijų, veikiamų kintamos-kartotinės apkrovos, būvį, pasitelkdama tiek tamprumo, tiek plastiškumo teorijų pagrindines lygtis ir priklausomybes: disertaciniame darbe pavyko, pasinaudojant Kuno ir Takerio optimalumo sąlygomis, metodiškai pagrįstai įjungti į plastinį konstrukcijų skaičiavimą liekamųjų deformacijų darnos lygtis. Taigi, disertacijoje Kuno ir Takerio sąlygos originaliai pritaikytos tamprumo teorijos lygtims įtempiais ir asociatyvinio tekėjimo dėsnio išraiškoms plastiškumo teorijoje gauti. Pasinaudojant gautaisiais rezultatais patobulinta prisitaikančių lenkiamų plokščių optimizavimo teorija ir sukurti nauji tokių uždavinių sprendimo metodai. Netiesinių uždavinių matematiniai modeliai, sudaryti taikant pusiausvirų baigtinių elementų metodą, sprendžiami iteraciniu būdu, pasitelkus Rozeno projektuojamųjų gradientų algoritmą. Darbui būdinga tai, kad matematinio programavimo teorija optimizavimo problemos nagrinėjimą lydi nuo matematinio modelio sudarymo iki... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Adapted perfectly elastic-plastic structure satisfies strength conditions and it is safe with respect to cyclic-plastic collapse. But it can do not satisfy its serviceability requirements, for instance, stiffness ones. Therefore, not only strength, but also stiffness conditions-constraints should be included in the discrete mathematical models of bending plate parameter or load variation bound optimization problems (exactly such problems are considered in the dissertation). Using mathematical programming not only new optimization technique of bending plates at shakedown is developed, but also relation between Kuhn-Tucker conditions and strain compatibility (Saint-Venant) equations and dependences of associative yield law of the deformable body mechanics is showed in the dissertation. Mathematical models of nonlinear problems are constructed applying method of equilibrium elements and are solved by iterations using Rosen project gradient algorithm. The feature of this research work is that the theory of mathematical programming accompanies investigation of optimization problem from the construction of the mathematical model up to its numerical solution, at the same time revealing mechanical meaning optimality criterion of applied Rosen algorithm.