Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-158)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This study investigates energy harvesting characteristics from a spinning device that consists of a proof mass that is supported by two orthogonal elastic structures with the piezoelectric material. Deformation in the piezoelectric structures due to vibration of the proof mass generates voltages to power electrical loads. The governing equations for this electromechanically coupled device are derived using Newtonian mechanics and Kirchhoff's voltage law. The case where the device rotates at a constant speed and is subjected to sinusoidal base excitation is examined in detail. The energy harvesting behavior is investigated for devices with identical piezoelectric support structures (called tuned devices). Closed-form expressions are derived for the steady state response and power harvested. For nonzero rotation speeds, these devices have multifrequency dynamic response and power harvested due to the combined vibration and rotation of the host system. The average power harvested for one oscillation cycle is calculated for a wide range of operating conditions to quantify the devices' performance. Resonances do not occur for cases when the base excitation frequency is fixed and the rotation speed varies. For cases of fixed rotation speed and varying base excitation frequency, however, resonances do occur. The number and location of these resonances depend on the electrical circuit resistances and rotation speed. Resonances do not occur at speeds or frequencies predicted by resonance diagrams, which are commonly used in the study of rotating system vibration. These devices have broadband speed energy harvesting ability. They perform equally well at high and low speeds; high speeds are not necessary for their optimal performance. The impact of the chosen damping model on energy harvesting characteristics for tuned devices is investigated. Two common damping models are considered: viscous damping and structural (hysteretic) damping. Closed-form expressions for steady state dynamic response and power harvested are derived for models with viscous and structural damping. The average power harvested using the model with structural damping behaves similarly at high speeds and low speeds, and at high resistances and low resistances. For the viscous damping model, however, the average power harvested is meaningfully different at high speeds compared to low speeds, and at high resistances compared to low resistances. The characteristics of devices with nonidentical piezoelectric support structures (called mistuned devices) are investigated numerically. Similar to spinning tuned devices, mistuned devices have multifrequency dynamic response and power harvested. In contrast to tuned devices, high amplitude average power harvested occurs near speeds and base excitation frequencies predicted by resonance diagram.

This diploma thesis deals with the determination of the radius of rotation in selected articulated tractors. Describes the use and construction of tractors and their parts. The first part deals with the problems of tractors and the second is aimed at comparing the turning radius of three types of articulated tractors in the operation of agricultural primary production.

abstract: The three-dimensional flow contained in a rapidly rotating circular split cylinder is studied numerically solving the Navier--Stokes equations. The cylinder is completely filled with fluid and is split at the midplane. Three different types of boundary conditions were imposed, leading to a variety of instabilities and complex flow dynamics. The first configuration has a strong background rotation and a small differential rotation between the two halves. The axisymmetric flow was first studied identifying boundary layer instabilities which produce inertial waves under some conditions. Limit cycle states and quasiperiodic states were found, including some period doubling bifurcations. Then, a three-dimensional study was conducted identifying low and high azimuthal wavenumber rotating waves due to G\"ortler and Tollmien–-Schlichting type instabilities. Over most of the parameter space considered, quasiperiodic states were found where both types of instabilities were present. In the second configuration, both cylinder halves are in exact counter-rotation, producing an O(2) symmetry in the system. The basic state flow dynamic is dominated by the shear layer created in the midplane. By changing the speed rotation and the aspect ratio of the cylinder, the flow loses symmetries in a variety of ways creating static waves, rotating waves, direction reversing waves and slow-fast pulsing waves. The bifurcations, including infinite-period bifurcations, were characterized and the flow dynamics was elucidated. Additionally, preliminary experimental results for this case are presented. In the third set up, with oscillatory boundary conditions, inertial wave beams were forced imposing a range of frequencies. These beams emanate from the corner of the cylinder and from the split at the midplane, leading to destructive/constructive interactions which produce peaks in vorticity for some specific frequencies. These frequencies are shown to be associated with the resonant Kelvin modes. Furthermore, a study of the influence of imposing a phase difference between the oscillations of the two halves of the cylinder led to the interesting result that different Kelvin modes can be excited depending on the phase difference. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Applied Mathematics 2017

O presente trabalho visa estabelecer uma metodologia alternativa para o levantamento dos principais transitórios elétricos sofridos por excitatrizes brushless, decorrentes de transitórios ocorridos na armadura do gerador principal. O método consiste no cálculo, a partir de dados de projeto, dos parâmetros que compõem os circuitos equivalentes do gerador principal e da excitatriz, seguido de simulações, em ambiente PSIM®, dos piores casos de transitórios de tensão e corrente sofridos pela armadura do gerador principal, como curtos-circuitos monofásicos, bifásicos e trifásicos, operação assíncrona do gerador principal e sincronização com defasagem entre as tensões do gerador e da rede. Em cada caso, monitoram-se as tensões e correntes resultantes nos diodos da ponte retificadora rotativa. Resultados simulados e experimentais são comparados. / This study aims to establish an alternative methodology for determining the main transients on brushless exciters due to transients in the main generator armature. The method consists in calculating, from design data, the parameters of the equivalent circuits of the main generator and the exciter, followed by simulations, with the software PSIM®, of the worst voltage and current transient cases in the main generator armature, like single-phase, dual-phase and three-phase short circuits, asynchronous running of the main generator and out of phase synchronization. In each case the currents and voltages of the rotative bridge diodes were monitored. Simulation and experimental results are compared.

A partial differential equation in space and time represents the physics of rotating beams. Mostly, the numerical solution of such an equation is an available option as analytical solutions are not feasible even for a uniform rotating beam. Although the numerical solutions can be obtained with a number of combinations (in space and time), one tries to seek for a better alternative. In this work, various numerical techniques are applied to the rotating beam problems: finite element method, meshless methods, and B-spline finite element methods. These methods are applied to the governing differential equations of a rotating Euler-Bernoulli beam, rotating Timoshenko beam, rotating Rayleigh beam, and cracked Euler-Bernoulli beam. This work provides some elegant alternatives to the solutions available in the literature, which are more efficient than the existing methods: the p-version of finite element in time for obtaining the time response of periodic ordinary differential equations governing helicopter rotor blade dynamics, the symmetric matrix formulation for a rotating Euler-Bernoulli beam free vibration problem using the Galerkin method, and solution for the Timoshenko beam governing differential equation for free vibration using the meshless methods. Also, the cracked Euler-Bernoulli beam free vibration problem is solved where the importance of higher order polynomial approximation is shown. Finally, the overall response of rotating blades subjected to aerodynamic forcing is obtained in uncoupled trim where the response is independent of the overall helicopter configuration. Stability analysis for the rotor blade in hover and forward flight is also performed using Floquet theory for periodic differential equations.

Diagnostics and prognostics in rotating machinery is a subject of much on-going research. There are three approaches to diagnostics and prognostics. These include experience-based approaches, data-driven techniques and model-based techniques. Bayesian data-driven techniques are gaining widespread application in diagnostics and prognostics of mechanical and allied systems including slow rotating bearings, as a result of their ability to handle the stochastic nature of the measured data well. The aim of the study is to detect incipient damage of slow rotating bearings and develop diagnostics which will be robust under changing operating conditions. Further it is required to explore and develop an optimal prognostic model for the prediction of remaining useful life (RUL) of slow rotating bearings. This research develops a novel integrated nonlinear method for the effective feature extraction from acoustic emission (AE) signals and the construction of a degradation assessment index (DAI), which is subsequently used for the fault diagnostics of slow rotating bearings. A slow rotating bearing test rig was developed to measure AE data under variable operational conditions. The proposed novel DAI obtained by the integration of the PKPCA (polynomial kernel principal component analysis), a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) is shown to be effective and suitable for monitoring the degradation of slow rotating bearings and is robust under variable operating conditions. Furthermore, this study integrates the novel DAI into alternative Bayesian methods for the prediction of RUL. The DAI is used as input in several Bayesian regression models such as the multi-layer perceptron (MLP), radial basis function (RBF), Bayesian linear regression (BLR), Gaussian mixture regression (GMR) and the Gaussian process regression (GPR) for RUL prediction. The combination of the DAI with the GPR model, otherwise, known as the DAI-GPR gives the best prediction. The findings show that the GPR model is suitable and effective in the prediction of RUL of slow rotating bearings and robust to varying operating conditions. Further, the models are also robust when the training and tests sets are obtained from dependent and independent samples. Finally, an optimal GPR for the prediction of RUL of slow rotating bearings based on a DAI is developed. The model performance is evaluated for cases where the training and test samples from cross validation approach are dependent as well as when they are independent. The optimal GPR is obtained from the integration or combination of existing simple mean and covariance functions in order to capture the observed trend of the bearing degradation as well as the irregularities in the data. The resulting integrated GPR model provides an excellent fit to the data and improvements over the simple GPR models that are based on simple mean and covariance functions. In addition, it achieves a near zero percentage error prediction of the RUL of slow rotating bearings when the training and test sets are from dependent samples but slightly different values when the estimation is based on independent samples. These findings are robust under varying operating conditions such as loading and speed. The proposed methodology can be applied to nonlinear and non-stationary machine response signals and is useful for preventive machine maintenance purposes. Keywords: acoustic emission, Bayesian linear regression, Bayesian techniques, covariance function, data-driven, degradation assessment index, diagnostics, experience-based, exponentially weighted moving average, Gaussian mixture model, Gaussian mixture regression, Gaussian process regression, integration, mean function, model-based, multi-layer perceptron, polynomial kernel principal component analysis, prognostics, radial basis function, remaining useful life. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / PhD / unrestricted

Dissipative spots are found in physical experiments of many branches of natural science. In this thesis we use three-component reaction-diffusion systems on two-dimensional domains in order to generate these patterns. Using a dynamical system approach we proceed with a Fourier analysis on a linearized reaction-diffusion system in order to provide the bifurcation conditions for a given homogeneous state. We validate our results and establish it's limitations through numerical experiments. We report very interesting behavior during these simulations, notably hysteresis and multi-stability. We will then turn our attention to the relatively unexplored phenomenon of rotating spots. Based on previous work done for spiral waves, we investigate the effect of translational symmetry-breaking on a rotating spot mainly through careful numerical analysis.

Biofilms are important in nature and in engineered processes. Because of this, a fundamental understanding of their growth and behaviour is required. This work aimed at monitoring biofilm growth using a biological rotating reactor and the Rotoscope biofilm monitor. Both methods worked on the principle of a rotating circular disc that was semi-submerged in water and the light reflected of the area that was outside of the water. Light reflectance on the disc was taken three times a day and the average recorded as the daily reading. It was noticed that in both systems, growth of biofilms on the discs caused a decrease in the amount of light reflected. A decrease in light reflectance indicated an increase in biofilm thickness. The growth of biofilm was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy analysis. The addition of a biocide caused a slight increase in light reflectance indicating partial biofilm removal. The Rotoscope was very sensitive to changes in biofilm characteristics. Rotoscope met the requirements needed for an on-line, real-time and non-destructive biofilm monitoring system. The aged anolyte was effective in killing both suspended and biofilm bacteria at a concentration of 1:10 irrespective of its age and storage conditions. Exposure of aerobic bacteria to different concentrations of sodium nitrite at different time intervals indicated that sodium nitrite had a limited, or no biocidal effect on these bacteria mostly encountered in biofilms. The ready to use chlorine dioxide was also used as the means of controlling biofilms. MIC for RTU ClO2 was found to be 80ppm, which in certain instances killed all bacteria immediately upon exposure while in other cases an exposure time of 1h was required. It was indicated that at this concentration, biofilms were removed. This was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy analysis. Proteins of suspended bacteria treated with 1:10 and 1:100 anolyte dilutions and the control were extracted and compared using SDS-PAGE. Protein bands of bacteria treated with 1:10 NaCl derived anolyte were fewer and fainter as compared to those from untreated cells. More bands were produced in cells treated with 1:100 NaCl derived anolyte as compared to the untreated cells. Cells treated with the non-halide anolyte, both 1:10 and 1:100 dilutions, produced more bands than in the untreated cells. Anolyte destroyed vital proteins for bacterial survival causing cell death or it caused fragmentation of proteins to small peptides, reducing the number of viable cells. NaNO2 was ineffective as biocide while aged anolyte and RTU liquid ClO2 were effective as biocides. SDS-PAGE indicated that anolyte killed bacteria by affecting their proteins. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Microbiology and Plant Pathology / unrestricted