Shift-by-Wire is about replacing the mechanical link between the automatic transmission and the shift lever with an electromechanical system. This will make new safety functions possible and assist the driver in other ways. To do this, an actuator with a brushless DC motor is built into the transmission. It controls the position of the shift valve, which decides the driving position. This thesis concerns the controlling of the brushless DC motor. This is done by programming a shift control unit with a Motorola HC12 microcontroller. The performance of the motor is then tested and evaluated.

By understanding and mimicking characteristics of postural control used by animals, scientist and engineers may develop standing autonomous robots that work safely within home environments, and treatment strategies that help people overcome postural impairments. To increase our understanding of postural control we developed physical and computational models of standing posture to explain the interrelation of stance width and feedback gain in controlling the stability and dynamics of the postural response. These models facilitated precise analysis of mechanical dynamics and their effects on compliant feedback control, and provided a physical implementation to verify predictions developed from simulation. We show that a scaling of active feedback gain is required to maintain postural stability. These results are consistent with previous studies that have shown that a correlation exists between increased stance width and decreased postural responses. However, these studies have not quantified the relation between stance and the active control of standing posture. This scaling of gains that we show is dependent on the changing kinematic relations of the mechanical structure as it undergoes stance width adjustments. Specifically, we show that increasing stance width increases the leverage of the mechanical system. Feedback gains must be reduced by the reciprocal of the increase in mechanical leverage in order to maintain a consistent postural response; otherwise, the system may become unstable with increasing oscillations. We also showed that increasing magnitudes of intrinsic stiffness increases postural stability by facilitating stable responses over larger ranges of active feedback gain and increasing the stability of responses by decreasing settling time, oscillations, and displacement magnitude. The conclusions of this study were that the variation of mechanical leverage is responsible for changing the dynamics of the response during stance width variation, and that scaling of feedback gains with the changing mechanical leverage of stance width variations is required to maintain consistent response dynamics across stance widths.

Acoustic micro-sensors have already been applied in mass sensing including surface acoustic wave (SAW), flexural plate wave (FPW), thickness shear mode (TSM) and shear horizontal acoustic plate mode (SH-APM). The FPW micro-sensor is very suitable for liquid-sensing and bio-sensing applications due to the high mass-sensitivity and low phase-velocity in liquid. However, the conventional FPW micro-sensors presented a high insertion-loss (IL) and a low signal-to-noise ratio so it is difficult to combine with IC into a micro-system. To overcome these drawbacks, this study combine the Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) technology and the high C-axis orientation ZnO piezoelectric thin-film to develop a low insertion loss, low operation frequency, and high electromechanical coupling coefficient FPW device. In this study, a high C-axis orientation ZnO piezoelectric thin-film with a 20944A.U. X-Ray diffraction intensity at 34.200 degree and a 0.573 degree full width at half maximum (FWHM) was deposited by a commercial magnetic radio-frequency (RF) sputter system. The total processes of the FPW micro-sensor included five photolithography and seven thin-film depositions. In this study a low operation frequency (0.1MHz), low insertion loss (11dB to 14dB) and high electromechanical coupling coefficient (11%) FPW sensor was developed and fabricated.

On the basis of coastal disaster mitigation and protection, a beach must have sufficient width for preventing the destruction to public facilities, as well as protecting the safety of life and private property during storm events. The requirement of such a horizontal extent from the initial shoreline to the probable erosion landward to safeguard against the onslaught of a storm is referred to as ¡¥storm beach buffer width¡¦. Upon neglecting the effects of global warming and sealevel rise on a beach and berm with profile in equilibrium, numerical calculations are conducted first to validate the range of the most important parameters (K »P £` ) in the SBEACH model using the results of profile changes available from the CERC¡¦s large wave tank (LWT) tests in 1960s. These results are then applied to assess the profile changes for a beach with a vertical seawall and the other without sufficient berm, subject to the normal incidence of storm waves over a specific duration. Finally, a total of 48 cases with sufficient beach width are then investigated, from which a multiple linear regression model is proposed to determine the extent of berm retreat, as well as the location and height of a submerged offshore bar, for the benefit of coastal profession on preliminary design of storm buffer. Our modeling results using SBEACH reveal that: (1) A seawall without or with insufficient fronting beach could result in serious scour at its toe and even the total loss of the entire beach berm; (2) A beach with sufficient berm, natural or artificially nourished, is capable of protecting the back beach, despite the temporary erosion in the early hours of a storm action; (3) Under the same conditions of wave height and period, a wide buffer is necessary for a beach with small mean sand grain, and the berm height should be designed at 1.6 times of the designed storm surge level, in order to effectively absorb storm wave energy and maintain the provision of a storm buffer; and (4) The multiple linear regression model proposed in this study can be used to evaluate the scour depth and retreat of the berm, as well as the width of a storm beach buffer, upon the input of wave conditions and mean beach sand grain etc.

An experimental study of the effect of initial conditions on the development of Rayleigh Taylor Instabilities (RTI) at low Atwood numbers (order of 10-4) was performed in the water channel facility at TAMU. Initial conditions of the flow were generated using a controllable, highly reliable Servo motor. The uniqueness of the study is the system’s capability of generating the required initial conditions precisely as compared to the previous endeavors. Backlit photography was used for imaging and ensemble averaging of the images was performed to study mixing width characteristics in different regimes of evolution of Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (RTI). High-speed imaging of the flows was performed to provide insights into the growth of bubble and spikes in the linear and non-linear regime of instability development. RTI are observed in astrophysics, geophysics and in many instances in nature. The vital role of RTI in the feasibility and efficiency of the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiment warrants a comprehensive study of the effect of mixing characteristics of RTI and its dependence on defining parameters. With this broader objective in perspective, the objectives of this present investigation were mainly threefold: First was the validation of the novel setup of the Water channel system. Towards this objective, validation of Servo motor, splitter plate thickness effects, density and temperature measurements and single-mode experiments were performed. The second objective was to study the mixing and growth characteristics of binary and multi-mode initial perturbations seeking an explanation of behavior of the resultant flow structures by performing the first ever set of such highly controlled experiments. The first-ever set of experiments with highly controlled multi-mode initial conditions was performed. The final objective of this study was to measure and compare the bubble and spike velocities with single-mode initial conditions with existing analytical models. The data derived from these experiments would qualitatively and quantitatively enhance the understanding of dependence of mixing width on parametric initial conditions. The knowledge would contribute towards a generalized theory for RTI mixing with specified dependence on various parameters, which has a wide range of applications. The system setup was validated to provide a reliable platform for the novel multi-modal experiments to be performed in the future. It was observed that the ensemble averaged mixing width of the binary system does not vary significantly with the phase-difference between the modes of a binary mode initial condition experiment, whereas it varies with the amplitudes of the component modes. In the exponential and non-linear regimes of evolution, growth rates of multi-mode perturbations were found to be higher than the component modes, whereas saturation growth rates correspond to the dominant wavelength. Quadratic saturation growth rate constants, alpha were found to be about 0.07 ± 0.01 for binary and multi modes whereas single-mode data measured alpha about 0.06 ± 0.01. High-speed imaging was performed to measure bubble and spike amplitudes to obtain velocities and growth rates. It was concluded that higher temporal and spatial resolution was required for accurate measurement. The knowledge gained from the above study will facilitate a better understanding of the physics underlying Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The results of this study will also help validating numerical models for simulation of this instability, thereby providing predictive capability for more complex configurations.

This research work is devoted to the analysis, design and development of the Current-Source Converter (CSC) based distribution-type Static Synchronous Compensator (D-STATCOM) for low-voltage applications in reactive-power control in order to achieve i) faster transient response in reactive-power control, ii) lower current harmonic distortion, iii) lower power losses and iv) minimum storage elements in comparison with conventional solutions. The developed CSC-D-STATCOM includes a low-pass input filter and a three phase forced-commutated CSC which is composed of six insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) with built-in series diodes. The analysis and the control of the CSC-D-STATCOM are carried out in dq-synchronous reference frame in order to obtain the reference current waveform which is to be generated by switching the IGBTs at 3kHz with the use of space vector modulation.

A parametric study is performed to investigate the parallel tunnel interaction. Three dimensional finite element analyses were performed to determine the effects of soil stiffness, pillar width and advancement level of the second tunnel on the behaviour of displacement, bending moment and shear force of the previously constructed tunnel. In the analysis PLAXIS 3D Tunnel geotechnical finite element package was used. This program allows the user to define the actual construction stages of a NATM tunnel construction. In the analysis, construction stages are defined in such a way that firstly one of the tunnels is constructed and the construction of the second tunnel starts after the construction of the first tunnel. The mid-length section of the first tunnel is investigated in six different locations and at seven different advancement levels in terms of displacement, bending moment and shear forces. It is found that, displacement and bending moment behaviour are more related with soil stiffness and pillar width than the behaviour of shear forces. While the level of advancement of the second tunnel causes different type of responses on the shear force behaviour, level of advancement does not affect the type of behaviour of displacements and bending moments. Another finding of the research is that pillar width has an evident influence on the behaviour of displacements and bending moment than the soil stiffness. It is also found that the interaction effect may be eliminated by increasing the pillar width equal or larger than an approximate value of 2.5 &ndash / 3.0 D (diameter) for an average soil stiffness value.

AC/DC adapters mostly employ two-stage topology: Power Factor Correction (PFC) pre-regulation stage followed by an isolated DC/DC converter stage. Low power AC/DC adapters require a small size to be competitive. Among their components, the bulk DC-link capacitor is one of the largest because it should keep the output voltage with low ripple. Also, the size of this capacitor is penalized due to the universal line voltage application. Synchronization through employing leading edge modulation for the first PFC stage and trailing edge modulation for the second DC/DC converter stage can significantly reduce the ripple current and ripple voltage of the DC-link capacitor. Thus, a smaller DC-link capacitance can be used, lowering the cost and size of the AC/DC adapter. Benefits of the synchronous switching scheme were already demonstrated experimentally. However, no mathematical analysis was presented. In this thesis, detailed mathematical analyses in per-unit quantity are given to facilitate the calculation of the DC-link capacitor ripple current reduction with Leading/Trailing Edge Modulation strategies. One of the limitations of leading/trailing edge modulation is that the switching frequencies of the two stages need to be equal to achieve the best reduction of the DC-link capacitor ripple current. The DC-link capacitor ripple current will become larger if the switching frequency of the DC/DC converter is larger than that of the PFC pre-regulator, which blocks us to employ higher frequency for isolated DC/DC converter to reduce its transformer size. This thesis proposed a new Leading/Trailing Edge Modulation strategy to further reduce the DC-link bulk capacitor ripple current when switching frequency of DC/DC converter stage is twice the switching frequency of PFC stage. This proposed pulse width modulation scheme was verified by simulation. Experimental results obtained through digital control based on FPGA are also presented in this thesis.

In this study the relationship between the dynamic response of the flexible substrate and the power generation for energy harvesting system is proposed. High electro-mechanical transformation of piezoelectric materials, high efficient energy transfer of mechanical structure and controlled circuit make the piezoelectric generator a high performance. The devices of cantilevers with lump structures on the flexible substrate and piezoelectric film (ZnO) are designed. Then some individual layers of power generator are stocked in parallel to form a multi-layer system with a broad resonant band width. When the generator is operated in a wide frequency range vibration environment, the multi-layer piezoelectric films in the form of cantilever structures can induce current. First the finite element method for the piezoelectric cantilever beam is constructed by using ANSYS software. Both modal analysis and harmonic response analysis are performed to obtain the structural modal parameters and frequency response functions, respectively. Besides, the beam structure is modeled by 3D coupled field piezoelectric element. This research will apply Taguchi¡¦s method to design including variations of dimensions and material properties for energy harvesting system. The flexible substrate is polymeric film (PET). Imprinting process is applied to transfer the simulated geometric configuration onto a flexible substrate to obtain a maximum power output. The results show the single devices can improve efficiently by using lump structures on the flexible substrate, the generator could achieve maximum OCV of 2.25V which is 0.276£gW every centimeter squared when attached to a stable source of vibration. The multi-layer system can be used in 50~500Hz of low frequency environment. Furthermore, the output voltage (OCV) is upward when the flexible substrate with low Young¡¦s modulus.

In this research, a time-based oversampling delta-sigma (ΔΣ) ADC architecture is introduced. This system uses time, rather than voltage or current, as the analog variable for its quantizer, and the noise shaping process is realized by modulating the width of a variable-width digital “pulse.” The ΔΣ loop integrator, the quantizer and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) are all time-based circuits and are implemented using digital gates only. Hence, no amplifier or voltage-based circuit is required. The proposed architecture not only offers a viable for nano-scale ‘digital’ IC technologies, but also enables improved circuit performance compared to the state-of-the-art. This is in contrast to conventional voltage-based analog circuit design, whose performance decreases with scaling due to increasingly higher voltage uncertainty due to supply voltage. The proposed architecture allows all digital implementation after the Voltage to Time Converter (VTC) and merged multi-bit quantizer/DAC blocks by taking advantage of delay lines reusable in both quantization and DAC operation. The novelty of this architecture is digital pulse width processing to implement the ΔΣ modulation. It is realized with small area and potentially can take advantage from the process scaling. A 3-bit prototype of this ADC in 0.18 μm CMOS process is implemented, tested, and presented. With an OSR of 36 and a bandwidth of 2 MHz, it achieves a SNDR of 34.6 dB while consuming 1.5 mA from a 1.8 V supply. The core occupies an area of 0.0275 mm² (110μm × 250μm = 0.0275 mm²). The second generation of the architecture was fabricated in IBM 45 nm SOI process. The oversampling frequency of this system is 705 MHz and oversampling ratio of 64. The expected performance is 7-bit effective resolution for a 5.5 MHz bandwidth while consuming 8mW of power and occupying a core area of less than 0.02 mm² (160μm × 120μm = 0.0192 mm²). / text