Engineering Commons^™

Shaken Baby Syndrome: Retinal Hemorrhaging. A Biomechanical Approach To Understanding The Mechanism Of Causation, Steven Alex Hans

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is a form of abuse where typically an infant, age six months or less, is held and shaken. There may or may not be direct impact associated with this action. Further, there is very little agreement on the actual mechanism of SBS. Clinical studies are limited in showing the exact mechanism of injury and only offer postulations and qualitative descriptions. SBS has received much attention in the media, has resulted in a great deal of litigation and can be the source of unfounded accusations. Therefore, it is necessary to try to quantify the forces that may …

Assessment Of Preliminary Design Approaches For Metallic Stiffened Cylindrical Shell Instability Problems, Vicki Owen Britt

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A preliminary design tool for metallic stiffened fuselage cylindrical panels subjected to longitudinal compression has been developed and validated by comparison to test results. Several methodologies for stiffened panel buckling and failure predictions were examined and evaluated. An appropriate level of analysis fidelity was determined for different failure modes and design details. Results from panel tests conducted to verify analytical methods used to design the Gulfstream V aircraft were presented. The panels were representative of four general skin/stringer configurations on the aircraft. Finite Element analyses and standard analytical methods were used to predict panel failure loads. The accuracy of the …

Micro Synthetic Jets As Effective Actuator, Mehti Koklu

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Synthetic jets have previously been studied as actuators for external macroflow control and recently been proposed for internal microflow applications. Despite the wide variety of the potential applications of synthetic jet actuators, the majority of the studies have been done at macro scales. Furthermore, there has not been any design methodology that addresses the effectiveness of the micro synthetic jet actuators. Bearing these needs in mind, a micro synthetic jet configuration is considered in a microscale environment where Kn number is less than 0.1 and more than 0.001. Flowfields are simulated by solving the compressible Navier-Stokes equations. The wall boundary …

Sonic Boom Focusing Prediction And Delta Wing Shape Optimization For Boom Mitigation Studies, Nitin Khasdeo

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Supersonic travel over land would be a reality if new aircraft are designed such that they produce quieter ground sonic booms, no louder than 0.3 psf according to the FAA requirement. An attempt is made to address the challenging goal of predicting the sonic boom focusing effects and mitigate the sonic boom ground over pressure for delta wing geometry.

Sonic boom focusing is fundamentally a nonlinear phenomenon and can be predicted by numerically solving the nonlinear Tricomi equation. The conservative time domain scheme is developed to carry out the sonic boom focusing or super boom studies. The computational scheme is …

Development Of A Coupled Fluid/Structure Aeroelastic Solver With Applications To Vortex Breakdown-Induced Twin Tail Buffeting, Steven J. Massey

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Simulation of tail buffet is studied for several delta wing-vertical tail configurations. Flow conditions are chosen such that the wing primary-vortex cores experience vortex breakdown and the resulting turbulent wake flow impinges on the vertical tail. The dimensions and material properties of the vertical tails are chosen such that the deflections are large enough to insure interaction with the flow, and the natural frequencies are high enough to facilitate a practical computational solution. This multi-disciplinary problem is solved sequentially for the fluid flow, the elastic deformations and the grid displacements. The flow is simulated by time accurately solving the laminar, …

Propulsion Enhancement Contributions To The Performance Of Space Launch Vehicles, Russell H. Edwards

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A research effort has been undertaken to investigate critical aspects of launch vehicle performance as affected by variations in specific launch vehicle parameters. The major portion of the study involves liquid propellant systems. However, since solid propellant systems also play a role in today's launch systems, a representative solid-propellant launch vehicle has also been analyzed. The research undertaken determined that the payload capability of a space launch vehicle, or, conversely, the vehicle total liftoff mass, is highly sensitive to the manner in which the space launch vehicle is staged. The research has led to the development and programming of a …