Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

A Finite Element Simulation Of Temperature And Material Flow In Fricton Stir Welding, Mark J. Lasley

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to use the Transvalor S.A. product, Forge3, to develop a finite element simulation of the friction stir welding process that improves the predictability of temperature evolution and material flow within the plunge portion of the process. Previous modeling created more heating within the billet than experimental results, probably due to the simplification of the simulation with adiabatic boundary conditions. More realistic tooling temperatures were included in this model as these affect heat evolution which is a determining factor in microcrystalline growth. These results were validated by experimental efforts using a billet and tooling instrumented …

Modeling And Control Of Surface Micromachined Thermal Actuators, Robert K. Messenger

Theses and Dissertations

A model that accurately describes the transient and steady-state response of thermal microactuators is desirable to provide guidance for design and operation. However, modeling the full response of thermal actuators is challenging due to the temperature-dependent material properties and nonlinear deformations that must be included to obtain accurate results. To meet these challenges a three-dimensional multi-physics nonlinear finite-element model was developed using commercial code. The Thermomechanical Inplane Microactuator (TIM) was chosen as a candidate application to validate the model. TIMs were fabricated using the SUMMiT V™ process and their response was measured using a high-speed camera. The TIMs were modeled …

A Hybrid Finite Element-Finite Difference Method For Thermal Analysis In A Double-Layered Thin Film, Teng Zhu

Doctoral Dissertations

Thin film technology is of vital importance in microtechnology applications. For instance, thin films of metals, of dielectrics such as SiO2, or Si semiconductors are important components of microelectronic devices. The reduction of the device size to the microscale has the advantage of enhancing the switching speed of the device. The reduction, on the other hand, increases the rate of heat generation that leads to a high thermal load on the microdevice. Heat transfer at the microscale with an ultrafast pulsed-laser is also a very important process for thin films. Hence, studying the thermal behavior of thin films or of …

The Modeling Of Structural-Acoustic Interaction Using Coupled Fe/Be Method And Control Of Interior Acoustic Pressure Using Piezoelectric Actuators, Yucheng Shi

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A coupled finite element (FE) and boundary element (BE) approach is presented to model full coupled structural/acoustic/piezoelectric systems. The dual reciprocity boundary element method is used so that the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the coupled system can be obtained, and to extend this approach to time dependent problems. The boundary element method is applied to interior acoustic domains, and the results are very accurate when compared with limited exact solutions. Structural--acoustic problems are then analyzed with the coupled finite element/boundary element method, where the finite element method models the structural domain and the boundary element method models the …

Finite Element Nonlinear Random Response Of Composite Panels Of Arbitrary Shape To Acoustic And Thermal Loads Applied Simultaneously, Roger R. Chen

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The nonlinear random response of composite plates to the simultaneously applied, combined acoustic/thermal loads are investigated in this dissertation. A finite element formulation for the nonlinear random response is developed. The three-node Mindlin plate element with improved transverse shear is extended and employed. The extension includes the development of the thermal geometric matrix, the mass matrix, the first- order and second-order nonlinear stiffness matrices, and the thermal and mechanical load vectors. An innovative solution procedure has been created which is believed to be the first attempt to analyze nonlinear random response of complex composite panels subjected to simultaneous acoustic and …

Finite Element Frequency Domain Solution Of Nonlinear Panel Flutter With Temperature Effects And Fatigue Life Analysis, David Yongxiang Xue

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A frequency domain solution method for nonlinear panel flutter with thermal effects using a consistent finite element formulation has been developed. The von Karman nonlinear strain-displacement relation is used to account for large deflections, the quasi-steady first-order piston theory is employed for aerodynamic loading and the quasi-steady thermal stress theory is applied for the thermal stresses with a given change of the temperature distribution, ΔΤ (x, y, z). The equation of motion under a combined thermal-aerodynamic loading can be mathematically separated into two equations and then solved in sequence: (1) thermal-aerodynamic postbuckling and (2) limit-cycle oscillation. The Newton-Raphson iteration technique …

Large-Amplitude Finite Element Flutter Analysis Of Composite Panels In Hypersonic Flow, Carl E. Gray Jr.

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A finite-element approach is presented for determining the nonlinear flutter characteristics of two-dimensional isotropic and three-dimensional composite laminated thin panels using the third-order-piston, transverse loading, aerodynamic theory. The unsteady, hypersonic, aerodynamic theory and the von Karman large deflection plate theory are used to formulate the aeroelastic problem. Nonlinear flutter analyses are performed to assess the influence of the higher-order aerodynamic theory on the structure's limit-cycle amplitude and the dynamic pressure of the flow velocity. A solution procedure is presented to solve the nonlinear panel flutter and large-amplitude free vibration finite element equations. This procedure is a linearized updated mode with …

A Finite Element Formulation For The Large Deflection Random Response Of Thermally Buckled Structures, James Eugene Locke

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The effects of temperature and acoustic loading are included in a theoretical finite element large deflection formulation for thin, isotropic plate and beam type structures. Thermal loads are applied as steady-state temperature distributions, and acoustic loads are taken to be stationary and Gaussian with zero mean and uniform magnitude and phase over the surface of the structure. Material properties are considered to be independent of temperature. Also, inplane and rotary inertia terms are assumed to be neglegible, and all inplane edge conditions are taken to be immovable. For the random vibration analysis, cross correlation terms are included.

The nature of …

Finite Element Model Of A Timoshenko Beam With Structural Damping, Louis Ablen Roussos

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A numerical integration technique, a modified version of the Newmark method, is applied to transient motion problems of systems with mass, stiffness, and small nonlinear damping. The nonlinearity is cast as a pseudo-force to avoid repeated recalculation and decomposition of the effective stiffness matrix; thus, the solution technique is dubbed the "pseudo-force Newmark method." Comparisons with exact and perturbation solutions in single-degree-of-freedom problems and with a Gear-method numerical solution in a cantilevered Timoshenko beam finite element problem show the solution technique to be efficient, accurate, and, thus, feasible provided the nonlinear damping is small. As a preliminary step into the …