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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Development Of A Reverse Engineered, Parameterized, And Structurally Validated Computational Model To Identify Design Parameters That Influence American Football Faceguard Performance, William Ferriell Aug 2022

Development Of A Reverse Engineered, Parameterized, And Structurally Validated Computational Model To Identify Design Parameters That Influence American Football Faceguard Performance, William Ferriell

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Traumatic brain injury (TBI) continues to have the greatest incidence among athletes participating in American football. The headgear design research community has focused on developing accurate computational and experimental analysis techniques to better assess the ability of headgear technology to attenuate impacts and protect athletes from TBI. Despite efforts to innovate the headgear system, minimal progress has been made to innovate the faceguard. Although the faceguard is not the primary component of the headgear system that contributes to impact attenuation, faceguard performance metrics, such as weight, structural stiffness, and visual field occlusions, have been linked to athlete safety. To improve …


Fatigue-Induced Failure In Horizontal-Axis Wind-Turbine (Hawt) Blades And Hawt Drivetrain Gears, Varun Chenna Aug 2014

Fatigue-Induced Failure In Horizontal-Axis Wind-Turbine (Hawt) Blades And Hawt Drivetrain Gears, Varun Chenna

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Wind energy is one of the most promising and the fastest growing installed alternative-energy production technologies. In fact, it is anticipated that by 2030, at least 20% of the U.S. energy needs will be met by various onshore and offshore wind-farms [a collection of wind-turbines (converters of wind energy into electrical energy) at the same location]. A majority of wind turbines nowadays fall into the class of the so-called Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs). Turbine blades and the gearbox are perhaps the most critical components/subsystems in the present designs of HAWTs. The combination of high failure rates (particularly those associated …


Computational-Analysis Assisted Introduction Of Friction Stir Welding Into Development Of Light-Weight High-Survivability Military Vehicles, Guruprasad Arakere Aug 2011

Computational-Analysis Assisted Introduction Of Friction Stir Welding Into Development Of Light-Weight High-Survivability Military Vehicles, Guruprasad Arakere

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High strength aluminum alloys with superior blast/ballistic resistance against armor piercing (AP) threats and with high vehicle light-weighing potential are being increasingly used as military-vehicle armor. Due to the complex structure of these vehicles, they are commonly constructed through joining (mainly welding) of the individual components. Unfortunately, these alloys are not very amenable to conventional fusion based welding technologies (e.g. Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW)) and in-order to obtain high-quality welds, solid-state joining technologies such as Friction Stir Welding (FSW) have to be employed. However, since FSW is a relatively new and fairly complex joining technology, its introduction into advanced …


Friction Stir Welding (Fsw) Process Modeling And Fsw Joint Design For Blast Survivable Structures, Anand Hariharan Aug 2011

Friction Stir Welding (Fsw) Process Modeling And Fsw Joint Design For Blast Survivable Structures, Anand Hariharan

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In order to satisfy the need for better ballistic performance against lethal threats, new grades of Titanium (e.g. Ti-6Al-4V) and Aluminum (e.g. AA5083) alloys are being employed in the design of blast survivable structures. These better performing alloys are not readily amenable to conventional welding process or result in inferior welds when joined using conventional welding process. On the other hand, Friction Stir Welding (FSW), a relatively new welding process, has been found to be successful in producing good quality welds in these alloys. FSW also offers better weld performance in comparison with the conventional welding process. But the methodology …