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Clemson University

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Articles 301 - 330 of 371

Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Power Generation And Control Of Mechatronics Systems - Theory And Test, Kelly Austin May 2012

Power Generation And Control Of Mechatronics Systems - Theory And Test, Kelly Austin

All Theses

An integrated, multi-disciplined approach to engineering design is a broad definition of mechatronics. Though some mechatronics proponents differ in their definitions of the topic, an interdisciplinary approach to engineering is taken by many industries which should be reflected on campus in the approach to engineering education. In this thesis, two mechatronics systems are investigated. A laboratory experiment is developed for use in the mechanical engineering program at Clemson University, and a thermoelectric power generation from diesel engine exhaust heat is investigated as an automotive industry application.
An electromagnet excited masspendulum system with attached spring and damper elements is introduced as …

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Finite Element Modeling And Design Of Honeycomb Sandwich Panels For Acoustic Performance, David Griese May 2012

Finite Element Modeling And Design Of Honeycomb Sandwich Panels For Acoustic Performance, David Griese

All Theses

Honeycomb cellular metamaterial structures offer many distinct advantages over homogenous materials because their effective material properties depend on both their constituent material properties and their geometric cell configuration. From this, a wide range of targeted effective material properties can be achieved thus supporting forward design by tailoring the honeycomb cellular materials and properties for specific applications. One area that has not been fully explored is the set of acoustic properties of honeycomb materials and how these can offer increased design flexibility when targeting acoustic performance. Understanding these relations, the designer can effectively tune designs to perform better in specific acoustic …

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Set Up Time Reduction And Quality Improvement On The Shop Floor Using Different Lean And Quality Tools, Seetha Ram Bavuluri May 2012

Set Up Time Reduction And Quality Improvement On The Shop Floor Using Different Lean And Quality Tools, Seetha Ram Bavuluri

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The purpose of this thesis document is to describe a method developed for reducing setup time in machining processes and simultaneously improve the quality of production after setup. Bosch Rexroth at Fountain Inn is a semi-automated plant and is still in its initial stages of standardizing the setup process. Setup time at different machining centers includes: machining time, inspection time, loading and unloading times and deburring. The focus of the described method is in reducing setup times related to inspection time and loading and unloading times. To achieve success in these problems the following new tools were developed: first piece …

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Applying Chaotic Advection To Rheology: An In Situ Structuring Rheometer, Ramaswami Subrahmanian May 2012

Applying Chaotic Advection To Rheology: An In Situ Structuring Rheometer, Ramaswami Subrahmanian

All Dissertations

A prototype In Situ Structuring Rheometer (ISSR) was designed and implemented to study changes in shear viscosity of polymer blends and composites while processing them in such a way as to control the evolution of microstructure. The ISSR is based on a regime of fluid mechanics known as chaotic advection, in which simple time-periodic flow fields can cause fluid particles to move chaotically. Chaotic advection is also the basis of Smart Blending, a technology employed to process polymer blends having a variety of morphologies at a fixed composition, and polymer composites in which the additives have been arranged into layered …

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Computational Representation And Reasoning Support For Requirements Change Management In Complex System Design, Beshoy Morkos May 2012

Computational Representation And Reasoning Support For Requirements Change Management In Complex System Design, Beshoy Morkos

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Requirements play a critical role within any design process and the activity of identifying and maintaining a system's requirements is essential to. However, design is a complex and iterative process, where requirements are continuously evolving and are volatile. This change, if not managed, may result in undesired uncertainty within the design process leading to monetary losses and time delays, as the changing of requirements has been recognized as a major cause of project failure. In order to mitigate issues that arise due to requirement change propagation, this research presents a computational reasoning tool to help designers and engineers predict change …

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Clustering And Classification Of Multivariate Stochastic Time Series In The Time And Frequency Domains, Ryan Schkoda May 2012

Clustering And Classification Of Multivariate Stochastic Time Series In The Time And Frequency Domains, Ryan Schkoda

All Dissertations

The dissertation primarily investigates the characterization and discrimination of stochastic time series with an application to pattern recognition and fault detection. These techniques supplement traditional methodologies that make overly restrictive assumptions about the nature of a signal by accommodating stochastic behavior. The assumption that the signal under investigation is either deterministic or a deterministic signal polluted with white noise excludes an entire class of signals -- stochastic time series. The research is concerned with this class of signals almost exclusively. The investigation considers signals in both the time and the frequency domains and makes use of both model-based and model-free …

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Manufacturing Process Modeling And Application To Intelligent Control, M. Laine Mears, Parakshit Mehta, Mathew Kuttolamadom, Carlos Montes, Joshua Jones, Wesley Salandro, Drew Werner Jan 2012

Manufacturing Process Modeling And Application To Intelligent Control, M. Laine Mears, Parakshit Mehta, Mathew Kuttolamadom, Carlos Montes, Joshua Jones, Wesley Salandro, Drew Werner

Publications

This paper reviews the major findings and intellectual contributions made over the past five years through research in the laboratory of Dr. Laine Mears at Clemson University. The focus of the laboratory’s work is in modeling of traditional and novel manufacturing processes, and application of such models to process control through model-based control strategies. Introducing intelligence to the manufacturing process through physical descriptions of the phenomena being controlled allows for more precise control as compared with reactive systems or those with simple feed-forward control schemes. For traditional processes, new approaches to process characterization allow for more precise control. For novel …

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Extending Origami Technique To Fold Forming Of Sheet Metal Products, Ala Qattawi Jan 2012

Extending Origami Technique To Fold Forming Of Sheet Metal Products, Ala Qattawi

All Dissertations

This dissertation presents a scientific based approach for the analysis of folded sheet metal products. Such analysis initializes the examination in terms of topological exploration using set of graph modeling and traversal algorithms. The geometrical validity and optimization are followed by utilizing boundary representation and overlapping detection during a geometrical analysis stage, in this phase the optimization metrics are established to evaluate the unfolded sheet metal design in terms of its manufacturability and cost parameters, such as nesting efficiency, total welding cost, bend lines orientation, and maximum part extent, which aides in handling purposes. The proposed approach evaluates the design …

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An Investigation Of The Application Of Phase Change Materials In Practical Thermal Management Systems, David Ewing Dec 2011

An Investigation Of The Application Of Phase Change Materials In Practical Thermal Management Systems, David Ewing

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This work investigates the application of alternative cooling techniques to thermal management. In the first section, this work presents models and extensive simulation studies on an alternative cooling strategy based upon phase change materials (PCMs) for the thermal management system of a LED headlight assembly. These studies have shown that properly chosen PCMs, when suspended in metal foam matrices, increased the thermal conductivity of the PCM. The increased thermal conductivity can enhance the cooling characteristics of a practical thermal management system for a LED headlight system. To further enhance the advantages of using PCMs, nanoparticle enhanced fluids (nanofluids) are desirable …

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A Formal Representation Of Mechanical Functions To Support Physics-Based Computational Reasoning In Early Mechanical Design, Chiradeep Sen Dec 2011

A Formal Representation Of Mechanical Functions To Support Physics-Based Computational Reasoning In Early Mechanical Design, Chiradeep Sen

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The lack of computational support to the conceptual phase of mechanical engineering design is well recognized. Function-based modeling and thinking is widely recommended in design texts as useful means for describing design concepts and using them in tasks such as solution search, problem decomposition, and design archival. Graph-based function structure models that describe a product as a network of transformative actions of material, energy, and information, are discussed as a potential tool for this purpose, but in the current state of the art, function structures are not formalized as a computational representation. Consequently, no computer tool exists with which a …

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Development Of A Design Method To Reduce Change Propagation Effects, Prabhu Shankar Dec 2011

Development Of A Design Method To Reduce Change Propagation Effects, Prabhu Shankar

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ABSTRACT
This dissertation presents a design method to reduce engineering changes caused due to change propagation effect. The method helps designers to systematically plan a verification, validation, and test (VV&T) plan. The rationale behind such a method is founded on a well-accepted principle that a robust validation plan can reduce design changes. However, such method has not yet been developed in mechanical engineering domain, so a method from software engineering has been adopted and extended to address the limitations in the existing design evaluation tools.
Tools extensively used in industry, such as FMEA, and in academia have been reviewed to …

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Evaluating The Use Of Functional Representations For Ideation In Conceptual Design, Benjamin Caldwell Dec 2011

Evaluating The Use Of Functional Representations For Ideation In Conceptual Design, Benjamin Caldwell

All Dissertations

Functional representations are often used in the conceptual stages of design because they encourage the designer to focus on the intended use and purpose of a system rather than the physical solution. Function models have been proposed by many researchers as a tool to expand the solution search space and guide concept generation, and many design tools have been created to support function-based design. These tools require designers to create function models of new or existing artifacts, but there is limited published research describing what types of functions should be included in a model or the appropriate level of abstraction …

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In Vitro Study Of Fluid Diodes In The Pulmonary Valve Position, John Porcher Dec 2011

In Vitro Study Of Fluid Diodes In The Pulmonary Valve Position, John Porcher

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Every year many people suffer from severe chronic pulmonary insufficiency. Problems that can be incurred include the valve becoming stenotic, where it inhibits antegrade flow, and incompetent, allowing retrograde flow. When either of these conditions occurs with great severity, it is often necessary for the native valve to be replaced. There are no acceptable, permanent solutions currently available for a pulmonary valve replacement. Previous research, based on regurgitant fraction and transvalvular gradient, has indicated that a fluid diode could possibly serve as a permanent valve replacement solution. This study investigated the effectiveness of a diode to reduce the workload of …

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An Early Warning Monitoring System For Cnc Spindle Bearing Failure, Andrew Werner Dec 2011

An Early Warning Monitoring System For Cnc Spindle Bearing Failure, Andrew Werner

All Theses

Equipment employed in a manufacturing environment must be able to operate as long as possible having as little downtime as possible. Therefore, maintenance is crucial in order to allow for the equipment to perform its designated tasks without failure, especially on critical systems. In a CNC machine, if the spindle fails, the machine is useless. Having the ability to detect spindle degradation to the point where a replacement spindle installation can be planned, via condition monitoring, is invaluable to a manufacturer who utilizes these types of machines.
An early warning monitoring system for CNC spindle bearing failure has been developed …

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Fabrication And Characterization Of Multi-Functional Non-Spherical Particles Via Mechanical Deformation, Venkata Shilpa Varahagiri Dec 2011

Fabrication And Characterization Of Multi-Functional Non-Spherical Particles Via Mechanical Deformation, Venkata Shilpa Varahagiri

All Theses

Nanoparticles bridge the gap between bulk materials and molecules. They possess exciting but contrasting mechanical, chemical, magnetic and optical properties when compared to their bulk counterparts due to their shape and size. When the size of noble metal nanoparticles is reduced to less than the wavelength of light, the particles intensely absorb and scatter light at wavelengths that depend on the particle size, shape, and local dielectric environment due to Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) modes. Recently, plasmonic particles have been used in a wide variety of sensor and optical device applications including immunoassays and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrates. …

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Product And Process Based Assembly Time Estimation In Engineering Design, Michael Miller Dec 2011

Product And Process Based Assembly Time Estimation In Engineering Design, Michael Miller

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This thesis presents the research and development of two assembly time estimation techniques for the automotive industry. Both of these techniques are capable of being implemented early in the product life-cycle of a vehicle and require information available in this phase. Currently, assembly time estimation is performed after production has begun and is a tedious manual process requiring hours of motion-time method studies for each assembly activity. The techniques proposed in this thesis can both be performed prior to the start of production and are capable of being performed automatically after the initial mapping.
The first assembly time estimation technique …

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Laminar Flame Speed Estimation From Experimental Data Using A Quasi-Dimensional Turbulent Flame Entrainment Combustion Simulation For Spark Ignition Engines, Akash Desai Dec 2011

Laminar Flame Speed Estimation From Experimental Data Using A Quasi-Dimensional Turbulent Flame Entrainment Combustion Simulation For Spark Ignition Engines, Akash Desai

All Theses

The goal of this research is to develop a thermodynamic simulation of spark-ignition engine combustion that uses a predictive burn-rate model. Previously done thermodynamic engine simulations in MATLAB are based on a specified burn rate model. Also, the effect of turbulence parameters on the rate of mass burn up is not considered. A predictive burn rate model is necessary to study the effect of different fuels on spark ignition engine combustion. The effect of laminar flame speed and turbulent intensity on combustion is difficult to assess experimental due to the difficulty in the measurement of these two variables. Thus, the …

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Optimization-Based Power Management Of Hybrid Power Systems With Applications In Advanced Hybrid Electric Vehicles And Wind Farms With Battery Storage, Hoseinali Borhan Dec 2011

Optimization-Based Power Management Of Hybrid Power Systems With Applications In Advanced Hybrid Electric Vehicles And Wind Farms With Battery Storage, Hoseinali Borhan

All Dissertations

Modern hybrid electric vehicles and many stationary renewable power generation systems combine multiple power generating and energy storage devices to achieve an overall system-level efficiency and flexibility which is higher than their individual components. The power or energy management control, ``brain' of these ``hybrid' systems, determines adaptively and based on the power demand the power split between multiple subsystems and plays a critical role in overall system-level efficiency. This dissertation proposes that a receding horizon optimal control (aka Model Predictive Control) approach can be a natural and systematic framework for formulating this type of power management controls. More importantly the …

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Effect Of Relative Humidity And Temperature Control On In-Cabin Thermal Comfort State, Ali Alahmer Dec 2011

Effect Of Relative Humidity And Temperature Control On In-Cabin Thermal Comfort State, Ali Alahmer

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This dissertation discusses the effect of manipulating the relative humidity RH levels inside vehicular cabins on the thermal comfort and human occupants' thermal sensation. Three different techniques are used to investigate this effect. Firstly, thermodynamic and psychometric analyses are used to incorporate the effect of changing RH along with the dry bulb temperature on the human comfort window. Specifically, the study computes the effect of changing the relative humidity on the amount of heat rejected from the passenger compartment and the effect on occupants comfort zone. A practical system implementation is also discussed in terms of an evaporative cooler design. …

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Fabrication Of Grooved Hollow Fiber Membrane For Nerve Regeneration: Process Modeling And Performance Evaluation, Jun Yin Dec 2011

Fabrication Of Grooved Hollow Fiber Membrane For Nerve Regeneration: Process Modeling And Performance Evaluation, Jun Yin

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Nerve injury is a general but intractable disease in traumatic injuries, leading to a significant reduction of functions in the nervous system. Extensive efforts are made on nerve injury rehabilitation. Since the appropriate connections between neurons and their targets are necessary, guiding axonal outgrowth is an essential step for neuron outgrowth in nervous system development, functioning, and regeneration. Besides the direct surgical nerve connection, an artificial means of guiding nerve regeneration called nerve conduits is widely applied in nerve injury rehabilitation. The main function of nerve conduits is to bridge the nerve gap, to help regenerating axons across damaged regions …

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Modeling, Finite Element Analysis, And Optimization Of Non-Pneumatic Tire (Npt) For The Minimization Of Rolling Resistance, Mallikarjun Veeramurthy Aug 2011

Modeling, Finite Element Analysis, And Optimization Of Non-Pneumatic Tire (Npt) For The Minimization Of Rolling Resistance, Mallikarjun Veeramurthy

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Recently, the development of non-pneumatic tires (NPT) such as the Michelin Tweel is receiving increased attention due to potential advantages over pneumatic tires such as low mass, no run flat, good contact pressure distribution, and low rolling resistance (RR). This study focuses on the design of a NPT based on properties of vertical stiffness, contact pressure, and rolling energy loss. Using a finite element (FE) model, a parametric study is conducted to study the effect on vertical stiffness, contact pressure, and rolling resistance (RR) response considering three design variables: (1) thickness of the spokes, (2) the shear band thickness, and …

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Modeling And Finite Element Alaysis Of Fluid Structure Interaction In A Wind Energy Harvester, Bargav Cheruku Aug 2011

Modeling And Finite Element Alaysis Of Fluid Structure Interaction In A Wind Energy Harvester, Bargav Cheruku

All Theses

An energy harvesting system inspired by musicplaying harmonicas was developed for microwind power generation. The energy harvester uses flow-induced self-sustained oscillations of a piezoelectric beam embedded within a chamber to generate electric power. While the power generation capability of the energy harvester has been demonstrated previously, there is a lack of understanding behind the basic physics of the driving mechanism responsible for the self-sustained oscillations. In addition, the performance of the nonlinear multi-physics system with strong fluid and structure coupling depends on many physical and design parameters. A systematic study on the effects of these parameters is necessary for the …

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Constrained Layer Damping Of Honeycomb Composite Structures, Rohit Telukunta Aug 2011

Constrained Layer Damping Of Honeycomb Composite Structures, Rohit Telukunta

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Composite sandwich structures have replaced homogenous dense solids in many applications due to their advantages of high stiffness to weight ratio, and higher damping characteristics. Higher damping in engineering applications is desirable to reduce structural vibrations. The application of a viscoelastic layer between two thin face sheets gives rise to the concept of constrained layer damping which is an effective technique to achieve increased damping in engineering applications.
Honeycomb cellular structures are often used for the core in sandwich construction because of their low density and high stiffness properties. Regular honeycombs are defined by conventional hexagonal geometry, which gives rise …

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A Priori Analysis Of Subgrid-Scale Heat Flux Vectors In High Pressure H2/O2 Mixing And Reacting Shear Layers, Ayse Korucu Aug 2011

A Priori Analysis Of Subgrid-Scale Heat Flux Vectors In High Pressure H2/O2 Mixing And Reacting Shear Layers, Ayse Korucu

All Theses

A Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) database of supercritical, transitional H2/O2 mixing and reacting shear layers is analyzed in an a priori manner to obtain subgrid statistics relevant to Large Eddy Simulation (LES) engineering modeling. The DNS employs a real gas state equation, detailed chemistry, accurate property models, multicomponent, differential, and cross diffusion. The parallel simulations were conducted using eighth order central finite differencing in conjunction with a fourth order accurate Runge-Kutta time integration, on resolutions up to 135 million grid points, and used up to 2,016 processing cores. All simulations are for an ambient pressure of 100 atm and are …

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Molecular Dynamics Study Of Particle Impact Induced Bond Breaking Of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes And Quality Factors Of Nanocomposite Structures, Puroorava Annapaneni Aug 2011

Molecular Dynamics Study Of Particle Impact Induced Bond Breaking Of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes And Quality Factors Of Nanocomposite Structures, Puroorava Annapaneni

All Theses

Part A
Injection of particles to the side wall of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) has been employed for doping and storage of particles on SWCNTs. In addition, particle bombardment can be used to cut and modify graphene structures. While the collision of hydrogen atoms with SWCNTs has been extensively studied, collision dynamic behavior of heavy particles with SWCNTs has not been well understood. To facilitate a better understanding of the particle-SWCNT collision process, in this work, we study the impact of five noble gas atoms (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe) with SWCNTs and investigate particle impact induced CNT bond breaking …

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Model-Based System Fault Diagnosis Utilizing Adaptive Threshold With Application To Automotive Electrical Systems, Ali Hashemi Aug 2011

Model-Based System Fault Diagnosis Utilizing Adaptive Threshold With Application To Automotive Electrical Systems, Ali Hashemi

All Theses

Recent advancement in the field of automotive industry is largely due to the addition of electrical and electronic equipment; some of the safety features in the vehicle and advanced driver assistance systems are examples of such equipment. Furthermore, safe operation of the vehicle is highly dependent on the electrical power generation and storage system (EPGS). Therefore, to ensure optimal operation of this system, a reliable diagnosis of the system is essential. However, as the complexity of the electrical systems has increased, the identification of a malfunction has become an increasingly difficult task to handle.
In the current work, a model-based …

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Computational Analysis Of The Dynamic Forces In Drive Train Components Of An Offshore Wind Turbines, Artem Korobenko Aug 2011

Computational Analysis Of The Dynamic Forces In Drive Train Components Of An Offshore Wind Turbines, Artem Korobenko

All Theses

Wind has good potential for contributing to the national energy supply. Offshore sites and deep sea locations can be especially attractive as the wind turbine market grows. In such places larger wind resources are available with reduced turbulence intensity and wind shear. In addition, visual impact along with noise aspects are reduced. Offshore siting requires greater attention to structural stability and endurance. Forces on drive train components, such as the bearing system, are not well understood.
This work presents the development a model that calculates dynamical forces in drive train components of off-shore wind turbines. The model of a 5MW …

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Understanding The Role Of Functions And Interactions In The Product Design, Raveesh Ramachandran Aug 2011

Understanding The Role Of Functions And Interactions In The Product Design, Raveesh Ramachandran

All Theses

Engineering designers often generate design concepts based on a functional understanding of the problem. Many engineering textbooks encourage designers to abstract the essential problem to a higher-level functional representation of the product and subsequently develop solutions to the functional needs. However, a functional perspective of design does not provide a complete view of what the product must do and how the product must interact with users and other parts. To address this, an alternative modeling approach has been developed to complement the traditional functional modeling approaches. Two such approaches include (1) activity modeling to capture the user actions from production …

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Cfd Analysis Of The Under Hood Of A Car For Packaging Considerations, Sreekanth Reddy Gondipalle Aug 2011

Cfd Analysis Of The Under Hood Of A Car For Packaging Considerations, Sreekanth Reddy Gondipalle

All Theses

In recent years, there has been an increase in demand towards the improvement of car design for achieving better performance and increasing passenger comfort. Improving the design of individual components to meet the customer needs for improved vehicle performance alone is not enough. Interactions of these components with the surrounding components and their placement should also be investigated. Placement of these components in the under hood space forms a 3-Dimensional packaging problem. In the past, a multi objective optimization process was setup to determine the optimal placement of these components in the car under hood space. Three main objectives were …

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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

All Theses

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 …

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