ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: Mechanical Engineering
- Creators: Rajadas, John
For metallic material (Al 2024-T351), the methodology initiates at the microscale where extensive material characterization is conducted to capture the microstructural variability. A statistical volume element (SVE) model is constructed to represent the material properties. Geometric and crystallographic features including grain orientation, misorientation, size, shape, principal axis direction and aspect ratio are captured. This SVE model provides a computationally efficient alternative to traditional techniques using representative volume element (RVE) models while maintaining statistical accuracy. A physics based multiscale damage criterion is developed to simulate the fatigue crack initiation. The crack growth rate and probable directions are estimated simultaneously.
Mechanically sensitive materials that exhibit specific chemical reactions upon external loading are currently being investigated for self-sensing applications. The "smart" polymer modeled in this research consists of epoxy resin, hardener, and a stress-sensitive material called mechanophore The mechanophore activation is based on covalent bond-breaking induced by external stimuli; this feature can be used for material-level damage detections. In this work Tris-(Cinnamoyl oxymethyl)-Ethane (TCE) is used as the cyclobutane-based mechanophore (stress-sensitive) material in the polymer matrix. The TCE embedded polymers have shown promising results in early damage detection through mechanically induced fluorescence. A spring-bead based network model, which bridges nanoscale information to higher length scales, has been developed to model this material system. The material is partitioned into discrete mass beads which are linked using linear springs at the microscale. A series of MD simulations were performed to define the spring stiffness in the statistical network model. By integrating multiple spring-bead models a network model has been developed to represent the material properties at the mesoscale. The model captures the statistical distribution of crosslinking degree of the polymer to represent the heterogeneous material properties at the microscale. The developed multiscale methodology is computationally efficient and provides a possible means to bridge multiple length scales (from 10 nm in MD simulation to 10 mm in FE model) without significant loss of accuracy. Parametric studies have been conducted to investigate the influence of the crosslinking degree on the material behavior. The developed methodology has been used to evaluate damage evolution in the self-sensing polymer.
The first part of this dissertation, the characteristics of inverse scattering problems, such as ill-posedness and nonlinearity, reviews ultrasonic guided wave-based structural health monitoring problems. The distinctive features and the selection of the domain analysis are investigated by analytically searching the conditions of the uniqueness solutions for ill-posedness and are validated experimentally.
Based on the distinctive features, a novel wave packet tracing (WPT) method for damage localization and size quantification is presented. This method involves creating time-space representations of the guided Lamb waves (GLWs), collected at a series of locations, with a spatially dense distribution along paths at pre-selected angles with respect to the direction, normal to the direction of wave propagation. The fringe patterns due to wave dispersion, which depends on the phase velocity, are selected as the primary features that carry information, regarding the wave propagation and scattering.
The following part of this dissertation presents a novel damage-localization framework, using a fully automated process. In order to construct the statistical model for autonomous damage localization deep-learning techniques, such as restricted Boltzmann machine and deep belief network, are trained and utilized to interpret nonlinear far-field wave patterns.
Next, a novel bridge scour estimation approach that comprises advantages of both empirical and data-driven models is developed. Two field datasets from the literature are used, and a Support Vector Machine (SVM), a machine-learning algorithm, is used to fuse the field data samples and classify the data with physical phenomena. The Fast Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) is evaluated on the model performance objective functions to search for Pareto optimal fronts.
Current practice in fatigue life prediction is based on either physics based modeling or data-driven methods, and is limited to predicting RUL for simple geometries under uniaxial loading conditions. In this research, crack initiation and propagation behavior under uniaxial and complex biaxial fatigue loading is addressed. The crack propagation behavior is studied by performing extensive material characterization and fatigue testing under in-plane biaxial loading, both in-phase and out-of-phase, with different biaxiality ratios. A hybrid prognosis model, which combines machine learning with physics based modeling, is developed to account for the uncertainties in crack propagation and fatigue life prediction due to variabilities in material microstructural characteristics, crack localization information and environmental changes. The methodology iteratively combines localization information with hybrid prognosis models using sequential Bayesian techniques. The results show significant improvements in the localization and prediction accuracy under varying temperature.
For civil infrastructure, especially bridges, pier scour is a major failure mechanism. Currently available techniques are developed from a design perspective and provide highly conservative scour estimates. In this research, a fully probabilistic scour prediction methodology is developed using machine learning to accurately predict scour in real-time under varying flow conditions.