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Description
The focus of this research is to investigate methods for material substitution for the purpose of re-engineering legacy systems that involves incomplete information about form, fit and function of replacement parts. The primary motive is to extract as much useful information about a failed legacy part as possible and use fuzzy logic rules for identifying the unknown parameter values. Machine elements can fail by any number of failure modes but the most probable failure modes based on the service condition are considered critical failure modes. Three main parameters are of key interest in identifying the critical failure mode of the part. Critical failure modes are then directly mapped to material properties. Target material property values are calculated from material property values obtained from the originally used material and from the design goals. The material database is searched for new candidate materials that satisfy the goals and constraints in manufacturing and raw stock availability. Uncertainty in the extracted data is modeled using fuzzy logic. Fuzzy member functions model the imprecise nature of data in each available parameter and rule sets characterize the imprecise dependencies between the parameters and makes decisions in identifying the unknown parameter value based on the incompleteness. A final confidence level for each material in a pool of candidate material is a direct indication of uncertainty. All the candidates satisfy the goals and constraints to varying degrees and the final selection is left to the designer's discretion. The process is automated by software that inputs incomplete data; uses fuzzy logic to extract more information and queries the material database with a constrained search for finding candidate alternatives.
ContributorsBalaji, Srinath (Author) / Shah, Jami (Thesis advisor) / Davidson, Joseph (Committee member) / Huebner, Kenneth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
A low cost expander, combustor device that takes compressed air, adds thermal energy and then expands the gas to drive an electrical generator is to be designed by modifying an existing reciprocating spark ignition engine. The engine used is the 6.5 hp Briggs and Stratton series 122600 engine. Compressed air that is stored in a tank at a particular pressure will be introduced during the compression stage of the engine cycle to reduce pump work. In the modified design the intake and exhaust valve timings are modified to achieve this process. The time required to fill the combustion chamber with compressed air to the storage pressure immediately before spark and the state of the air with respect to crank angle is modeled numerically using a crank step energy and mass balance model. The results are used to complete the engine cycle analysis based on air standard assumptions and air to fuel ratio of 15 for gasoline. It is found that at the baseline storage conditions (280 psi, 70OF) the modified engine does not meet the imposed constraints of staying below the maximum pressure of the unmodified engine. A new storage pressure of 235 psi is recommended. This only provides a 7.7% increase in thermal efficiency for the same work output. The modification of this engine for this low efficiency gain is not recommended.
ContributorsJoy, Lijin (Author) / Trimble, Steve (Thesis advisor) / Davidson, Joseph (Committee member) / Phelan, Patrick (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011