The Effective Notch Stress Approach for a Tubular Joint

Offshore wind energy production is increasing rapidly and optimising the design of support structures has the potential to significantly reduce steel and costs. Jacket structures are commonly selected for deeper waters, and the design of these structures is primarily influenced by the fatigue performance of the tubular joints. The fatigue...

Simulating the Mechanically Induced Reaction of Energetic Materials: A Non-Linear Simulation of Finite Element Analysis

Munition articles may be sensitive to case-crushing loading. This is a potential safety hazard since it may lead to accidental detonation. A better understanding of the mechanism causing the munition articles to react can help improve safety. A finite element model combined with post-processing is used to model a Steven test. This thesis...

Air Supported Structures and their response to Wind Loading: A parametric method for multiple geometries

In the presented work, we have developed a method to analyse the interaction between the wind and membrane structures. The complex behaviour of light weighted membrane structures can induce dynamic and wind effects, so this requires an appropriate method to analyse the structure. When the deformation of membrane structures is large, it becomes...

Computational Modelling of Solid Propellants: Micro-Structural Analysis and Homogenization

Energetic materials have widespread applicability in various fields of engineering as propellants, explosives, and pyrotechnics. The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) is investigating additive manufacturing of solid propellants. As part of this investigation, TNO developed a new polymer binder mix for solid...

Energy Harvesting from Slender FRP Pedestrian Bridges

The Rotterdam municipality is constantly busy replacing old footbridges that have reached their lifetime. Lately, this is done using modern materials, such as fibre-reinforced polymers (FRP). FRP is a relatively light-weight material that has a high yield strength, which allows for aesthetically pleasing, very slender designs. Governing for such...

Optimizing the Reduced Basis Construction for Reduced-Order Mechanical Models: Automatic and efficient load case selection using Bayesian machine learning

Numerical simulations have become an essential part of design in every field of engineering, and the boundaries of technology are pushed further out every year. In structural engineering, the desire to design structures that have complex shapes or that are simply cheaper and more efficient, has necessitated the use of complex numerical...

Lattice Modelling of Moisture Transport in Uncracked and Cracked Concrete

The service life of concrete structures depend largely on the durability of concrete. The durability of concrete is influenced by mass transport mechanisms that can have severe deteriorating effects. Transport of water in concrete is of paramount importance as water can act as a carrier of ions such as chlorides which can corrode the...

Computational Modelling of Auxetic Materials and Structures: The Static and Dynamic Response of Materials and Structures with a Negative Poisson's Ratio

Auxetic materials are increasingly used in the field of sports, defense, bio-medicine, and acoustic-filtering due to their unconventional behavior of exhibiting a negative Poisson's effect. The prospective use of auxetics to mitigate shock and impact forces have proven the relevance of research on auxetics. It becomes of paramount importance to...

A Multiphysics Numerical Framework for Epoxy Resins: Investigating Hygrothermal Ageing in Laminated Composites

Epoxy resins are increasingly used in critical structural components with widespread applications in the transportation, construction and energy industries. The wind energy sector is one of the fastest growing commercial markets for epoxy resins, meaning that the structural behaviour of epoxy resins is becoming a key area of research, especially...

Numerical modeling of cone cracking in ceramics via indentation

Ceramic is a hard and brittle material with little ductility. It has wide applications in diverse industries viz. metallurgy, atomic energy, electronics, communication, space, military, insulation, biomechanical appliances etc. It is preferred material for armour protection due to its high strength-weight ratio. Its plastic deformation and...

Investigating the size effect in SENB specimens with a triaxiality and Lode angle based damage model

This master thesis is built up around two questions. First: Is it possible to calibrate a ductile failure model, where the strain at failure is a function of stress triaxiality and Lode angle, using only a single SENB specimen? The failure model that is referred to describes local failure in a finite element model to simulate ductile fracture....

Validity of the Cosserat theory finite element implementation for jointed rock modelling

Significant part of geotechnical engineering projects involve the problems related to jointed rock<br/>masses. For example, construction of tunnels in rock or stability analysis of the rock slopes. In this<br/>framework, the finite element modelling is often used for problems with complex geometries or<br/>where the analytical solution is...

Structural reliability assessment of buildings subjected to wind loading: An assessment of the main bearing structure at foundation level of dynamically sensitive buildings designed within the Eurocode framework

Structures are considered safe,when they comply with minimum reliability requirementswhich are expressed by a minimum reliability index ¯ in the Eurocodes (EN1990). However, a complete reliability assessment for every structure would be very time-consuming. Therefore in the Eurocode a partial factor approach is utilized. In this research it is...

Spectral Analysis of Heat Flow in U-tube and Coaxial Shallow Geothermal Systems