Post-buckling analysis of composite stiffened panels: A systematic analysis on the influence of imperfections

Pushing the envelope of aerospace structures requires the complete exploitation of their potential in terms of load-carrying capacity per unit weight for both economic and ecological reasons: the two most important being the reduction of fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. A key approach involves allowing structures like stiffened...

Assessment of loading rate effects on elastic-plastic shell buckling capacity of monopiles subjected to bending moments

It is becoming increasingly clear that the effects of climate change should be decreased or even mitigated. Green alternative sources of energy are being explored, and wind energy emerges as an important option that can be exploited on a large scale. Wind turbines are placed more and more often offshore due to larger and more stable wind...

Teaching bimanual dexterous manipulations with interactive demonstrations and reinforcement learning

Robot dexterous manipulation research has drawn more attention in recent years since the development of various learning methods makes it possible for robots to achieve dexterity at the human level. Many attempts have been made to integrate human knowledge into Reinforcement Learning (RL) processes for faster learning speed and better...

An Efficient 3D-model for the Micro-Scale Analysis of Geometrically Imperfect Fibre-Reinforced Composites

This work develops a stand-alone Finite Element-based Unit Cell for the modelling of Fibre Reinforced Composites, capable of capturing 3D stress states and geometrical imperfections at the micro-scale. The project considers different beam and 3D elements for this purpose and draws comparisons between them based on computational efficiency,...

Influence of various boundary conditions on local buckling of steel tubular piles: Effects of restraints, imperfections and residual stresses

The main focus of this thesis is the influence of different real boundary conditions on the failure mechanism of local buckling of steel tubular piles. The research was started with the theoretical method of describing boundary condition by specifying the degrees of freedom per boundary condition. The method makes use of the radial, meridional...

Prognostics-driven supply chain optimization in commercial aviation

Maintenance providers in commercial aviation are looking into new strategies to improve maintenance operations and aircraft availability in order to reduce cost and increase customer satisfaction. Aircraft availability and thus profitability highly relies on adequate maintenance because an aircraft is only profitable when...

Effect on flange waviness on the C1 Wedge Connection

Wind turbines constitute a sustainable and effective solution to produce energy using wind power. Offshore wind turbines are becoming of special interest and more demanding with continuously increased diameters. However, their design poses great challenges, since the installation and fabrication tolerances in combination with high cyclic loading...

Assessment of demountable steel-concrete composite flooring systems

Sustainability concerns steer the construction sector towards adopting a circular economy philosophy. Steel-concrete composite beams are extensively used in multi-story buildings and bridges due to their competitive construction and efficient material use. Currently the composite action is mainly achieved by headed shear connectors welded to the...

Quantifying the influence of membrane forces, curvature, and imperfections on the nonlinear buckling load of thin-shells

Shells tend to be thin because their curvature enables them to carry distributed loads as membrane forces. The property of thinness stems from shells’ capacity to store membrane strain energy without much deformation. As a result, buckling failures often govern the design of shell structures. These buckling failures usually start locally, at a...

On Introducing Imperfection in the Non-Linear Analysis of Buckling of Thin Shell Structures

This master thesis details the investigation of the effect of geometrical imperfection on thin shell structures using general FEM software packages. The author proposes a finite element based method for the analysis and design of thin shell structures, and describes the implementation of such a procedure on four different FEM packages. The...

Characterisation of waste coffee grounds as a design material: A case study of material driven design

This is the final thesis of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology in collaboration with the Politecnico of Milano (Italy). The assignment is commissioned by Re-Worked (UK) and the main research question is formulated as: ‘how can waste coffee based-materials be designed both technically and experiential...

A FPGA implementation of a real-time inspection system for steel roll imperfections

Today’s production processes are more and more optimized to be competitive. The production demands are increased for speed and quality. These increased demands do not pass the roll shops in the steel industry. In the roll shop periodically the rolls from the rolling mill are checked for imperfections. The imperfections are detected by special...

Imperfecte filterconstructies onder golfbrekers

Filterconstructies worden toegepast onder de teen en armour layer van uit breuksteen opgebouwde golfbrekers. Daarnaast worden zij vaak, als onderdeel van een bodembescherming, aangebracht op de zeebodem veer de teen van de golfbreker. Filterconstructies hebben als doel erosie van het onderliggende basismateriaal te voorkomen. Geometrisch-dichte...