Browsing Mechanical Engineering by Title
Now showing items 1-20 of 191
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Accelerated environmental degradation of GRP composite materials.
(2004)The use of fibre reinforced polymer composites and development of structural composites has expanded rapidly in the Southern African region over the past ten years. The long-term effect of placing these materials outdoors ... -
Aerodynamic modelling and further optimisation of solar powered vehicle.
(2016)Computational fluid dynamics was used to optimise the aerodynamics of a solar powered vehicle via the addition of airflow alteration devices that interact with the boundary layer airflow. These features were designed, ... -
Analysis and design optimization of laminated composite structures using symbolic computation.
(1994)The present study involves the analysis and design optimization of thin and thick laminated composite structures using symbolic computation. The fibre angle and wall thickness of balanced and unbalanced thin composite ... -
Analysis of residual stresses and distortions resulting from multi-pass welding of nozzles to cylindrical pressure vessels.
(2012)The purpose of the present study is to obtain insight into the formation, behaviour and magnitude of welding-induced residual stresses and distortions resulting from welding nozzles onto cylindrical pressure vessels. A ... -
An automated apparatus for non-contact inspecting of mass produced custom products.
(2009)The evolution of the manufacturing industry may be viewed as proceeding from Dedicated Manufacturing Systems (DMS) to Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS). Customer requirements change unpredictably, and so DMS ... -
Automatic calibration of a tool-changing unit for modular reconfigurable machines.
(2011)Modern trends in customer demand have resulted in the development of a class of manufacturing system known as Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS). Reconfigurable systems are designed around the idea that they must ... -
Autonomous materials handling robot for reconfigurable manufacturing systems.
(2010)The concept of mass producing custom products, though extremely beneficial to the commercial, and retail industries, does come with some limitations. One of these is the occurrence of bottlenecks in the materials handling ... -
Autonomous mobile materials handling platform architecture for mass customisation.
(2008)In order to facilitate the materials handling requirements of production structures configured for Mass Customisation Manufacturing, the design of requisite materials handling and routing systems must encompass new conceptual ... -
Autonomous sea craft for search and rescue operations : marine vehicle modelling and analysis.
(2011)Marine search and rescue activities have been plagued with the problem of risking the lives of rescuers in rescue operations. With increasing developments in sensor technologies, it became a necessity in the marine search ... -
Best practice for personnel, material and rock transportation in ultra deep level gold mines.
(2003)Ultra deep mining presents many challenges to the mining engineer, one of which is the logistics to support mining operations quickly and efficiently. Typically, Witwatersrand gold mines operate at depths in excess of 2000 ... -
Bio-mechatronic implementation of a portable upper limb rehabilitative exoskeleton.
(2011)The rationale behind this research originates from the lack of public health care in South Africa. There is an escalation in the number of stroke victims which is a consequence of the increase in hypertension in this ... -
Broadband solar radiometric measurements in the greater Durban area.
(2011)This work comprises a radiometric study of Durban‟s solar resource, utilizing data from the Howard College campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), and the Solar Thermal Applications Research Laboratory (STARlab) ... -
Buckling of short, thin-walled cylinders, as applied to storage tanks.
(2001)This is an investigation of the buckling characteristics of short, thin-walled cylinders. This study was required as large storage tanks, which were converted from Boating roof to fixed roofed tanks, were found to buckle ... -
Case study of bird streamer caused transient earth faults on a 275KV transmission grid.
(2001)This thesis discusses the results of an investigation that was initiated in January 1996 to determine the root cause of the increasing fault trend in respect of transient earth faults on the 275 kV transmission grid ... -
Closed-loop throttle control of a hybrid rocket motor.
(2018)Hybrid rocket motors produce thrust by reacting a solid fuel with a liquid oxidizer inside a combustion chamber. This approach has certain advantages over conventional solid propellant rockets including improved safety and ... -
Combustion studies of biodiesel fuel from moringa, jatropha and restaurant oil.
(2016)Biodiesel is a renewable alternative to finite diesel and, has the capacity to reduce emission and broaden energy access particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where economic growth has been, to some extent, constrained ... -
Communication, mapping and navigational aspects for a free-ranging, automated guided vehicle.
(1992)A free-ranging automated guided vehicle incorporating navigation and radio communication for use in a fully automated flexible manufacturing system has been developed. A vehicle, operating as a complete subsystem, was built ... -
A comparative study on the effects of internal vs external pressure for a pressure vessel subjected to piping loads at the shell-to-nozzle junction.
(2003)This investigation seeks to perform a comparative study between the combined effects of internal pressure and piping loads versus external pressure and piping loads on a pressure vessel. There are currently several well-known ... -
Computational and analytical modelling of composite structures based on exact and higher order theories.
(1995)The objective of the present study is the computational and analytical modelling of a stress and strain state of the composite laminated structures. The exact three dimensional solution is derived for laminated anisotropic ... -
Computational fluid dynamic modelling of baffled open volumetric receiver operation.
(2020)An Open Volumetric Receiver (OVR) is a type of solar energy receiver that is able to heat atmospheric air volumetrically via a porous absorber exposed to concentrated solar radiation, through which the air flows. OVRs have ...