Browsing by Subject "Failure"
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Item Effects of Implements of Husbandry (Farm Equipment) on Pavement Performance(Minnesota Department of Transportation Research Services Section, 2012-04) Lim, Jason; Azary, Andrea; Khazanovich, Lev; Wang, Shiyun; Kim, Sunghwan; Ceylan, Halil; Gopalakrishnan, KasthuriranganThe effects of farm equipment on the structural behavior of flexible and rigid pavements were investigated in this study. The project quantified the difference in pavement behavior caused by heavy farm equipment as compared to a typical 5-axle, 80 kip semi-truck. This research was conducted on full scale pavement test sections designed and constructed at the Minnesota Road Research facility (MnROAD). The testing was conducted in the spring and fall seasons to capture responses when the pavement is at its weakest state and when agricultural vehicles operate at a higher frequency, respectively. The flexible pavement sections were heavily instrumented with strain gauges and earth pressure cells to measure essential pavement responses under heavy agricultural vehicles, whereas the rigid pavement sections were instrumented with strain gauges and linear variable differential transducers (LVDTs). The full scale testing data collected in this study were used to validate and calibrate analytical models used to predict relative damage to pavements. The developed procedure uses various inputs (including axle weight, tire footprint, pavement structure, material characteristics, and climatic information) to determine the critical pavement responses (strains and deflections). An analysis was performed to determine the damage caused by various types of vehicles to the roadway when there is a need to move large amounts agricultural product.Item “Everything Would Have Worked If It Wasn’T For That Crap Mirror”: The Intersection Of Failure And Creativity In Integrated Stem Education(2023-05) Stretch, ElizabethThe sentiment that creativity is the most important skill needed to solve the problems that we face is repeated by different business and industry leaders around the world (Bronson & Merryman, 2010; NEA, n.d.; Nussbaum et al., 2005; Sammio, 2017). The call for creativity has been amplified in response to the problems and obstacles caused by COVID19. Yet, creativity remains the most neglected 21st century skill addressed in STEM education. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to develop strong conceptual connections between creativity and failure within an integrated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) unit guided by the intersection of failure and creativity framework (IFCF; Stretch & Roehrig, 2021) through a qualitative case study design. Specifically, this study proposed to understand how the structure of an integrated STEM unit and the teacher’s role in implementation of the STEM unit may influence students’ use and application of creativity and learning from failure. The single case study was of a group of four sixth-grade boys engaged in addressing an engineering design challenge. Seven themes emerged from this research that inform the pedagogy and implementation of integrated STEM education. The following themes were identified through analysis of the small group discourse: (1) Creativity ensues in areas that are ill defined within engineering design problems, such as context; (2) As the design problem narrows (through specified content learning or overly defined context) students’ creativity narrows as well; (3) The potential of learning through failure is most prominent during the testing of the design solution; (4) The curricular focus on specific science content and the subsequent narrowing of context in engineering design problem scenarios created one possible design solution; (5) The sequence of lessons within a curriculum created a rigid linear progression through the engineering design process (EDP) with few opportunities for iteration; and (6) The teacher further constrained students’ creativity and ability to learn from failure through missed opportunities. This study provided empirical data to support the need for a modified engineering design process (EDP) utilized in integrated STEM units to promote creativity and innovation in problem solving in STEM.Item Explicit Crack Modeling based Approach for Structural Integrity Assessment of Brittle and Quasi-Brittle Structures(2015-02) Singh, GyanenderThere is considerable variation in the fracture properties of brittle and quasi-brittle materials. Due to this large variation, probabilistic models are employed for estimating failure of brittle components/structures. However, due to limitations and shortcomings in the models, the predictions are not accurate. The shortcomings include: inability to handle stress concentrations, dependence of empirical constants on loading conditions, incorrect size-effect predictions and limited applications of the model. Although higher design margins can accommodate the inaccuracy in predictions, the cost of manufacturing increases. The work presented herein is directed towards addressing these issues. An approach based on explicit crack modeling (ECM) for accurately estimating failure in brittle/quasi-brittle components and structures is presented. Factors which govern fracture in a structure (fracture energy, strength of the material, damage behavior of the material, heterogeneity in the material microstructure) are incorporated in the ECM approach. The approach was validated by predicting the failure probability of L-shaped specimens at varying load levels followed by comparison of the predictions with published data. The study showed that the predictions from the ECM approach were not only in good agreement with the published data but were also more accurate than the Weibull model based predictions. The ECM approach can also predict size effect--the dependence of fracture properties and their statistical variation on the size of the specimen. This capability was demonstrated through failure prediction of specimens in tensile and flexural tests. Specimens of different sizes were considered and the predicted fracture properties were in good agreement with those obtained experimentally. The ECM approach for estimating failure of components/structures subjected to complex physical conditions was illustrated through the failure estimation of nuclear reactor graphite components. For modeling stresses in the graphite components subjected to high temperature and neutron irradiation, a constitutive model for evaluating the stresses was constructed and implemented through a user material (UMAT) subroutine in finite element software Abaqus. UMAT was integrated with Extended Finite Element (XFEM) technique for modeling irradiation-induced failure of the components under in-reactor conditions. Component lifetime as well as crack initiation and propagation details were predicted. This type of detailed failure information has the potential to improve design guidelines and standards of brittle components/structures.Item Reframing the autonomy support problem: a new framework for analyzing adult-child problem solving interactions in naturalistic settings.(2023-04) Baker, JustinA central question in the study of autonomy support (Grolnik, 1989) is how adults structurechildren’s learning while also preserving their sense of self-determination. In recent years, researchers have made strides in describing what types of parental and teaching behaviors constitute autonomy support, developing detailed coding schemes for evaluating how supportive adults interact with children in researcher-defined, goal-oriented tasks (Whipple et al., 2011). In two case-driven studies, I expand on the construct of autonomy support by studying adult-child problem solving interactions in more open-ended, naturalistic task environments. In Study 1, I analyze video of parent-child outdoor play, utilizing interaction analysis (IA, Jordan and Henderson, 1995) to capture in detail participants’ moment-to-moment contributions to the problem solving process. The outcome is a framework capable of mapping dyadic problem-solving interactions at a more granular level, including tracking who leads each part of the interaction, and what learning goals are being oriented to. In Study 2, I apply that framework to the pedagogical perspectives of teachers in an elementary charter school that expressly values children’s self- determination. In interviews, the teachers described their approaches to achieving important learning outcomes while embracing children’s naturalistic learning behaviors, and the Study 1 problem solving framework is used to generate insights into the teachers’ strategic approaches. The findings of the two studies suggest the existence of inherent tradeoffs between various potential goals and time horizons for adult-child learning interactions, and raise considerations for future research into autonomy support, while the problem solving framework demonstrates potential for developing practical tools that could eventually directly support adults and children in reflecting on their co-learning processes.Item Struck stupid : 21st Century theatrical performance and the limits of a discourse.(2011-12) McConnell, George DavidThis dissertation is a critically creative response to contemporary U.S. devised theatrical performance and the relationships it instantiates between artists and spectators, and artists and critics. In order to tease out the complexities of these relationships, I theorize stupidity as an integral element in the creation of devised performances, their reception by spectators, and the critical methods best used to engage with them. I develop the concept of stupidity seriously and paradoxically as thought that cannot be thought. Stupid thinking is thought that interrupts discursive structures such as conscious thought that is shaped like language and is grounded in our storehouses of knowledge. Stupidity sustains the affective possibilities of non-knowledge that would otherwise be foreclosed by the drive for knowledge production. I attempt to answer the questions: how do I write of devised performances rather than about them? How do I attend to the embodied complexity of devised performances as I transmogrify them into scholarly discourse? To answer these questions I performatively write alongside devised theatrical performances and deploy methods that take their cue from ethnographic practices. My writing also takes cues from the work of the artists I engage: Ann Liv Young (New York), Every House Has A Door (Chicago), and SuperGroup (Minneapolis). Together my chapters argue that by relying on stupid tactics--such as chance, incompetence, and obscenity--in their own creative processes these artists all instigate a reconfiguration of the relationship between artwork and viewer, and thereby a simultaneous reconfiguration of the relationship between spectators and their own presumed-to-be-stable subject positions.Item UAV for Reliability Senior Design Project(2014-07-23) Bergquist, Erik; Reimann, Shawn; Amos, Jeremy; Cole, Jay; Phillips, Justin; Shuster, Simon