A scheme based on the Boundary Element Method (BEM) for solving the problem of steady flow of an incompressible viscous fluid is presented in this thesis. The problem is governed by both Navier-Stokes (N-S) equations and the continuity equation. The fundamental solution of the two-dimensional N-S is derived, and the partial differential equations are converted to an integral equation;The computer code is flexible enough to handle a variety of boundary and domain elements with different degrees of interpolation polynomial. Boundary and domain integrals over corresponding elements are evaluated analytically. The Newton Raphson iteration scheme accompanied by a relaxation factor is used to solve the nonlinear equations. The code includes a post processor that calculates the velocity components at any point inside the domain;The scheme has been applied to three test problems. The first concerns Couette flow, which has been used as a test case for testing the rate of convergence and accuracy. The second and the third concern the driven cavity and the flow in a stepped channel, respectively;In the integral equation formulation, the primary unknowns are tractions on the domain boundary and velocities in the interior. Because the shear stress, drag, and lift can be simply computed from the values of tractions along the boundary, such a formulation is markedly superior to either the finite-difference or the finite-element formulation. In customary pressure-velocity or streamfunction-vorticity formulations, employed in the finite-difference or finite-element methods, calculation of stress, drag, and lift involves extensive postprocessing.

In this work a procedure has been developed which makes it possible to use the boundary element method to solve non-linear partial differential equations of the second order in two variables. The problems solved are boundary value problems, and the non-linearity can be of any kind. A mathematical formulation is given which makes it unnecessary to have a knowledge of the fundamental solution for every type of non-linear equation. For second order partial differential equations, the use of Green's function for the Laplace equation as the fundamental solution has proved adequate to solve a wide variety of non-linear problems. Newton Raphson method was used to solve the algebraic non-linear equations resulting from a discretization of the boundary integral equation;A method is also presented to improve the grid once the solution has been found on an existing grid. This method has proved to be very efficient in the solution of non-linear problems. The method uses some of the features unique to the boundary element method to calculate the local errors. The problem is solved on the refined grid, and, if necessary, the grid is refined repeatedly until some convergence criterion is satisfied;A grid generation algorithm which borrows heavily from the grid optimization process has been developed. Using an initial coarse grid, the elements are broken up into smaller elements until a grid of desired fineness is obtained. The algorithm developed can handle regions enclosed by curved boundaries, the only stipulation being that the curved boundaries have a parametric representation. The grid generation algorithm also generates boundary elements by using a procedure similar to the boundary optimization scheme developed earlier.

Flaw identification is an important inverse problem that underlies techniques for nondestructive evaluation (NDE). In this study, a known steady state thermal field is used to identify multiple flaws in a material. The problem is to determine locations and sizes of the multiple flaws if the number of flaws and the temperature at certain probe locations on the boundary are known. The boundary element method (BEM) is used as a computational tool in this task;Earlier work in this area has dealt with the case of a single flaw, while we address the case of multiple flaws. The identification of the multiple flaws is difficult because it is impossible to identify the disturbances caused by each individual fLaw; As a result, the iterative methods, used in the single flaw identification, typically fail to converge unless approximate locations of the multiple flaws are known;In our method, the characterization of flaws is performed in two stages. First, the specimen probe data is compared with a set of known cases of probe data (training set) to predict the approximate locations and sizes of the multiple flaws. Second, the final prediction of flaws is determined using a nonlinear optimization method;To prepare the training set, we need only the information of a single flaw of fixed size at various locations. The superposition principle and a special scaling are used to create the multiple flaws information. This procedure is developed as an extension of the theory of potential flows in fluid mechanics. The distinguishing feature of this technique is that only a small training set is stored in the memory;In this study, the final characterizations are made by two different methods. One of them is an iteration method, which minimizes an error functional. The other is called the multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS). Various test cases yielded excellent solutions. The tolerance of both methods to experimental errors is also discussed. It is found that the iterative method performs better than MARS.

The work provides methodologies for studying, designing, and optimizing melt spinning processes of fiber manufacture. Amorphous metallic materials can be created through melt spinning processes, in which a highly spinning wheel undercools a jet of molten metal or alloy below the equilibrium melting and the nucleation temperatures. Free-jet melt spinning employs a larger nozzle-wheel gap compared to planar flow casting. The instability of melt pool formation in a free-jet melt spinning will allow the variability of ribbon production. In general, a stable delivery of amorphous materials depends simultaneously on various control parameters, such as wheel speed, molten flow viscosity, surface

tension force, and heat transfer. To analyze dynamical and thermodynamical characteristics of a free-jet melt spinning, two mathematical models, free surface and rapid solidification, have been established by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics. Based on the nucleation theory, I have predicted the nucleation temperature and the critical cooling rate for an alloy Fe₇₅-Si₁₀-B₁₅ (at.%). The applications of these crystalline solidification properties in the simulation and analysis help the researchers gain insight into the processes. The research focuses on a novel simple and second-order accurate algorithm for computing surface normal and curvature in the Volume of Fluid method; it reconstructs the continuum surface force model to eliminate spurious currents. A computer program has been developed with the enhanced numerical schemes and the capability of heat transfer for two-dimensional laminar Newtonian surface flows. It conducted numerical simulations of impingement of a melt stream against a highly rotating wheel, and explains the complicated processes with numerical results of velocity and temperature in melt pools. The analytical estimates of ribbon thickness presented in the thesis agree with the experimental observation of the alloy. An in-depth investigation of the melt spinning process was performed to develop benchmarks of process variables for amorphous material production.

The direct boundary element method is proposed in this thesis to solve acoustic radiation problems as well as to achieve regional noise cancellation in half space with uniform finite impedance over the surface. The boundary integral equation and half space Green's function were derived to accomplish these goals. Those formulations were verified by comparing numerical simulations with theoretical solutions as well as experimental results. In addition, the above formulations were extended to achieve regional noise cancellation in half space by applying the boundary element method;Two methods were investigated to obtain noise cancellation in desired regions. They are the iterative control method and the coupled equation method. A set of Fortran programs including discretizing of geometries, incorporating boundary integral equations, and accommodating the noise cancellation technique were developed. Various problems concerning ill-conditioned matrices in numerical simulation and practical application of noise cancellation technique were discussed as well. Finally, data banks for various configurations of sound sources were set up for quick reference of the locations and driving functions of secondary sources. Thus, noise reduction in a designated area is shown to be feasible;A 6" speaker was used to simulate a noise source with uniform surface velocity. In addition, a ribbed aluminum plate with the dimension 71.12cm x 60cm was used to simulate a noise source with variable surface velocity. Four 10" speakers were used as secondary sources to achieve noise reduction in desired regions at certain frequencies. A multi-channel digital/analog converter was used in order to control desired driving functions for each individual secondary sources. The computer-controlled scanning system including a 2-channel controller, 2-D scanner, and stepping motors was used to place a quarter-inch microphone at certain locations. The acoustic pressure on a 120cm by 120cm plane at various distances above the source plane was measured. A Bruel and Kjaer model 2032 FFT analyzer was used to acquire and process signals from the microphone. The experimental results agreed well with numerical simulations. This indicated that the proposed noise cancellation technique attenuated the acoustic noise level successfully.