EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON THE DAMAGE OF HYBRID THICK COMPOSITES SUBJECT TO DROP-WEIGHT AND BALLISTIC IMPACTS
Year of Dissertation:
2011
The aim of this study is to investigate the low velocity and ballistic impact responses of thick-section hybrid fiber composites at various temperatures. Plain-woven S2-Glass and IM7 Graphite fabrics are chosen as fiber materials reinforcing the SC-79 epoxy. Four different types of composites consisting of alternating layers of glass and graphite woven fabric sheets are considered. The tensile tests were conducted following ASTM Standards D3039 (Standard Test Method for Tensile Properties of Polymer Matrix Composite Materials) and D3518 (Standard Test Method for In-Plane Shear Response of Polymer Matrix Composite Materials by Tensile Test of a +/- 45° Laminate) on hybrid and non-hybrid plain weave composite materials. Strips (6.35mm × 25mm × 250mm) of non-hybrid IM-7 Graphite/SC-79 epoxy denoted as GR for brevity, non-hybrid S-2 Glass/SC-79 epoxy called GL for short, hybrid GR/GL/GR and hybrid GL/GR/GL specimens were tensile tested. The tests were conducted at -60 °C, -20 °C, room temperature, 75 °C and 125 °C. Then the rule of mixtures was used to predict the Young's moduli of GL/GR/GL and GR/GL/GR using the experimental values obtained from the stress-strain curves of the GL and GR specimens. The predicted Young's moduli of GL/GR/GL and GR/GL/GR were then compared to those obtained experimentally. It was found that the calculated Young's and shear moduli match closely (within 6 %) to those obtained experimentally. The Poisson's ratio was measured using strain gages. Classical lamination theory was used to calculate the thermal stresses developed in the hybrid woven composite, which were then compared to the maximum stress values obtained experimentally from the unidirectional tensile tests, to determine whether they were significant. It was determined that the calculated thermal stresses are negligible (in the order of 2.5%) compared to the failure stress of the composite, and thus will be neglected in impact modeling and computations.
Into the Woods: Motif-Based Fairy Tale Analysis and the Gendered Aesthetics of French 17th and 18th-Century Women Writers
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Francesca Canade-Sautman
TEST
The Art of Transformation: Motif, Metamorphosis and Adornment in Fairy Tales by French Women Writers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Francesca Canade-Sautman
For such beautiful and often times short stories, fairy tales have inspired diverse analyses from multiple scholars. The studies are as varied as the tales they discuss. There are historical and sociological viewpoints that study both the local culture and mannerisms displayed by the protagonists and the people whom they meet along their journey. The feminist approach looks at the role of women in these tales and how they interact as a group with each other as well as with the female protagonists in their fictional lives. Those who are intrigued by the psychological aspect of fairy tales look to Jung and Freud to fuel their dissection of tale elements.
Intentionality without intensionality
Year of Dissertation:
2013
The main thesis of the dissertation is that the choice between individualism and externalism is a false dilemma. Individualism is the view that mental entities such as beliefs, desires, concepts, etc. are internal to an individual's body, individuated independently of what happens outside. Externalism is the view that they are external to the body, individuated by the relations between the individual and her environment. Both of these views disarm conundrums about the mind but are also plagued by their own problems. Yet the choice makes a material difference in nearly all mind-related problems. I do not wish to deny that they are mutually exclusive--I take this to be rather obvious. But in the dissertation I trace a route between them that avoids their perils.
Conspiratorial Modernism: Modernism and Conspiracy Theory in Proust, Joyce, Faulkner, and Musil
Year of Dissertation:
2012
This project investigates the concurrent emergence of literary modernism and anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in Europe and America between 1894 and 1942. This period, stretching from the Dreyfus Affair to the beginning of the Endlösung (final solution), represents the most significant shifts in anti-Semitic discourse in Europe, and roughly outlines the most important years of modernism. By bringing these two discourses into conversation, this project documents their remarkably similar reactions to modernity's fragmentation and dislocation. Both modernists and conspiracy theorists believed that modernity had fractured an erstwhile total and complete reality. They therefore wrote vast, totalizing works that tried to create a complete worldview. The critical difference was that modernists concluded that such a worldview was no longer possible, while the conspiracy theorists were convinced that they are being thwarted by Jews. In uncovering a previously undocumented history, this study not only reveals the pervasive and multifarious influence of anti-Semitism on literature, but also contributes to a growing body of scholarship on modernism's relationship to other early twentieth century discourses.
"Who do you think you are?": A multidimensional analysis of the impact of disparities in higher educational attainment within families of first-generation college graduates
Year of Dissertation:
2013
This project explores the impact of disparate educational attainment between first-generation college graduates and their family members. This is a conscious shifting of the unit of analysis, from the changing social position and power of an individual student/graduate, to the relational capacity, tensions, and strategies of the family unit that is inclusive of the graduate. This shift in the unit of analysis, from the individual to the family, interrogates the function of higher education by broadening the range of outcomes associated with post-secondary education and credentialing beyond the economic advancement of the graduate. There are currently very few studies of this population that investigate post-degree attitudes and experiences and none of which ask questions about family relationships. Few if any studies have addressed how educational disparities within the family are perceived by other family members, particularly parents and siblings. This work investigates the nature of this affect/effect, primarily from the perspective of the graduate, but also reaching toward a greater understanding of the perspective of family members as well.
Crossroads: New York's Black Intellectuals and the Role of Ideology in the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965
Author:
Kristopher Burrell
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Abstract
Exercises in Criticism: The Theory and Practice of Literary Constraint
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Wayne Koestenbaum
My dissertation is an exercise in applied poetics, using constraint-based methods in order to write about constraint-based literature. I define constraint-based literature as literature that imposes rules and restrictions upon itself over and above the rules and restrictions (such as grammar and lexicon) inherent in language--as literature that understands itself as part of an avant-garde tradition whose most prominent precursor is the work of the OuLiPo, or "Workshop For Potential Literature," a French writing group, founded in 1960 and still active today, whose purpose is to invent arbitrary constraints for the purposes of generating literary texts. When completed, my dissertation will contain ninety-nine short chapters, each of which follows a different compositional procedure. By tracing the lineage and enduring influence of early Oulipian classics, I argue that contemporary Anglophone writers have, in their adoption of constraint-based methods, transformed such methods from apolitical literary laboratory exercises into a form of cultural critique, whose usage is surprisingly widespread in contemporary Anglophone literature, particularly among poets and experimental novelists.
Unfamiliar Streets: The Photographs of Richard Avedon, Charles Moore, Martha Rosler, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Year of Dissertation:
2009
This dissertation begins from the premise that the streets of street photography matter. Streets are considered here as both sites and subjects for this genre of photography. Such an analysis demonstrates that streets are specific cultural, political, economic, and social environments, and that street photography often anticipates the affective quality of their reception by viewers.
IMPROVED PROCESSING AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MULTI-FILTER ROTATING SHADOW-BAND RADIOMETER (MFRSR) NETWORK
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Information about global distributions of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and size categorization is necessary to quantify the aerosol radiative forcing as well as a method to monitor air-quality such as fine particulate matter (PM). Efforts to provide such aerosol optical properties on a global scale clearly require satellite retrievals and therefore validation of satellite products is a clear priority. The development of suitable radiometer networks is central to this effort. Modern robotic solar instruments for retrievals of aerosols optical depth and other microphysical parameter retrievals, such as the CIMEL Sky Scanning Radiometer [Holben, 1998] as part of the Aeronet Network, are crucial to this effort but are unfortunately quite sparse and expensive and efforts to develop and utilize simpler portable instruments are highly desirable One attractive possibility is the deployment of Multi-Filter Rotating Shadow-band Radiometer (MFRSR) in a network [Alexandrov, 2002] both for validation efforts as well as monitoring extended megacities such as the NYC area.