The mechanical behavior of Ti-based metallic glass has been investigated by means of indentation experiments at different loading rates. Contrary to many crystalline materials, an increase of the loading rate causes a reduction of hardness, i.e., a mechanical softening. This effect is ascribed to deformation-induced creation of excess free volume, which is more pronounced for higher strain rates. The decrease of hardness is accompanied with an increase of the contact stiffness and a reduction of the reduced elastic modulus. Finite element simulations reveal that the mechanical response of this material can be described using the Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion. The changes in the nanoindentation curves with the increase of loading rate are well reproduced by decreasing the value of the Mohr-Coulomb cohesive stress. This result is consistent with the presumed enhancement of free volume.

The first purpose of this work is to design a new observation technique for the Direct Torque Control (DTC). We put emphasis on robustness especially at very low speed, which represents the basic problem of the DTC operating, and on the optimization of the time computing. The reduced order observer is defined by decoupling the full order one in $\alpha $ and $\beta $ axis. The second basic aim of this paper is to apply the DTC strategy to multi-machine multi-inverter industrial systems. Speed and tension controls are designed; their performances and parameter robustness are analyzed and compared with those obtained with a Flux Oriented Control (FOC). Mechanical and electrical couplings constitute the principal operation difficulty of these systems mainly when one of the machines is perturbed.

A formalism is defined to describe systems composed of several electrical machines with several electrical and/or mechanical converters. So, a first classification of multi-converter multi-machine systems is proposed in order to point out their influences on the global power conversion: cost reduction, conversion quality... Three examples are presented with this specific formalism.