UWSpace

UWSpace is the University of Waterloo’s institutional repository for the free, secure, and long-term home of research produced by faculty, students, and staff.

Depositing Theses/Dissertations or Research to UWSpace

Are you a Graduate Student depositing your thesis to UWSpace? See our Thesis Deposit Help and UWSpace Thesis FAQ pages to learn more.

Are you a Faculty or Staff member depositing research to UWSpace? See our Waterloo Research Deposit Help and Self-Archiving pages to learn more.

Photo by Waterloo staff

Communities in UWSpace

Select a community to browse its collections.

Recent Submissions

  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Balancing female basketball players’ career progression with family planning decisions
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-01-13) Miscione, Alliasen
    Abstract Background: Female professional athletes face unique challenges, including lack of funding for league improvements or player salaries, fewer opportunities in terms of exposure to or abundance of professional leagues, and gender norms that limit their engagement in professional sport careers. These limitations are exacerbated when childbearing during the peak years of their career comes into consideration. The goal of this research is to better understand the impact of family planning and pregnancy on career progression of professional female basketball players. Research Questions: This thesis examined: What impact, if any, do female basketball players believe pregnancy, giving birth, and parenting may have on their career progression? Specifically, I explored (a) What potential implications on physical performance exist because of pregnancy? (b) What financial changes do athletes anticipate pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period could bring to a career in sport? (c) What supports are necessary to help female athletes balance pregnancy and motherhood with a career in sport? Methods: This study employs a qualitative research design. Narrative inquiry was used to examine how athletes navigate decisions regarding pregnancy, childbearing, and the career progression. The study population included nine professional athletes who are considering or who have experienced childbearing, and who have or had a basketball career. Participants were recruited through personal social media accounts. Individuals were eligible for this study if they self-identified as a professional basketball player and felt they could speak on pregnancy or motherhood in sport through personal experiences. Semi-structured, individual interviews lasting approximately 45-60 minutes explored participants’ accounts regarding the factors influencing their pregnancy decisions and the effects childbearing may have on their careers. Narrative thematic analysis was used to capture common themes across interviews. Findings: Three stories were created from a compilation of participants’ accounts at three stages of the decision-making process to have children. Five participants did not have children at the time of interviews, and four participants were mothers of one or more children. First, a professional basketball player before pregnancy and motherhood, a professional basketball player after pregnancy while still competing, and lastly, a retired professional basketball player who waited until after their career was over to have children. These three stories demonstrate multiple stages of this decision and how the participants navigate the decision-making experience. These three stories also highlight four main themes within the analysis. The themes highlighted are financial insecurity and structural constraints that exist within professional women’s basketball, global mobility in sport, the body as a site of uncertainty because of pregnancy, and lastly, the stigma surrounding pregnancy and motherhood in professional sport. Many participants experienced difficulty or conflict in making decisions about pregnancy and childbearing and participants often found balancing motherhood and professional basketball challenging. Lastly, their perspectives on pregnancy and motherhood in sport was largely influenced by their personal situations and experiences and therefore is different for every athlete. Conclusions: The findings from this study contribute to understanding the unique challenges female athletes might face when making decisions about pregnancy and childbearing. The findings can also be leveraged to advocate for improved support systems and practices in professional sports to ensure female athletes who choose to become pregnant and give birth are supported in maintaining their athletic career. Ultimately, this research highlights the need for further exploration into the intersection of gender, sport, and reproductive choices.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Investigating Isotropy in Atmospheric Turbulence Using Large Eddy Simulations
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-01-12) Mohammadifar, Mohammad
    Turbulence plays a key role in many atmospheric and engineering flows, but understanding how it becomes isotropic under different conditions is still a challenge. In this thesis, we use the WRF model in idealized mode to explore how turbulence evolves in four setups: two driven by buoyancy (convective boundary layer and plume) and two by shear (random and bubble-perturbed Shear). We analyze anisotropy of the eddy dissipation using eddy-viscosity-based metrics, comparing how different forcing mechanisms and spatial resolutions affect the development and isotropization of turbulence. Buoyancy-driven cases showed smoother, more gradual transitions to isotropy, while shear-driven cases featured stronger bursts, persistent anisotropy, and slower convergence in time, especially at low resolution. It can also be understood that vertical velocity is more anisotropic in buoyancy-driven cases, while vertical shear dominates in shear-driven cases. These results highlight how both physical forcing and resolution shape the anisotropy of turbulence and point to important considerations for model setup in future turbulence studies.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Influence of Boundary Conditions on the Sheared Edge Fracture Limits of a 3rd Generation Advanced High Strength Steel.
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-01-12) Advaith Narayanan, .
    A fundamental trade-off between strength and ductility exists in advanced high strength steels (AHSS), particularly for sheared edge splitting in automotive forming operations. The widely used ISO16630 conical hole expansion test for edge stretchability is known to be a poor representation of the in-plane deformation modes that are the primary source of edge splitting in stamping, leading to an overestimation of formability in virtual tryouts. Additionally, virtual experiments rely upon the input of a single fracture strain value to predict edge cracking in stamped parts, disregarding the effects of deformation mode and element size. An efficient and reliable modeling approach for edge failure is required without having to simulate the shear cutting process. The present work addresses some of these challenges through four interrelated tasks aimed at developing guidelines to efficiently characterize the anisotropic plasticity behavior and edge fracture limits, to support reliable experimental assessment and finite-element modelling of sheared edge fracture in practical forming applications. There is a need to develop efficient strategies for anisotropic plasticity characterization of sheet materials to be able to accurately simulate the various tensile edge stretching modes ranging from splitting without necking to potential localization before fracture. To this end, the baseline plasticity characterization of four approximately pressure-independent aluminum alloys (AA) and steels with varying ductilities and anisotropy levels: AA5182-O, AA7075-T6, DC04, and 980GEN3 steels were performed using uniaxial tensile tests in multiple orientations. Using digital image correlation (DIC), the area strain at the neck center was monitored to measure the flow stress response to strain levels more than twice the uniform elongation, with the added advantage of probing anisotropic hardening effects. A hybrid inverse analysis procedure was further developed and applied to notch tensile tests to obtain the major stress under plane strain tension while constraining the minor-to-major principal stress ratio to remain near 1:2. Anisotropic yield functions were subsequently calibrated using data from a range of stress states with emphasis on plane strain tension. The calibrated yield functions and hardening responses were shown to accurately reproduce both the local and global behavior in flat punch hole expansion tests, which activate a wide range of tensile-dominated stress states. Flat punch hole expansion simulations using yield functions calibrated without plane strain data consistently deviated from the DIC in-plane strain magnitudes with absolute differences of up to 15% for DC04 steel. The proposed methods provide general guidelines for efficient calibration of anisotropic constitutive models for approximately pressure-independent materials that are accurate to large deformation levels. Next, the mechanics of the conical hole expansion test were examined to assess the role of necking and anisotropy and to develop methodologies for fracture strain estimation. Finite-element (FE) models of the test were created in LS-DYNA software for two AHSS grades with differing plastic strain anisotropies using hexahedral solid elements. An analysis of through-thickness stress and strain gradients from the numerical models revealed that localization is suppressed until a hole expansion ratio of 200%, with the outer hole edge exhibiting a proportional uniaxial tensile stress state. Any non-uniformity in hole shape or thickness around the circumference of the extruded hole was found to be a manifestation of the tensile plastic strain anisotropy distribution and not necking. The hole expansion ratio was found to be suboptimal for quantifying edge stretchability since the inner hole edge undergoes a non-linear strain path transitioning from compression to uniaxial tension. Furthermore, when using the HER as a fracture metric, the local outer hole edge element strains from FE simulations were underpredicted with absolute differences of up to 10%. An analytical technique was proposed to obtain the local major fracture strain from conical hole expansion using the outer hole diameter measured at the crack location, with the equivalent failure strain then obtained using plastic work equivalence. The strains obtained using the proposed method were in excellent agreement with the elemental strains from numerical models with a maximum difference of 4% for the highly anisotropic CP800, confirming its suitability for fracture strain measurement from the test. Subsequently, a novel four-point fixture and specimen geometry that promotes failure under the deformation mode of in-plane bending was developed to characterize the uniaxial fracture limits of moderate ductility materials. The in-plane bending mode is also representative of edge splitting at peripheral regions of stamped parts. Techniques to detect the onset of fracture and accurately measure the edge strains from the in-plane bend tests were proposed that is applicable to a wide range of material ductilities. The uniaxial fracture strain measured in the in-plane bend test conducted with a machined edge was found to agree closely with the conical hole expansion true fracture strain of 0.68 for a 3rd generation 980GEN3 advanced high strength steel. The in-plane bend test also showed promise for plastic strain anisotropy characterization under uniaxial tension and compression to strain levels much larger than the material uniform elongation. A gauge height-to-thickness ratio of 4.0 or lower is recommended as a specimen design guideline to mitigate buckling based on a comprehensive experimental study conducted on multiple materials and thicknesses. Finally, the influence of loading conditions on the sheared edge fracture limits of 980GEN3 steel punched with a 5.0 mm hole and 12% clearance was investigated using five different test methods that imposed different stress and strain gradients in the vicinity of the sheared edge. A convergent fracture strain value of approximately 0.30 was observed across the in-plane edge fracture tests, with the conical hole expansion test exhibiting a higher strain of 0.45 due to out-of-plane deformation and fracture being defined at through-thickness cracking. Differences in fracture strains between the in-plane tests were also magnified by the choice of DIC lengthscale or virtual strain gauge length, reflecting each test’s varying sensitivity to DIC strain averaging. Global stretchability metrics were proposed for each deformation mode, enabling edge crack assessment in industrial applications without the need for DIC. The global edge stretch metrics were also found to inform the appropriate choice of DIC lengthscale for design and FE modelling. Finally, FE simulations of the edge fracture tests were conducted using multiple mesh sizes, revealing that a boundary condition dependence can also manifest in simulations with the added influence of lengthscale sensitivity. The predicted major strains at the experimental fracture instant varied with mesh size, suggesting that a single strain value may be insufficient to describe edge fracture. The elemental thinning strain showed reduced dependence on mesh size, making it a more reliable parameter for assessment of edge fracture in simulations. Importantly, the simulations indicated that the edge fracture strain cannot be represented by a unique value but is rather a function of the imposed loading condition. The in-plane stretching mode exhibited the lowest engineering thinning strain limit of 8.8%, making it the critical deformation mode for edge crack initiation in 980GEN3 steel. A key outcome of this work is the quantitative understanding of the effect of boundary conditions and lengthscale on the edge fracture limits. Prediction of sheared edge fracture must account for both the imposed loading and numerical lengthscale, with thinning strain offering a more robust metric for use in simulations. The developed methodologies provide practical and efficient guidelines that can be implemented in industrial environments for edge crack assessment and prediction in stamping simulations.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Systems and Control Protocols for Neutral-Atom-Array Quantum Processors
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-01-12) Zhutov, Artem
    Neutral atom arrays are a leading platform for programmable quantum processors, offering individual qubit addressability, long-lived hyperfine ground states, and strong Rydberg interactions. Recent progress has demonstrated coherent control over thousands of atoms. However, achieving scalable control requires precise mitigation of environmental and hardware imperfections that degrade gate performance. This thesis presents an integrated neutral-atom array platform built from the ground up that incorporates quantum sensing directly into the processor. Each atom functions both as a qubit and a local magnetometer. We design, build, and characterize from first principles three subsystems: 1) a microwave control system for driving hyperfine transitions in ground-state rubidium atoms; 2) a Raman laser system for site-selective single-qubit gates; and 3) a Rydberg laser system with quantum optimal control for robust two-qubit gates. This work provides a universal gate set and quantifies which error sources limit performance. First, we develop an in-situ magnetic field imaging technique using the atom array as a quantum sensor. Through site-resolved Ramsey spectroscopy, we image magnetic fields across a 260 μm × 160 μm region with 3 μm spatial resolution. We then apply computed corrections that compensate for the bias magnetic fields, producing uniform global microwave single-qubit rotations. Second, we introduce a hardware-aware simulation framework to evaluate Raman laser systems for hyperfine qubit manipulation. Simulations predict a single-qubit gate infidelity of 4.4 × 10⁻⁴ using BB1 composite pulses to mitigate thermal motion errors. We validate the Raman laser system by building and characterizing its phase noise. Third, we develop a Rydberg laser system for high-fidelity entangling gates. We apply linear response theory to map laser phase noise to single-atom Rydberg excitation fidelity. We then demonstrate fast phase-noise engineering by optimizing laser servo parameters. We employ hardware-aware quantum optimal control to design both Rydberg excitation and two-qubit gate pulses with built-in robustness against physical and control parameter fluctuations, outperforming analytical benchmarks. This integrated platform demonstrates high-fidelity universal control of neutral-atom registers with hundreds of qubits. By systematically addressing environmental inhomogeneities through integrated sensing and hardware-aware control design, this work provides a validated path for scaling quantum processors while maintaining gate fidelity.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Ja, goed idee! Arranging joint future activities as a 'Big Package' in Dutch phone conversations
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-01-12) de Rooij, Geertruida
    Arrangement-making is an important part of daily life and even a simple get-together may require a longer stretch of such preparatory talk. Using the method of conversation analysis and building on Heritage and Clayman's (2024) work on arrangement-making packages in English, this thesis analyzes the way arrangements are made in spontaneous Dutch telephone conversations. This research places itself in the context of work on longer stretches of talk, also known as long sequences (Sacks, 1995) or big packages (Jefferson, 1988). The analysis first takes a broad perspective of the arrangement-making package as a whole, concentrating on the boundaries that set it apart from the conversation in which it is embedded. For the beginning of the arrangement-making process, some of the ways in which participants signal shared knowledge, for example through discourse particles, are explored, while at the end of the package, some practices for confirming the agreed upon plan or for postponing the final arrangements to a later time are addressed. Subsequently, the analysis zooms in on a specific linguistic resource, 'anders dan' (otherwise), and its role in the body of the package. I show that this adverbial expression is found both in extended turns and at the beginning of a new turn. In the latter position, it can serve to propose an alternative to an arrangement solution being pursued, allowing for closure of the arrangement-making segment or package. Data are from the Corpus Gesproken Nederlands (Corpus of Spoken Dutch).