Sharif Digital Repository

Due to the boom in world trade, port authorities are looking into ways of making existing facilities more efficient. One way to improve efficiency, increase capacity, and meet future demand is to use advanced technologies and automation in order to speed up terminal operations. In this paper, we design, analyze, and evaluate four different automated container terminal (ACT) concepts. These concepts include automated container terminals based on the use of automated guidance vehicles (AGVs), a linear motor conveyance system (LMCS), an overhead grid rail system (GR), and a high-rise automated storage and retrieval structure (AS/RS). We use future demand scenarios to design the characteristics... 

A reliability improvement program (such as an upgrade action) can be seen as an investment by a dealer to restore a second-hand product to a better operational state. Due to the nature of the actions performed, the item's reliability at the end of this program is usually uncertain. This article develops a stochastic cost-benefit model for investment made in reliability improvement programs for second-hand items sold with failure-free warranty. Depending on the product's lifetime modeling approach, two modifications of the model are considered and are solved for the optimal improvement level. A real case application of the model is presented to validate the proposed approach  

We analyze the structure of equilibria and the price of anarchy in the family of network creation games considered extensively in the past few years, which attempt to unify the network design and network routing problems by modeling both creation and usage costs. In general, the games are played on a host graph, where each node is a selfish independent agent (player) and each edge has a fixed link creation cost α. Together the agents create a network (a subgraph of the host graph) while selfishly minimizing the link creation costs plus the sum of the distances to all other players (usage cost). In this paper, we pursue two important facets of the network creation game. First, we study... 

Positioning for kinematic applications is of great importance in terms of accuracy and computational complexity. In this paper, we present an algorithm based on correlation between error components in three directions, i.e. Δx, Δy, Δz to decrease positioning error of a GPS receiver for kinematic applications. The main feature of proposed algorithm is that it modifies data at each instant and in each direction using data of two other directions at the same instant (i.e. some sort of online modification). This feature was acquired using an approach introduced to model state transition matrix using AR coefficients of two other directions. The algorithm was implemented on the output raw position... 

Ways to reduce an airline's cost has been studied for years. In fact, in order to achieve this goal, ones need to know different types of airline's costs including; fuel and oil, maintenance, Ticketing, passenger services, etc. and their impact on the total cost of an airline. According to announcement of ICAO [1], "maintenance cost (about 11% of total cost) is the second major cost after fuel and oil". Therefore, this may attract airline owners' attention to find ways to control maintenance cost and eventually the total cost of an airline. Though, there are many systematic approaches to analyze cost reduction and making policies, in this article, SD modeling is applied to develop a... 

The transformerless single-phase semi-quasi-Z-source inverter (SqZSI) has a nonlinear gain curve and requires nonlinear sinusoidal pulse width modulation (NLSPWM) to achieve sinusoidal voltage at the output AC terminal. Although the SqZSI provides some advantages, for example, leakage current elimination, doubly grounded, low volume, and low cost, it needs nonlinear modulation control. The NLSPWM is relatively complex among single-phase modulation methods and it is considered a disadvantage for this topology, so this paper presents a model-driven processor programming method that facilitates the implementation of NLSPWM. The developed programming method utilizes a Blockset environment in... 

Nowadays, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) are used in environmental studies, ocean floor mapping, and measuring water properties. Navigation of these vehicles is one of the most challenging issues due to the unavailability of global positioning system (GPS) signal underwater. Inertial navigation is a method commonly used for underwater navigation. If a low-cost Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) is used, navigation quality will decline rapidly due to sensor inherent error. Although using a Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) speedometer sensor helps limit this error to some extent, it does not yield acceptable accuracy in low-cost IMUs. Filtering the gyro based on the AUV rotational dynamics model... 

Considering the dramatic increase of greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide, reduction of these gases seems necessary to combat global warming. Fossil fuel power plants are one of the main sources of CO2 emission and several methods are under development to capture CO2 from power plants. In this paper, CO2 capture from a natural gas fired steam cycle power plant using oxyfuel combustion technology is studied. Oxy-fuel combustion is an interesting option since CO2 concentration in the flue gas is highly increased. The Integrated Environmental Control Model (IECM) developed by Carnegie Mellon University (USA) is used to evaluate the effect of this capture...