Sharif Digital Repository

Nature has always been a source of great inspiration for engineers and mathematicians. Evolutionary Algorithms are the latest in a line of natural-based innovations which have had a profound effect on the application of optimization in science and engineering. Although based on nature, Evolutionary Algorithms are nonetheless distinctly different from natural evolution in several areas. This paper outlines early and recent developments of Evolutionary Algorithms while covering those areas of difference. Practical issues related to the use of Evolutionary Algorithms, key parameters that affect the quality of the search and impact of user choices in problem formulation are also covered in this... 

This paper demonstrates how a probabilistic criterion could be explicitly integrated in the unit commitment (UC) formulation. Both spinning reserve and interruptible load are taken into account as the operating reserve facilities. Incorporating the interruption notice time of interruptible load involves some complexities in the evaluation procedure and problem formulation which is considered in this paper. The expected energy not supplied (EENS) is considered as a probabilistic criterion and a new method is proposed to calculate this index in the presence of interruptible load. The reliability-constrained unit commitment (RCUC) problem is formulated based on the mixed-integer programming... 

This paper presents the effects of a non-uniform magnetic field on the hydrodynamic and thermal behavior of ferrofluid flow in a wavy channel by 3D numerical simulation. The wavy surfaces at the top and bottom of the channel are heated by constant heat fluxes. Moreover, the sidewalls are adiabatic. In the wavy section, in the perpendicular direction of the main flow, the magnetic field that linearly varies along the direction of the main flow is applied. The mathematical model that is consistent with the principles of ferrohydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics is used for the problem formulation. The results indicate that the wavy wall enhances the heat transfer rate on the bottom of the... 

The governing differential equation of motion of a thin rectangular plate excited by a moving mass is considered. The moving mass is traversing on the plate's surface at arbitrary trajectories. Eigenfunction expansion method is employed to solve the constitutive equation of motion for various boundary conditions. Approximate and exact expressions of the inertial effects are adopted for the problem formulation. In the approximate formulation, only the vertical acceleration component of the moving mass is considered while in the exact formulation all the convective acceleration components are included in the problem formulation as well. Parametric studies are carried out to investigate the... 

In this paper, we present a novel power allocation scheme for amplify and forward incremental relaying (IR) systems with the aim to minimize the overall outage probability at the destination. In our problem formulation, we take into account the outage-dependent activation of the relay when writing the power constraint. We provide a simple closed-form solution to the IR power allocation problem that is based on high signal-to-noise (SNR) approximation of the outage probability assuming maximum ratio combining (MRC) at the destination. We investigate the effectiveness of the proposed solution by comparing the achieved outage probabilities with those obtained through global numerical search. We... 

Miscellaneous sorts of renewable energies, despite of their positive impacts on the power system operation cost and environmental concerns, could jeopardize the system reliability due to introducing significant degrees of intermittency and uncertainty. This challenge could be overcome by composing various sources of renewable energies with complimentary natures. This paper devises an explicit mathematical framework to compromise the contribution of wind and solar energies. The optimization problem is to maximize the system reliability subject to a fixed monetary investment associated with both wind and solar. The problem formulation is based on mixed-integer programming (MIP) format in which...