Sharif Digital Repository

A mechanical system inherently affected by the conditions, factors, and parameters of uncertainties. Without including the uncertainty effects in the design procedure, the designs may not be robust and reliable. Robust design optimization (RDO) method is a procedure to find the insensitive design with respect to the variations. On the other hand, reliability is measured by the probability of satisfying a specific design criterion. Therefore, a reliable design is a design that satisfies the specified criteria even with some uncertainties in variables and parameters. Reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) is an optimization procedure that incorporates reliability requirements to find the... 

Uncertainties can be divided into two general categories: aleatory and epistemic. Conventional reliability-based robust design optimization approaches, which disregard epistemic uncertainties due to lack of knowledge about the physical nature of systems, have previously been developed. To overcome this weakness, unlike previous methods, a Bayesian reliability-based robust design optimization method is proposed in the presence of both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. The proposed formulation is presented as a multi-objective optimization problem. The univariate dimension reduction method is used to approximate the mean and variance of the design function. The non-dominated sorting... 

A redundancy allocation problem consists of the selection of a number of redundancies to be allocated in each subsystem of a series-parallel configuration to maximize system reliability, while minimizing overall system cost. Most existing studies either ignore system cost or assume deterministic component reliabilities. However, the selection of a network system design requires the estimation of its reliability and cost. Therefore, the uncertainty associated with such estimates must be considered in the decision process. In this study, an efficient method based on the loss function approach is proposed to solve the redundancy allocation problem. This approach not only optimizes the overall... 

Enhancing the quality of the product has always been one considerable concern of production process management, and this subject gave way to implementing so many methods including robust design. In this paper, robust design utilizes response surface methodology (RSM) considering the mean and variance of the response variable regarding system design, parameter design, and tolerance design. In this paper, customer requirements and robust design are regarded simultaneously to achieve enriched quality. Subsequently, with a non-linear programming, a novel method for integrating RSM and quality function deployment has been proposed to achieve robustness in design. The customer requirements are... 

A redundancy allocation problem consists of the selection of a number of redundancies to be allocated in each subsystem of a series-parallel configuration to maximize system reliability, while minimizing overall system cost. Most existing studies either ignore system cost or assume deterministic component reliabilities. However, the selection of a network system design requires the estimation of its reliability and cost. Therefore, the uncertainty associated with such estimates must be considered in the decision process. In this study, an efficient method based on the loss function approach is proposed to solve the redundancy allocation problem. This approach not only optimizes the overall... 

MFI-type zeolite was successfully synthesized by hydrothermal crystallization of clear synthesis mixtures. A statistical experimental design method (the Taguchi method with an L8 orthogonal array) was implemented to optimize the experimental conditions for the preparation of MFI nanocrystals with respect to particle size and distribution as the desirable properties. In the Taguchi experimental design, crystallization temperature, water content, template/silica molar ratio, aluminum content, as well as the presence of alkaline cations were chosen as significant parameters affecting the properties. It was shown that water and aluminum content of the synthesis solution were the most important... 

In this paper, a new approach for multi-objective robust optimization of flutter velocity and maximum displacement of the wing tip are investigated. The wing is under the influence of bending–torsion coupling and its design variables have different levels of uncertainty. In designing and optimizing wings with a high aspect ratio, the optimization process can be done in such a way to increase the flutter velocity, but this can increase the amplitude of the wing tip displacement to a point that leads to the wings damage and structural failure. Therefore, single-objective design optimization may lead to infeasible designs. Thus, for multi-objective optimization, modeling is based on the... 

The performance of the resolver as a position sensor is significantly influenced by electrical and mechanical faults. Among different faults, short circuit in the stator windings has more destructive effect than others on accuracy of resolver. Furthermore, due to thin wires of the stator it is highly likely to occur. Therefore, in this paper a robust design is proposed for wound-rotor resolvers to not only suppress the influence of short circuit fault in the stator/rotor winding, but also improve the accuracy of the sensor under mechanical faults. The effectiveness of the proposed robust design is demonstrated by an analytical model based on winding function method and then approved by time... 

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) should be able to respond to changing manufacturing requirements and environments. From the layout point of view, FMS need to be rearranged to fit the new requirements. However, rearranging the layout is often undesirable due to its unpredicted high costs and production disruption. This paper proposes a practical approach to mitigate the effects and repercussions of changing environments and avoid rearranging the layout. A robust layout approach is presented, where changes in product demand and mix are absorbed by altering product routes and not rearranging the layout. In this approach, the problem is decomposed into two sub-problems: sub-problem 1 (SP1)...