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Network Reconstruction for Emergency Response Following a Major Earthquake: Definition and a Solution Algorithm

Tayarani, Mohammad | 2013

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 44237 (09)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Civil Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Poorzahedy, Hossain
  7. Abstract:
  8. Natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes, have been, and will be, one major source of mankind disastrous problems. Mankindinterventions to relieve this heavy pressure on humanity have been divided into four categories: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. This study is in the response phase, and aims to find an optimal network to help people in the devastated part of a city, hit by a major earthquake. Such earthquakes demolish buildings over the people inside, causing them fatal harm and serious injuries. At the same time, they ruin the city infrastructures (life lines), including transportation networks, preventing flow of relief supply to reach to the most needy population in a widely devastated area. This study presents the problem of optimal relief network, and an algorithm to solve it. It formulates the problem as a bi-level network design problem in time, with two types of relief fleets. At the top level, the operator seeks to “invest” he limited resources of network “link openers” to establish (an optimal) network, to let the second fleet of “life savers” to reach the needy people optimally, to supply them with the basic needs, and take the injured to hospitals. A meta-heuristic solution procedure is devised to solve the problem. It is based on a Particle Swarm concept. To show the behavior to the algorithm, it is applied on a small network, and to show its applicability to larger network, it is applied to the network of the city of Sioux Falls. The result are presented and discussed
  9. Keywords:
  10. Emergency Aids ; Earthquake ; Bilevel Programming ; Network Design ; Particles Swarm Optimization (PSO) ; Minimum Network ; Urban Transportation Network

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