Sharif Digital Repository

In the context of sustainable clean hydrogen production pathways, photovoltaic-electrolyzer systems are one of the most promising alternatives for acquiring hydrogen from renewable energy sources. In fact, determining the optimal set of design and operating variables are always a key issue while coupling directly renewable electricity sources to PEM electrolyzers. Few previous studies have attempted to find the optimal size and operational condition of directly coupled photovoltaic-electrolyzer (PV/El) systems in order to maximize the hydrogen production or to minimize energy transfer loss between photovoltaic devices and the electrolyzer. Nevertheless an easy and efficient approach still... 

A number of challenges including instability, nonconvergence, nonuniqueness, nonoptimality, and lack of a general guideline for inverse modelling have limited the application of automatic calibration by generic inversion codes in solving the saltwater intrusion problem in real-world cases. A systematic parameter selection procedure for the selection of a small number of independent parameters is applied to a real case of saltwater intrusion in a small island aquifer system in the semiarid region of the Persian Gulf. The methodology aims at reducing parameter nonuniqueness and uncertainty and the time spent on inverse modelling computations. Subsequent to the automatic calibration of the... 

This article proposes a hybrid optimization algorithm based on a modified BFGS and particle swarm optimization to solve medium scale nonlinear programs. The hybrid algorithm integrates the modified BFGS into particle swarm optimization to solve augmented Lagrangian penalty function. In doing so, the algorithm launches into a global search over the solution space while keeping a detailed exploration into the neighborhoods. To shed light on the merit of the algorithm, we provide a test bed consisting of 30 test problems to compare our algorithm against two of its variations along with two state-of-the-art nonlinear optimization algorithms. The numerical experiments illustrate that the proposed... 

This paper presents a novel opposition-based self-adaptive modified gravitational search algorithm (OSAMGSA) for optimal reactive power dispatch and voltage control in power-system operation. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer, nonlinear optimization problem, which has both continuous and discrete control variables. In order to achieve the optimal value of loss, voltage deviation, and voltage stability index, it is necessary to find the optimal value of control variables such as the tap positions of tap changing transformers, generator voltages, and compensation capacitor. Therefore, this complicated problem needs to be solved by an accurate optimization algorithm. This paper... 

We present a new filter trust-region approach for solving unconstrained nonlinear optimization problems making use of the filter technique introduced by Fletcher and Leyffer to generate non-monotone iterations. We also use the concept of a multidimensional filter used by Gould et al. (SIAM J. Optim. 15(1):17-38, 2004) and introduce a new filter criterion showing good properties. Moreover, we introduce a new technique for reducing the size of the filter. For the algorithm, we present two different convergence analyses. First, we show that at least one of the limit points of the sequence of the iterates is first-order critical. Second, we prove the stronger property that all the limit points... 

Active control of multi-storey frame structures with nonlinear hysteretic response has been studied in this paper. A new nonlinear optimal control algorithm based on nonlinear Newmark integration method and distributed genetic algorithm (DGA) has been developed. The objective has been to reduce the response to below any desired level. In this study, DGA has been used to determine the weights in the control law corresponding to displacement, velocity and acceleration. The capabilities of the method has been assessed through simulation where an eight-storey frame with bilinear hysteretic behaviour has been subjected to a white noise ground acceleration and controlled by the controllers... 

This paper addresses the problem of optimal state-feedback design for a class of non-linear systems. The method is applicable to all non-linear systems which can be linearised using the method of state-feedback linearisation. The alternative is to use linear optimisation techniques for the linearised equations, but then there is no guarantee that the original non-linear system behaves optimally. The authors use feedback linearisation technique to linearise the system and then design a state feedback for the feedback-linearised system in such a way that it ensures optimal performance of the original non-linear system. The method cannot ensure global optimality of the solution but the global... 

We consider nonlinear optimization problems constrained by a system of fuzzy relation equations. The solution set of the fuzzy relation equations being nonconvex, in general, conventional nonlinear programming methods are not practical. Here, we propose a genetic algorithm with max-product composition to obtain a near optimal solution for convex or nonconvex solution set. Test problems are constructed to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm showing alternative solutions obtained by our proposed model  

We concern with both time and cost optimization in an automated manufacturing system. In our proposed system, material handling is carried out by automated guided vehicles and robots for the manufacturing functions. In this way, defect rates, breakdown times, waiting time, processing time, and certain other parameters are not expected to be deterministic. Therefore, we apply stochastic programming to optimize the production time and material handling cost. The proposed stochastic program is a nonlinear model, for this reason we apply a successive linear programming (SLP) technique for its optimization. Numerical test results point to the inefficacy of the proposed optimization method for... 

During design, microsatellites are subject to different changes like the changes in weight, location and dimension of parts and elements of subsystems and the payload. These changes should be accumulated by the structure subsystem in a way that some key structural parameters like the center of gravity (CG) and inertia moments remain unchanged. This subject is also important regarding the design of a modular structure of a satellite. In the present study it is tried to accommodate any changes in weight and location of any part(s) and element(s) of a microsatellite by optimum (minimum) rearrangement of other parts on their plane of rest in order to keep the CG and inertia moments unchanged.... 

A central problem in motor control is to understand how the many biomechanical degrees of freedom are coordinated to achieve a goal. A common assumption is that Central Nervous System (CNS) would minimize a performance index to achieve this goal which is called objective function. In this paper, two popular objective functions are utilized to design the optimal trajectory of trunk movements. A 3D computational method incorporated with 18 anatomically oriented muscles is used to simulate human trunk system. Inverse dynamics allows us to compute torque which is generated around Lumbosacral joint. This torque is divided among muscles by static stability-based optimization. Trunk movement from... 

The problem of clustering with side information has received much recent attention and metric learning has been considered as a powerful approach to this problem. Until now, various metric learning methods have been proposed for semi-supervised clustering. Although some of the existing methods can use both positive (must-link) and negative (cannot-link) constraints, they are usually limited to learning a linear transformation (i.e., finding a global Mahalanobis metric). In this paper, we propose a framework for learning linear and non-linear transformations efficiently. We use both positive and negative constraints and also the intrinsic topological structure of data. We formulate our metric... 

In this paper, the order distribution concept in the frequency domain identification has been extended to include fractional order systems having poles and zeros simultaneously. The existing nonlinear optimization problem appeared when both poles and zeros, is are changed to a quadratic problem that can be solved using least squares algorithms. To collect the required data, system is excited by a multi sine input signal with appropriately selected frequencies. Then a nonparametric identification in frequency domain is accomplished to calculate the empirical transfer function estimate (ETFE). This estimate is then used to implement the frequency domain identification on all defined members of... 

Multivariate curve resolution based on the minimization of an objective function (MCR-FMIN) defined directly from the non-fulfillment of constraints was applied for the first time as a deconvolution method to separate co-eluted gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) signals. Simulated and real (standard real mixture and limon oil) GC-MS data were used to evaluate the feasibility of this method. The MCR-FMIN solutions have been obtained based on the rotation of principal component analysis (PCA) solutions using the non-linear optimization algorithms. Calculation of the initial values of R rotation matrix using model free analysis methods such as fixed-size moving window-evolving... 

The objective of this study was to quantify individual muscle function differences between level walking and backpack load carriage at the same speed by using a muscle-actuated forward dynamics simulation. As experimental investigations have revealed that backpack loads of up to 64 per cent of an individual's body mass have little effect on the sagittal plane gait kinema-tics, further biomechanical analyses are necessary to investigate the contributions of individual muscle coordination strategies to achieve a given motor task by mechanical power generation, absorption, and transference to each body segment. A biomechanical framework consisting of a musculoskeletal model actuated by 18... 

Calculation of camera projection matrix, also called camera calibration, is an essential task in many computer vision and 3D data processing applications. Calculation of projection matrix using vanishing points and vanishing lines is well suited in the literature; where the intersection of parallel lines (in 3D Euclidean space) when projected on the camera image plane (by a perspective transformation) is called vanishing point and the intersection of two vanishing points (in the image plane) is called vanishing line. The aim of this paper is to propose a new formulation for easily computing the projection matrix based on three orthogonal vanishing points. It can also be used to calculate the... 

This research study presents an investigation on the behavior of a Pulsating Heat Pipe Flat-Plate Solar Collector (PHPFPSC) by artificial neural network method and an optimization of the parameters of the collector by genetic algorithm. In this study, several experiments were performed to study the effects of various evaporator lengths, filling ratios, inclination angles, solar radiation, and input chilled water temperature between 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., and the output temperature of the water tank, which was the output of the system, was also measured. According to the input and output information, multilayer perceptron neural network was trained and used to predict the behavior of the... 

This study developed and validated a lumped parameter model for the FLEXI-BAR, a popular training instrument that provides vibration stimulation. The model which can be used in conjunction with musculoskeletal-modeling software for quantitative biomechanical analyses, consists of 3 rigid segments, 2 torsional springs, and 2 torsional dashpots. Two different sets of experiments were conducted to determine the model's key parameters including the stiffness of the springs and the damping ratio of the dashpots. In the first set of experiments, the free vibration of the FLEXI-BAR with an initial displacement at its end was considered, while in the second set, forced oscillations of the bar were... 

Calculation of camera projection matrix, also called camera calibration, is an essential task in many computer vision and 3D data processing applications. Calculation of projection matrix using vanishing points and vanishing lines is well suited in the literature; where the intersection of parallel lines (in 3D Euclidean space) when projected on the camera image plane (by a perspective transformation) is called vanishing point and the intersection of two vanishing points (in the image plane) is called vanishing line. The aim of this paper is to propose a new formulation for easily computing the projection matrix based on three orthogonal vanishing points. It can also be used to calculate the... 

In this paper, the optimal performance of a planar humanlike musculoskeletal arm is investigated during reaching movements employing an optimal control policy. The initial and final states (position and velocity) are the only known data of the response trajectory. Two biomechanical objective functions are taken into account to be minimized as the central nervous system (CNS) strategy: (1) a quadratic function of muscle stresses (or forces), (2) total time of movement plus a quadratic function of muscle stresses. A two-degress of freedom (DOF) nonlinear musculoskeletal arm model (for planar movements) with six muscle actuators and four state variables is used in order to evaluate the proposed...