Sharif Digital Repository

Analyzing reliability of large cold-standby systems has been a complicated and time-consuming task, especially for systems with components having non-exponential time-to-failure distributions. In this research, an approximation model, which is based on the central limit theorem, is presented for the reliability analysis of binary cold-standby systems whit non-identical components. The proposed model can estimate the reliability of large cold-standby systems with binary-state components having arbitrary time-to-failure distributions in an efficient and easy way. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are illustrated using several different types of distributions, such as... 

Mainly due to the catastrophic effects of electricity service interruptions and their huge damage costs, transmission networks are always designed as meshed networks wherein load points can be served through alternative redundant paths. This redundancy, although it has positive impacts on reliability in general, may worsen the situation during some contingencies. The number of operating constraints imposed by Kirchhoff’s current and voltage laws increases as the number of branches in transmission networks grows. This increment in the number of constraints may force operators to commit costly generation units in normal operation of the network as well as to invoke more unexpected load... 

With constant increase in the rate of VLSI circuits manufactured in sites separate from the designers and computer architects, global concern regarding the possibility of integration of malware by the manufacturing foundries has arisen. Particularly, one main issue that affects reliability of the chips is modifications or additions with malicious intention,known as Hardware Trojans, which are easily applicable during design and manufacturing phase of chips. There has been an increasing fraud in chip-set manufacturing. Hardware Trojans may leak confidential information outside the chip, to the attacker, may alter the function of circuit, or completely fail a system. Hence search for new... 

Shrinking the dimensions of transistors in recent fabrication technologies has led to an increase in the aging rate of chips, as the most important challenge in reliability of new processors. Bias Temperature Instability (BTI) and Hot Carrier Injection (HCI) are amongst the most important adverse effect of transistor shrinkage. These two effects decrease the switching speed of transistors by increasing its threshold voltage over time. Threshold voltage shift causes timing violation in combinational parts of circuit and decreases the robustness of sequential parts against soft errors. Between different units of a processor, Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU) is one of the most susceptible units... 

Bias Temperature Instability (BTI) is known as one serious reliability concern in nanoscale technology sizes. BTI gradually degrades threshold voltage (Vth) of MOS transistors. The main consequence of Vth degradation in SRAM cell transistors is the Static Noise Margin (SNM) degradation that makes SRAM cells susceptible against soft errors. SNM degradation in SRAM cells results in bit-flip occurrences and should be monitored accurately before resulting in permanent failures. This work proposes a sensor called Current-based BTI Sensor (CBS) to assess the aging state of SRAM cells. CBS measures BTI-induced SNM degradation of SRAM cells by monitoring the write current shifts due to BTI. The... 

The objective of this thesis is to prioritize a portfolio of buildings for seismic retrofit. A new set of sensitivity measures is proposed to rank the buildings in accordance with the reduction in the loss of the entire portfolio. To this end, various risk measures are differentiated with respect to the cost of retrofit for each building. These risk measures are the moments of the portfolio cost probability distribution which imply the risk-neutral and risk-averse decision making. Two costs are considered: Construction cost due to retrofit and repair cost due to structural and non-structural damage. To quantify the risk, reliability methods are employed in which many interacting... 

Many embedded systems must be highly reliable and have hard real-time constraints. Technology scaling has enabled integration of multiple fast cores in a single chip. This provides higher computation speed that can achieve low response time in real-time systems. However, shrinking transistor dimensions aggravates reliability threats. Furthermore, hard real-time embedded systems are usually subjected to severe power and energy consumption limitations imposed by battery and cooling units. Therefore, designing hard real-time embedded systems requires careful considerations of reliability and power/energy consumption issues. High reliability can be achieved through exploiting fault tolerance... 

Overpressure protection and flare loading network are critical challenges faced by the Oil & Gas and chemical industries. Whether they are new facilities or aging ones, integrity management of overpressure and flaring systems remain significant throughout the life of the planet. One of the most important ways for protection of over pressure and depressurizing to flare header through pressure safety valve is implementation of safety instrument system (SIS). Application of safety instrumented systems for the process industries causes significant reduction of flaring load and loss prevention of valuable materials through increase protection layer availability and over pressure risk reduction.... 

LOOP accident is one of the most important accidents in NPPS and it leads to loss of power supply of the RCP pumps which are the main pumps of primary circuit. Subsequently trip of the rector occurs. In safety analysis, concerning worst conditions, assumes that after a small period of time, main generator of plant stops working and loss of AC power supply of all power plant loads including safety systems ocures. To control of this accident, it’s necessary to startup and load backup power supply system (EDGs) for at least one safety channels, if not, the accident moves forwards and becomes S.B.O accident which is more important accident that ends to core damage because of stops working of all... 

This research proposes a probabilistic framework for seismic risk analysis of industrial plants of oil infrastructure using reliability methods. The proposed approach integrates multiple probabilistic models and system reliability to quantify the seismic risk of the process plants. A chain of probabilistic seismic hazard and risk models is utilized for the risk analysis. The Monte Carlo sampling method is used to propagate the significant uncertainty in the hazard event, damage to components and its consequences, and the potential losses incurred by process plant. In each sample of the analysis, hazard models simulate the occurrence, magnitude, and rupture area and location of earthquake... 

Toward the cost-effective solutions for the challenging features of maintenance in nowadays restructured power systems, reliability centered maintenance (RCM) has been introduced as the efficient key due to its streamlined performance. RCM, although has proven its noticeable merits in many industries, has not been yet furnished with efficient analytical methods in the power engineering context. In a power distribution system, vividly in a deregulated market and restructured environment, blind time based maintenance of all the distribution equipments is neither affordable nor economically justifiable. Moreover, an acceptable level of system reliability is an indispensable criterion for the... 

Reliability evaluation is a key factor in serviceability and safety analysis of air vehicles. Structural health monitoring methods have grown to a degree of maturity in many industries. However, there is a challenging interest to tie in SHM with reliability assessment. In this respect, consideration of stochastic structural dynamics with SHM data and random loadings opens a new chapter in failure prevention. The current study focuses on the stochastic behavior of structures as a way to relate SHM data with reliability. In this respect, uncertain factors such as atmospheric turbulence, structural parameters, and sensor outputs are considered in the process of reliability assessment. Firstly,... 

Climate change impacts especially on temperature and precipitation, may have various effects on agriculture and water demand of agriculture sector in different regions around the world. Based on numerous researches, these effects may be positive in a region while another region might endure negative effects. Therefore carrying out researches and developing methods to predict these impacts as well as mitigating strategies seem to be essential. The most worldwide accepted method is using global circulation models (GCMs) outputs under different greenhouse gases emission scenarios, and according to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. IPCC claims that the most recent... 

Power generation stations, which are commonly called power plants, are treated as the core module of power systems and are in charge of producing power to be transmitted and distributed to the end consumers. As the beating heart of power industry, power plants need to be available and reliable all the time and so do their constituent components since the need for reliable electricity, nowadays, is ever increasingly highlighted. The reason lies in the rapid jump of population growth in one hand and the incredible amount of damages as a consequence to the power interruptions due to the power plant component outages, if happened, on the other one. So, power plants have to be kept within a... 

The current restructuring trend in power industry emplaces the owners and managers under a great pressure to not only reduce the associated investment costs, but also reasonably cut the operation and maintenance expenses as much as possible, while keeping both the power quality and reliability requirements met. Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) has been proved to be in response to this dilemma in power systems since it has been yet successfully applied in various engineering contexts worldwide. This process is more challenging when it comes to the power transmission systems because of its bulkiness and complex structure. On the other hand, market involvement and its intricate behavior... 

Maintenance management of power system components has been always one of the main challenges among the power system operation concerns. Experiencing the fast developments in power industries, and the power networks rapid expansions (as a consequence of power system energy consumpsion growth) while utilities have limitations on their annual investment budgets and the operational costs. Therefore, a more cost-effective maintenance plan is searched for. Various types of maintenance have been nowadays implemented in power systems, all over the world. Among them, reliability-centered maintenance and condition-based maintenance (CBM) can be addressed. Circuit breakers (CBs) from long ago are... 

The performance gap between main memory and storage devices is one of major bottlenecks in data storage systems. I/O caches are one way to reduce this performance gap. In recent years, open source I/O cache modules such as OpenCAS, EnhanceIO, and dm-cache have been examined by researchers from the performance perspective, but the reliability of these modules has not been investigated and compared. In this thesis, we evaluate the reliability of I/O cache modules against hardware failures (e.g., power failure) and software failures (e.g. operating system failure). In addition, we examine the reliability mechanisms in these three modules, whose fault models and their failure rates significantly... 

Residential demand response is an appropriate control tool for improving system reliability. This project intends to establish a model to activate residential demand response to improve distribution network reliability. Two centralized and decentralized models are proposed. The models aim at minimizing the damage cost imposed by load curtailments following unexpected events. In the models, it is supposed that distribution system operator (DSO) and responsive customers already signed a contract authorizing the DSO alters the operation of responsive appliances whenever system reliability is jeopardized. In centralized framework, Responsive customers deliver the technical data of their... 

Mixed-criticality embedded systems, as the next-generation of safety-critical systems, are increasingly employed in industry due to consolidating functionalities with varying criticality levels onto the same computing platform. Also, cost reduction and performance improvement encourage adoption of multicore platforms in these systems. Technology scaling, battery-supplied design and heavy computation in mixed-criticality systems necessitates employing energy management techniques. Due to the degrading effects of these techniques on the system’s reliability, reducing energy consumption without sacrificing the reliability requirement is a vital challenge in mixed-criticality systems, in... 

Does the direct involvement of social values in science, damage the reliability of scientific claims? Using recent debates in the relation between science and value, I will try to answer this question. Over the past few years, it has been shown that values can play a role in justifying scientific knowledge. People like Jeffrey and Betz try to take values out of science using methodological advice; while others, like Douglas, argue that values cannot and should not be excluded from science. If we accept the presence of values, there must be limits to their involvement, or we will fall to chaotic state. One of the concepts that can help us to regulate the behavior of values, is the reliability...