Sharif Digital Repository

This paper considers flocking to the virtual leader in network of agents with double-integrator. A locally linear algorithm is employed which guarantees exponential flocking to the virtual leader. A lower bound for flocking rate is calculated which is independent of the initial conditions. Simulations are provided to validate the result and it is shown that the calculated rate is not over bound the actual convergence rate. The effect of coefficients of algorithm is investigated and it is shown that the similar results can be inferred from the calculated formula for the convergence rate. Copyright  

In an acceptance-sampling plan, where items of an incoming batch of products are inspected one by one, if the number of conforming items between successive non conforming items falls below a lower control threshold, the batch is rejected. If it falls above an upper control threshold, the batch is accepted, and if it lies within the thresholds then the process of inspecting the items continues. The purpose of this article is to develop an optimization model to determine the optimum values of the thresholds such that constraints on the probability of Type I and Type II errors are satisfied. This article starts by developing a Markovian model to derive the expected total cost of the inspection... 

High penetration of constant-power loads (CPL) in dc microgrids may cause a destabilizing effect on the system that can lead to severe voltage oscillations. This paper addresses stability problems of the CPLs and proposes a simple active damping technique to damp the oscillations caused by CPLs. The particle swarm optimization algorithm has been used to find the best values of the parameters of the proposed active damper to achieve maximum damping of the oscillations. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified by simulations  

Problems regarding simulation of field emitter array (FEA) electron guns are discussed. A simple method is proposed to significantly reduce computational requirements such as computation power, system memory, and time of FEA electron gun simulation and modeling. The method can be applied to any numerical solver regardless of its meshing technique. In order to extract field emission parameter from any experimental cathode I-V curve, a partly numerical algorithm, which uses the presented truncation method at the heart of its solver, is proposed. The proposed method and algorithm are applied to a number of examples, including a double-gated FEA problem, and its effectiveness in terms of error... 

This work takes a new approach to solving non-hydrostatic equations of layered flows over bottom topography. A perturbation technique is used to find explicit expressions for a flow for different regimes of single- and two-layer flows over a sill. Excellent agreement with previous solutions and experimental data is obtained, and more details of the non-hydrostatic flow over a sill are revealed. The proposed method is simple and compact and removes the need for complex numerical techniques to solve the non-hydrostatic equations. It is shown that in the approach-controlled regime of two-layer flow over a sill, the flow upstream and farther downstream the sill crest can be described by the... 

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study a two-dimensional steady convective flow of a micropolar fluid over a stretching sheet in the presence of radiation with constant temperature. Design/methodology/approach - The corresponding momentum, microrotation and energy equations are analytically solved using homotopy analysis method (HAM). Findings - To validate the method, investigate the accuracy and convergence of the results, a comparison with existing numerical and experimental results is done for several cases. Finally, by using the obtained analytical solution, for the skin-friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number as well as the temperature, velocity and angular velocity,... 

In this paper we have studied both DC size effect and anomalous skin effect caused by surface and grain boundary scattering on the resistivity of Cu thin films by a Monte Carlo method. Contribution of each scattering mechanism and the interaction between them are analyzed separately. A simple and fast numerical recursive method is also introduced to guess the structure of electric field and distribution of current inside the thin film to evaluate the surface resistance instead of complicated analytical formulas  

Superconducting materials are known to exhibit nonlinear effects and to produce harmonic generation and intermodulation distortion in superconductive circuits. In planar structures, these nonlinearities depend on the current distribution on the strip which is mainly determined by the structure of the device. This paper investigates the current distribution at the step-in-width discontinuity in superconducting microstrip transmission lines, which is computed by a numerical approach based on a 3-D finite-element method. This current distribution is used to obtain the parameters of the nonlinear circuit model for the superconducting microstrip step-in-width discontinuity. The proposed... 

In this paper, we investigate the simultaneous coordination of price and capacity building decisions in a dyadic supply chain. This problem is a combination of capacity reservation problem and pricing problem. While the coordination of supply chain with stochastic demand and fixed prices has received much attention in the literature, price-dependent and stochastic demand has been less considered. We study the latter case where a price-setting retailer faces a linear decreasing demand with respect to price. To capture the uncertainty of the demand, we add a stochastic variable to the demand function. In addition, we incorporate production rate and inventory cost on the supplier side. We... 

The recruitment pattern of trunk muscles is determined using a three-dimensional model of the spine with two joints and six symmetric pairs of muscles in which both equilibrium and stability requirements are satisfied. Model predictions are verified using Anybody Modeling System (AMS) and Abaqus. The model is used to test the hypothesis that antagonistic muscle activities are necessary for the spinal stability. The model with stability constraints predicts muscle activities greater than those predicted without stability consideration. In agreement with experimental data, the stability-based model predicts antagonistic muscle activities. It is shown that spinal stability increases with trunk... 

Filtered mode shapes are used to detect the presence, location, size and shape of the delaminations in composite laminated plates with various boundary conditions. This method is the extension of a previous study by the authors on the delamination detection in the beams using irregularities of the mode shapes. The mode shapes are filtered to separate the smooth and irregular parts. Presence and situation of delamination affects these separated parts, and these effects are used to detect the delamination. Here, two new indicators, named 'slope of smooth part' and 'irregularities in the slope of smooth part', are introduced to increase the clarity of detected damage and reduce the noisy... 

This paper presents a novel heuristic algorithm for solving economic dispatch (ED) problems, by employing iteration particle swarm optimization with time varying acceleration coefficients (IPSO-TVAC) method. Due to the effect of valve-points and prohibited operation zones (POZs) in the generating units' cost functions, ED problem is a non-linear and non-convex optimization problem. The problem even may be more complicated if transmission losses are taken into account. The effectiveness of the proposed method is examined and validated by carrying out extensive tests on three different test systems. Valve-point effects, POZs, ramp-rate constraints and transmission losses are modeled. Numerical... 

In this work a double step algorithm is presented for the integration of equations governing the behavior of von Mises material in plastic limit. The isotropic and kinematic hardenings employed are of general type and the evolution of back stress follows the Armstrong-Frederick rule. Theoretical and numerical aspects are discussed in detail and a comparison is made with the classical backward Euler method  

Curing of thermoset-based composites experience substantial temperature overshoot, especially at the center of thick parts and large temperature gradient exists through the whole part due to large amount of heat released and low conductivity of the composite. This leads to non-uniformity of cure, residual stress and consequently composite cracks and possibly degradation of the polymer. The scope of this work is to optimize the cure cycle in order to improve the properties and gaining a relatively uniform part of composite, using trained recurrent artificial neural networks purposed for speeding up the repetitious model re-calls during the optimization process. Numerical results obtained... 

A new model is proposed to predict the Forming Limit Diagrams (FLDs) of Tailor Welded Blanks (TWBs). This model is derived by modification of the Marciniak and Kuczynski (MK) analysis and imposing the weld constraints to deformation state of each blank at each strain increment. Based on this model, it is possible to predict the strains of both weaker and stronger blanks once necking occurs. By comparison to the experimental results of two laser welded TWBs, it is demonstrated that this model provides a close prediction of FLD of TWBs, when necking occurs far from the weld line at a region out of HAZ (Heat Affected Zone) and close to it so that it is affected by the weld line constraints  

Underutilisation and scarcity of the available bandwidth have led to the idea of spectrum sharing as primary users partially transfer their rights for spectrum access to others in return for rewards. In this study, we introduce a new distributed game-theoretic approach in order to analyse the dynamic spectrum leasing problem in the uplink side of cellular cognitive radio networks. In such scenarios, it is necessary to define utility functions for primary and secondary users according to their incentives in order to model such interaction properly. We prove the existence of the Nash equilibrium point as well as its uniqueness for our model in the framework of standard power control algorithms... 

This paper investigates implementation of upwind compact implicit and explicit high-order finite difference schemes for solution of the level set equation. The upwind compact implicit and explicit high-order finite difference schemes are well-known techniques to descritize spatial derivatives for convection term in hyperbolic equations. Applying of upwind high-order schemes on the level set equation leads to less error and CPU time reduction compared to essential non-oscillatory (ENO), weighted essential non-oscillatory schemes (WENO), and even different particle level set methods. The results indicate the error based on area loss decreases drastically with applying high-order upwind,... 

Due to international competition and strict limitations of standards regarding the noise level, investigation of gear vibration is of great importance. In this paper, nonlinear oscillations of spur gear pairs including the backlash nonlinearity is studied. Dynamic system is described through the classical single degree of freedom (SDOF) model in terms of dynamic transmission error (DTE). Using multiple scale method, forced vibration responses of the gear system including primary, super-harmonic and sub-harmonic resonances are investigated. In each case, the jump phenomenon and stability analysis are studied. In addition, the effect of dynamic and manufacturing parameters of the gear system... 

This work simulates the turbulent boundary layer of an incompressible viscous swirling flow through a conical chamber. To model the pressure gradient normal to the wall, the radial and tangential velocity components across the boundary layer have been calculated by both the integral and numerical methods. The numerical solution is accomplished by finite difference, based on the finite volume method. The results show that the radial and tangential boundary layer thicknesses depend on the velocity ratios, Reynolds number and nozzle angle. The peak of radial and tangential boundary layer thicknesses are located at zL≈0.2 and zL≈0.8 from the nozzle inlet, respectively. Due to the short length of... 

The objective of the dynamic economic dispatch (DED) problem is to schedule power generation for the online units for a given time horizon economically, satisfying various operational constraints. Due to the effect of valve-point effects and prohibited operating zones (POZs) in the generating units cost functions, DED problem is a highly non-linear and non-convex optimization problem. The DED problem even may be more complicated if transmission losses and ramp-rate constraints are taken into account. This paper presents a novel and heuristic algorithm to solve DED problem of generating units, by employing time varying acceleration coefficients iteration particle swarm optimization...