Sharif Digital Repository

The advantages of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP), such as high specific strength, resistance against corrosion and formability, have made it a more acceptable alternative to conventional materials regarding repairing and retrofitting of structures. Although investigations in recent years have proved the concern of civil engineers about the environmental effects on the bond between FRP and concrete or masonry (especially moisture and temperature), only few researches have been reported on FRP-wood interfaces. This research investigated the effect of five different environments on the bond at the interface between FRP and wood. A series of pull-out tests were performed on 375 wood specimens... 

Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) has had a vast range of applications in recent years. Preparing mechanisms for autonomous acquisition of skills has been a main topic of research in this area. While different methods have been proposed to achieve this goal, few methods have been shown to be successful both in performance and also efficiency in terms of time complexity of the algorithm. In this paper, a linear time algorithm is proposed to find subgoal states of the environment in early episodes of learning. Having subgoals available in early phases of a learning task, results in building skills that dramatically increase the convergence rate of the learning process. © 2009 Springer... 

In this article, buckling and vibrational behaviors of a carbon nanotube reinforced spinning cylindrical thick shell carrying spring–mass systems and conveying viscous fluid flow are investigated under various temperature distributions. Also, the installed sensors on the proposed system are considered as a tip mass. The uniform distribution and the functionally graded distribution patterns of reinforcement are considered. The modeled cylindrical thick shell and governing equations are derived by a new three-dimensional refined higher-order theory. Finally, the effects of various types of carbon nanotube reinforcements and other parameters on buckling and vibrational characteristics of the... 

We have used a hierarchical multiscale modeling scheme for the analysis of carbon nanotube reinforced nanocomposites. This scheme consists of definition of two boundary value problems, one for macroscale (the scale in which the material exists homogeneously and we are interested in modeling the material behavior on that scale), and another for microscale (the scale in which the material becomes heterogeneous and microstructural constituents emerge). The coupling between these scales is done by using homogenization techniques. Using the presented scheme, we have studied carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced composites behavior and the effects of an interphase layer between CNT and matrix material.... 

Vehicular edge computing is a progressing technology which provides processing resources to the internet of vehicles using the edge servers deployed at roadside units. Vehicles take advantage by offloading their computationintensive tasks to this infrastructure. However, concerning time-sensitive applications and the high mobility of vehicles, cost-efficient task offloading is still a challenge. This paper establishes a computation offloading strategy based on deep Q-learning algorithm for vehicular edge computing networks. To jointly minimize the system cost including offloading failure rate and the total energy consumption of the offloading process, the vehicle tasks offloading problem is... 

Nowadays developing autonomous systems, which can act in various environments and interactively perform their assigned tasks, are intensively desirable. These systems would be ready to be applied in different fields such as medicine, controller robots and social life. Reinforcement learning is an attractive area of machine learning which addresses these concerns. In large scales, learning performance of an agent can be improved by using hierarchical Reinforcement Learning techniques and temporary extended actions. The higher level of abstraction helps the learning agent approach lifelong learning goals. In this paper a new method is presented for discovering subgoal states and constructing... 

In this paper the problem of automatically discovering subtasks and hierarchies in reinforcement learning is considered. We present a novel method that allows an agent to autonomously discover subgoals and create a hierarchy from actions. Our method identifies subgoals by partitioning local state transition graphs. Options constructed for reaching these subgoals are added to action choices and used for accelerating the Q-Learning algorithm. Experimental results show significant performance improvements, especially in the initial learning phase  

A set of stress-strain relations for normal-strength concrete and mild steel bars embedded in concrete is presented in this paper. The salient features of the proposed constitutive laws are: 1) considering the effect of reinforcement ratio on average stressstrain relationships of cracked concrete; and 2) considering the gradual reduction of average stiffness of steel bars embedded in concrete. Equilibrium, compatibility, and constitutive relationships were incorporated into an algorithm to obtain a procedure for analyzing reinforced concrete membrane elements. Corroboration with data from panel test specimens shows that the presented model provides good predictions for the entire... 

Numerous buildings have been damaged or destroyed in previous earthquakes by developing soft storey. Almost all the seismic codes have provisions to prevent soft storey in structures, most of them have recommended the ratio of stiffness between adjacent storeys, but none of them has proposed the method to calculate the storey stiffness. On the other hand a great number of previous researches on stiffness have been focused on approximate methods and accurate methods by using analytical softwares have been almost neglected. In this study, six accurate methods for calculating the storey stiffness have been studied on 246 two-bay reinforced concrete frames. It is shown with the results of the... 

This article investigates the influences of nonuniform imperfection on the dynamic amplitude and resonance frequency of the nanoshell reinforced with graphene nanoplatelet (GNP). The novelty of the current study is to consider the effects of porosity, thermal loading and graphene platelet reinforced composites on the dynamic behavior of the nanostructure. Three-length scale parameters (l 0=5 h, l 1=3 h, l 2=5 h) in the modified strain gradient theory (MSGT) show a better agreement with MD simulation in comparison with other theories. Finally, the effects of different factors on the dynamic amplitude and resonance frequency of the porous nanostructure are examined in detail. © 2019 Informa UK... 

This paper presents the results of an experimental and analytical study on high-strength, reinforced-concrete (RC) columns with different levels of initial ductility enhanced with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) wraps. Six square columns 260 mm wide and 1650 mm long were tested under constant axial load and reversed cyclic lateral load. The test specimens were divided into three groups. Groups I and II were designed and detailed according to the requirements of American Concrete Institute ACI318-02 for intermediate-moment frames. Group I was wrapped with CFRP, group II was control specimens, and group III was designed and detailed according to the requirements of ACI318-02 for... 

This study investigates the performance of geogrid-reinforced unbound pavement layer. In this study, geogrid was used in various layouts and numbers using three different gradation of granular materials. Light weight deflectometer (LWD) device is known as a useful tool to evaluate the stiffness of unbound pavement layers. In this study, the LWD was utilized to experimentally investigate factors affecting the performance of geogrid reinforcement, including the number of geogrids, geogrid layout, and the gradation of unbound layer. There are several parameters which affect the LWD test results including the hammer weight, the falling height, and the surface stress. The effect of these...