Sharif Digital Repository

The first control action in power system restoration concerns the generation restart. In the initial phase of restoration, operators are often concerned with load pickup problems. One of the important problems during load pickup is keeping frequency response in allowable range. The aim of this paper is to determine the best sequence of load pickup by hydro and steam units during power system restoration based on frequency response of prime movers. Hydro power plants and combustion turbine units have the capability of black start operation and can be used for early stages of power system restoration. This paper considers hydro power plants for evaluating the stability and frequency response... 

The Al-Askari shrine, located in Samarra, Iraq, is a remarkable example of a building with ancient Islamic architecture and construction that was heavily damaged by massive bombings. The bombings were carried out by two separate terrorist attacks in 2006 and 2007. This paper summarizes the important undertakings in the identification of shrine buildings in terms of structural and architectural background and characteristics, damage classification and monitoring, site conditions and material properties. Moreover, the shortcomings of a series of previously performed partial restorations are elaborated upon. The results and findings of this study can be utilized as database in other numerical... 

Loop restoration scheme (LRS) is a special feeder automation (FA) scheme, which is used by utilities to improve distribution system reliability. The LRS is controlled and managed by its automatic control system (ACS). The impacts on distribution system reliability indices of implementing LRS mainly depend on the type of its ACS. Two common types of ACS of LRS are presented and used in this study. Successful operation of ACS is dependent on the protection and automatic control functions of switching devices of LRS. Different failure modes of these switching devices can therefore affect the procedure of ACS in fault detecting, isolating and service restoration. The impacts of failure of... 

Reliability assessment is of primary importance in designing and planning distribution systems that operate in an economical manner with minimal interruption of customer loads. Distributed generation (DG) is expected to play an increasing role in emerging power systems because they use different type of resources and technologies to serve energy to power systems. DG is expected to improve the system reliability as its backup generation. Since DG units are subject to failures as all other generation units, the random behavior of these units must be taken into account in the analysis. Existence of DG units in a distribution system will effect on restoration time of load points. In this paper,... 

Lake Urmia is the second-largest hypersaline lake in the world. There has been a drastic water level drop of 7.2 m from 1995 to 2016. Beginning in October 2013, the Lake Urmia Restoration Plan (LURP) launched a 10-year program. An increase in water level and a relative improvement in Lake Urmia condition has been observed since 2017. It is an undecided and controversial issue whether the recent positive trend of Lake Urmia has been due to the LURP activities or it is a natural contribution of climate factors variations. To shed some light on this issue, we examine three other lakes, adjacent to the Lake Urmia basin, with similar rainfall variability to investigate their status during the... 

Over the past decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the frequency of natural disasters, which are the leading causes of large-scale power outages. This paper, therefore, assesses the significance and role of optimal tie-line construction in improving the service restoration performance of unbalanced power distribution systems in the aftermath of high-impact low-probability incidents. In doing so, a restoration process aware stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to find the optimal locations for new tie-line construction in unbalanced three-phase distribution systems. In particular, the restoration process of distribution systems, including the fault... 

Over the past decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the frequency of natural disasters, which are the leading causes of large-scale power outages. This paper, therefore, assesses the significance and role of optimal tie-line construction in improving the service restoration performance of unbalanced power distribution systems in the aftermath of high-impact low-probability incidents. In doing so, a restoration process aware stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to find the optimal locations for new tie-line construction in unbalanced three-phase distribution systems. In particular, the restoration process of distribution systems, including the fault... 

Wettability is a key parameter affecting petrophysical properties of reservoir rocks. Mirzaei-Paiaman et al. (Energy Fuels 27:7360–7368, 2013) presented an index (referred to as MPMS) for laboratory characterization of wettability of native- or restored-state reservoir rock samples. To use this index two counter-current spontaneous imbibition (COUCSI) experiments are needed, one on the native- or restored-state core sample and another on the strongly water-wet (SWW) reference system. Slope analysis of recovery data in these two systems gives inputs for determination of MPMS index. The two systems must have the same pore structure, initial water saturation, and viscosity ratio. The case of... 

This paper presents a method for the optimal restoration planning based on Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS). This method uses observability analysis and Power Transfer Distribution Factor (PTDF) concept. The PTDF concept is applied to decrease the overvoltages caused by energizing transmission lines with lightly load. The New England 39 bus power system is used to demonstrate the proposed algorithm and verify the results. The outcomes of the study are evaluated to show the validity and reliability of the presented approach  

We studied the flow stress and microstructural changes of nanostructured Al-6063 alloy produced by mechanical alloying at various temperatures and strain rates. The analysis of flow curves was performed by a constitutive equation, and the stress exponent and activation energy were determined as functions of strain. The deformation mechanisms were elaborated through microstructural observations by electron backscattering diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Coarsening of the subgrains and grain growth upon deformation was monitored and related to the Zener-Hollomon parameter  

In this paper, we address the problem of recovering degraded images using multivariate Gaussian mixture model (GMM) as a prior. The GMM framework in our method for image restoration is based on the assumption that the accumulation of similar patches in a neighborhood are derived from a multivariate Gaussian probability distribution with a specific covariance and mean. Previous methods of image restoration with GMM have not considered spatial (geometric) distance between patches in clustering. Our conducted experiments show that in the case of constraining Gaussian estimates into a finite-sized windows, the patch clusters are more likely to be derived from the estimated multivariate Gaussian... 

This paper presents a novel sectionalizing method for the build-up strategy in power system restoration. Power system restoration is the procedure of restoring power system elements after a partial or a complete blackout. Because of its economic and political importance, different strategies have been developed for power system restoration. One of the most practical and economical is the build-up strategy that includes the process of restoring separated parts (islands) in the power system and interconnecting them afterwards. This paper intends to develop a systematic algorithm for sectionalizing a power system considering various constraints such as black-start capability of generators,... 

This paper presents a reliability assessment algorithm for distribution systems using a Static Series Voltage Regulator (SSVR). Furthermore, this algorithm considers the effects of Distributed Generation (DG) units, alternative sources, system reconfiguration, load shedding and load adding on distribution system reliability indices. In this algorithm, load points are classified into 8 types and separated restoration times are considered for each class. Comparative studies are conducted to investigate the impacts of DG and alternative source unavailability on the distribution system reliability. For reliability assessment, the customer-oriented reliability indices such as SAIFI, SAIDI, CAIDI... 

Losing eight meters of water level over a 20-year period from 1996 to 2016 marked the Lake Urmia (LU) as one of the regional environmental crises. This condition has threatened biota life, intensified desertification around the lake, and raised social concerns by adversely impacting the inhabitants’ health and economy. In 2013, the Urmia Lake Restoration National Committee (ULRNC) started implementing certain management practices to stop the drying trend of LU, resulted in the cease of water level drop and stabilization of LU condition in 2016. Nevertheless, the restoration actions have not yet raised the lake to the water level as planned by the roadmap. This paper aims to describe and to... 

Public concern over environmental issues such as ecosystem degradation is high. However, restoring coupled human-natural systems requires integration across many science, technology, engineering, management, and governance topics that are presently fragmented. Here, we synthesized 544 peer-reviewed articles published through September 2020 on the desiccation and nascent recovery of Lake Urmia in northwest Iran. We answered nine questions of scientific and popular interest about causes, impacts, stabilization, recovery, and next steps. We find: (1) Expansion of irrigated agriculture, dam construction, and mismanagement impacted the lake more than temperature increases and precipitation... 

The influence of Cu addition on the hot deformation behavior of NiTi shape memory alloys was investigated using hot compression test. A series of alloys with different Cu contents of Ti50.4Ni49.6-xCux (x = 0, 3, 5, 7 at.%) were deformed under compression to a true strain of 0.7 at the temperature range of 700-1000 °C with 100 °C intervals and constant strain rate of 0.1 s-1. The stress-strain curves showed that the addition of Cu to NiTi alloy made the flow curves shift upward. This was confirmed by the calculated critical stress, σc, obtained from inflections in θ-σ plots, which is attributed to the formation of high strength Cu containing precipitates and solid solution hardening caused by...