Sharif Digital Repository

The compound axle is a space saving suspension component that is relatively inexpensive and easy to install. Therefore it is used in rear suspension system of most front wheel drive passenger cars. This article present an optimum design algorithm for this component. A typical cross section for this the torsion beam of the axle is selected as a basis design. Using finite element methods, kinematics and elasto-kinematics behaviors of the section in vehicle normal maneuvers have been calculated. The acquired dynamic characteristics of the member was entered into a dynamic simulation program and the effect of geometrical parameters of torsion beam on the vehicle handling was studied. Using DOE... 

In the past few years, laser-assisted methods have greatly influenced biomedical studies due to less invasive ways of treatment and higher precision. New stimuli-responsive drug carriers are still explored by scientists to achieve a better spatiotemporal control of drug carriers by using visible to NIR light instead of phototoxic ultra-violet irradiation. Due to their biocompatibility and high loading capacity of hydrophilic drugs, hydrogels have been used extensively in this area. However, poor cellular uptake and restricted loading of hydrophobic drugs are challenges that should be addressed. In this study, a previously known nanogel system based on chitosan and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)... 

Over the last few years, substantial efforts have been made to develop earth-abundant bi-functional catalysts for urea oxidation and energy-saving electrolytic hydrogen production due to their low cost and the potential to replace traditional noble-metal-based catalysts. Nevertheless, finding a straightforward and effective route to prepare efficient catalysts with unique structural features and optimal supports still is a big challenge. Among the various candidates, metal-organic framework (MOF)-derived materials show great advantages as new kinds of active non-precious catalysts. On the other hand, the controllable integration of MOFs and carbon-based nanomaterials leads to further... 

We report the effect of the geometric parameters on transparency and conductivity in a metallic nanowire mesh as a transparent electrode. Today, indium tin oxide and fluorine-doped tin oxide are used as the transparent electrode for displays and solar cells. Still, there is a definite need for their replacement due to drawbacks such as brittleness, scarcity, and adverse environmental effects. Metallic nanowire mesh is likely the best replacement option, but the main issue is how to find the optimal structure and how to get the best performance. Since the interaction of light with nanowire mesh is complicated, there is no straightforward rule with a simple analytical solution. We developed a... 

Increasing the lifetime and improving the performance of structures through redesign and optimization are important, especially in marine structures. In general, there are two main groups of marine structures: onshore and offshore structures. Most marine structures are offshore, and these are divided into two categories: floating or sunken. One of the important parameters in the design of sunken structures is the critical load resulting from the buckling of walls, which can cause damage to the structure. In the present paper, three rectangular aluminum and steel compartments of different conditions and sizes were modeled using design analysis methods. Then, different finite element analyses... 

Seismic response of steel moment-resisting frames equipped with a novel passive damper called infilled-pipe damper (IPD) is investigated in this study. The IPD is a very economical and easily assembled structural control device with high energy absorption, invented recently by the authors. A simplified trilinear load-displacement model for IPD devices is suggested to be used in this study and further investigations. Next, criteria for IPD elements size selection are proposed for passive control of structures against earthquake loads. Steel frame structures of 5, 10, and 20 stories are designed without any IPD devices. Then, the frames are equipped with IPDs of different stiffness. The frames... 

The utility of probability density evolution method for reliability-based active vibration control of a cantilevered flexible beam is experimentally investigated. In this respect, an optimal linear quadratic regulator (LQR) is utilized together with an observer to design an online full-state feedback controller. In order to design a well-performing controller and to simulate the controller performance, a system model is obtained via identification techniques. Reliability tests are consequently performed to verify the effectiveness of the presented reliability assessment method as a foundation for reliability-based control. Subsequently, a hybrid metaheuristic optimization scheme of... 

The relatively large number of structural elements and the variety of design code requirements complicate the design process of tall buildings. This process is exacerbated when the target is to obtain the seismic code-compliant optimal design with minimum weight. The present paper aims at providing a practical methodology for the optimal design of steel tall building structures considering the constraints imposed by typical building codes. The applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated through the determination of the optimal seismic design for 20-, 40-, and 60-story buildings with a framed tube as well as a tube-in-tube system. Such a design gives rise to a basis for the fair... 

In this paper, the significance of soil–structure interaction (SSI) in optimal placement of viscous dampers in steel frames is studied. Optimal placement of dampers is determined with the purpose of achieving performance objectives at three hazard levels using genetic algorithm optimization. Endurance time method is used for seismic nonlinear response analysis of the fixed-base and SSI included frames. The soil beneath the structures is considered as a homogeneous elastic half-space, and the soil–structure systems are modeled by the substructure method. Results indicate that at low excitation intensities, consideration of SSI results in maximum drift ratio reduction at all stories of the... 

Proposing a proper method for face recognition is still a challenging subject in biometric and computer vision applications. Although some reliable systems were introduced under relatively controlled conditions, their recognition rate is not satisfactory in the general settings. This is especially true when there are variations in pose, illumination, and facial expression. To alleviate these problems, a hybrid face recognition system is proposed which benefits from the superiority of both convolutional neural network (CNN) and support vector machine (SVM). To this end, first a genetic algorithm is employed to find the optimum structure of CNN. Then, the performance of the system is improved... 

An efficient method for computation of surface wave (SW) reflectivity and coupling in an abruptly ended planar layered waveguide is presented. Using characteristic Green's function (CGF) technique, the original structure is approximated by a separable structure. Then by applying rational function fitting method (RFFM) a uniform and closed-form expression of spatial Green's function for separable structure is derived. Having a full wave solution of the original structure, an optimization problem is defined to find the reflection coefficients of SW modes. Unlike the previous presented CGF based method called CGF-complex images (CI), CGF-RFFM leads to easy incorporation of radiation modes... 

In this letter, we discuss cost optimization of sensor networks monitoring structurally full-rank systems under distributed observability constraint. Using structured systems theory, the problem is relaxed into two subproblems: first, sensing cost optimization; and second, networking cost optimization. Both problems are reformulated as combinatorial optimization problems. The sensing cost optimization is shown to have a polynomial-order solution. The networking cost optimization is shown to be NP-hard in general, but has a polynomial-order solution under specific conditions. A 2-approximation polynomial-order relaxation is provided for general networking cost optimization, which is... 

Residential energy management (REM) program is a demand response (DR) tool that automatically manages energy consumption of controllable household appliances to improve the energy consumption profile of a house according to electricity price. REM intends not only to improve technical aspects of distribution systems but also motivate customers for active participation in DR programs. In this regard, this paper proposes a two-level REM framework. In the first level, each customer runs an optimization problem to minimize his payment cost and sends the desired operation scheduling of appliances and the payment cost to the system operator. In the second level, a multiobjective (MO) optimization... 

Multi-turn resolvers are proposed to be used in high accuracy, high-reliability applications that need to have the benefits of absolute measurement and high accuracy, simultaneously. In this paper, the influence of different arrangements of rotary transformer (RT) and resolvers' core on the accuracy of a multi-turn wound rotor (WR) resolver is discussed. Then, an optimal configuration with the aim of reducing the total cost, and the total volume of the sensor is proposed. All the analysis is done using 3-D time-variant finite element method (3-D TVFEM) and the optimal structure is built for experimental tests. Finally, experimental measurements are employed to verify the simulation results.... 

In this paper, the optimal trade-off between control structures and achievable closed-loop performance is addressed. Incorporation of sparsity promoting regularization terms to the primary objective function is a well-suited approach in feature selection and compressed sensing. By the evolving role of distributed and large-scale applications, modern optimal control problems have been equipped with regularization tools as well. However, the system dynamics and convex/nonconvex constraints in optimal control framework limits the effectiveness and applicability of regularization, enforce iterative or non-convex heuristics, and pose extensive exploration. In fact, available regularized feedback... 

This paper presents a new optimization-based approach to determine the class of stabilizing control structures with the necessary set of feedback links for interconnected systems. The proposed approach relies on a graph theoretic interpretation and its equivalence in terms of binary linear programs (BLP). To carry out the primary goal, first, the stabilizability of an LTI system under the decentralized control structure is presented in terms of a BLP. Next, two graph-based criteria are proposed to characterize stabilizing control structures with the required feedback links. Finally, all possible stabilizing control structures with the necessary feedback links are derived via solving a set of... 

A coding scheme for transmission of a bit maps a given bit to a sequence of channel inputs (called the codeword associated with the transmitted bit). In this paper, we study the problem of designing the best code for a discrete Poisson channel with memory (under peak-power and total-power constraints). The outputs of a discrete Poisson channel with memory are Poisson distributed random variables with a mean comprising of a fixed additive noise and a linear combination of past input symbols. Assuming a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, we search for a codebook that has the smallest possible error probability. This problem is challenging because error probability of a code does not have a... 

A coding scheme for transmission of a bit maps a given bit to a sequence of channel inputs (called the codeword associated to the transmitted bit). In this paper, we study the problem of designing the best code for a discrete Poisson channel with memory (under peak-power and total-power constraints). The outputs of a discrete Poisson channel with memory are Poisson distributed random variables with a mean comprising a fixed additive noise and a linear combination of past input symbols. Assuming a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, we find the best codebook design by minimizing the error probability of the decoder over all codebooks. For the case of having only a total-power constraint, the... 

A coding scheme for transmission of a bit maps a given bit to a sequence of channel inputs (called the codeword associated with the transmitted bit). In this paper, we study the problem of designing the best code for a discrete Poisson channel with memory (under peak-power and total-power constraints). The outputs of a discrete Poisson channel with memory are Poisson distributed random variables with a mean comprising of a fixed additive noise and a linear combination of past input symbols. Assuming a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, we search for a codebook that has the smallest possible error probability. This problem is challenging because error probability of a code does not have a... 

A coding scheme for transmission of a bit maps a given bit to a sequence of channel inputs (called the codeword associated to the transmitted bit). In this paper, we study the problem of designing the best code for a discrete Poisson channel with memory (under peak-power and total-power constraints). The outputs of a discrete Poisson channel with memory are Poisson distributed random variables with a mean comprising a fixed additive noise and a linear combination of past input symbols. Assuming a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, we find the best codebook design by minimizing the error probability of the decoder over all codebooks. For the case of having only a total-power constraint, the...