Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents a decentralized adaptive control design for a class of large-scale nonlinear systems with unknown subsystems. When the subsystems are modeled by affine equations, a direct adaptive controller is devised based on the Lyapunov theory, so that the stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed by introducing a suitably driven adaptive rule. A neuro-based structure is proposed when the subsystems are nonaffine, and the stability analysis is also performed based on the Lyapunov theory. Moreover, the unknown interactions among the subsystems are considered as having a nonlinear function against the simple form considered for the affine case. The proposed controllers are... 

Distributed generation (DG) units are often interfaced to the main grid using power electronic converters including voltage-source converters (VSCs). A VSC offers dc/ac power conversion, high controllability, and fast dynamic response. Because of nonlinearities, uncertainties, and system parameters’ changes involved in the nature of a grid-connected renewable DG system, conventional linear control methods cannot completely and efficiently address all control objectives. In this paper, a nonlinear adaptive control scheme based on adaptive backstepping strategy is presented to control the operation of a grid-connected renewable DG unit. As compared to the popular vector control technique, the... 

Distributed generation (DG) units are often interfaced to the main grid using power electronic converters including voltage-source converters (VSCs). A VSC offers dc/ac power conversion, high controllability, and fast dynamic response. Because of nonlinearities, uncertainties, and system parameters’ changes involved in the nature of a grid-connected renewable DG system, conventional linear control methods cannot completely and efficiently address all control objectives. In this paper, a nonlinear adaptive control scheme based on adaptive backstepping strategy is presented to control the operation of a grid-connected renewable DG unit. As compared to the popular vector control technique, the... 

The ideas of creatio ex nihilo of the universe and creatio continua of new matter out of nothing entered the arena of natural science with the advent of the Big Bang and the steady-state theories in the mid-twentieth century. Adolf Grünbaum has tried to interpret the steady-state theory in such a way, to show that the continuous formation of new matter out of nothing in this theory can be explained purely physically. In this paper, however, it will be shown that Grünbaum's interpretation encounters at least three problems: not distinguishing between material and efficient causes, inconsistency, and misconceiving the law of density conservation  

Asphaltic concrete has been used as waterproofing core in embankment dams, since 1948. In this application, the asphaltic core is surrounded by granular filter materials. The interaction of the asphaltic concrete and the granular materials has not been sufficiently investigated. In this paper the mechanical behavior of the interface between a natural smooth sand filter and asphaltic concrete at different levels of normal stresses and a constant shear strain rate has been studied. Small scale direct shear test has been conducted in this study, in which the shear surface is considered as the interface. Asphalt concrete specimens used in the shear test were cut in square shape (10×10×2.5 cm)... 

Electric Vehicles (EVs) will be used rampantly in future transportation system. Although the uncontrolled charging of these EVs will be threatening for the stability of the grid, a compatible energy trading policy may provide beneficial services to the grid as well as preserving the sustainability of the system. In this paper, by taking advantage of block rate tariff, a wholesale pricing policy is introduced. A multi-objective approach is utilized to address the cost reduction and load leveling services concurrently. Due to the high computational complexity of a centralized problem, a game theoretic approach is exerted in order to design decentralized controllers for EVs. Moreover, an MPC... 

A simple and environmentally benign procedure for the synthesis of 14-alkyl- or aryl-14H-dibenzo[a,j]xanthenes is described through a one-pot condensation of 2-naphthol with aryl or alkyl aldehydes in the presence of sodium hydrogen sulfate as a catalyst under solvent-free conditions. © 2008 Springer-Verlag  

Trim control mechanisms such as interceptors and trim flaps have been widely used in recent years in highspeed crafts for ride and trim control. In spite of their extensive application, a few studies investigating the impact of interceptors on planing craft performance, have been published. In the present study, the impact of interceptors on planing crafts hydrodynamic quality is investigated through application of an experimental method. Two scaled-down models of high-speed planing mono-hull and catamaran are tested with and without interceptors in calm water at different heights of the interceptors to investigate the effect of interceptors on drag reduction of the models. The first one is... 

The controllable flaps and interceptors in planing crafts not only may reduce the resistance, but also could be designed to make a boat run at or near optimum attitude in various environments, which results in a reduction in both resistance and vertical motion in waves. Planing vessels suffer from porpoising instability and violent vertical motion at high forward speeds. The controllable flaps and interceptors can be used to control and reduce the vertical motion of planing crafts. In the present study, the impact of controlled interceptors on a planing craft seakeeping quality is investigated through application of experimental and theoretical methods. In the experimental part of the study,... 

In this paper a strategy is proposed for compressing the test data while using concurrent hybrid-BIST methodologyfor testing SoCs. In the proposed method, in addition tousing BIST strategy for testing cores with deterministic sequential test patterns in an SoC( Without using scan chains), (ATE) is used for testing cores with deterministic test patterns through Test Access Mechanism (TAM) or functional bus. As will be shown in experimental results, this process compresses hybrid-BIST overall test patterns considerably that affects the overall Test Application Time (TAT) in comparison with pure deterministic, pure pseudo random, and combination of deterministic and pseudo random test patterns  

Acidizing of carbonate oil-wet rocks saturated with oil and saline formation water is subjected failure in some cases due to acid-induced damage such as sludge and emulsion formations. This condition may also lead to mineral precipitation, oil film barrier between acid and rock and diversion chemical malfunctions. Therefore, pre-flush process has been proposed as one of the most efficient stage for oil-wells matrix acidizing to reduce these challenges significantly. Besides, the pre-flush stage would result in more clean rock as the reservoir fluids are pushed back from the near wellbore regions, restoring rock wettability to more water wet state, preventing direct acid-oil contact and... 

Fading and path loss are the major challenges in practical deployment of free space optical communication systems. In this paper, a cooperative free space communication via an optical amplify-and-forward relay is considered to deal with these challenges. We use photon counting approach to investigate the system bit error probability (BEP) performance and study the effects of atmospheric turbulence, background light, amplified spontaneous emission, and receiver thermal noise on the system performance. We compare the results with those of the multiple-transmitter (MT) system. The results indicate that the performance of the relay-assisted system is much better than that of the MT system in... 

Despite their attractive features, free-space optical (FSO) communications suffer from several challenges in practical deployment; the major of them is fading or scintillation. To overcome such limitations, multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and cooperative techniques have been proposed. Although the promising effects of cooperative transmissions in radio frequency (RF) communications have greatly been investigated, there have not been remarkable researches on cooperative transmissions in FSO communications. In this study, the authors consider a relay-assisted FSO communication and investigate the outage performance of two well-known cooperative protocols, namely amplify-and-forward (AF)... 

The state of solids mixing can be considered as a key factor in accomplishment of high efficiency and a uniform product in gas-solid fluidized-beds operating with several different particle sizes. In the present work, coupled DEM-CFD approach was used to carefully investigate the mixing process of binary particles in flat-bottom spouted beds. In this regard, simultaneous effects of particle specifications, operating conditions, and bed dimensions on the equilibrium mixing state of solid mixture were evaluated in detail. Moreover, taking into account the contribution of various parameters, the obtained simulation results were used to draw a correlation for predicting the equilibrium mixing... 

This paper studies simultaneous lot sizing and scheduling problem in a job shop environment over a finite number of periods. The machines are flexible such that the production manager is able to change their working speeds. Also, the production schedule of the items over machines should be in consistence with technological precedence relationships. The problem is formulated as an integer linear program. Then, a number of valid inequalities are developed based on the problem structures. The proposed valid inequalities are added to the problem formulation in a "cut and branch" manner to accelerate the search process by common solvers. Finally, performance of the valid inequalities is... 

The heterobinuclear cyclometalated PtII-AuI complexes of the type [MePt(bhq)(μ-dppy)AuL]PF6, in which, bhq = benzo{h}quinoline, dppy = 2-diphenylphosphinopyridine, L = PPh3, 5; PPh2Me, 6; PPhMe2, 7; have been prepared by reaction of the mononuclear platinum(II) complex [MePt(bhq)(dppy)], 1, with 1 equiv. [AuL]+. Also, the reaction of complex 1 with 1 equiv AuCl(SMe2) at -60 °C gave the neutral heterobinuclear complex [MePt(bhq)(μ-dppy)AuCl], 8. All of the complexes were characterized using NMR spectroscopy and elemental microanalysis and complexes 5 and 8 were further identified by single crystal X-ray structure determination. Time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) is used to... 

Free-space optical (FSO) communication suffers from several challenges in practical deployment; the major of them is fading or scintillation. To overcome such limitations, spatial diversity based on MIMO techniques has been proposed for FSO systems. User Cooperation diversity is a new form of spatial diversity which is introduced to overcome some limitations of MIMO structures. Although the promising effects of cooperative transmission in RF communications have greatly been considered so far, there have been a few notable research on cooperative diversity in FSO. In this paper, we first consider a 3-way FSO communication setup, in which the cooperative protocol can be applied to achieve the... 

In Part I, a new internally coded time hoping optical code division multiple access (TH/OCDMA) scheme for fiber optic communication systems has been proposed and its multiple access performance has been evaluated using optical orthogonal code (OOC). Due to low cardinality of OOCs with a correlation value of 1, the capability of the proposed scheme could not be utilized effectively for an increasing number of simultaneous users. In this part, we consider applying the internally coded technique introduced in part one to the frame time hopping/OCDMA scheme. We evaluate the multiple access performance of the system for the three detectors introduced in Part I. Our results demonstrate the... 

In this paper, a new internally coded time-hopping optical code-division multiple-access (TH/OCDMA) scheme for fiber-optic communication systems is proposed, and its multiple-access performance is evaluated using optical orthogonal codes (OOCs). In the proposed method, the duration of each bit is divided into Ns frames, each one containing L chips. Two signature codes, namely, one pseudonoise (PN) sequence and one OOC, are assigned to each user. During each bit interval, based on the output of an channel encoder and the user's dedicated PN sequence, one of the Ns frames is selected, in which W pulses are transmitted in W chips, marked by the user's OOC. We consider three detectors at the... 

Nonlinear behavior of functionally graded (FG) sandwich circular sector plates with simply supported radial edges under transverse loading is investigated using the first-order shear deformation theory with von Karman geometric nonlinearity. The nonlinear governing equations are reformulated and solved via single-parameter perturbation and Fourier series methods. Verification is performed by comparing numerical results with the available ones in the literature and the ones obtained via ABAQUS code. The effects of non-linearity, material constant, lay-up, and boundary conditions on bending of FG sandwich sector plates with FG core/homogenous face sheets and metallic core/FG face sheets are...