Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, the development of a controller for autonomous lateral alignment of fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with runway centerline in landing phase is presented. Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) is used in order to enable the vehicle to mimic the decision making procedure that a pilot follow in the same situation. Also, for longitudinal motion controller design for the UAV to follow a pre-defined trajectory, the pole-placement technique is used. It is assumed that the runway relative position and orientation are provided by a built in vision system and its associated image processing unit. The performance of the controller in the presence of the Gaussian noises is investigated by... 

This paper proposes a high performance voltage tracking and current sharing among parallel connected inverters by applying optimal control and minimizing the cost function. The control system forces the voltage of load to track the voltage reference, and the current of all inverters becomes equal. Therefore, both current sharing and voltage tracking are obtained. In addition, the smallest input energy and simplicity in control circuit are the other advantages of the suggested method. To show the performance of the proposed control scheme, the simulations with two-modular practical systems are performed and the results are provided. The results indicate that the control objectives are... 

Recorded ground accelerations at various locations of Karun III Dam during November 20, 2007, were recorded by an array of accelerometers located on the dam. In terms of amplitude and phase, these accelerations show non-uniformities in different elevations. In this paper, the effect of these non-uniform ground motions on the seismic response of the dam taking dam-reservoir-foundation interaction into account is investigated. The EACD-3D-2008 finite element program and ABAQUS Software are used for carrying out the seismic analyses. For this purpose, time histories of the earthquake accelerations are interpolated at nodal points located on the dam foundation interface. The analysis has been... 

Thermal analysis of Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) dams is generally carried out considering identical ambient boundary conditions at upstream and downstream faces. For the case of Shahri-Kor Dam (an RCC dam with a height of 57 m), recorded thermal data depicts a considerable difference between upstream and downstream ambient temperatures, especially during cold months. This paper investigates how taking this difference into account can affect the thermal response of the dam. For this purpose, two thermal analyses are carried out with and without consideration of these different ambient boundary conditions (DABC). Consequently, the computed temperatures at representative points are compared... 

Using hybrid energy storage system is a method for increasing the storage capability of solar thermal energy. If multiple energy storage devices with complementary performance characteristics are used together, the resulting system will be a 'Hybrid Energy Storage System'. In other words, a Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS) has several media available for storage at any time. In this way, increase in storable energy is obtained without increasing collectors' area. When there are more than one storage mediums, the system should be able to choose the best medium for storing energy according to the conditions. In the previous works, an optimizer program was used to find the proper medium... 

Using hybrid energy storage system is a method for increasing the storage capability of solar thermal energy. If multiple energy storage devices with complementary performance characteristics are used together, the resulting system will be a 'Hybrid Energy Storage System'. In other words, a Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS) has several media available for storage at any time. In this way, increase in storable energy is obtained without increasing collectors' area. When there are more than one storage mediums, the system should be able to choose the best medium for storing energy according to the conditions. In the previous works, an optimizer program was used to find the proper medium... 

The application of higher order continuum theories, with size effect considerations, have recently been spread in the micro and nano-scale studies. One famous version of these theories is the couple stress theory. This paper utilizes this theory to study the anti-plane problem of an elliptic nano-fiber, embedded in an infinite medium, both made of centrosymmetric isotropic material. In this framework, a characteristic length appears in the formulation, by which examination of the size effect is possible. This work presents an analytical solution for the proposed problem. Copyright © 2008 by ASME  

Gradient reproducing kernel particle method (GRKPM) is a meshless technique which incorporates the first gradients of the function into the reproducing equation of RKPM. Therefore, in two-dimensional space GRKPM introduces three types of shape functions rather than one. The robustness of GRKPM's shape functions is established by reconstruction of a third-order polynomial. To enforce the essential boundary conditions (EBCs), GRKPM's shape functions are modified by transformation technique. By utilizing the modified shape functions, the weak form of the nonlinear evolutionary Buckley-Leverett (BL) equation is discretized in space, rendering a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations... 

A new exponential model to depict the moment-rotation (M-θ) relationship of Bolted Endplate Connections (BEC) is proposed. The proposed model represents an approach to the prediction of M-O curves, taking into account the possible failure modes and the deformation characteristics of the connection elements. The presented model has three physical parameters, along with two curve-fitted factors. These physical parameters are generated from dimensional details of the connection, as well as the material properties. By employing simplified connection behavioral models to estimate the connection M-θ behavior, analytical expressions for evaluating major connection parameters, such as initial... 

This paper presents the results of parametric analyses of the yielding moment (My) of Bolted Flush Endplate Beam (BFEB) splice connections using Finite Element Modeling (FEM) tools. The connection components were modeled using three-dimensional brick elements, while contact between the endplates was modeled using Coulomb friction. Materials for beam, endplate and bolts were considered to behave non-linearly. Finite element results with three experimental and numerical studies were compared, and all indicated good agreement, which is also briefly reviewed in this paper. Using verified FEM, fairly large parametric studies, based on the practical configuration of BFEB connections, were carried... 

The process of scanning the events occurring in a computer system or network and analyzing them for warning of intrusions is known as intrusion detection system (IDS). This paper presents a new intrusion detection system based on tabu search based fuzzy system. Here, we use tabu search algorithm to effectively explore and exploit the large state space associated with intrusion detection as a complicated classification problem. Experiments were performed on KDD-Cup99 data set which has information about intrusive and normal behaviors on computer networks. Results show that the proposed method obtains notable accuracy and lower cost in comparison with several renowned algorithms  

Existing design procedures for steel frames have been modified during the last three decades to incorporate the semi-rigid behavior of the connections into the frame design advancement. Knowledge in initial rotational stiffness of a connection is important for the global elastic analysis of frame structures. This paper presents the results of several parametric analyses on the Initial Rotational Stiffness (IRS or Sini) of Bolted Flush End-plate Beam (BFEB) splice connections using Finite Element Modeling (FEM). The FEMs have taken into account material behavior, geometrical discontinuities and large displacements. The analyses have been calibrated to experimental results that are also... 

This investigation focused on a comparison between hydroxyapatite (HA) and carbon-nanotube-reinforced hydroxyapatite composite (CNTs/HA) coatings. The HA and CNTs/HA composite (with 5wt% CNTs) coatings were prepared with the sol-gel method on 316L stainless steel. Phase evaluation by means of XRD and Raman spectroscopy was performed on the HA and CNTs/HA composite coatings. The coatings were immersed in simulated body fluid (SBF) in order to evaluate the biological properties of the coatings. During the first week of immersion, the increase in the amount of Ca2+ precipitation in the SBF when CNTs/HA was used was lower than for the HA coatings. This behavior can be related to the difference... 

In this paper, we use simulated annealing heuristics for constructing an intrusion detection system (IDS). The proposed IDS combines the learning ability of simulated annealing heuristics with the approximate reasoning method of fuzzy systems. The use of simulated annealing is an effort to effectively explore the large search space related to intrusion detection problems, and find the optimum set of fuzzy if-then rules. The aim of this paper is to present the capability of simulated annealing based fuzzy system to deal with intrusion detection classification problem as a new real-world application area. Experiments were performed with KDD-Cup99 intrusion detection benchmark data set. © 2008...