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Temporary changes in precipitation may lead to sustained and severe drought or massive floods in different parts of the world. Knowing the variation in precipitation can effectively help the water resources decision-makers in water resources management. Large-scale circulation drivers have a considerable impact on precipitation in different parts of the world. In this research, the impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on seasonal precipitation over Iran was investigated. For this purpose, 103 synoptic stations with at least 30 years of data were utilized. The Spearman correlation coefficient between the indices in the previous 12 months with seasonal precipitation was calculated, and the meaningful correlations were extracted. Then, the month in which each of these indices has the highest correlation with seasonal precipitation was determined. Finally, the overall amount of increase or decrease in seasonal precipitation due to each of these indices was calculated. Results indicate the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), NAO, and PDO have the most impact on seasonal precipitation, respectively. Additionally, these indices have the highest impact on the precipitation in winter, autumn, spring, and summer, respectively. SOI has a diverse impact on winter precipitation compared to the PDO and NAO, while in the other seasons, each index has its special impact on seasonal precipitation. Generally, all indices in different phases may decrease the seasonal precipitation up to 100%. However, the seasonal precipitation may increase more than 100% in different seasons due to the impact of these indices. The results of this study can be used effectively in water resources management and especially in dam operation.
A phantom-node method is developed for three-node shell elements to describe cracks. This method can treat arbitrary cracks independently of the mesh. The crack may cut elements completely or partially. Elements are overlapped on the position of the crack, and they are partially integrated to implement the discontinuous displacement across the crack. To consider the element containing a crack tip, a new kinematical relation between the overlapped elements is developed. There is no enrichment function for the discontinuous displacement field. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the proposed method.
Paraffin Nanocomposites for Heat Management of Lithium-Ion Batteries: A Computational Investigation
(2016)
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are currently considered as vital components for advances in mobile technologies such as those in communications and transport. Nonetheless, Li-ion batteries suffer from temperature rises which sometimes lead to operational damages or may even cause fire. An appropriate solution to control the temperature changes during the operation of Li-ion batteries is to embed batteries inside a paraffin matrix to absorb and dissipate heat. In the present work, we aimed to investigate the possibility of making paraffin nanocomposites for better heat management of a Li-ion battery pack. To fulfill this aim, heat generation during a battery charging/discharging cycles was simulated using Newman’s well established electrochemical pseudo-2D model. We couple this model to a 3D heat transfer model to predict the temperature evolution during the battery operation. In the later model, we considered different paraffin nanocomposites structures made by the addition of graphene, carbon nanotubes, and fullerene by assuming the same thermal conductivity for all fillers. This way, our results mainly correlate with the geometry of the fillers. Our results assess the degree of enhancement in heat dissipation of Li-ion batteries through the use of paraffin nanocomposites. Our results may be used as a guide for experimental set-ups to improve the heat management of Li-ion batteries.
Environmental and operational variables and their impact on structural responses have been acknowledged as one of the most important challenges for the application of the ambient vibration-based damage identification in structures. The damage detection procedures may yield poor results, if the impacts of loading and environmental conditions of the structures are not considered.
The reference-surface-based method, which is proposed in this thesis, is addressed to overcome this problem. In the proposed method, meta-models are used to take into account significant effects of the environmental and operational variables. The usage of the approximation models, allows the proposed method to simply handle multiple non-damaged variable effects simultaneously, which for other methods seems to be very complex. The input of the meta-model are the multiple non-damaged variables while the output is a damage indicator.
The reference-surface-based method diminishes the effect of the non-damaged variables to the vibration based damage detection results. Hence, the structure condition that is assessed by using ambient vibration data at any time would be more reliable. Immediate reliable information regarding the structure condition is required to quickly respond to the event, by means to take necessary actions concerning the future use or further investigation of the structures, for instance shortly after extreme events such as earthquakes.
The critical part of the proposed damage detection method is the learning phase, where the meta-models are trained by using input-output relation of observation data. Significant problems that may encounter during the learning phase are outlined and some remedies to overcome the problems are suggested.
The proposed damage identification method is applied to numerical and experimental models. In addition to the natural frequencies, wavelet energy and stochastic subspace damage indicators are used.
The underlying goal of this work is to reduce the uncertainty related to thermally induced stress prediction. This is accomplished by considering use of non-linear material behavior, notably path dependent thermal hysteresis behavior in the elastic properties.
Primary novel factors of this work center on two aspects.
1. Broad material characterization and mechanistic material understanding, giving insight into why this class of material behaves in characteristic manners.
2. Development and implementation of a thermal hysteresis material model and its use to determine impact on overall macroscopic stress predictions.
Results highlight microcracking evolution and behavior as the dominant mechanism for material property complexity in this class of materials. Additionally, it was found that for the cases studied, thermal hysteresis behavior impacts relevant peak stress predictions of a heavy-duty diesel particulate filter undergoing a drop-to-idle regeneration by less than ~15% for all conditions tested. It is also found that path independent heating curves may be utilized for a linear solution assumption to simplify analysis.
This work brings forth a newly conceived concept of a 3 state, 4 path, thermally induced microcrack evolution process; demonstrates experimental behavior that is consistent with the proposed mechanisms, develops a mathematical framework that describes the process and quantifies the impact in a real world application space.
Meshfree methods (MMs) such as the element free Galerkin (EFG)method have gained popularity because of some advantages over other numerical methods such as the finite element method (FEM). A group of problems that have attracted a great deal of attention from the EFG method community includes the treatment of large deformations and dealing with strong discontinuities such as cracks. One efficient solution to model cracks is adding special enrichment functions to the standard shape functions such as extended FEM, within the FEM context, and the cracking particles method, based on EFG method. It is well known that explicit time integration in dynamic applications is conditionally stable. Furthermore, in enriched methods, the critical time step may tend to very small values leading to computationally expensive simulations. In this work, we study the stability of enriched MMs and propose two mass-lumping strategies. Then we show that the critical time step for enriched MMs based on lumped mass matrices is of the same order as the critical time step of MMs without enrichment. Moreover, we show that, in contrast to extended FEM, even with a consistent mass matrix, the critical time step does not vanish even when the crack directly crosses a node.
This study permits a reliability analysis to solve the mechanical behaviour issues existing in the current structural design of fabric structures. Purely predictive material models are highly desirable to facilitate an optimized design scheme and to significantly reduce time and cost at the design stage, such as experimental characterization.
The present study examined the role of three major tasks; a) single-objective optimization, b) sensitivity analyses and c) multi-objective optimization on proposed weave structures for woven fabric composites. For single-objective optimization task, the first goal is to optimize the elastic properties of proposed complex weave structure under unit cells basis based on periodic boundary conditions.
We predict the geometric characteristics towards skewness of woven fabric composites via Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) and a parametric study. We also demonstrate the effect of complex weave structures on the fray tendency in woven fabric composites via tightness evaluation. We utilize a procedure which does not require a numerical averaging process for evaluating the elastic properties of woven fabric composites. The fray tendency and skewness of woven fabrics depends upon the behaviour of the floats which is related to the factor of weave. Results of this study may suggest a broader view for further research into the effects of complex weave structures or may provide an alternative to the fray and skewness problems of current weave structure in woven fabric composites.
A comprehensive study is developed on the complex weave structure model which adopts the dry woven fabric of the most potential pattern in singleobjective optimization incorporating the uncertainties parameters of woven fabric composites. The comprehensive study covers the regression-based and variance-based sensitivity analyses. The second task goal is to introduce the fabric uncertainties parameters and elaborate how they can be incorporated into finite element models on macroscopic material parameters such as elastic modulus and shear modulus of dry woven fabric subjected to uni-axial and biaxial deformations. Significant correlations in the study, would indicate the need for a thorough investigation of woven fabric composites under uncertainties parameters. The study describes here could serve as an alternative to identify effective material properties without prolonged time consumption and expensive experimental tests.
The last part focuses on a hierarchical stochastic multi-scale optimization approach (fine-scale and coarse-scale optimizations) under geometrical uncertainties parameters for hybrid composites considering complex weave structure. The fine-scale optimization is to determine the best lamina pattern that maximizes its macroscopic elastic properties, conducted by EA under the following uncertain mesoscopic parameters: yarn spacing, yarn height, yarn width and misalignment of yarn angle. The coarse-scale optimization has been carried out to optimize the stacking sequences of symmetric hybrid laminated composite plate with uncertain mesoscopic parameters by employing the Ant Colony Algorithm (ACO). The objective functions of the coarse-scale optimization are to minimize the cost (C) and weight (W) of the hybrid laminated composite plate considering the fundamental frequency and the buckling load factor as the design constraints.
Based on the uncertainty criteria of the design parameters, the appropriate variation required for the structural design standards can be evaluated using the reliability tool, and then an optimized design decision in consideration of cost can be subsequently determined.
In machine learning, if the training data is independently and identically distributed as the test data then a trained model can make an accurate predictions for new samples of data. Conventional machine learning has a strong dependence on massive amounts of training data which are domain specific to understand their latent patterns. In contrast, Domain adaptation and Transfer learning methods are sub-fields within machine learning that are concerned with solving the inescapable problem of insufficient training data by relaxing the domain dependence hypothesis. In this contribution, this issue has been addressed and by making a novel combination of both the methods we develop a computationally efficient and practical algorithm to solve boundary value problems based on nonlinear partial differential equations. We adopt a meshfree analysis framework to integrate the prevailing geometric modelling techniques based on NURBS and present an enhanced deep collocation approach that also plays an important role in the accuracy of solutions. We start with a brief introduction on how these methods expand upon this framework. We observe an excellent agreement between these methods and have shown that how fine-tuning a pre-trained network to a specialized domain may lead to an outstanding performance compare to the existing ones. As proof of concept, we illustrate the performance of our proposed model on several benchmark problems.
This dissertation is devoted to the theoretical development and experimental laboratory verification of a new damage localization method: The state projection estimation error (SP2E). This method is based on the subspace identification of mechanical structures, Krein space based H-infinity estimation and oblique projections. To explain method SP2E, several theories are discussed and laboratory experiments have been conducted and analysed.
A fundamental approach of structural dynamics is outlined first by explaining mechanical systems based on first principles. Following that, a fundamentally different approach, subspace identification, is comprehensively explained. While both theories, first principle and subspace identification based mechanical systems, may be seen as widespread methods, barely known and new techniques follow up. Therefore, the indefinite quadratic estimation theory is explained. Based on a Popov function approach, this leads to the Krein space based H-infinity theory. Subsequently, a new method for damage identification, namely SP2E, is proposed. Here, the introduction of a difference process, the analysis by its average process power and the application of oblique projections is discussed in depth.
Finally, the new method is verified in laboratory experiments. Therefore, the identification of a laboratory structure at Leipzig University of Applied Sciences is elaborated. Then structural alterations are experimentally applied, which were localized by SP2E afterwards. In the end four experimental sensitivity studies are shown and discussed. For each measurement series the structural alteration was increased, which was successfully tracked by SP2E. The experimental results are plausible and in accordance with the developed theories. By repeating these experiments, the applicability of SP2E for damage localization is experimentally proven.
In this paper, an artificial neural network is implemented for the sake of predicting the thermal conductivity ratio of TiO2-Al2O3/water nanofluid. TiO2-Al2O3/water in the role of an innovative type of nanofluid was synthesized by the sol–gel method. The results indicated that 1.5 vol.% of nanofluids enhanced the thermal conductivity by up to 25%. It was shown that the heat transfer coefficient was linearly augmented with increasing nanoparticle concentration, but its variation with temperature was nonlinear. It should be noted that the increase in concentration may cause the particles to agglomerate, and then the thermal conductivity is reduced. The increase in temperature also increases the thermal conductivity, due to an increase in the Brownian motion and collision of particles. In this research, for the sake of predicting the thermal conductivity of TiO2-Al2O3/water nanofluid based on volumetric concentration and temperature functions, an artificial neural network is implemented. In this way, for predicting thermal conductivity, SOM (self-organizing map) and BP-LM (Back Propagation-Levenberq-Marquardt) algorithms were used. Based on the results obtained, these algorithms can be considered as an exceptional tool for predicting thermal conductivity. Additionally, the correlation coefficient values were equal to 0.938 and 0.98 when implementing the SOM and BP-LM algorithms, respectively, which is highly acceptable. View Full-Text
Tall buildings have become an integral part of cities despite all their pros and cons. Some current tall buildings have several problems because of their unsuitable location; the problems include increasing density, imposing traffic on urban thoroughfares, blocking view corridors, etc. Some of these buildings have destroyed desirable views of the city. In this research, different criteria have been chosen, such as environment, access, social-economic, land-use, and physical context. These criteria and sub-criteria are prioritized and weighted by the analytic network process (ANP) based on experts’ opinions, using Super Decisions V2.8 software. On the other hand, layers corresponding to sub-criteria were made in ArcGIS 10.3 simultaneously, then via a weighted overlay (map algebra), a locating plan was created. In the next step seven hypothetical tall buildings (20 stories), in the best part of the locating plan, were considered to evaluate how much of theses hypothetical buildings would be visible (fuzzy visibility) from the street and open spaces throughout the city. These processes have been modeled by MATLAB software, and the final fuzzy visibility plan was created by ArcGIS. Fuzzy visibility results can help city managers and planners to choose which location is suitable for a tall building and how much visibility may be appropriate. The proposed model can locate tall buildings based on technical and visual criteria in the future development of the city and it can be widely used in any city as long as the criteria and weights are localized.
Evaporation is a very important process; it is one of the most critical factors in agricultural, hydrological, and meteorological studies. Due to the interactions of multiple climatic factors, evaporation is considered as a complex and nonlinear phenomenon to model. Thus, machine learning methods have gained popularity in this realm. In the present study, four machine learning methods of Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Regression (SVR) were used to predict the pan evaporation (PE). Meteorological data including PE, temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), wind speed (W), and sunny hours (S) collected from 2011 through 2017. The accuracy of the studied methods was determined using the statistical indices of Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), correlation coefficient (R) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE). Furthermore, the Taylor charts utilized for evaluating the accuracy of the mentioned models. The results of this study showed that at Gonbad-e Kavus, Gorgan and Bandar Torkman stations, GPR with RMSE of 1.521 mm/day, 1.244 mm/day, and 1.254 mm/day, KNN with RMSE of 1.991 mm/day, 1.775 mm/day, and 1.577 mm/day, RF with RMSE of 1.614 mm/day, 1.337 mm/day, and 1.316 mm/day, and SVR with RMSE of 1.55 mm/day, 1.262 mm/day, and 1.275 mm/day had more appropriate performances in estimating PE values. It was found that GPR for Gonbad-e Kavus Station with input parameters of T, W and S and GPR for Gorgan and Bandar Torkmen stations with input parameters of T, RH, W and S had the most accurate predictions and were proposed for precise estimation of PE. The findings of the current study indicated that the PE values may be accurately estimated with few easily measured meteorological parameters.
In recent years the demand on dynamic analyses of existing structures in civil engineering has remarkably increased. These analyses are mainly based on numerical models. Accordingly, the generated results depend on the quality of the used models. Therefore it is very important that the models describe the considered systems such that the behaviour of the physical structure is realistically represented. As any model is based on assumptions, there is always a certain degree of uncertainty present in the results of a simulation based on the respective numerical model. To minimise these uncertainties in the prediction of the response of a structure to a certain loading, it has become common practice to update or calibrate the parameters of a numerical model based on observations of the structural behaviour of the respective existing system.
The determination of the behaviour of an existing structure requires experimental investigations. If the numerical analyses concern the dynamic response of a structure it is sensible to direct the experimental investigations towards the identification of the dynamic structural behaviour which is determined by the modal parameters of the system. In consequence, several methods for the experimental identification of modal parameters have been developed since the 1980ies.
Due to various technical restraints in civil engineering which limit the possibilities to excitate a structure with economically reasonable effort, several methods have been developed that allow a modal identification form tests with an ambient excitation. The approach of identifying modal parameters only from measurements of the structural response without precise knowledge of the excitation is known as output-only or operational modal analysis.
Since operational modal analysis (OMA) can be considered as a link between numerical modelling and simulation on the one hand and the dynamic behaviour of an existing structure on the other hand, the respective algorithms connect both the concepts of structural dynamics and mathematical tools applied within the processing of experimental data. Accordingly, the related theoretical topics are revised after an introduction into the topic.
Several OMA methods have been developed over the last decades. The most established algorithms are presented here and their application is illustrated by means of both a small numerical and an experimental example. Since experimentally obtained results always underly manifold influences, an appropriate postprocessing of the results is necessary for a respective quality assessment. This quality assessment does not only require respective indicators but should also include the quantification of uncertainties.
One special feature in modal testing is that it is common to instrument the structure in different sensor setups to improve the spacial resolution of identified mode shapes. The modal information identified from tests in several setups needs to be merged a posteriori. Algorithms to cope with this problem are also presented.
Due to the fact that the amount of data generated in modal tests can become very large, manual processing can become extremely expensive or even impossible, for example in the case of a long-term continuous structural monitoring. In these situations an automated analysis and postprocessing are essential. Descriptions of respective methodologies are therefore also included in this work.
Every structural system in civil engineering is unique and so also every identification of modal parameters has its specific challenges. Some aspects that can be faced in practical applications of operational modal analysis are presented and discussed in a chapter that is dedicated specific problems that an analyst may have to overcome. Case studies of systems with very close modes, with limited accessibility as well as the application of different OMA methods are described and discussed. In this context the focus is put on several types of uncertainty that may occur in the multiple stages of an operational modal analysis. In literature only very specific uncertainties at certain stages of the analysis are addressed. Here, the topic of uncertainties has been considered in a broader sense and approaches for treating respective problems are suggested.
Eventually, it is concluded that the methodologies of operatinal modal analysis and related technical solutions have been well-engineered already. However, as in any discipline that includes experiments, a certain degree of uncertainty always remains in the results. From these conclusions has been derived a demand for further research and development that should be directed towards the minimisation of these uncertainties and to a respective optimisation of the steps and corresponding parameters included in an operational modal analysis.
Earthquake is among the most devastating natural disasters causing severe economical, environmental, and social destruction. Earthquake safety assessment and building hazard monitoring can highly contribute to urban sustainability through identification and insight into optimum materials and structures. While the vulnerability of structures mainly depends on the structural resistance, the safety assessment of buildings can be highly challenging. In this paper, we consider the Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) method, which is a qualitative procedure for estimating structural scores for buildings suitable for medium- to high-seismic cases. This paper presents an overview of the common RVS methods, i.e., FEMA P-154, IITK-GGSDMA, and EMPI. To examine the accuracy and validation, a practical comparison is performed between their assessment and observed damage of reinforced concrete buildings from a street survey in the Bingöl region, Turkey, after the 1 May 2003 earthquake. The results demonstrate that the application of RVS methods for preliminary damage estimation is a vital tool. Furthermore, the comparative analysis showed that FEMA P-154 creates an assessment that overestimates damage states and is not economically viable, while EMPI and IITK-GGSDMA provide more accurate and practical estimation, respectively.
Piezoelectric materials are used in several applications as sensors and actuators where they experience high stress and electric field concentrations as a result of which they may fail due to fracture. Though there are many analytical and experimental works on piezoelectric fracture mechanics. There are very few studies about damage detection, which is an interesting way to prevent the failure of these ceramics.
An iterative method to treat the inverse problem of detecting cracks and voids in piezoelectric structures is proposed. Extended finite element method (XFEM) is employed for solving the inverse problem as it allows the use of a single regular mesh for large number of iterations with different flaw geometries.
Firstly, minimization of cost function is performed by Multilevel Coordinate Search (MCS) method. The XFEM-MCS methodology is applied to two dimensional electromechanical problems where flaws considered are straight cracks and elliptical voids. Then a numerical method based on combination of classical shape derivative and level set method for front propagation used in structural optimization is utilized to minimize the cost function. The results obtained show that the XFEM-level set methodology is effectively able to determine the number of voids in a piezoelectric structure and its corresponding locations.
The XFEM-level set methodology is improved to solve the inverse problem of detecting inclusion interfaces in a piezoelectric structure. The material interfaces are implicitly represented by level sets which are identified by applying regularisation using total variation penalty terms. The formulation is presented for three dimensional structures and inclusions made of different materials are detected by using multiple level sets. The results obtained prove that the iterative procedure proposed can determine the location and approximate shape of material subdomains in the presence of higher noise levels.
Piezoelectric nanostructures exhibit size dependent properties because of surface elasticity and surface piezoelectricity. Initially a study to understand the influence of surface elasticity on optimization of nano elastic beams is performed. The boundary of the nano structure is implicitly represented by a level set function, which is considered as the design variable in the optimization process. Two objective functions, minimizing the total potential energy of a nanostructure subjected to a material volume constraint and minimizing the least square error compared to a target
displacement, are chosen for the numerical examples. The numerical examples demonstrate the importance of size and aspect ratio in determining how surface effects impact the optimized topology of nanobeams.
Finally a conventional cantilever energy harvester with a piezoelectric nano layer is analysed. The presence of surface piezoelectricity in nano beams and nano plates leads to increase in electromechanical coupling coefficient. Topology optimization of these piezoelectric structures in an energy harvesting device to further increase energy conversion using appropriately modified XFEM-level set algorithm is performed .
This thesis addresses an adaptive higher-order method based on a Geometry Independent Field approximatTion(GIFT) of polynomial/rationals plines over hierarchical T-meshes(PHT/RHT-splines).
In isogeometric analysis, basis functions used for constructing geometric models in computer-aided design(CAD) are also employed to discretize the partial differential equations(PDEs) for numerical analysis. Non-uniform rational B-Splines(NURBS) are the most commonly used basis functions in CAD. However, they may not be ideal for numerical analysis where local refinement is required.
The alternative method GIFT deploys different splines for geometry and numerical analysis. NURBS are utilized for the geometry representation, while for the field solution, PHT/RHT-splines are used. PHT-splines not only inherit the useful properties of B-splines and NURBS, but also possess the capabilities of local refinement and hierarchical structure. The smooth basis function properties of PHT-splines make them suitable for analysis purposes. While most problems considered in isogeometric analysis can be solved efficiently when the solution is smooth, many non-trivial problems have rough solutions. For example, this can be caused by the presence of re-entrant corners in the domain. For such problems, a tensor-product basis (as in the case of NURBS) is less suitable for resolving the singularities that appear since refinement propagates throughout the computational domain. Hierarchical bases and local refinement (as in the case of PHT-splines) allow for a more efficient way to resolve these singularities by adding more degrees of freedom where they are necessary. In order to drive the adaptive refinement, an efficient recovery-based error estimator is proposed in this thesis. The estimator produces a recovery solution which is a more accurate approximation than the computed numerical solution. Several two- and three-dimensional numerical investigations with PHT-splines of higher order and continuity prove that the proposed method is capable of obtaining results with higher accuracy, better convergence, fewer degrees of freedom and less computational cost than NURBS for smooth solution problems. The adaptive GIFT method utilizing PHT-splines with the recovery-based error estimator is used for solutions with discontinuities or singularities where adaptive local refinement in particular domains of interest achieves higher accuracy with fewer degrees of freedom. This method also proves that it can handle complicated multi-patch domains for two- and three-dimensional problems outperforming uniform refinement in terms of degrees of freedom and computational cost.
Image Analysis Using Human Body Geometry and Size Proportion Science for Action Classification
(2020)
Gestures are one of the basic modes of human communication and are usually used to represent different actions. Automatic recognition of these actions forms the basis for solving more complex problems like human behavior analysis, video surveillance, event detection, and sign language recognition, etc. Action recognition from images is a challenging task as the key information like temporal data, object trajectory, and optical flow are not available in still images. While measuring the size of different regions of the human body i.e., step size, arms span, length of the arm, forearm, and hand, etc., provides valuable clues for identification of the human actions. In this article, a framework for classification of the human actions is presented where humans are detected and localized through faster region-convolutional neural networks followed by morphological image processing techniques. Furthermore, geometric features from human blob are extracted and incorporated into the classification rules for the six human actions i.e., standing, walking, single-hand side wave, single-hand top wave, both hands side wave, and both hands top wave. The performance of the proposed technique has been evaluated using precision, recall, omission error, and commission error. The proposed technique has been comparatively analyzed in terms of overall accuracy with existing approaches showing that it performs well in contrast to its counterparts.
A topology optimization method has been developed for structures subjected to multiple load cases (Example of a bridge pier subjected to wind loads, traffic, superstructure...). We formulate the problem as a multi-criterial optimization problem, where the compliance is computed for each load case. Then, the Epsilon constraint method (method proposed by Chankong and Haimes, 1971) is adapted. The strategy of this method is based on the concept of minimizing the maximum compliance resulting from the critical load case while the other remaining compliances are considered in the constraints. In each iteration, the compliances of all load cases are computed and only the maximum one is minimized. The topology optimization process is switching from one load to another according to the variation of the resulting compliance. In this work we will motivate and explain the proposed methodology and provide some numerical examples.
The classical Internet of things routing and wireless sensor networks can provide more precise monitoring of the covered area due to the higher number of utilized nodes. Because of the limitations in shared transfer media, many nodes in the network are prone to the collision in simultaneous transmissions. Medium access control protocols are usually more practical in networks with low traffic, which are not subjected to external noise from adjacent frequencies. There are preventive, detection and control solutions to congestion management in the network which are all the focus of this study. In the congestion prevention phase, the proposed method chooses the next step of the path using the Fuzzy decision-making system to distribute network traffic via optimal paths. In the congestion detection phase, a dynamic approach to queue management was designed to detect congestion in the least amount of time and prevent the collision. In the congestion control phase, the back-pressure method was used based on the quality of the queue to decrease the probability of linking in the pathway from the pre-congested node. The main goals of this study are to balance energy consumption in network nodes, reducing the rate of lost packets and increasing quality of service in routing. Simulation results proved the proposed Congestion Control Fuzzy Decision Making (CCFDM) method was more capable in improving routing parameters as compared to recent algorithms.
Modern digital material approaches for the visualization and simulation of heterogeneous materials allow to investigate the behavior of complex multiphase materials with their physical nonlinear material response at various scales. However, these computational techniques require extensive hardware resources with respect to computing power and main memory to solve numerically large-scale discretized models in 3D. Due to a very high number of degrees of freedom, which may rapidly be increased to the two-digit million range, the limited hardware ressources are to be utilized in a most efficient way to enable an execution of the numerical algorithms in minimal computation time. Hence, in the field of computational mechanics, various methods and algorithms can lead to an optimized runtime behavior of nonlinear simulation models, where several approaches are proposed and investigated in this thesis.
Today, the numerical simulation of damage effects in heterogeneous materials is performed by the adaption of multiscale methods. A consistent modeling in the three-dimensional space with an appropriate discretization resolution on each scale (based on a hierarchical or concurrent multiscale model), however, still contains computational challenges in respect to the convergence behavior, the scale transition or the solver performance of the weak coupled problems. The computational efficiency and the distribution among available hardware resources (often based on a parallel hardware architecture) can significantly be improved. In the past years, high-performance computing (HPC) and graphics processing unit (GPU) based computation techniques were established for the investigationof scientific objectives. Their application results in the modification of existing and the development of new computational methods for the numerical implementation, which enables to take advantage of massively clustered computer hardware resources. In the field of numerical simulation in material science, e.g. within the investigation of damage effects in multiphase composites, the suitability of such models is often restricted by the number of degrees of freedom (d.o.f.s) in the three-dimensional spatial discretization. This proves to be difficult for the type of implementation method used for the nonlinear simulation procedure and, simultaneously has a great influence on memory demand and computational time.
In this thesis, a hybrid discretization technique has been developed for the three-dimensional discretization of a three-phase material, which is respecting the numerical efficiency of nonlinear (damage) simulations of these materials. The increase of the computational efficiency is enabled by the improved scalability of the numerical algorithms. Consequently, substructuring methods for partitioning the hybrid mesh were implemented, tested and adapted to the HPC computing framework using several hundred CPU (central processing units) nodes for building the finite element assembly. A memory-efficient iterative and parallelized equation solver combined with a special preconditioning technique for solving the underlying equation system was modified and adapted to enable combined CPU and GPU based computations.
Hence, it is recommended by the author to apply the substructuring method for hybrid meshes, which respects different material phases and their mechanical behavior and which enables to split the structure in elastic and inelastic parts. However, the consideration of the nonlinear material behavior, specified for the corresponding phase, is limited to the inelastic domains only, and by that causes a decreased computing time for the nonlinear procedure. Due to the high numerical effort for such simulations, an alternative approach for the nonlinear finite element analysis, based on the sequential linear analysis, was implemented in respect to scalable HPC. The incremental-iterative procedure in finite element analysis (FEA) during the nonlinear step was then replaced by a sequence of linear FE analysis when damage in critical regions occured, known in literature as saw-tooth approach. As a result, qualitative (smeared) crack initiation in 3D multiphase specimens has efficiently been simulated.