WTAB, a computer program for predicting the performance of horizontal axis wind turbines with adaptive blades

An aero-structure code has been developed to predict the performance of a horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) with adaptive blades. The code is a combination of an aerodynamic code, an adaptive mesh generator and a finite element code, all developed especially for this purpose. It has been shown that for a high elastic coupling, a coupled aero-structure simulation approach is necessary to have acceptable results while a single step simulation approach can only be used to estimate the blade loading and wind turbine power.     

Second order stress gradient plasticity with an application to thin foil bending

The continuum theory of dislocations is applied to formulate the problem of a double ended dislocation pileup under quadratic applied stress. Accordingly, a second order stress gradient plasticity model is presented to address the contribution of the first and the second stress gradients in the effect interpretation. The model is employed to predict the initial strengthening and subsequent hardening in curved and straight thin foils under pure bending within the continuum framework. It is shown that the so-called stress gradient plasticity model that ignores the second stress gradient may not give sound interpretations of the size effects. The plastic response of thin foils is affected by both the first and second stress gradients, yet their interaction strongly depends upon the length scale parameter. The larger the length scale parameter, the quadratic term contribution would be important and the predictions of the first and second order models deviate significantly from each other.     

Prediction-based underutilized and destination host selection approaches for energy-efficient dynamic VM consolidation in data centers

The Journal of Supercomputing - Improving the energy efficiency while guaranteeing quality of services (QoS) is one of the main challenges of efficient resource management of large-scale data...     

Seismic evaluation of a 56‐storey residential reinforced concrete high‐rise building based on nonlinear dynamic time‐history analyses

In recent decades, shear walls and tube structures have been the most appropriate structural forms for the construction of high‐rise concrete buildings. Thus, recent Reinforced Concrete (RC) tall buildings have more complicated structural behaviour than before. Therefore, studying the structural systems and associated behaviour of these types of structures is very important. The main objective of this paper is to study the linear and nonlinear behaviour of one of the tallest RC buildings, a 56‐storey structure, located in a high seismic zone in Iran. In this tower, shear wall systems with irregular openings are utilized under both gravity and lateral loads and may result in some especial issues in the behaviour of structural elements such as shear walls and coupling beams. The analytical methodologies and the results obtained in the evaluation of life‐safety and collapse prevention of the building are also discussed. The weak zones of the structure based on the results are introduced, and a detailed discussion of some important structural aspects of the high‐rise shear wall system with consideration of the concrete time dependency and constructional sequence effects is also included. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Meta-Heuristic Algorithms for Hydrologic Frequency Analysis

Meta-heuristic algorithms, such as the genetic algorithm and ant colony optimization, have received considerable attention in recent years due to their higher ability for solving difficult engineering optimization problems. This paper employs these techniques for estimating parameters of commonly used flood frequency distributions, and compares them with some conventional methods such as maximum likelihood, moments and probability weighted moments using annual maximum discharge data of 14 rivers from East-Azarbaijan, Iran. The results indicate that both the genetic algorithm and ant colony optimization are suitable parameter estimation alternatives. Also, the results of Monte Carlo simulation for various sample sizes, ranging from 20 to 100, demonstrate that the meta-heuristic algorithms yield accurate quantile estimates.     

A survey on physical layer impairments aware routing and wavelength assignment algorithms in optical networks

Optical networks are moving from opaque and translucent architectures towards all-optical (transparent) architectures. In translucent architectures a small amount of regeneration (e.g. optical–electronic–optical conversion) is available in the network. The incorporation of the physical impairments in the routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem in transparent optical networks has recently received some attention from the research communities. This work compiles a comprehensive survey of the proposed algorithms that address this issue. The physical layer impairments and related classification in optical networks are initially presented followed by physical layer impairments (PLI) constrained and aware RWA algorithms. Algorithmic approach, current PLI-RWA proposals, impact of wavelength conversion on these algorithms, protection and resilience considerations, and proposed extensions to control planes are covered in this work. Further research topics are presented in this study.     

Influence of lead concentration on morphology and optical properties of Pb-doped ZnO nanowires

Undoped and Pb-doped ZnO nanowires with different lead concentrations were grown on Si(111) substrates using a thermal evaporation method. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results showed that, the undoped ZnO nanowires were well aligned with uniform diameters and lengths. On the other hand, the Pb-doped ZnO nanowires were tapered and not aligned in a unique direction. X-ray diffraction patterns and Raman measurements clearly indicated hexagonal structures for all of the products. In addition, the Raman results demonstrated that the Pb-doped ZnO nanowires had a lower crystalline quality than the undoped ZnO nanowires. Photoluminescence (PL) studies also confirmed the Raman results and showed a lower optical property for the Pb-doped ZnO nanowires compared to the undoped ZnO nanowires. Moreover, the PL results showed a smaller band-gap for the Pb-doped ZnO nanowires compared to the undoped ZnO.     

Demystifying SWCNT-bundle-interconnects inductive behavior through novel modeling

Single Wall Carbon NanoTube (SWCNT) bundles have been recognized as a high promising substitution for current unsuitable interconnects. SWCNT bundle is a good conductor that plays heat piping role, as well. Nevertheless, some issues still exist in electrical modeling of the bundles. In this paper, we have demystified SWCNT bundle inductive behavior, by deriving the analytical and accurate closed-form magnetic inductance model of bundles, for the first time. The new model is suitable for the working frequencies of up to at least 10 GHz. Subsequently, two more fast and still highly accurate models of “Approximate” and “Fast Approximate” are developed through the introduction of the novel discrete rectangle GMD concept. Simulations and inspection through these modeling steps, show that the magnetic inductances of a bundle and of a Cu solid wire are almost equal and do not require new modeling. Finally, a notable fact will be underlined. That is in today’s and near-future’s working frequency and interconnect dimensions, the bundle interconnects will not exhibit inductive behavior, although both kinetic and magnetic inductance type effects are being considered.     

Mechanical,thermal, and hydrophobic properties of silica aerogel–epoxy composites

Epoxy composites were prepared with different contents of hydrophobic silica aerogel particles to investigate their mechanical, thermal, and hydrophobic properties. The composites, particularly the one containing 1 wt % silica aerogel, showed remarkable toughness and yielding behaviors compared to neat epoxy, with its brittle behavior. As the content of silica aerogel increased, the thermal properties of the composites (e.g., thermal conductivity and thermal stability) improved. This was due to the very low thermal conductivity and high thermal stability of the silica aerogel particles. Moreover, the use of the hydrophobic silica aerogel led to the development of composites with hydrophobic properties. To examine the hydrophobicity more deeply, a series of water‐uptake tests were performed, and the results show that the composite with 3 wt % silica aerogel absorbed 50% less water than the neat epoxy. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 45706.     

Implementation of Geometrical Domain Decomposition Method for Solution of Axisymmetric Transient Inverse Heat Conduction Problems

The objective of this article is to study the performance of iterative parameter and function estimation techniques to solve simultaneously two unknown functions (quadratic in time, and linear in time and space) using transient inverse heat conduction method in conjunction with a geometrical domain decomposition approach, in cylindrical coordinates. For geometrical decomposition of physical domain, a multi-block method has been used. The numerical scheme for the solution of the governing partial differential equations is the finite element method. The results of the present study for a configuration composed of two joined disks with different heights are compared to those of exact heat source and temperature boundary condition using inverse analysis. Good agreement between the estimated results and exact functions has been observed for parameter estimation techniques in contrast to those of function estimation approach. In summary, the results show that the function estimation technique is sensitive to the location of measurement points, but is useful to estimate unknown functions without a priori knowledge of the functions' spatial and/or temporal distributions. However, the function estimation technique suffers from a drawback: its implementation and data extraction are less straightforward than parameter estimation method. Finally, it is shown that the use of geometrical domain decomposition offers the possibility of developing a robust inverse analysis code for general purpose heat conduction problems.