Sharif Digital Repository

Oxy-fuel firing is more energy efficient and environmental friendly than conventional air-fuel firing and its application to reheating furnaces has hegun since 1990s. A computational method was presented to predict the steady heat transfer to the billets and temperature distribution in a continuous pusher type reheating furnace in which combustion air was enhanced by oxygen. Radiation heat flux calculated from the radiation heat exchange within the furnace was modeled using the FVM considering the effects of furnace walls and billets. Energy consumption per ton of steel, production rate and thermal efficiency of furnace, and trend of NOx emission in various levels of oxygen enrichment were... 

This paper presents a decentralized self-adjusting reactive power controller for the autonomous operation of a multi-bus medium voltage (MV) microgrid. The main objective of the proposed control strategy of each distributed generation (DG) unit is to compensate the reactive power of its local loads and to share the reactive power of the nonlocal loads among itself and other DG units. The proposed control strategy includes an improved droop controller whose parameters are adjusted according to the reactive power of the local loads. A virtual inductive impedance loop is augmented to the voltage controller to enhance the steady state and transient responses of the proposed reactive power... 

Incremental learning has been used extensively for data stream classification. Most attention on the data stream classification paid on non-evolutionary methods. In this paper, we introduce new incremental learning algorithms based on harmony search. We first propose a new classification algorithm for the classification of batch data called harmony-based classifier and then give its incremental version for classification of data streams called incremental harmony-based classif ier. Finally, we improve it to reduce its computational overhead in absence of drifts and increase its robustness in presence of noise. This improved version is called improved incremental harmony-based classifier. The... 

Environmental issues and energy crisis have caused the world attention to the renewable energies; especially the wind power, since they have low cost and high reliability. To achieve higher capacity, wind turbines have increased in their size over the years. However, the large size of the modern turbines has exacerbated the problem of vibrations, which results in lower efficiency and power generation. Because of the large deformations, the conventional linear theories cannot model the blades accurately, due to the importance of nonlinear effects in large scale wind turbines. In this research, a nonlinear kinematic model of the wind turbine blade is developed using the Hamilton's principle.... 

A new hybrid approach for dynamic optimization problems with continuous search spaces is presented. The proposed approach hybridizes efficient features of the particle swarm optimization in tracking dynamic changes with a new evolutionary procedure. In the proposed dynamic hybrid PSO (DHPSO) algorithm, the swarm size is varied in a self-regulatory manner. Inspired from the microbial life, the particles can reproduce infants and the old ones die. The infants are especially reproduced by high potential particles and located near the local optimum points, using the quadratic interpolation method. The algorithm is adapted to perform in continuous search spaces, utilizing continuous movement of... 

Harmonic State Estimation (HSE) is a technique for identifying harmonic distributions in power systems with limited measurements. The main problem in HSE is the optimal placement of measurement meters such that the estimation error is minimized, while making the system fully observable. The second issue is the HSE method. This method must be accurate and fast enough in order to have an accurate HSE. This paper presents a new algorithm that uses minimum variance criterion (MVC) and a sequential method for optimal meters placement, SVD method for observability analysis and finally WLS method for harmonic estimation. The proposed method minimizes the number of measurement devices and the error... 

Harmonic state estimation (HSE) method has been used to locate harmonic sources and estimate harmonic distribution in power systems with limited number of harmonic meters. This paper focuses on a new technique for optimal placement of measurement devices and observability analysis for power systems harmonic state estimation. The proposed method optimizes the number of measurements and minimizes the error of estimation at the same time. The method is tested on the IEEE 14-bus power system to show its precision  

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... 

Motion planning and trajectory control are two basic challenges of unmanned vehicles. In motion planning problem, feasible trajectories are developed while nonlinear dynamic model and performance constraints of the vehicle under utility are considered. In this study, motion planning is performed via an enhanced particle swarm optimization algorithm. The resulting offline generated trajectories are tracked using a nonlinear trajectory control system methodology. The Lyapunov-based constrained backstepping approach and command filters are utilized in designing the trajectory control system. Command filters smoothen the input signals and provide their derivatives. Evaluation of the proposed... 

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)... 

Motion planning is a key factor in enhancing the autonomy level of unmanned flying vehicles. A new dynamic hybrid algorithm is developed to solve the motion planning problem in real-time using a heuristic optimization approach. The proposed algorithm effectively combines desired features such as rapid convergence to an optimal path with reduced computational effort. In addition to the terrain obstacles, the proposed algorithm is able to avoid random threats that may arise sporadically in the terrain. Using the maneuver automaton concept, nonlinear dynamic model and performance constraints are also considered in the process of motion planning to further ensure feasible trajectories.... 

A major issue required to enhance the autonomy level of unmanned vehicles is real-time motion planning. In this context, optimal trajectories need to be generated online considering the vehicle's dynamic potentials and constraints. However, autonomous air vehicles often need to plan and execute their missions with varying objectives that may even be dictated in flight. Therefore, the current study introduces and focuses on the new concept of variable-objective motion planning. In this regard, a new dynamic multi-objective heuristic optimization algorithm is developed for path and motion planning of autonomous air vehicles in presence of deterministic terrain obstacles as well as random... 

A novel system for decomposing a set of three-phase signals into its constituting symmetrical components is proposed. The system also estimates the frequency, the magnitudes and phase-angles of the sequence components. The system is useful for online estimation of instantaneous symmetrical components and their attributes in the presence of frequency variations. The proposed system can be considered as a fundamentally improved version of the conventional three-phase Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) system which is widely used in power system applications. From this viewpoint, the proposed system obviates the inherent shortcoming of the conventional PLL system which is its erroneous response in the... 

This paper deals with the definition of power factor and reactive current component in a three-phase system. For a single-phase system, power factor and reactive current component are defined based on the phase-angle displacement between the measured voltage and current waveforms. This definition can be directly extended to balanced three-phase systems. However, this extension is not suitable when the three-phase system (voltages or currents) is unbalanced. Reason is that the conventional definition of phase-angle does not directly apply to an unbalanced three-phase system and needs further refinements. This paper defines the concept of symmetrical power factors and symmetrical reactive... 

A detection technique for extraction of total harmonics, individual harmonics, and reactive current components is introduced and its performance is evaluated. The detection algorithm is then adopted as part of the control system of a single-phase active power filter (APF) to provide the required signals for harmonic filtering and reactive power compensation. Performance of the overall system is evaluated based on digital time-domain simulation studies. The APF control system including the signal processing algorithms are implemented in Matlab/Simulink Fixed-Point Blockset to accommodate bit-length limitation which is a crucial factor in digital implementation. The power system including the... 

Analytic finite sample equivalents for autoregressive-model order selection criteria are introduced. These equivalents are based on approximately analytic formulas and can be used in the case where the estimation method is least-squares-forward. In fact, these criteria are approximately analytic equivalents of existing empirical finite sample criteria. The performance of the finite sample criteria is better than that of their asymptotic equivalents in the finite sample case. In the large sample case, the criteria introduced in this paper converge to the existing criteria  

Control strategies of a microgrid which includes both synchronous generators and converter-based distribution generation (DG) units must be designed such that effective operation of the microgrid is achieved. The main objective of this paper is to develop a high performance control strategy for an islanded medium voltage (MV) microgrid consisting of inverter and non-inverter interfaced DG units. A new control method for the synchronous generator in an islanded microgrid is proposed based on a virtual droop scheme. The proposed strategy can effectively manage the real and reactive powers of the microgrid among the inverter and non-inverter based DG units. The steady state and dynamic... 

This paper proposes a hierarchical active power management strategy for a medium voltage (MV) islanded microgrid including a multihybrid power conversion system (MHPCS). To guarantee excellent power management, a modular power conversion system is realized by parallel connection of small MHPCS units. The hybrid system includes fuel cells (FC) as main and supercapacitors (SC) as complementary power sources. The SC energy storage compensates the slow transient response of the FC stack and supports the FC to meet the grid power demand. The proposed control strategy of the MHPCS comprises three control loops; dc-link voltage controller, power management controller, and load current sharing... 

This paper presents a control strategy for an islanded medium voltage microgrid to coordinate hybrid power source (HPS) units and to control interfaced multilevel inverters under unbalanced and nonlinear load conditions. The proposed HPS systems are connected to the loads through a cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverter. The CHB multilevel inverters increase the output voltage level and enhance power quality. The HPS employs fuel cell (FC) and photovoltaic sources as the main and supercapacitors as the complementary power sources. Fast transient response, high performance, high power density, and low FC fuel consumption are the main advantages of the proposed HPS system. The proposed...