• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.71 no.2
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• pp.139-151
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• 2019

In a project schedule, it is possible to reduce the time required to complete a project by allocating extra resources for critical activities. However, accelerating a project causes additional expense. This issue is addressed by finding optimal set of time-cost alternatives and is known as the time-cost trade-off problem in the literature. The aim of this study is to identify the optimal set of time-cost alternatives using a multiobjective teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO) algorithm integrated with the non-dominated sorting concept and is applied to successfully optimize the projects ranging from a small to medium large projects. Numerical simulations indicate that the utilized model searches and identifies optimal / near optimal trade-offs between project time and cost in construction engineering and management. Therefore, it is concluded that the developed TLBO-based multiobjective approach offers satisfactorily solutions for time-cost trade-off optimization problems.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1223-1230
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• 2009

In the construction industry, Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is considered to be the most suitable approach and determining the attribute weights is an important CBR problem. In this paper, a method is proposed for determining attribute weights that are calculated with attribute relation. The basic items of consideration were qualitative and quantitative influence factors. These quantitative factors were related to the qualitative factors to develop a Cost Drivers-structural equation model which can be used to estimate construction cost by considering attribute weight. The process of determining the attribute weight-structural equation model consists o 4 phases: selecting the predominant Cost Drivers for the SEM, applying the Cost Driers in the SEM, determining and verifying the attribute weights and deriving the Cost Estimation Equation. This study develops a cost estimating technique that complements the CBR method with a Cost Drivers-structural equation model which can be actively used during the schematic estimating phases of construction.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.174-178
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• 2015

This paper presents a new method for forecasting construction project cost and time at completion or at any intermediate time horizon of the project duration. The method is designed to overcome identified limitations of current applications of earned value method in forecasting project cost and time. The proposed method usesfuzzy set theory to model uncertainties associated with project performance and it integrates the earned value technique and the contractors' judgement. The fuzzy set theory is applied as an alternative approach to deterministic and probabilistic methods. Using fuzzy set theory allows contractors to: (1) perform risk analysis for different scenarios of project performance indices, and (2) perform different scenarios expressing vagueness and imprecision of forecasted project cost and time using a set of measures and indices. Unlike the current applications of Earned Value Method(EVM), The proposed method has a numberof interesting features: (1) integrating contractors' judgement in forecasting project performance; (2) enabling contractors to evaluate the risk associated with cost overrun in much simpler method comparing with that of simulation, and (3) accounting for uncertainties involved in the forecasting project cost.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.253-268
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• 2009

This study aims to develop a cost-based high-performance concrete (HPC) mix optimization system based on an integrated approach using artificial neural networks (ANNs) and genetic algorithms (GA). ANNs are used to predict the three main properties of HPC, namely workability, strength and durability, which are used to evaluate fitness and constraint violations in the GA process. Multilayer back-propagation neural networks are trained using the results obtained from experiments and previous research. The correlation between concrete components and its properties is established. GA is employed to arrive at an optimal mix proportion of HPC by minimizing its total cost. A system prototype, called High Performance Concrete Mix-Design System using Genetic Algorithm and Neural Networks (HPCGANN), was developed in MATLAB. The architecture of the proposed system consists of three main parts: 1) User interface; 2) ANNs prediction models software; and 3) GA engine software. The validation of the proposed system is carried out by comparing the results obtained from the system with the trial batches. The results indicate that the proposed system can be used to enable the design of HPC mix which corresponds to its required performance. Furthermore, the proposed system takes into account the influence of the fluctuating unit price of materials in order to achieve the lowest cost of concrete, which cannot be easily obtained by traditional methods or trial-and-error techniques.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.72-80
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• 2004

Recently, the demand on the practical application of life-cycle cost effective design and rehabilitation of bridges is rapidly growing in civil engineering practice. However, in spite of impressive progress in the researches on the Life-Cycle Cost (LCC), the most researches have only focused on the theoretical point but did not fully incorporate the critical issues for the practical implementation. Thus, this paper is intended to suggest a systemic integrated approach to the practical application of various LCC methodologies for the design and rehabilitation of bridges, For that purpose, hierarchical definitions of LCC models are presented to categorize the approach of LCC assessment applicable for the practical implementation. And then, an integrated LCC system model is introduced with an emphasis on data uncertainty assessment and user-friendly knowledge-based database for its successful implementation. Finally, in order to demonstrate the LCC effectiveness for design and rehabilitation of real bridge structures, illustrative examples are discussed.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.353-359
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• 2009

This paper proposes a novel technique for calculating the security costs that properly includes ramping constraints in the operation of a deregulated power system. The ramping process is modeled by a piecewise linear function with certain assumptions. During this process, a ramping cost is incurred if the permissible limits are exceeded. The optimal production costs of the power producers are calculated with the ramping cost included, considering a time horizon with N-1 contingency cases using contingency constrained optimal power flow (CCOPF), which is solved by the primal-dual interior point method (PDIPM). A contingency analysis is also performed taking into account the severity index of transmission line outages and its sensitivity analysis. The results from an illustrative case study based on the IEEE 30-bus system are analyzed. One attractive feature of the proposed approach is that an optimal solution is more realistic than the conventional approach because it satisfies physical constraints, such as the ramping constraint.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.121-130
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• 2011

Recent research indicates that transient errors will increasingly become a critical concern in microprocessor design. As embedded processors are widely used in reliability-critical or noisy environments, it is necessary to develop cost-effective fault-tolerant techniques to protect processors against transient errors. The register file is one of the critical components that can significantly affect microprocessor system reliability, since registers are typically accessed very frequently, and transient errors in registers can be easily propagated to functional units or the memory system, leading to silent data error (SDC) or system crash. This paper focuses on investigating the impact of register file soft errors on system reliability and developing cost-effective techniques to improve the register file immunity to soft errors. This paper proposes the register vulnerability factor (RVF) concept to characterize the probability that register transient errors can escape the register file and thus potentially affect system reliability. We propose an approach to compute the RVF based on register access patterns. In this paper, we also propose two compiler-directed techniques and a hybrid approach to improve register file reliability cost-effectively by lowering the RVF value. Our experiments indicate that on average, RVF can be reduced to 9.1% and 9.5% by the hyperblock-based instruction re-scheduling and the reliability-oriented register assignment respectively, which can potentially lower the reliability cost significantly, without sacrificing the register value integrity.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.899-904
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• 2008

This paper deals with the analytical approach for the reliability assessment in radially operated distribution systems. The approach can estimate the expected reliability performance of distribution systems by a direct assessment of the configuration of the systems using the reliability indexes such as NDP(Non-Delivery Power) and NDE(Non-Delivery Energy). The indexes can consider the number and configuration of the load. but can not consider the characteristics of the load which is the one of the most important factor in the investment cost for the distribution systems. Therefore, this paper presents the new indexes considering the expected interruption cost for the load section and shows the effectiveness by simulating at the model systems.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.185-192
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• 2012

Line planning is to determine the frequency of trains on each line to satisfy origin-destination demand while minimizing total operation cost. However, different from the line planning in passenger transportation, it is more important at which intermediate stations each train should be stopped and shunted because the freight car handling works like drop-off or(and) pick-up can incur much time and high cost so that the delay deteriorates the quality of rail freight transportation service. We present an optimization model for constructing line plan in rail freight transportation to simultaneously minimize the train operation cost and total transportation time of freights. And we suggest a column generation approach for our problem, which can solve the real network instances in reasonable computation times.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.85-94
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• 2004

As over 70% of the total life cycle cost (LCC) of a product is committed at the early design stage, designers are in an important position to substantially reduce the LCC of the products they design by giving due to life cycle implications of their design decisions. During early design stages, there may be competing concepts with dramatic differences. In addition, the detailed information is scarce and decisions must be made quickly. Thus, both the overhead in developing parametric LCC models fur a wide range of concepts, and the lack of detailed information make the application of traditional LCC models impractical. A different approach is needed, because a traditional LCC method is to be incorporated in the very early design stages. This paper explores an approximate method for providing the preliminary LCC, Learning algorithms trained to use the known characteristics of existing products might allow the LCC of new products to be approximated quickly during the conceptual design phase without the overhead of defining new LCC models. Artificial neural networks are trained to generalize product attributes and LCC data from pre-existing LCC studies. Then the product designers query the trained artificial model with new high-level product attribute data to quickly obtain an LCC for a new product concept. Foundations fur the learning LCC approach are established, and then an application is provided.