• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.804-814
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• 2019

The patient's waiting time and length of stay have been reported as a factor decreasing their satisfaction in the hospital, especially in developing countries. This paper focuses on modeling hospital's outpatient department workflow in a developing country and optimizing the patient waiting time as well as total length of stay. By using discrete-event simulation, many alternative scenarios have raised, such as adding more working time, altering human resources, and adjusting the staff's responsibility, those scenarios will be examined to explore better settings for the hospital. The results show that possible to achieve a 9.6% reduction in patient total length of stay and it could be accomplished without adding more resources to the hospital.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.85 no.3
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• pp.369-379
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• 2023

Reliability-Based Design Optimization (RBDO) is an appropriate framework for obtaining optimal designs by taking uncertainties into account. Large-scale problems with implicit limit state functions and problems with discrete design variables are two significant challenges to traditional RBDO methods. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a hybrid method to perform RBDO of structures that links Firefly Algorithm (FA) as an optimization tool to advanced (finite element) reliability methods. Furthermore, the Genetic Algorithm (GA) and the FA are compared based on the design cost (objective function) they achieve. In the proposed method, Weighted Simulation Method (WSM) is utilized to assess reliability constraints in the RBDO problems with explicit limit state functions. WSM is selected to reduce computational costs. To performing RBDO of structures with finite element modeling and implicit limit state functions, a First-Order Reliability Method (FORM) based on the Direct Differentiation Method (DDM) is utilized. Four numerical examples are considered to assess the effectiveness of the proposed method. The findings illustrate that the proposed RBDO method is applicable and efficient for RBDO problems with discrete and continuous design variables and finite element modeling.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.32-43
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• 1997

Abstract A series of permeability tests was performed on the mixtures with specific mixing rates of sand and bentonite using modified rigid-wall permeameter. Sand-bentonite mixtures were permeated by organics, ethanol and TCE. Permeability of bentonite with several mixing rates had a tendency to decrease up to initial one pore volume and permeability was thereafter converged to a constant value. When sand-bentonite mixtures was permeated by water, permeability was decreased at the beginning but it was thereafter converged to a constant. Among several mixing rates, permeability was greatly decreased at 15% of mixing rate. When sand-bentonite mixtures with 15% mixing rate was permeated by ethanol, permeability was about 10 times larger value than permeability of water. Peameability was shown greater values when permeated by TCE (TrichloroEthylene) followed by ethanol. Suitable mixing rate of sand-bentonite for a liner of waste landfills was detected.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.295-309
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• 1994

The present paper concerns the mathematical study and the numerical treatment of the problem of semirigid connections in bolted steel column base plates by taking into account the possibility of appearance of separation phenomena on the contact surface under certain loading conditions. In order to obtain a convenient discrete form to simulate the structural behaviour of a steel column base plate, the continuous contact problem is first formulated as a variational inequality problem or, equivalently, as a quadratic programming problem. By applying an appropriate finite element scheme, the discrete problem is formulated as a quadratic optimization problem which expresses, from the standpoint of Mechanics, the principle of minimum potential energy of the semirigid connection at the state of equilibrium. For the numerical treatment of this problem, two effective and easy-to-use solution strategies based on quadratic optimization algorithms are proposed. This technique is illustrated by means of a numerical application.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1990.10a
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• pp.95-100
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• 1990

An optimization method has been developed to find the minimum weight design of steel building structures which consist of the commercially available discrete sections. In this study, an emphasis was particularly placed on the practical applicability of optimization algorithm in engineering practice. The structure Is optimized through element optimization under the element level constraints first and then, if there is any violation of structural level constraints, it is adequately compensated by the constraint error correction vector obtained through the sensitivity analysis. A scaling procedure is introduced for the problems of large violated displacement constraint. The oscillation control in the objective function is also discussed. By dividing the available H-sections into two groups based on their section characteristics, much improved relationships between section variables were obtained and used efficiently in searching the optimum section in the section table.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.115-124
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• 2000

An efficient multi-level (EML) optimization algorithm using discrete variables of framed structures is proposed in this paper. For the efficiency of the proposed algorithm multi-level optimization techniques using a decomposition method that separates both system-level and element-level are incorporated in the algorithm In the system-level, to save the numerical efforts an efficient reanalysis technique through approximated structural responses such as moments and frequencies with respect to intermediate variables is proposed in the paper. Sensitivity analysis of dynamic structural response is executed by automatic differentiation (AD) that is a powerful technique for computing complex or implicit derivatives accurately and efficiently with minimal human effort. In the element-level, to use AISC W-sections a section search algorithm is introduced. The efficiency and robustness of the EML algorithm, compared with a conventional multi-level (CML) algorithm and single-level genetic algorithm is successfully demonstrated in the numerical examples.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.146-153
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• 2007

Weight reduction for automobile components has been sought to achieve fuel efficiency and energy conservation. There are two approaches in reducing their weights. One is by using material lighter than steel, and the other is by redesigning their structures. The latter has been performed by adopting hydroforming, tailor weled blank, optimization, etc. In this research, the kriging approximation method and simulated annealing algorithm are applied to the design of a front door made by TWB (Tailor Welded Blank) technology. The design variables are set up as the thicknesses of parts and the positions of parting lines. A thickness set considered as a design variable of each part is not arbitrarily determined but selected from standard products, so it is a discrete set. This research presents the discrete and continuous structural optimization method for an automotive door design.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.100-106
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• 2014

Lower control arm (LCA) is a part of chassis in automotive. Performances of LCA such as stiffness, durability and permanent displacement must be considered in design optimization. However it is hard to consider different performances at once in optimization because these are measured by different commercial tools like Radioss, Abaqus, etc. In this paper, firstly, we construct the integrated design automation system for LCA based on Matlab including Hypermesh, Radioss and Abaqus. Secondly, Akaike information criterion (AIC) is used for assessment of reliability of LCA. It can find the best estimated distribution of performance from limited and discrete stochastic information and then obtains the reliability from the distribution. Finally, we consider tolerances of design variables and variation of elastic modulus and achieve the target reliability by carrying out reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) with the integrated system.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1995.10a
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• pp.9-16
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• 1995

This study presents the applicable possibility of numerical optimization and Genetic Algorithm in the design of truss structures using discrete variables and real constraints. The introduction of Genetic Algorithm in the design of truss structures enables us to do easier formulation and handle discrete variables. To investigate these applicable possibility, the design of 15 - bar truss structures has been studied using GT/STRUDL and Genetic Algorithm and the results of Genetic Algorithm are compared with GT/STRUDL's.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.1-16
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• 1999

This paper deals with a discrete simulation optimization method for designing a complex probabilistic discrete event system. The proposed algorithm in this paper searches the effective and reliable alternatives satisfying the target values of the system to be designed through a single run in a relatively short time period. It tries to estimate an autoregressive model, and construct mean and confidence interval for evaluating correctly the objective function obtained by small amount of output data. The experimental results using the proposed method are also shown.