• Computers and Concrete
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.127-141
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• 2022

In this paper, a numerical procedure is proposed for achieving the minimum cost design of reinforced concrete polygonal column cross-sections under compression and biaxial bending. A methodology is developed to integrate the metaheuristic algorithm Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO) with an algorithm for the evaluation of the strength of reinforced concrete cross-sections under combined axial load and biaxial bending, according to the design criteria of Brazilian Standard ABNT NBR 6118:2014. The objective function formulation takes into account the costs of concrete, reinforcement, and formwork. The cross-section dimensions, the number and diameter of rebar and the concrete strength are taken as discrete design variables. This methodology is applied to polygonal cross-sections, such as rectangular sections, rectangular hollow sections, and L-shaped cross-sections. To evaluate the efficiency of the methodology, the optimal solutions obtained were compared to results reported by other authors using conventional methods or alternative optimization techniques. An additional study investigates the effect on final costs for an alternative parametrization of rebar positioning on the cross-section. The proposed optimization method proved to be efficient in the search for optimal solutions, presenting consistent results that confirm the importance of using optimization techniques in the design of reinforced concrete structures.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.378-384
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• 2014

Optimization design and robust design are significant measures for improving the performance and reliability of electromagnetic devices (EMDs, specifically refer to relays, contactors in this paper). However, the implementation of the above-mentioned design requires substantial calculation; consequently, on the premise of guaranteeing precision, how to improve the calculation speed is a problem that needs to be solved. This paper proposes a new method for establishing an approximate model for the EMD. It builds a relationship between the input and output of the EMD with different coil voltages and air gaps, by using a user-defined interpolating function. The coefficient of the fitting function is determined based on a quantum particle swarm optimization (QPSO) method. The effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper is verified by the electromagnetic force calculation results of an electromagnetic relay with permanent magnet.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.2134-2143
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• 2018

This work introduces a fault diagnosis method for transformer based on self-powered radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor tag and improved Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT). Consisted by RFID tag chip, power management circuit, MCU and accelerometer, the developed RFID sensor tag is used to acquire and wirelessly transmit the vibration signal. A customized power management including solar panel, low dropout (LDO) voltage regulator, supercapacitor and corresponding charging circuit is presented to guarantee constant DC power for the sensor tag. An improved band restricted empirical mode decomposition (BREMD) which is optimized by quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (QPSO) algorithm is proposed to deal with the raw vibration signal. Compared with traditional methods, this improved BREMD method shows great superiority in reducing mode aliasing. Then, a promising fault diagnosis approach on the basis of Hilbert marginal spectrum variations is brought up. The measured results show that the presented power management circuit can generate 2.5V DC voltage for the rest of the sensor tag. The developed sensor tag can achieve a reliable communication distance of 17.8m in the test environment. Furthermore, the measurement results indicate the promising performance of fault diagnosis for transformer.