• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1A
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• pp.75-89
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• 2006

This paper presents a practical and realistic Life-Cycle Cost (LCC) optimum design methodology of steel bridges considering time effect of bridge reliability under environmental stressors such as corrosion and heavy truck traffics. The LCC functions considered in the LCC optimization consist of initial cost, expected life-cycle maintenance cost and expected life-cycle rehabilitation costs including repair/replacement costs, loss of contents or fatality and injury losses, road user costs, and indirect socio-economic losses. For the assessment of the life-cycle rehabilitation costs, the annual probability of failure which depends upon the prior and updated load and resistance histories should be accounted for. For the purpose, Nowak live load model and a modified corrosion propagation model considering corrosion initiation, corrosion rate, and repainting effect are adopted in this study. The proposed methodology is applied to the LCC optimum design problem of an actual steel box girder bridge with 3 continuous spans (40 m+50 m+40 m=130 m), and various sensitivity analyses of types of steel, local corrosion environments, average daily traffic volume, and discount rates are performed to investigate the effects of various design parameters and conditions on the LCC-effectiveness. From the numerical investigation, it has been observed that local corrosion environments and the number of truck traffics significantly influence the LCC-effective optimum design of steel bridges, and thus realized that these conditions should be considered as crucial parameters for the optimum LCC-effective design.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.417-425
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• 2000

This paper describes the application of discretized continuum-type optimality criteria(DCOC) and the development of optimum design program for the reinforced concrete continuous beams with rectangular cross-section. The cost of construction as objective function which includes the costs of concrete, reinforcing steel and formwork is minimized. The design constraints include limits on the maximum deflection, flexural and shear strengths, in addition to ductility requirements, and upper and lower bounds on design variables as stipulated by the design Code. Based on Kuhn-Tucker necessary conditions, the optimality criteria are explicitly derived in terms of the design variables-effective depth, and steel ratio. The self-weight of the beam is included in the equilibrium equation of the real system. An iterative procedure and computer program for updating the design variables are developed. Two numerical examples of reinforced concrete continuous beams are presented to show the applicability and efficiency of the DCOC-based technique.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.451-466
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• 2013

This paper deals with the multi-objective optimization of tire reinforcement structures such as the tread belt and the carcass path. The multi-objective functions are defined in terms of the discrete-type design variables and approximated by artificial neutral network, and the sensitivity analyses of these functions are replaced with the iterative genetic evolution. The multi-objective optimization algorithm introduced in this paper is not only highly CPU-time-efficient but it can also be applicable to other multi-objective optimization problems in which the objective function, the design variables and the constraints are not continuous but discrete. Through the illustrative numerical experiments, the fiber-reinforced tire belt structure is optimally tailored. The proposed multi-objective optimization algorithm is not limited to the tire reinforcement structure, but it can be applicable to the generalized multi-objective structural optimization problems in various engineering applications.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.723-740
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• 2013

This paper presents a parametric study of reinforced concrete bridge tall piers with hollow, rectangular sections. Such piers are typically used in railway construction of prestressed concrete viaducts. Twenty one different piers have been studied with seven column heights of 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 m and three types of 10-span continuous viaducts, whose main span lengths are 40, 50 and 60 m. The piers studied are intermediate columns placed in the middle of the viaducts. The total number of optimization design variables varies from 139 for piers with column height of 40 m to 307 for piers with column height of 100 m. Further, the results presented are of much value for the preliminary design of the piers of prestressed concrete viaducts of high speed railway lines.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.353-369
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• 2020

This paper presents the flutter analysis and optimum design of axially functionally graded box beam cantilever wing section by considering various geometric and material parameters. The coupled dynamic equations of the continuous model of wing system in terms of material and cross-sectional properties are formulated based on extended Hamilton's principle. By expressing the lift and pitching moment in terms of plunge and pitch displacements, the resultant two continuous equations are simplified using Galerkin's reduced order model. The flutter velocity is predicted from the solution of resultant damped eigenvalue problem. Parametric studies are conducted to know the effects of geometric factors such as taper ratio, thickness, sweep angle as well as material volume fractions and functional grading index on the flutter velocity. A generalized surrogate model is constructed by training the radial basis function network with the parametric data. The optimized material and geometric parameters of the section are predicted by solving the constrained optimal problem using firefly metaheuristics algorithm that employs the developed surrogate model for the function evaluations. The trapezoidal hollow box beam section design with axial functional grading concept is illustrated with combination of aluminium alloy and aluminium with silicon carbide particulates. A good improvement in flutter velocity is noticed by the optimization.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.761-768
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• 2013

Removal of COD and TSS from rice mill wastewater was investigated using continuous electrocoagulation method (CEC). The electrical energy consumption (EEC) of the process was also examined in order to evaluate the economic viability. The Box-Behnken statistical experiment design (BBD) and response surface methodology (RSM) were used to investigate the effects of major operating variables. Initial pH, current density, electrode distance and flow rate were selected as independent variables in BBD while COD removal, TSS removal and EEC were considered as the response functions. The predicted values of responses obtained using the response function was in good agreement with the experimental data. Optimum operating conditions were found to be pH of 7, current density of 15 mA $cm^{-2}$, electrode distance of 5 cm and flow rate of 70 ml/min. Under these conditions, greater than 89% removal of COD and TSS were obtained with EEC value of 7 KWh.

• Journal of Ship and Ocean Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.35-46
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• 2005

The performance of optimisation methods, based on penalty functions, is highly problem- dependent and many methods require additional tuning of some variables. This additional tuning is the influences of penalty coefficient, which depend strongly on the degree of constraint violation. Moreover, Binary-coded Genetic Algorithm (BGA) meets certain difficulties when dealing with continuous and/or discrete search spaces with large dimensions. With the above reasons, Real-coded Micro-Genetic Algorithm (R$\mu$GA) is proposed to find the global optimum of continuous and/or discrete nonlinear constrained engineering problems without handling any of penalty functions. R$\mu$GA can help in avoiding the premature convergence and search for global solution-spaces, because of its wide spread applicability, global perspective and inherent parallelism. The proposed R$\mu$GA approach has been demonstrated by solving three different engineering design problems. From the simulation results, it has been concluded that R$\mu$GA is an effective global optimisation tool for solving continuous and/or discrete nonlinear constrained real­world optimisation problems.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.59-67
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• 1990

Enzymatic hydrolysis of insoluble cellulose was performed in a bubble column with tangential flow ulrafiltration membrane unit. The reactor was operated in a batch mode as well as semi-continuous and continuous with continuous removal of products through the tangential flow ultrafiltration membrane. The optimum superficial gas velocity was 1-3cm / sec so as to avoid bubble coalescence and enzyme denaturation. In continuous and selni-cotinuous process, the conversion was gradually increased but the total reduced sugar concentration was drcastically dereased with the dilution rate. It was concluded that the bubble column attaching tangential flow ultrafiltration membrane unit was effective on continuous hydrolysis of cellulose and recovery of enzyme.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.237-250
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• 2003

Since an orthotropic steel deck bridge has large number of design variables and shows complex structural behavior, it would be very difficult and impractical to directly use a Conventional Single Level (CSL) optimization algorithm for its optimum design. Thus, in this paper, an Improved Multi Level Design Synthesis (IMLDS) optimization algorithm is proposed to improve the computational efficiency. In the proposed IMLDS algorithm, a coordination method is introduced to divide the bridge into main girders and orthotropic steel deck with preserving the characteristics of the structural behavior. For an efficient optimization of the bridge, the IMLDS algorithm incorporates the various crucial approximation techniques such as constraints deletion, Automatic Differentiation (AD), stress reanalysis, and etc. In the case of orthotropic steel deck system, optimum design problems are characterized by mixed continuous discrete variables and discontinuous design space. Thus, a modified Genetic Algorithm (GA) is also applied to optimize discrete member design for orthotropic steel deck. From the numerical example, the efficiency and convergency of the IMLDS algorithm proposed in this paper is investigated. It may be positively stated that the IMLDS algorithm will lead to more effective and practical design compared with previous algorithms.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.781-788
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• 2008

This study shows how to find out optimum co-substrate conditions and continuous operating parameters for maximum acidification of three different organic wastes - livestock wastewater, sewage sludge and food waste. Design of experiments and statistical analysis were revealed as appropriate optimization schemes in this study. Analyses of data obtained from batch tests demonstrated the optimum substrate mixing ratio, which was determined by maximum total volatile fatty acids(TVFA) increase and soluble chemical oxygen demand(SCOD) increase simultaneously. Suggested optimum mixing ratio of livestock wastewater, sewage sludge and food waste was 0.4 : 1.0 : 1.1 based on COD, respectively. Response surface methodology(RSM) contributed to find out optimum operating parameter - hydraulic retention time(HRT) and substrate concentration - for the semi-continuous acidogenic fermentation of mixed organic wastes. The optimum condition for maximum TVFA increase was 2 days of HRT and 29,237 mg COD/L. Empirical equations obtained through regression analysis could predict that TVFA increase would be 73%. To confirm the validity of the statistical experimental strategies, a confirmation experiment was conducted under the obtained optimum conditions, and relative error between theoretical and experimental results was within 4%. This result reflects that using statistical and RSM technique can be effectively used for the optimization of real waste treatment processes.