Neste trabalho é proposta a determinação do ponto de Máximo Carregamento (PMC) em sistemas elétricos de potência por meio do método da Função Lagrangiana Barreira Modificada (FLBM), uma variante do método de Pontos Interiores (PI). Também por meio do método da FLBM, busca-se determinar qual é a barra, para cada sistema, que apresenta a maior sensibilidade em relação ao fator de carregamento, ou seja, qual seria a primeira barra que deveria sofrer corte de carga a fim de aumentar a margem de carregamento do sistema e, assim, evitar o colapso de tensão. Para comprovação dos resultados obtidos por meio do método da FLBM utiliza-se a técnica de Análise de Sensibilidade (AS). A formulação do problema tem como restrições de igualdade as equações de balanço de potência do sistema elétrico e como restrições de desigualdade os limites de tensões nas barras, assim como os limites de geração de potência reativa nas barras com controle da referida potência. Estudos de casos foram realizados em um sistema de 3 barras e nos sistemas IEEE 14, 57, 118 e 300 barras; tais estudos demonstraram a robustez e a eficiência dos algoritmos propostos. / This work proposes the determination of the Maximum Loading Point (MLP) in electric power system via Lagrangian Modified Barrier Function (LMBF) method, a variant of Interior Point (IP). The LMBF method is also used to determine which bus, for each system, has the highest sensitivity of load factor, i.e., which bus would be the first to have load shedding in order to increase the loading margin system and thus prevent voltage collapse. To validate this approach, the Sensitivity Analysis (SA) technique was used for the confirmation of the results obtained by the LMBF method. The formulation of the problem considered the equations of power balance of the electrical system equality constraints, and the buses voltage magnitude limits, as well as the limits of reactive power control at the buses of that power inequality constraints. Case studies were conducted in a system of 3 buses and IEEE systems 14, 57, 118 and 300 buses, demonstrating the robustness and efficiency of the proposed algorithms.

[pt] Neste trabalho se analisam as características de colapso de um solo laterítico submetido à percolação de um licor cáustico a diferentes concentrações. O solo é uma areia quartzosa com uma pequena fração de finos cauliníticos. O licor é um efluente industrial, resultante da produção de alumínio, a base de soda cáustica. Mediante o presente estudo, determinou-se o efeito da infiltração do licor cáustico sobre três aspetos: colapsividade, transporte de solutos e características de sucção. Isto foi feito através de um programa experimental que incluiu ensaios de caracterização física-química do solo e do licor, ensaios edométricos, em edômetros especiais, para avaliar as características de colapso e de transporte de solutos, e ensaios de sucção pelo método do papel filtro. Os resultados do programa experimental mostraram que o solo é colapsível em presença de água, sendo sua colapsividade aumentada em presença do licor cáustico. Também indicaram que os parâmetros de transporte e sucção são fortemente afetados pela percolação do licor. A mudança destes parâmetros é função da concentração do licor. / [en] In this work, characteristics of collapse of a laterítico soil submitted to percolation of a caustic liqueur to different concentrations are analysed. The soil comprises a quartzitic sand with a small fraction of kaolinitic clay. The liqueur is a caustic fluid, from an aluminium industry. In the present study, effects of the caustic liqueur infiltration were observed considering three aspects: collapse, solute transport and soil suction characteristics. This was done through an experimental program that included physical and chemical characterization of the soil and liqueur, special oedometer tests to evaluate simultaneously collapse characteristics and solute transport, and suction tests using the filter paper method. The results of the experimental program showed that the soil suffers volume change in presence of water, and its colapsivity is increased in presence of the caustic liqueur. They also indicated that the transport and suction parameters are affected strongly by the percolation of the liqueur.

This work is concerned with the response of a Blasius boundary layer to dielectric-barrier-discharge (DBD) plasma actuators for the purpose of using these devices in bypass transition control. The plasma actuators consist of a spanwise-periodic array of high voltage electrodes, which are oriented to produce streamwise vortex pairs. The structure of actuator-induced streaks is measured using hot-wire anemometry over a streamwise distance of approximately 100 boundary layer thicknesses, and is decomposed into 4 spanwise Fourier modes. The modal content and corresponding streamwise growth characteristics are discussed for ten plasma actuator geometries over multiple excitation voltages and freestream velocities. Actuator power consumption was found to control the streak amplitude, whereas freestream velocity affected both amplitude and streamwise extent of the streaks. A common relationship between disturbance energy and power consumption was found among actuators of different dielectric thickness and similar electrode geometry.

This work is concerned with the response of a Blasius boundary layer to dielectric-barrier-discharge (DBD) plasma actuators for the purpose of using these devices in bypass transition control. The plasma actuators consist of a spanwise-periodic array of high voltage electrodes, which are oriented to produce streamwise vortex pairs. The structure of actuator-induced streaks is measured using hot-wire anemometry over a streamwise distance of approximately 100 boundary layer thicknesses, and is decomposed into 4 spanwise Fourier modes. The modal content and corresponding streamwise growth characteristics are discussed for ten plasma actuator geometries over multiple excitation voltages and freestream velocities. Actuator power consumption was found to control the streak amplitude, whereas freestream velocity affected both amplitude and streamwise extent of the streaks. A common relationship between disturbance energy and power consumption was found among actuators of different dielectric thickness and similar electrode geometry.

Engineered structures are designed to resist all expected loadings without failure. However, structural failures do occasionally occur due to inadequate design and construction, especially for extreme and abnormal loads. This thesis concerns the progressive collapse of structures due to abnormal loading events, and develops a method of advanced analysis for predicting the progressive collapse behaviour of building structures in the plastic limit state. Combined-stress failure states and stiffness degradation models are proposed to simulate plastic deformation of structural members. Elliptic force-deformation relationships are employed to model the nonlinear material behaviour of members. The stiffness degradation of semirigid connections is modeled by a moment-rotation relationship with four parameters. Having the proposed nonlinear model, a generic member stiffness matrix is derived taking into account elastic-plastic bending, shearing and axial deformations. A computer-based incremental-load nonlinear analysis procedure is developed that progressively updates member stiffness using reduction factors that simulate degraded stiffness behaviour. Three types of localized damage modes are investigated to identify different connection damage scenarios. Account is taken of any debris loading that occurs when disengaged structural components fall onto lower parts of the structure. The associated dynamic effect is taken into account for the quasi-static analysis by utilizing an impact amplification factor. Any progressive collapse occurring thereafter involves a series of failure events associated with topological changes. The progressive-failure analysis procedure is based on the alternate-load-path method suggested in the design and analysis guidelines of the General Services of Administration (GSA, 2003) and the Department of Defense (DoD, 2005). The residual load carrying capacity of the damaged framework is analyzed by incrementally applying prevailing long-term loads and impact debris loads. The deterioration of structural strength is progressively traced to the state at which either global stability is reached or progressive collapse to ground level occurs for part or all of the structure. The analysis procedure is extensively illustrated for several planar steel moment frames, including account for the influence of damaged connections and semi-rigid connection behaviour. The results obtained demonstrate that the proposed method is potentially a powerful tool for the analysis of steel building structures under normal and abnormal loads.

In this study we provide novel results on the extent of international trade synchronization during periods of trade collapses and US recessions. Based on monthly data for the G7 economies over the period 1961-2011, our results suggest rather idiosyncratic patterns of international trade synchronization during trade collapses and US recessions. During the great recession of 2007-2009, however, international trade experienced the most sudden, severe and globally synchronized collapse. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Engineered structures are designed to resist all expected loadings without failure. However, structural failures do occasionally occur due to inadequate design and construction, especially for extreme and abnormal loads. This thesis concerns the progressive collapse of structures due to abnormal loading events, and develops a method of advanced analysis for predicting the progressive collapse behaviour of building structures in the plastic limit state. Combined-stress failure states and stiffness degradation models are proposed to simulate plastic deformation of structural members. Elliptic force-deformation relationships are employed to model the nonlinear material behaviour of members. The stiffness degradation of semirigid connections is modeled by a moment-rotation relationship with four parameters. Having the proposed nonlinear model, a generic member stiffness matrix is derived taking into account elastic-plastic bending, shearing and axial deformations. A computer-based incremental-load nonlinear analysis procedure is developed that progressively updates member stiffness using reduction factors that simulate degraded stiffness behaviour. Three types of localized damage modes are investigated to identify different connection damage scenarios. Account is taken of any debris loading that occurs when disengaged structural components fall onto lower parts of the structure. The associated dynamic effect is taken into account for the quasi-static analysis by utilizing an impact amplification factor. Any progressive collapse occurring thereafter involves a series of failure events associated with topological changes. The progressive-failure analysis procedure is based on the alternate-load-path method suggested in the design and analysis guidelines of the General Services of Administration (GSA, 2003) and the Department of Defense (DoD, 2005). The residual load carrying capacity of the damaged framework is analyzed by incrementally applying prevailing long-term loads and impact debris loads. The deterioration of structural strength is progressively traced to the state at which either global stability is reached or progressive collapse to ground level occurs for part or all of the structure. The analysis procedure is extensively illustrated for several planar steel moment frames, including account for the influence of damaged connections and semi-rigid connection behaviour. The results obtained demonstrate that the proposed method is potentially a powerful tool for the analysis of steel building structures under normal and abnormal loads.

There is mounting evidence that sustainable scale thresholds are now being exceeded worldwide and environmental resource shocks (e.g. climate change, water and oil shortages) may be inevitable in some regions of the world in the near future. These could result in severe economic breakdowns, welfare loss, and in the worst-case, the collapse of modern civilization. Therefore, a pre-eminent challenge of our times is to determine how to design a resilient (safe-fail) economy – one that can endure, adapt to and successfully recover from breakdowns when they occur. Surprisingly, while ecological economic theory relies heavily on natural science concepts such as thermodynamics, insufficient attention has been paid to the important ecological concept of resilience, particularly as it applies to economic design. The three major policy goals of current ecological economic theory (sustainable scale, just distribution and efficient allocation) focus instead on preventing environmental resource shocks and breakdowns, but given their unpredictability prevention may not always be possible. How resilience can inform the blossoming field of ecological economics is thus explored in this theoretical, transdisciplinary paper. Drawing on literature as diverse as archaeology and disaster planning, it develops six key principles of economic resilience and applies them to analyze the resilience of key societal systems including our money, electricity, water, transportation, information/communication and emergency response systems. Overall, economic resilience appears to be a unique concern that is not readily subsumed under any of the three existing ecological economic policy pillars. In fact, efforts to build in resilience have the potential to both complement and at times contradict the other three goals, especially efficiency. The need to further study these possible tradeoffs provides strong justification for adding a fourth distinct policy pillar, namely “Resilient Design”, to core ecological economic theory. Indeed, ecological economist’s longstanding criticism of economic growth meshes readily with the Resilience Alliance’s own figure-8 adaptive cycle theory critiquing the resilience costs of growth, providing significant opportunities for the future collaboration of these two fields in broadening global system theory.

Chaotic dynamics produced by optical delay systems have interesting applications in telecommunications. Optical chaos can be used to transmit secretly, in real-time, a message between an emitter and a receiver. The noise-like appearance of chaos is used to conceal the message, and the synchronization of the receiver with the chaotic emitter is used to decode the message. This work focuses on the study of two crucial topics in the field of chaotic optical communications. The first topic is the synchronization of chaotic external-cavity laser diodes, which are among the most promising chaotic emitters for secure communications. It is shown that, for edge-emitting lasers, two drastically different synchronization regimes are possible. The regimes differ in terms of the delay time in the synchronization and in terms of the robustness of the synchronization with respect to parameter mismatches between the emitter and the receiver. In vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, the two linearly-polarized components of the electric field also exhibit isochronous and anticipating synchronization when the coupling between the lasers is isotropic. When the coupling is polarized, the linearly-polarized component that is parallel to the injected polarization tends to synchronize isochronously with the injected optical field, while the other component tends to be suppressed, but it can also be antisynchronized. The second topic is the analysis of time series produced by optical chaotic emitters subjected to a delayed feedback. First, we verify with experimental data that chaos produced by optical delay systems is highly complex. This high complexity is demonstrated by estimating chaos dimension and entropy from experimental time series and from models of optical delay systems. Second, by analyzing chaotic time series, it is shown that the value of the delay of a single-delay system can always be identified, independently of the type of system used and of its complexity. Unfortunately, an eavesdropper can use this information on the delay value to break the cryptosystem. We propose a new cryptosystem with two delayed feedback loops that increases the difficulty of the delay identification problem.

DETAILED EVALUATION OF AN EXISTING REINFORCED CONCRETE BUILDING DAMAGED UNDER ITS OWN WEIGHT Bayraktar, Atilla M.Sc., Department of Civil Engineering Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ahmet Yakut May 2011, 130 pages A significant part of the Turkey&rsquo / s building inventory consists of reinforced concrete frame structures. In addition to that a big part of the existing building inventory in Turkey shows insufficiency in seismic performance damage or failure of structures under their own loads has also been observed. The failure of Z&uuml / mr&uuml / t Apartment building that occurred in 2004 in Konya and resulted in the death of 92 people brings the necessity of researches on robustness and reserve capacities of the buildings under gravity loading to front. In the context of this thesis, the event in Konya that has resulted in the crushing of four columns in Dostlar Building Complex is studied. After the occurrence of the event, the building was visited, plans of existing condition were prepared and pre-assessment was performed. Original plans of the building, strength test results of the concrete samples and reinforcement detection results were obtained. The reasons behind the crushing of the columns have been investigated through a series of analyses based on a number of possible hypotheses. After modeling the building in SAP2000 program, demand-capacity ratios are calculated. Nonlinear behavior of the structure is determined by incremental static pushover analysis and the seismic performance of the building is evaluated by nonlinear procedure described in 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code. To determine the nonlinear behavior under gravity loading and collapse mechanism, incremental vertical pushover analysis is performed.