In recent year, the awareness of environmental protection has made the power dispatch problem not necessarily economy-oriented. This thesis proposed the application of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to solve the Unit Commitment (UC) problem for 24 hours with maximum profit in the power and carbon market. Optimal Power Flow (OPF) is used to solve the UC problem for the interconnected power network that is comprised of three independent areas to optimize the dispatching strategy. The UC problem must satisfy the constraints of the load demand, generating limits, minimum up/down time, ramp rate limits, and also the limits of power flow, buses voltage and transmission line capacity. The other objective of this thesis is to employ the Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) to integrate with OPF based on Equivalent Current Injection (ECI) power flow model, and install it at interconnected lines between each independent area controlling the power flow to reduce emission. In order to avoid the local optimality problem, this thesis proposed the utilization of the Multiple Particle Swarm Optimization (MPSO), which can quickly reach the optimal solution with a better performance and accuracy. The Independent Power Producer (IPP) can get the maximum profit with installed SSSC from the power and carbon trading with the calculation of power wheeling expense and carbon forecasting data. Furthermore, it can also assess the need of participating in the trading market or not.

Technology scaling has been the most obvious choice of designers and chip manufacturing companies to improve the performance of analog and digital circuits. With the ever shrinking technological node, process variations can no longer be ignored and play a significant role in determining the performance of nanoscaled devices. By choosing a worst case design methodology, circuit designers have been very munificent with the design parameters chosen, often manifesting in pessimistic designs with significant area overheads. Significant work has been done in estimating the impact of intra-die process variations on circuit performance, pertinently, noise margin and standby leakage power, for fixed transistor channel dimensions. However, for an optimal, high yield, SRAM cell design, it is absolutely imperative to analyze the impact of process variations at every design point, especially, since the distribution of process variations is a statistically varying parameter and has an inverse correlation with the area of the MOS transistor. Furthermore, the first order analytical models used for optimization of SRAM memories are not as accurate and the impact of voltage and its inclusion as an input, along with other design parameters, is often ignored. In this thesis, the performance parameters of a nano-scaled 6-T SRAM cell are modeled as an accurate, yield aware, empirical polynomial predictor, in the presence of intra-die process variations. The estimated empirical models are used in a constrained non-linear, robust optimization framework to design an SRAM cell, for a 45 nm CMOS technology, having optimal performance, according to bounds specified for the circuit performance parameters, with the objective of minimizing on-chip area. This statistically aware technique provides a more realistic design methodology to study the trade off between performance parameters of the SRAM. Furthermore, a dual optimization approach is followed by considering SRAM power supply and wordline voltages as additional input parameters, to simultaneously tune the design parameters, ensuring a high yield and considerable area reduction. In addition, the cell level optimization framework is extended to the system level optimization of caches, under both cell level and system level performance constraints.

This thesis was concerned on the investigation of mechanical properties of centrally notched and unnotched AS-4/PEEK (APC-2) composite laminates due to static tensile and tension-tension (T-T) fatigue tests empirically and systematically. Then, statistical analyses were used to determine and quantify the significant thermomechanical variables that influence the durability/life of the composite laminates. Typical laminates were made from sixteen prepregs of APC-2 and manufactured by a modified curing process. After drilling one hole with various diameters in the center of the samples respectively, the lay-ups were conducted on tension fracture and T-T fatigue test at different temperatures. From the parametric study we achieved the important results as follows. The cross-ply laminate possesses the higher ultimate strength, fatigue strength and longitudinal stiffness than those of the quasi-isotropic at the same temperature. Notch effect decays the laminate strength seriously, but changes the stiffness irregularly. As test temperature rising both strength and stiffness of lay-ups degrade significantly. Combining both effects of notch and temperature under severe environmental condition, it is found the cross-ply laminate possesses more resistance than that of the quasi-isotropic to cyclic loading. However, the quasi-isotropic laminate is more capable of sustaining the original strength than that of the cross-ply. Finally, the multiple regression analysis results showed that the hygrothermal environmental effects and cyclic loading were decoupled for APC-2 composite system. A semi-empirical model, reliably set up after the said programs, predicts conservative values, and should be adequate for use in preliminary designs. That is the main contribution in this study. Also, for the purposes of design and application, the predicted models efficiently treat experimental data instead of conventional curve-fitting methods.

Today many computing resources distributed geographically are idle much of time. The aim of the grid computing is collecting these resources into a single system. It helps to solve problems that are too complex for a single PC. Scheduling plays a critical role in the efficient and effective management of resources to achieve high performance on grid computing environment. Due to the heterogeneity and highly dynamic nature of grid, developing scheduling algorithms for grid computing involves some challenges. In this work, we concentrate on efficient scheduling of distributed tasks on grid. We propose a novel scheduling heuristic for bag-of-tasks applications. The proposed algorithm primarily makes use of history based runtime estimation. The history stores information about the applications whose runtimes and other specific properties are recorded during the previous executions. Scheduling decisions are made according to similarity between the applications. Definition of similarity is an important aspect of this approach, apart from the best resource allocation. The aim of this scheduling algorithm (HISA-History Injected Scheduling Algorithm) is to define and find the similarity, and assign the job to the most suitable resource, making use of the similarity. In our evaluation, we use Grid simulation tool called GridSim. A number of intensive experiments with various simulation settings have been conducted. Based on the experimental results, the effectiveness of HISA scheduling heuristic is studied and compared to the other scheduling algorithms embedded in GridSim. The results show that history injection improves the performance of future job submissions on a grid.

In Turkey, most of the existing buildings are vulnerable to earthquakes due to their poor material quality and inaccurate design. Besides, so many destructive earthquakes occurred in the past, because Turkey is located on a seismically active region. Therefore, existing buildings should be assessed and necessary precautions should be taken before a probable earthquake. To assess seismic performance of the existing buildings, the 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code offers two methods which are linear and nonlinear. For linear assessment, members are controlled by comparing the force demands and capacities where for nonlinear assessment, strains corresponding to the plastic rotations of the members are compared with the limits given in the code. In this study, the building, which stands in Bakirk&ouml / y district of istanbul, was assessed according the linear elastic and nonlinear static procedures given in the 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code. In addition, it was retrofitted by adding shear walls to the structural system and same assessment procedures were performed. In the last case study, building is re-designed according to the code and re-assessed. Comparative results and conclusions were summarized in the last chapter.

This research focuses on implementing and improving a parallel solution framework for the linear static analysis of large structural models on PC clusters. The framework consists of two separate programs where the first one is responsible from preparing data for the parallel solution that involves partitioning, workload balancing, and equation numbering. The second program is a fully parallel nite element program that utilizes substructure based solution approach with direct solvers. The first step of data preparation is partitioning the structure into substructures. After creating the initial substructures, the estimated imbalance of the substructures is adjusted by iteratively transferring nodes from the slower substructures to the faster ones. Once the final substructures are created, the solution phase is initiated. Each processor assembles its substructure&#039 / s stiffness matrix and condenses it to the interfaces. The interface equations are then solved in parallel with a block-cyclic dense matrix solver. After computing the interface unknowns, each processor calculates the internal displacements and element stresses or forces. Comparative tests were done to demonstrate the performance of the solution framework.

The purpose of this study is to determine the most suitable remediation technique via geotechnical assessment of the landslide that occurred during the construction of Bursa-ineg&ouml / l-Boz&uuml / y&uuml / k Road at KM: 72+000-72+200 in an ancient landslide area. For this purpose, the geotechnical parameters of the mobilized soil along the slide surface was determined by back analyses of the landslide at four profiles by utilizing the Slope/W software. The landslide was then modeled using coupled analyses (with the Seep/W and Slope/W softwares) along the most representative profile of the study area by considering the landslide mechanism, the parameters determined from the geotechnical investigations, the size of the landslide and the location of the slip circle. In addition, since the study area is located in a second degree earthquake hazard region, pseudo-static stability analyses using the Slope/W software were performed incorporating the earthquake potential. The most suitable slope remediation technique was determined to be a combination of surface and subsurface drainage, application of rock buttress at the toe of the slide and unloading of the landslide material. A static and dynamic analyses of the landslide was also performed through utilizing finite element analyses. The static analyses were calibrated using the inclinometer readings in the field. After obtaining a good agreement with the inclinometer readings and finite element analyses results, the dynamic analyses were performed using acceleration time histories, which were determined considering the seismic characteristics of the study area.

Damage and condition identi&amp / #64257 / cation of existing structures using non-destructive tests is a common challenge that has been worked on for a long time. In this study, two di&amp / #64256 / erent methods were developed to &amp / #64257 / nd existing force on cables as well as determine bending characteristics (EI coe&amp / #64259 / cients) of beam like structures (such as bridges). Comparing forces in symmetrically placed cables or against values obtained from design drawings would indicate structural imbalance as well as &amp / #64257 / nding EI coe&amp / #64259 / cients at a number of segments on a bridge girder might indicate weak regions that might possibly have undergone structural damage, having weak connections, lost composite action etc. With the help of the proposed algorithm, the sti&amp / #64256 / ness parameters of bridges can be assessed and the location of any damage that is in the magnitude which can a&amp / #64256 / ect displacement behavior of system can be located. The developed methods are demonstrated using the values analytically obtained from the created models and the e&amp / #64256 / ectiveness of the algorithm is criticized. Furthermore, several damage scenarios on a scaled lab beam was used to test the application using real experimental data / including tests on undamaged beam (for identi&amp / #64257 / cation) and tests on the damaged beam. Additional experiments were conducted on a cable stretched in the laboratory instrumented using a load cell to measure instantaneous axial load on the cable and compare these values against the values obtained from the developed tension measurement device. The results are compared and conclusions are derived.

This thesis examines the seismic internal retrofitting of existing deficient reinforced concrete (RC) structures by using structural steel members. Both experimental and numerical studies were performed. The strengthening methods utilized with the scope of this work are chevron braces, internal steel frames (ISFs), X-braces and column with shear plate. For this purpose, thirteen strengthened and two as built reference one bay one story portal frame specimens having 1/3 scales were tested under constant gravity load and increasing cyclic lateral displacement excursions. In addition, two &frac12 / scaled three bay-two story frame specimens strengthened with chevron brace and ISF were tested by employing continuous pseudo dynamic testing methods. The test results indicated that the cyclic performance of the Xbrace and column with shear plate assemblage technique were unsatisfactory. On the other hand, both chevron brace and ISF had acceptable cyclic performance and these two techniques were found to be candidate solutions for seismic retrofitting of deficient RC structures. The numerical simulations by conducting nonlinear static and dynamic analysis were used to estimate performance limits of the RC frame and steel members. Suggested strengthening approaches, chevron brace and ISF, were also employed to an existing five story case study RC building to demonstrate the performance efficiency. Finally, design approaches by using existing strengthening guidelines in Turkish Earthquake Code and ASCE/SEI 41 (2007) documents were suggested.

Routing in sensor networks is a challenging issue due to inherent constraints such as power, memory, and CPU processing capabilities. In this thesis, we assume an All to All communication mode in an N × N grid sensor network. We explore routing algorithms which load balance the network without compromising the shortest paths constrain. We analyzed the Servetto method and studied two routing strategies, namely Horizontal-Vertical routing and Zigzag routing. The problem is divided into two scenarios, one being the static case (without failed nodes), and the other being the dynamic case (with failed nodes). In static network case, we derived mathematical formulae representing the maximum and minimum loads on a sensor grid, when specific routing strategies are employed. We show improvement in performance in load balancing of the grid by using Horizontal-Vertical method instead of the existing Servetto method. In the dynamic network scenario, we compare the performance of routing strategies with respect to probability of failure of nodes in the grid network. We derived the formulae for the success-ratio, in specific strategies, when nodes fail with a probability of p in a predefined source-destination pair communication. We show that the Servetto method does not perform well in both scenarios. In addition, Hybrid strategy proposed does not perform well compared to the studied strategies. We support the derived formulae and the performance of the routing strategies with extensive simulations.