• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.447-460
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• 2022

In this article, wave propagation in functional gradation plates (FG) resting on an elastic foundation with two parameters is studied using a new quasi-three-dimensional (3D) higher shear deformation theory (HSDT). The new qausi-3D HSOT has only five variables in fields displacement, which means has few numbers of unknowns compared with others quasi-3D. This higher shear deformation theory (HSDT) includes shear deformation and effect stretching with satisfying the boundary conditions of zero traction on the surfaces of the FG plate without the need for shear correction factors. The FG plates are considered to rest on the Winkler layer, which is interconnected with a Pasternak shear layer. The properties of the material graded for the plates are supposed to vary smoothly, with the power and the exponential law, in the z-direction. By based on Hamilton's principle, we derive the governing equations of FG plates resting on an elastic foundation, which are then solved analytically to obtain the dispersion relations. Numerical results are presented in the form of graphs and tables to demonstrate the effectiveness of the current quasi-3D theory and to analyze the effect of the elastic foundation on wave propagation in FG plates.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.729-747
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• 2022

The critical buckling loads and buckling modes of bi-directional functionally graded porous unified higher order shear plate with elastic foundation are investigated. A mathematical model based on neutral axis rather than midplane is developed in comprehensive way for the first time in this article. The material constituents form ceramic and metal are graded through thickness and axial direction by the power function distribution. The voids and cavities inside the material are proposed by three different porosity models through the thickness of plate. The constitutive parameters and force resultants are evaluated relative to the neutral axis. Unified higher order shear plate theories are used to satisfy the zero-shear strain/stress at the top and bottom surfaces. The governing equilibrium equations of bi-directional functionally graded porous unified plate (BDFGPUP) are derived by Hamilton's principle. The equilibrium equations in the form of coupled variable coefficients partial differential equations is solved by using numerical differential integral quadrature method (DIQM). The validation of the present model is presented and compared with previous works for bucking. Deviation in buckling loads for both mid-plane and neutral plane are developed and discussed. The numerical results prove that the shear functions, distribution indices, boundary conditions, elastic foundation and porosity type have significant influence on buckling stability of BDFGPUP. The current mathematical model may be used in design and analysis of BDFGPU used in nuclear, mechanical, aerospace, and naval application.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.187-198
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• 2023

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is an advanced control approach that uses the current states of the system model to predict its future behavior. In this article, according to the seismic dynamics of structural systems, the Predictive Functional Control (PFC) method is used to solve the control problem. Although conventional PFC is an efficient control method, its performance may be impaired due to problems such as uncertainty in the structure of state sensors and process equations, as well as actuator saturation. Therefore, it requires the utilization of appropriate estimation algorithms in order to accurately evaluate responses and implement actuator saturation. Accordingly, an extended PFC is presented based on the H-ifinity (H∞) filter (HPFC) while considering simultaneously the saturation actuator. Accordingly, an extended PFC is presented based on the H-ifinity (H∞) filter (HPFC) while considering the saturation actuator. Thus, the structural responses are formulated by two estimation models using the H∞ filter. First, the H∞ filter estimates responses using a performance bound (𝜃). Second, the H∞ filter is converted into a Kalman filter in a special case by considering the 𝜃 equal to zero. Therefore, the scheme based on the Kalman filter (KPFC) is considered a comparative model. The proposed method is evaluated through numerical studies on a building equipped with an Active Tuned Mass Damper (ATMD) under near and far-field earthquakes. Finally, HPFC is compared with classical (CPFC) and comparative (KPFC) schemes. The results show that HPFC has an acceptable efficiency in boosting the accuracy of CPFC and KPFC approaches under earthquakes, as well as maintaining a descending trend in structural responses.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.61-74
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• 2023

This article investigates the wave propagation analysis of the imperfect functionally graded (FG) sandwich plates based on a novel simple four-variable integral quasi-3D higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The thickness stretching effect is considered in the transverse displacement component. The presented formulation ensures a parabolic variation of the transverse shear stresses with zero-stresses at the top and the bottom surfaces without requiring any shear correction factors. The studied sandwich plates can be used in several sectors as areas of aircraft, construction, naval/marine, aerospace and wind energy systems, the sandwich structure is composed from three layers (two FG face sheets and isotropic core). The material properties in the FG faces sheet are computed according to a modified power law function with considering the porosity which may appear during the manufacturing process in the form of micro-voids in the layer body. The Hamilton principle is utilized to determine the four governing differential equations for wave propagation in FG plates which is reduced in terms of computation time and cost compared to the other conventional quasi-3D models. An eigenvalue equation is formulated for the analytical solution using a generalized displacements' solution form for wave propagation. The effects of porosity, temperature, moisture concentration, core thickness, and the material exponent on the plates' dispersion relations are examined by considering the thickness stretching influence.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.155-181
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• 2024

In recent years, significant research has been conducted to enhance the performance of existing membranes for efficient CO₂ capture, aiming to expand their application in carbon capture processes. Membrane technology has emerged as a promising carbon capture approach to addressing the net-zero challenge due to its cost and energy efficiency, continuous operation, and compact process size. Among the various types of membranes studied, mixed-matrix membranes (MMMs) have been proposed as an alternative to conventional membranes to enhance the efficiency of gas separation processes. Various common 2D nanomaterials, characterized by their ease of modification, functionalization, and compatibility with other materials, have been used to create efficient MMMs for gas separation. This article comprehensively reviews the recent developments in MMMs using 2D nanomaterials. It also discusses the current challenges and prospects of 2D nanomaterial-based membranes for CO₂ separation and capture.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.97-115
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• 2008

In high school mathematics class, to subtract a number b from a, we add the additive inverse of b to a and to divide a number a by a non-zero number b, we multiply a by the multiplicative inverse of b, which is the formal approach for operations of real numbers. This article aims to give a connection between the intuitive models in middle school mathematics class and the formal approach in high school for teaching operations of negative integers. First, we highlight the teaching methods(Hwang et al, 2008), by which subtraction of integers is denoted by addition of integers. From this methods and activities applying the counting model, we give new teaching methods for the rule that the product of negative integers is positive. The teaching methods with horizontal mathematization(Treffers, 1986; Freudenthal, 1991) of operations of integers, which is based on consistently applying the intuitive model(number line model, counting model), will remove the gap, which is exist in both teachers and students of middle and high school mathematics class. The above discussion is based on students' cognition that the number system in middle and high school and abstracted number system in abstract algebra course is formed by a conceptual structure.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.251-258
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• 2016

This article reports current status of micro fuel cell-combined heat and power (${\mu}FC$-CHP) systems which utilize both power and heat generated by fuel cells. There are several options for constructing CHP systems and among them, fuel cells are the most useful and their total energy efficiency combining heat and power can reach up to about 90%. Fuel cells are classified as five types based on the electrolyte, but the most suitable fuel cell types for the ${\mu}FC$-CHP system are proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems have several advantages such as decrease of the transmission-distribution loss, reduced costs of electricity due to distributed power generation, and environmental-friendliness owing to zero emission. The main drawback of the ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems is the high initial investment, however, it keeps decreasing as the technology development reduces production costs. Currently, Japan is the most leading country of the ${\mu}FC$-CHP market, however, Korea tries to expand the market by planning the deployment of 1 million units of ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems and governmental subsidiary supporting of half of the install price. In this report, integration technologies for connecting FC and CHP, and technology trends of leading countries are presented as well.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.362-373
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• 2021

This study sought to explore the enhancement of the introduction of teaching and learning methods for Problem Based Learning (PBL) and the evaluation factors to evaluate them effectively through an understanding lecture in Cultural Content Planning. It was intended to incorporate a practical zero-volume education methodology of problem-oriented learning and sufficient leading learning to reflect storytelling in the entire process of completing a cultural content with culture, cultural content, and content planning. To this end, the role of teaching methods should be faithful to ensure that teamwork and cooperation can be done organically according to the educational field, practice and situation. Students who take classes were asked to meet demand, reflect it through surveys, apply real-world problems, and acquire the entire course. Learners had to cooperate with each other until planning cultural content and completing the results through classes, and they evaluated themselves and colleagues in teamwork until the last result was completed from creative ideas. The results were shared together and the students were able to investigate the necessary PBL evaluation factors for themselves, and the prior research and survey on the method of PBL evaluation was conducted to derive the factors of understanding of cultural content planning. The derived assessment elements were able to identify priorities between the assessment elements using basic statistics, word cloud analysis, and AHP analysis. The components of the assessment derived were communication skills, basic knowledge, reasoning process, expertise, and evaluation techniques. Through this article, I was able to lead the understanding of cultural content planning to problem-oriented learning classes and encourage students to be familiar and smooth.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.115-132
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• 2008

Metal industry is one of the most representative heavy industries and the median sales volume of steel and nonferrous metal companies is over one billion dollars in the case America [Forbes 2006]. As seen in the recent business market situation, an increasing number of industrial manufacturers and suppliers are moving from adversarial to cooperative exchange attitudes that support the long-term relationships with their customers. This article presents the results of an empirical study of the antecedent factors of business relationships in metal industry of the United States. Commitment has been reviewed as a significant and critical variable in research on inter-organizational relationships (Hong et al. 2007, Kim et al. 2007). The future stability of any buyer-seller relationship depends upon the commitment made by the interactants to their relationship. Commitment, according to Dwyer et al. [1987], refers to "an implicit or explicit pledge of relational continuity between exchange partners" and they consider commitment to be the most advanced phase of buyer-seller exchange relationship. Bonds are made because the members need their partners in order to do something and this integration on a task basis can be either symbiotic or cooperative (Svensson 2008). To the extent that members seek the same or mutually supporting ends, there will be strong bonds among them. In other words, the principle that affects the strength of bonds is 'economy of decision making' [Turner 1970]. These bonds provide an important idea to study the causes of business long-term relationships in a sense that organizations can be mutually bonded by a common interest in the economic matters. Recently, the framework of structural bonding has been used to study the buyer-seller relationships in industrial marketing [Han and Sung 2008, Williams et al. 1998, Wilson 1995] in that this structural bonding is a crucial part of the theoretical justification for distinguishing discrete transactions from ongoing long-term relationships. The major antecedent factors of buyer commitment such as technology, CLalt, transaction-specific assets, and importance were identified and explored from the perspective of structural bonding. Research hypotheses were developed and tested by using survey data from the middle managers in the metal industry. H1: Level of technology of the relationship partner is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H2: Comparison level of alternatives is negatively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H3: Amount of the transaction-specific assets is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H4: Importance of the relationship partner is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H5: Level of structural bonding is positively related to the level of commitment to the relationship. To examine the major antecedent factors of industrial buyer's structural bonding and long-term relationship, questionnaire was prepared, mailed out to the sample of 400 purchasing managers of the US metal industry (SIC codes 33 and 34). After a follow-up request, 139 informants returnedthe questionnaires, resulting in a response rate of 35 percent. 134 responses were used in the final analysis after dropping 5 incomplete questionnaires. All measures were analyzed for reliability and validity following the guidelines offered by Churchill [1979] and Anderson and Gerbing [1988]., the results of fitting the model to the data indicated that the hypothesized model provides a good fit to the data. Goodness-of-fit index (GFI = 0.94) and other indices ( chi-square = 78.02 with p-value = 0.13, Adjusted GFI = 0.90, Normed Fit Index = 0.92) indicated that a major proportion of variances and covariances in the data was accounted for by the model as a whole, and all the parameter estimates showed statistical significance as evidenced by large t-values. All the factor loadings were significantly different from zero. On these grounds we judged the hypothesized model to be a reasonable representation of the data. The results from the present study suggest several implications for buyer-seller relationships. Theoretically, we attempted to conceptualize the antecedent factors of buyer-seller long-term relationships from the perspective of structural bondingin metal industry. The four underlying determinants (i.e. technology, CLalt, transaction-specific assets, and importance) of structural bonding are very critical variables of buyer-seller long-term business relationships. Our model of structural bonding makes an attempt to systematically examine the relationship between the antecedent factors of structural bonding and long-term commitment. Managerially, this research provides industrial purchasing managers with a good framework to assess the interaction processes with their partners and, ability to position their business relationships from the perspective of structural bonding. In other words, based on those underlying variables, industrial purchasing managers can determine the strength of the company's relationships with the key suppliers and its state of preparation to be a successful partner with those suppliers. Both the supplying and customer companies can also benefit by using the concept of 'structural bonding' and evaluating their relationships with key business partners from the structural point of view. In general, the results indicate that structural bonding gives a critical impact on the level of relationship commitment. Managerial implications and limitations of the study are also discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 1993.06a
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• pp.1051-1054
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• 1993

The International Atomic Energy Agency's Statute in Article III.A.5 allows it“to establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure that special fissionable and other materials, services, equipment, facilities and information made available by the Agency or at its request or under its supervision or control are not used in such a way as to further any military purpose; and to apply safeguards, at the request of the parties, to any bilateral or multilateral arrangement, or at the request of a State, to any of that State's activities in the field of atomic energy”. Safeguards are essentially a technical means of verifying the fulfilment of political obligations undertaken by States and given a legal force in international agreements relating to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The main political objectives are: to assure the international community that States are complying with their non-proliferation and other peaceful undertakings; and to deter (a) the diversion of afeguarded nuclear materials to the production of nuclear explosives or for military purposes and (b) the misuse of safeguarded facilities with the aim of producing unsafeguarded nuclear material. It is clear that no international safeguards system can physically prevent diversion. The IAEA safeguards system is basically a verification measure designed to provide assurance in those cases in which diversion has not occurred. Verification is accomplished by two basic means: material accountancy and containment and surveillance measures. Nuclear material accountancy is the fundamental IAEA safeguards mechanism, while containment and surveillance serve as important complementary measures. Material accountancy refers to a collection of measurements and other determinations which enable the State and the Agency to maintain a current picture of the location and movement of nuclear material into and out of material balance areas, i. e. areas where all material entering or leaving is measurab e. A containment measure is one that is designed by taking advantage of structural characteristics, such as containers, tanks or pipes, etc. To establish the physical integrity of an area or item by preventing the undetected movement of nuclear material or equipment. Such measures involve the application of tamper-indicating or surveillance devices. Surveillance refers to both human and instrumental observation aimed at indicating the movement of nuclear material. The verification process consists of three over-lapping elements: (a) Provision by the State of information such as - design information describing nuclear installations; - accounting reports listing nuclear material inventories, receipts and shipments; - documents amplifying and clarifying reports, as applicable; - notification of international transfers of nuclear material. (b) Collection by the IAEA of information through inspection activities such as - verification of design information - examination of records and repo ts - measurement of nuclear material - examination of containment and surveillance measures - follow-up activities in case of unusual findings. (c) Evaluation of the information provided by the State and of that collected by inspectors to determine the completeness, accuracy and validity of the information provided by the State and to resolve any anomalies and discrepancies. To design an effective verification system, one must identify possible ways and means by which nuclear material could be diverted from peaceful uses, including means to conceal such diversions. These theoretical ways and means, which have become known as diversion strategies, are used as one of the basic inputs for the development of safeguards procedures, equipment and instrumentation. For analysis of implementation strategy purposes, it is assumed that non-compliance cannot be excluded a priori and that consequently there is a low but non-zero probability that a diversion could be attempted in all safeguards ituations. An important element of diversion strategies is the identification of various possible diversion paths; the amount, type and location of nuclear material involved, the physical route and conversion of the material that may take place, rate of removal and concealment methods, as appropriate. With regard to the physical route and conversion of nuclear material the following main categories may be considered: - unreported removal of nuclear material from an installation or during transit - unreported introduction of nuclear material into an installation - unreported transfer of nuclear material from one material balance area to another - unreported production of nuclear material, e. g. enrichment of uranium or production of plutonium - undeclared uses of the material within the installation. With respect to the amount of nuclear material that might be diverted in a given time (the diversion rate), the continuum between the following two limiting cases is cons dered: - one significant quantity or more in a short time, often known as abrupt diversion; and - one significant quantity or more per year, for example, by accumulation of smaller amounts each time to add up to a significant quantity over a period of one year, often called protracted diversion. Concealment methods may include: - restriction of access of inspectors - falsification of records, reports and other material balance areas - replacement of nuclear material, e. g. use of dummy objects - falsification of measurements or of their evaluation - interference with IAEA installed equipment.As a result of diversion and its concealment or other actions, anomalies will occur. All reasonable diversion routes, scenarios/strategies and concealment methods have to be taken into account in designing safeguards implementation strategies so as to provide sufficient opportunities for the IAEA to observe such anomalies. The safeguards approach for each facility will make a different use of these procedures, equipment and instrumentation according to the various diversion strategies which could be applicable to that facility and according to the detection and inspection goals which are applied. Postulated pathways sets of scenarios comprise those elements of diversion strategies which might be carried out at a facility or across a State's fuel cycle with declared or undeclared activities. All such factors, however, contain a degree of fuzziness that need a human judgment to make the ultimate conclusion that all material is being used for peaceful purposes. Safeguards has been traditionally based on verification of declared material and facilities using material accountancy as a fundamental measure. The strength of material accountancy is based on the fact that it allows to detect any diversion independent of the diversion route taken. Material accountancy detects a diversion after it actually happened and thus is powerless to physically prevent it and can only deter by the risk of early detection any contemplation by State authorities to carry out a diversion. Recently the IAEA has been faced with new challenges. To deal with these, various measures are being reconsidered to strengthen the safeguards system such as enhanced assessment of the completeness of the State's initial declaration of nuclear material and installations under its jurisdiction enhanced monitoring and analysis of open information and analysis of open information that may indicate inconsistencies with the State's safeguards obligations. Precise information vital for such enhanced assessments and analyses is normally not available or, if available, difficult and expensive collection of information would be necessary. Above all, realistic appraisal of truth needs sound human judgment.