Engineering Commons^™

Applications Of Simulation And Optimization Techniques In Optimizing Room And Pillar Mining Systems, Angelina Konadu Anani

Doctoral Dissertations

"The goal of this research was to apply simulation and optimization techniques in solving mine design and production sequencing problems in room and pillar mines (R&P). The specific objectives were to: (1) apply Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to determine the optimal width of coal R&P panels under specific mining conditions; (2) investigate if the shuttle car fleet size used to mine a particular panel width is optimal in different segments of the panel; (3) test the hypothesis that binary integer linear programming (BILP) can be used to account for mining risk in R&P long range mine production sequencing; and (4) …

A Domain Independent Method To Assess System Of System Meta-Architectures Using Domain Specific Fuzzy Information, Louis Edward Pape Ii

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research proposes a domain independent method to build and assess systems of systems (SoS) architecture models. A simplified meta-architecture containing each component system's participation and a first order, binary, system-to-system interface is proposed. The method describes how to elicit desired SoS attributes from stakeholders. Measures of the attributes depend on systems' participation and interfaces, that is, on the SoS architecture. The goal is to model a realizable SoS configuration, optimized over multiple attributes. Key attribute measures are combined in a fuzzy inference system to assess an overall fitness measure for any SoS in the meta-architecture. A genetic algorithm is …

Approximation For Single-Channel Multi-Server Queues And Queuing Networks With Generally Distributed Inter-Arrival And Service Times, Carlos Roberto Chaves

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation is divided into two papers. The first paper is related to developing a closed-form approximation for single-channel multiple-server queues with generally distributed inter-arrival and service times, which are often found in numerous settings, e.g., airports and manufacturing systems. Unfortunately, exact models for such systems require distributions for the underlying random variables. Further, data for fitting distributions is sometimes not available, and one only has access to means and variances of the underlying input random variables. Under heavy traffic, excellent approximations already exist for this purpose. In the first paper, a new approximation method for medium traffic is presented. …

Multi-Level Evolutionary Algorithms Resource Allocation Utilizing Model-Based Systems Engineering, Bhanuchander Reddy Poreddy

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research presents an innovative approach to solve the resource allocation problems using Multi-level Evolutionary Algorithms. Evolutionary Algorithms are used to solve resource allocation problems in different domains and their results are then incorporated into a higher level system solution using another Evolutionary Algorithm to solve base camp planning problems currently faced by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Two models are introduced to solve two domain specific models: a logistics model and a power model. The logistic model evaluates routes for logistics vehicles on a daily basis with a goal of reducing fuel usage by delivery trucks. The evaluation includes …