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A local equivalent linearization methodology is proposed to simulate non‐linear shock absorbers and dual‐phase dampers in the convenient frequency domain. The methodology based on principle of energy similarity, characterizes the non‐linear dual‐phase dampers via an array of local damping constants as function of local excitation frequency and amplitude, response, and type of non‐linearity. The non‐linear behaviour of the dual‐phase dampers can thus be predicted quite accurately in the entire frequency range. The frequency response characteristics of a vehicle model employing non‐linear dual‐phase dampers, evaluated using local linearization algorithm, are compared to those of the non‐linear system, established via numerical integration, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm. An error analysis is performed to quantify the maximum error between the damping forces generated by non‐linear and locally linear simulations. The influence of damper parameters on the ride improvement potentials of dual‐phase dampers is further evaluated using the proposed methodology and discussed.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

In most developing countries riveting, upset forging and punching operations among others are performed using manual hammering technique. The use of the manual method increases production time and reduces efficiency. The use of the manual approach is predominantly due to the high cost of imported automated hammering machines (AHM) which the majority of the end-users are incapable of acquiring. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to produce an AHM that is affordable using an effective material selection methodology in the design and fabrication process.

The material selection methodology proposed is the fuzzy multi-objective optimisation on the basis of the ratio analysis (MOORA) method. The tool was used to evaluate and determine the optimum material for the major of the components of the AHM from amongst alternative materials while considering several decision criteria. A case study of the shaft was applied to demonstrate the suitability of the proposed technique. The AHM components design is then carried out and machine fabricated and tested to ascertain performance effectiveness.

The result of the fuzzy MOORA evaluation showed that alloy steel is the optimal material for the shaft. The fuzzy MOORA approach was compared with the fuzzy Vlsekriterijumska Optimizacija Ikompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) and fuzzy grey relational analysis (GRA) methods to validate the proposed method. The fuzzy MOORA method produces completely the same result with the fuzzy VIKOR and fuzzy GRA methods. The machine was then designed, constructed and tested and found to be effective for the purpose of the design.

This is significant as no such study has been published by any other researcher to the best of our knowledge in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to study the aerodynamic characteristics of Ahmed body in longitudinal and lateral platoons under crosswind by computational fluid dynamics simulation. It helps to improve the aerodynamic characteristics of vehicles by providing theoretical basis and engineering direction for the development and progress of intelligent transportation.

A two-car platoon model is used to compare with the experiment to prove the accuracy of the simulation method. The simplified Ahmed body model and the Reynolds Averaged N-S equation method are used to study the aerodynamic characteristics of vehicles at different distances under cross-winds.

When the longitudinal distance x/L = 0.25, the drag coefficients of the middle and trailing cars at β = 30° are improved by about 272% and 160% compared with β = 10°. The side force coefficients of the middle and trailing cars are increased by 50% and 62%. When the lateral distance y/W = 0.25, the side force coefficients of left and middle cars at β = 30° are reduced by 38% and 37.5% compared with β = 10°. However, the side force coefficient of the right car are increased by about 84.3%.

Most of the researches focus on the overtaking process, and there are few researches on the neat lateral platoon. The innovation of this paper is that in addition to studying the aerodynamic characteristics of longitudinal driving, the aerodynamic characteristics of neat lateral driving are also studied, and crosswind conditions are added. The authors hope to contribute to the development of intelligent transportation.

In this research paper, an adaptive output-feedback robust active disturbance rejection control (RADRC) is designed for the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) quadrotor attitude model subject to unwanted uncertainties and disturbances (UUDs).

In order to achieve the desired control objectives in the presence of UUDs, the low pass filter (LPF) and extended high gain observer (EHGO) methods are used for the estimation of matched and mismatched UUDs, respectively. Furthermore, for solving the chattering incurred in the standard sliding mode control (SMC), a multilayer sliding mode surface is constructed. For formulating the adaptive output-feedback RADRC algorithm, the EHGO, LPF and SMC schemes are combined using the separation principle.

The findings of this research work include the design of an adaptive output-feedback RADRC with the ability to negate the UUDs as well as estimate the unknown states of the quadrotor attitude model. In addition, the chattering problem is addressed by designing a modified SMC scheme based on the multilayer sliding mode surface obtained by utilizing the estimated state variables. This sliding mode surface is also used to obtain the adaptive criteria for the switching design gain parameters involved in the SMC. Moreover, the requirement of high design gain parameters in the EHGO is solved by combining it with the LPF.

Designing the flight control techniques while assuming that the state variables are available is a common practice. In addition, to obtain robustness, the SMC technique is widely used. However, in practice, the state variables might not be available due to unknown parameters and uncertainties, as well as the chattering due to SMC reduces the performances of the actuators. Hence, in this paper, an adaptive output-feedback RADRC technique is designed to solve the problems of UUDs and chattering.

The proposed algorithm successfully optimizes complex error functions, which are difficult to differentiate, ill conditioned or discontinuous. It is a benchmark to identify initial solutions in artificial neural network (ANN) training.

A multi‐directional ANN training algorithm that needs no derivative information is introduced as constrained one‐dimensional problem. A directional search vector examines the ANN error function in weight parameter space. The search vector moves in all possible directions to find minimum function value. The network weights are increased or decreased depending on the shape of the error function hyper surface such that the search vector finds descent directions. The minimum function value is thus determined. To accelerate the convergence of the algorithm a momentum search is designed. It avoids overshooting the local minimum.

The training algorithm is insensitive to the initial starting weights in comparison with the gradient‐based methods. Therefore, it can locate a relative local minimum from anywhere of the error surface. It is an important property of this training method. The algorithm is suitable for error functions that are discontinuous, ill conditioned or the derivative of the error function is not readily available. It improves over the standard back propagation method in convergence and avoids premature termination near pseudo local minimum.

Classifications problems are efficiently classified when using this method but the complex time series in some instances slows convergence due to complexity of the error surface. Different ANN network structure can further be investigated to find the performance of the algorithm.

The search scheme moves along the valleys and ridges of the error function to trace minimum neighborhood. The algorithm only evaluates the error function. As soon as the algorithm detects flat surface of the error function, care is taken to avoid slow convergence.

The algorithm is efficient due to incorporation of three important methodologies. The first mechanism is the momentum search. The second methodology is the implementation of directional search vector in coordinate directions. The third procedure is the one‐dimensional search in constrained region to identify the self‐adaptive learning rates, to improve convergence.

The purpose of this research paper is to design a disturbance observer-based control based on the robust model reference adaptive backstepping sliding-mode control for attitude quadrotor model subject to uncertainties and disturbances.

To estimate and reject the disturbance, a disturbance observer is designed for the exogenous disturbances with perturbation while a control criterion is developed for the tracking of desired output. To achieve the control performance, backstepping and sliding-mode control techniques are patched together to obtain robust chattering-free controller. Furthermore, a model reference adaptive control criterion is also combined with the design of robust control for the estimation and rejection of uncertainties and unmodeled dynamics of the attitude quadrotor.

The findings of this research work includes the design of a disturbance observer-based control for uncertain attitude quadrotor system with the ability of achieving tracking control objective in the presence of nonlinear exogenous disturbance with and without perturbation.

In practice, the quadrotor flight is opposed by different kinds of the disturbances. In addition, being an underactuated system, it is difficult to obtain an accurate mathematical model of quadrotor for the control design. Thus, a quadrotor model with uncertainties and disturbances is inevitable. Hence, it is necessary to design a control system with the ability to achieve the control objectives in the presence of uncertainties and disturbances.

Designing the control methods for quadrotor control without uncertainties and disturbances is a common practice. However, investigating the uncertain quadrotor plant in the presence of nonlinear disturbances is rarely taken into consideration for the control design. Hence, this paper presents a control algorithm to address the issues of the uncertainties and disturbances as well as investigate a control algorithm to achieve tracking performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the economic feasibility of a three-echelon Halal Meat Supply Chain (HMSC) network that is monitored by a proposed radio frequency identification (RFID)-based management system for enhancing the integrity traceability of Halal meat products and to maximize the average integrity number of Halal meat products, maximize the return of investment (ROI), maximize the capacity utilization of facilities and minimize the total investment cost of the proposed RFID-monitoring system. The location-allocation problem of facilities needs also to be resolved in conjunction with the quantity flow of Halal meat products from farms to abattoirs and from abattoirs to retailers.

First, a deterministic multi-objective mixed integer linear programming model was developed and used for optimizing the proposed RFID-based HMSC network toward a comprised solution based on four conflicting objectives as described above. Second, a stochastic programming model was developed and used for examining the impact on the number of Halal meat products by altering the value of integrity percentage. The ε-constraint approach and the modified weighted sum approach were proposed for acquisition of non-inferior solutions obtained from the developed models. Furthermore, the Max-Min approach was used for selecting the best solution among them.

The research outcome shows the applicability of the developed models using a real case study. Based on the computational results, a reasonable ROI can be achievable by implementing RFID into the HMSC network.

This work addresses interesting avenues for further research on exploring the HMSC network design under different types of uncertainties and transportation means. Also, environmentalism has been becoming increasingly a significant global problem in the present century. Thus, the presented model could be extended to include the environmental aspects as an objective function.

The model can be utilized for food supply chain designers. Also, it could be applied to realistic problems in the field of supply chain management.

Although there were a few studies focusing on the configuration of a number of HMSC networks, this area is overlooked by researchers. The study shows the developed methodology can be a useful tool for designers to determine a cost-effective design of food supply chain networks.

This paper aims to propose a precise turbulence model for automobile aerodynamics simulation, which can predict flow separation and reattachment phenomena more accurately.

As the results of wake flow simulation with commonly used turbulence models are unsatisfactory, by introducing a nonlinear Reynolds stress term and combining the detached Eddy simulation (DES) model, this paper proposes a nonlinear-low-Reynolds number (LRN)/DES turbulence model. The turbulence model is verified in a backward-facing step case and applied in the flow field analysis of the Ahmed model. Several widely applied turbulence models are compared with the nonlinear-LRN/DES model and the experimental data of the above cases.

Compared with the experimental data and several turbulence models, the nonlinear-LRN/DES model gives better agreement with the experiment and can predict the automobile wake flow structures and aerodynamic characteristics more accurately.

The nonlinear-LRN/DES model proposed in this paper suffers from separation delays when simulating the separation flows above the rear slant of the Ahmed body. Therefore, more factors need to be considered to further improve the accuracy of the model.

This paper proposes a turbulence model that can more accurately simulate the wake flow field structure of automobiles, which is valuable for improving the calculation accuracy of the aerodynamic characteristics of automobiles.

Based on the nonlinear eddy viscosity method and the scale resolved simulation, a nonlinear-LRN/DES turbulence model including the nonlinear Reynolds stress terms for separation and reattachment prediction, as well as the wake vortex structure prediction is first proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimal average drag coefficient of the Ahmed body for mixed platoon driving under crosswind and no crosswind conditions using the response surface optimization method. This study has extraordinary implications for the planning of future intelligent transportation.

First, the single vehicle and vehicle platoon models are validated. Second, the configuration with the lowest average drag coefficient under the two conditions is obtained by response surface optimization. At the same time, the aerodynamic characteristics of the mixed platoon driving under different conditions are also analyzed.

The configuration with the lowest average drag coefficient under no crosswind conditions is 0.3 L for longitudinal spacing and 0.8 W for lateral spacing, with an average drag coefficient of 0.1931. The configuration with the lowest average drag coefficient under crosswind conditions is 10° for yaw angle, 0.25 L for longitudinal spacing, and 0.8 W for lateral spacing, with an average drag coefficient of 0.2251. Compared to the single vehicle, the average drag coefficients for the two conditions are reduced by 25.1% and 41.3%, respectively.

This paper investigates the lowest average drag coefficient for mixed platoon driving under no crosswind and crosswind conditions using a response surface optimization method. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results of single vehicle and vehicle platoon are compared and verified with the experimental results to ensure the reliability of this study. The research results provide theoretical reference and guidance for the planning of intelligent transportation.