Dual‐ascent and primal heuristics for production‐assembly‐distribution system design

This article proposes two dual‐ascent algorithms and uses each in combination with a primal drop heuristic embedded within a branch and bound framework to solve the uncapacitated production assembly distribution system (i.e., supply chain) design problem, which is formulated as a mixed integer program. Computational results indicate that one approach, which combines primal drop and dual‐ascent heuristics, can solve instances within reasonable time and prescribes solutions with gaps between the primal and dual solution values that are less than 0.15%, an efficacy suiting it for actual large‐scale applications. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

Component importance for linear consecutive‐ k ‐Out‐of‐ n and m ‐Consecutive‐ k ‐Out‐of‐ n systems with exchangeable components

Measuring the relative importance of components in a mechanical system is useful for various purposes. In this article, we study Birnbaum and Barlow‐Proschan importance measures for two frequently studied system designs: linear consecutive k ‐out‐of‐ n and m ‐consecutive‐ k ‐out‐of‐ n systems. We obtain explicit expressions for the component importance measures for systems consisting of exchangeable components. We illustrate the results for a system whose components have a Lomax type lifetime distribution. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

Some aspects in estimating warranty and post‐warranty repair demands

When customers buy a product, they are often eligible for free repairs for a certain warranty period. In this article, we study some important aspects, which are often overlooked in the literature but are of interest to the manufacturer, in estimating both warranty and post‐warranty repair demands. We consider that the installed base of the product (i.e., the number of units of the product actually in use) varies with time due to both new sales and units being taken out of service. When estimating warranty and post‐warranty repair demands, we explicitly address the fact that customers may not always request repairs for failed units. For the case where the product failure time distribution is exponential, we derive the closed‐form expressions for both types of repair demands of a single unit and of the time‐varying installed base. The insights into some risk‐related quantities are also presented. Furthermore, the proposed model is extended by considering delayed warranty claims that are frequently seen in practice. Numerical examples illustrate that understanding both types of repair demands and the related decision variables is important for managing the obligatory and profitable repair services. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 60: 499–511, 2013     

Comparison between constant‐stress and step‐stress accelerated life tests under Time Constraint

By running life tests at higher stress levels than normal operating conditions, accelerated life testing (ALT) quickly yields information on the lifetime distribution of a test unit. The lifetime at the design stress is then estimated through extrapolation using a regression model. In constant‐stress testing, a unit is tested at a fixed stress level until failure or the termination time point of test, whereas step‐stress testing allows the experimenter to gradually increase the stress levels at some prefixed time points during the test. In this work, the optimal k‐level constant‐stress and step‐stress ALTs are compared for the exponential failure data under complete sampling and Type‐I censoring. The objective is to quantify the advantage of using the step‐stress testing relative to the constant‐stress one. Assuming a log‐linear life–stress relationship with the cumulative exposure model for the effect of changing stress in step‐stress testing, the optimal design points are determined under C/D/A‐optimality criteria. The efficiency of step‐stress testing to constant‐stress one is then discussed in terms of the ratio of optimal objective functions based on the information matrix. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 00: 000–000, 2013     

The effect of catastrophes on the strategic customer behavior in queueing systems

We consider the single server Markovian queue subject to Poisson generated catastrophes. Whenever a catastrophe occurs, all customers are forced to abandon the system, the server is rendered inoperative and an exponential repair time is set on. During the repair time new arrivals are allowed to join the system. We assume that the arriving customers decide whether to join the system or balk, based on a natural linear reward‐cost structure with two types of rewards: A (usual) service reward for those customers that receive service and a (compensation) failure reward for those customers that are forced to abandon the system due to a catastrophe. We study the strategic behavior of the customers regarding balking and derive the corresponding (Nash) equilibrium strategies for the observable and unobservable cases. We show that both types of strategic behavior may be optimal: to avoid the crowd or to follow it. The crucial factor that determines the type of customer behavior is the relative value of the service reward to the failure compensation. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

Experimental and numerical investigation of zirconium jet performance with different liner shapes design

This paper studies the shaped charge jet performance in terms of different liner shapes including conical,bell,hemispherical and bi-conical liners.The critical angles and the relevant flow velocities for the zir-conium liner material were calculated analytically and numerically using Autodyn hydro-code.The relationship between the critical collapse angle and the flow velocity was determined for the conditions of jet formation and coherency.Penetration tests according to the standard testing procedures of API-RP34 (Section-Ⅱ) were performed to validate the numerical predictions of the jet performance of the studied liners.It was found that the four shaped charge liners all produced coherent jets with different performances.The penetration depth of the shaped charges with the bell and the bi-conical liner shapes increased by 10.3％ and 22％,respectively,while the crater diameter of shaped charge with hemispherical liner increased by 85％ representing the formation of an explosively-formed-projectile (EFP),when they are compared with the corresponding jet characteristics of a conical liner shaped charge.     

基于气动-弹道一体化模型的飞行器外形优化设计

为提升飞行器气动外形优化设计效果,研究了新型飞行器在大空域、宽速域范围的气动适应性问题,提出一种基于气动-弹道一体化模型的外形优化设计方法.通过考虑气动和弹道的耦合作用,综合利用类型函数/形状函数转换技术、气动工程估算方法和Radau伪谱法,建立飞行器气动-弹道一体化模型.基于该模型,通过明确优化目标和约束条件,给出基...     

转向机动条件下利用拖船航迹的拖线阵阵形估计

针对水动力模型(water-pulley模型)适用范围有限的问题,提出一种对拖船航迹进行平滑得到拖线阵声阵段运动轨迹,进而实现阵形估计的方法。通过分析缆的稳态振荡响应特性,近似认为声阵段上各点沿同一轨迹运动;设计平滑窗将拖船回转机动航迹平滑为声阵段航迹,并将其拓展应用于拖船转向机动的情况;利用平滑窗的一部分对距离拖船不足平滑窗宽度的航迹部分进行平滑得到当前拖缆段阵形,从而实现转向机动过程中全阵阵形的实时估计。仿真结果表明:若拖线阵由间隔为5 m的81个阵元构成,所提出的方法与朴素water-pulley模型相比可以使转向机动过程中的平均阵增益提高约0.8 dB,平均方位估计偏差减小约4.7°。利用仿真结果分析算法的输入敏感性,对阵形估计方法进行简化使其更易于工程实现,海试数据验证表明简化的方法可行、有效。     

An attacker‐defender model for analyzing the vulnerability of initial attack in wildfire suppression

Wildfire managers use initial attack (IA) to control wildfires before they grow large and become difficult to suppress. Although the majority of wildfire incidents are contained by IA, the small percentage of fires that escape IA causes most of the damage. Therefore, planning a successful IA is very important. In this article, we study the vulnerability of IA in wildfire suppression using an attacker‐defender Stackelberg model. The attacker's objective is to coordinate the simultaneous ignition of fires at various points in a landscape to maximize the number of fires that cannot be contained by IA. The defender's objective is to optimally dispatch suppression resources from multiple fire stations located across the landscape to minimize the number of wildfires not contained by IA. We use a decomposition algorithm to solve the model and apply the model on a test case landscape. We also investigate the impact of delay in the response, the fire growth rate, the amount of suppression resources, and the locations of fire stations on the success of IA.     

Adjacency‐based local top‐down search method for finding maximal efficient faces in multiple objective linear programming

It is well‐known that the efficient set of a multiobjective linear programming (MOLP) problem can be represented as a union of the maximal efficient faces of the feasible region. In this paper, we propose a method for finding all maximal efficient faces for an MOLP. The new method is based on a condition that all efficient vertices (short for the efficient extreme points and rays) for the MOLP have been found and it relies on the adjacency, affine independence and convexity results of efficient sets. The method uses a local top‐down search strategy to determine maximal efficient faces incident to every efficient vertex for finding maximal efficient faces of an MOLP problem. To our knowledge, the proposed method is the first top‐down search method that uses the adjacency property of the efficient set to find all maximal efficient faces. We discuss this and other advantages and disadvantages of the algorithm. We also discuss some computational experience we have had with our computer code for implementing the algorithm. This computational experience involved solving several MOLP problems with the code.