Decreasing the time necessary for examinations by using sigmoid curves

Abstract

Sigmoid (S-shape) curves can be applied in several fields of our life, if the behaviuor (growth or saturation) of the investigated phenomenon can be described by sigmoid curve. Application of sigmoid curves makes possible not only to describe and understand more deeply the behaviour of the phenomenon, but also to predict the behaviuor on the basis of the analysis of the characteristics of the sigmoid curve. This could have many useful advantages, for example in case of a long investigation, which can be described by sigmoid curve, the time necessary for the end-results can be considerably decreased  by predicting them on the basis of sigmoid curve analysis. This was very useful in case of multidisciplinary optimization, where computer running takes several weeks. In this paper this process is applied for decreasing the time necessary for the experiments of railway brakes heated during frictional contact.