Sharif Digital Repository

The fabrication of micron-sized instruments MEMS have been in fast progress in different fields of science and technology such as those of chemical processes in chemical engineering, propulsion in aerospace industries, microchip cooling and inkjet printers in electrical industries, and medical appliances in medical and biomedical science. They have forced the manufacturers and researchers to work and think in fabricating such small-scale sizes. However, the complexity of fabricating MEMS with moving parts has also promoted the manufacturers to think of alternative ways. For example the use of moving parts to pump fluid in such devises causes such difficulties and the researchers could adopt... 

Hydrogen fuel cell is one important choice to supply energy for vehicles in near future. The lack of a safe but inexpensive technology to store hydrogen in a vehicle tank is a serious challenge to commercialize the application of fuel cells. Past experiments have shown that carbon nanostructures, especially single walled carbon nanotubes, have considerable capacity to boost up hydrogen storage. Therefore, many studies have been performed to investigate the possibility of higher hydrogen storage capability using nanostructures for the past decade. Molecular dynamics method which is considered as one of the most important tools in studying nanostructures has shown vast applications in these... 

With a fast progress in nanotechnology devices and components, e.g., MEMS/NEMS, heat transfer study in micro/nanoscales has become so critical for the systematic design and precise control of such miniaturized devices towards the integration and automation of Lab-on-a-chip devices. Demands in high heat transfer rates have returned the concerns to impinging jet cooling systems. However, studying impinging jets in the micro/nano scales is requires the molecular dynamics knowledge to analyze the true micro/nanoscale flow behavior accurately. According to the importance of this subject, we use direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method to simulate nano impinging jet gas flows. The thesis is... 

Without optimization, it is impossible to reduce the cost of power generation from an efficient megawatt wind turbine. In this work, we present a multi-objective algorithm to optimize the megawatt blade geometry. In this algorithm, the mass of blade and the wind turbine annual energy production (AEP) are considered as the objective functions. The design variables are blade chord, blade twist, airfoil thickness, spar geometry and blade curvature distribution.The constraints are maximum allowable strain for the chosen materials, maximum tip deflection and maximum tip speed. For the internal geometry, we consider two spars and four panels. The blade element momentum method (BEM) is used for... 

A global rotating atmosphere with polar vortex and super rotation is simulated using a simplified Venus General Circulation Model (GCM). The polar vortex is maintained strongly by meridional circulation develops in the form of a simple Hadley cell, extending from the equator to the pole in both hemispheres and rotation terrestrial planet. Venus Total Polar Vortex Parameter (PVP) was defined like globally integrated super-rotation but at polar skullcaps (60-90 deg). Venus Polar Vortex Parameter is PVP=1.5 that’s qualitatively similar to observed polar vortex. Then with study in terrestrial planet and Titan modeling, we appointed the Polar Vortex Parameter and critical limit of Polar Vortex... 

Radiation evaluation in non-gray gaseous media is a very complicated issue. Previous researches have shown that the radiation properties of non-gray gases would strongly depend on the wavelengths. The gray gas assumption is the simplest model to calculate the radiation properties. Dispite simplicity, it is widely used in various industrial applications. In this model the gas radiation properties are assumed no to chang across all wavelengths. Evidently this would results in an inaccurate radiation modeling. Using the Spectral Line-based Weighted-sum-of-gray-gases model, SLW, the spectral behavior of radiation properties of gas is almost taken into account in computations. So the use of this... 

With the rapid development in the application of nano-micro systems in space propulsion systems, it is necessary to obtain accurate analysis of flow field in these devices. New generation of space missions are usually performed by using a network of small-scale satellites. The mission control of such small-scale satellites requires specialized propulsion systems than produce small propulsive forces of about 1 micro-Newton. The main purpose of the current PhD thesis is analysing the flow field in different nano/micro propulsion systems by using a hybrid Navier-Stokes (NS)-direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. Nano/micro propulsion systems experience different rarefaction regimes from... 

Numerical simulations of participating media need careful solution of the radiation transfer equation (RTE) along the fluid flow governing equations. Evidently, the accuracy of achieved solutions highly depends on the accuracy of radiation transfer calculations. Despite numerous efforts performed in the previous researches, the RTE calculation still faces with several challenges from both accuracy and computational cost perspectives. The main objective of this research is to present new contributions in overcoming such challenges. So, a finite-volume (FV) solver is suitably developed to solve the RTE numerically. This extended solver is then coupled with an existing FV flow solver. The... 

Heavy fuel oil (HFO) is usually consumed in large scale furnaces, e.g., those of power plants. Experience shows that its combustion produces large amount of NOx emission. In present study, a large scale heavy fuel oil fired furnace is numerically simulated to investigate different possible solutions for NOx reduction. In this regard, a computational framework is firstly designed benefiting from the researches reported previously in literature. The results of this framework are then compared with available measurements to evaluate the accuracy of current designed computational framework. Second, the influences of a number of different controlling parameters are studied carefully to improve... 

The co-existance of rarefied and near-continuum flow regimes is widelyencountered in analyzing the multiscale flow problems, e.g., micro-and nanoflows. Previous investigations have revealed that the continuum-based simulation methods would suffer from the lack of accuracy to predict the rarefied flow regimes. On the other hand, the molecular simulation methods are not computationally efficient in simulating the near-continuum flow regimes. Therefore, the use of hybrid simulation methods has been recommended as a serious alternative to simulate the multiscale flow problems. These methods apply the molecular methods in solving the rarefied flow regions and the continuum methods in solving the... 

The lubricating oil is commonly used to cool down the moving parts of turbine gas systems. In many applications, this oil is cooled down using a recirculating water circuit. The water is then cooled down using an air-cooled heat exchanger. Any deficiency in aerothermodynamic design of such heat exchanger would result in high temperature of gas turbine moving parts such as bearings. Obviously, this mal-performance has adverse effect on the lifetime of these parts and their maintanence aspects. Since the good performance of air-cooled heat exchanger has numerous advantages for the performance of related gas turbine unit, it is mandatory to design these heat exchangers in minimum sizes and... 

Iran's experience shows that either single or combined power generation cycles, face heavy summer performance deficiencies. The most limitation of power generation in steam cycles is due to their poor condenser performance.The less condenser performance, the more turbine back pressure, and the more turbine back pressure, the less cycle power generation. The main objective of the present study is to reduce steam turbine back pressure in the combined cycle of an organic Rankine-vapor compression refrigeration by installing heat pipes in suitable locations inside the Air cooled condense (ACC). In order to do so, a commercial numerical simulation solver (FLUENT) is used to find the most suitable... 

This research considers the wind effects on the thermal deficiency of natural draught dry cooling tower (NDDCT) using the CFD tool. To have a realistic study, the NDDCT of Shazand Powerplant, located in Shazand, Iran, is simulated as the sample cooling tower design points. Considering of Shazand NDDCT model, the mal-effects of local wind were studied against its thermal efficiency. As is known, the thermal efficiency of a NDDCT can be affected by local wind in either its upper (i.e., outlet section) or lower (i.e., the radiator section) parts. In this study, a full study is performed to quantify the mal-effects of local wind on either upper or lower parts of one tower. The results show that... 

Hydrazine is considered as one of the most dangerouswaste materials from the environmental point of view. It can lead to both air and soil pollutions. Unfortunately,Hydrazine fuel is largly used in aerospace industry. Therefor, the aerospace industries are indirectly engaged with such pollutions.As a remedy incineration can be considered a very effective solution to destroy hydrazine fuel. In this thesis, we are faced with the conceptual design of an incinerator, which is going to be used for hydrazine incinerations.In this regard we are expected to consider all restrictions,which are required to be considered in a reed incinerator design and application. Therefore, we need to determine... 

The enviromental wind would cause serious drop in the performance of Heller cooling systems in thermal powerplants working on Rankin cycle. Therfore, it is necessary to consider the wind velocity in the design of such cooling tower systems. We use the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and simulate the 3D buoyant flow passing through and over a heel cooling tower. We consider three different wind veocities of 0, 5 and 10 m/s in our simulations. In order to consider the low efficiency of the cooling system in efficiency drop of the main rankin cycle, we need to consider actual power generated by the powerplant generator, which is directly affected by the turbine back pressure. To connect the... 

Incineration of oil wastes is a very important subject in oil refinery Industries. Such wastes may include toxic ports such as CO or hydrocarbon compounds, in either liquid or gas forms. In this project, we simulate an oil refinery incinerator. The industry has decided to increase the waste capacity to 150% of its design conditions. This causes the appearance of CO and methane at the outlet of incinerator stack. We investigated the incinerator operation and-found that we might solve the pollution problem by re-design of air and waste inlets to the incinerator. In this regard, we first simulated the incinerator in its normal operation to validate our numerical modeling. Next, we assumed... 

An aerodynamical model for studying asymmetric and three-dimensional flow fields about wind turbine rotors is presented. The developed algorithm combines a asymmetric and three-dimensional Navier-Stokes solver with a so-called actuator disc technique in which the loading is distributed along lines representing the blade forces. The loading is determined iteratively using a bladeelement approach and tabulated airfoil data. Computations are carried out for a 5MW NREL wind turbine equipped with three blades. The computed power production is found to be in good agreement with measurements. The computations give detailed information about basic features of wind turbine wakes, including... 

The simulation of hydro-pneumatic systems should be considered as a difficult task, because they consist of several different hydraulic and pneumatic components working together and affecting each other. For example, hydraulic and pneumatic components interact strongly in a diaphragm pump. As known, a single liquid phase may unwantedly change to two-phase condition and cause unavoidable problems within the simulation processes. In this research, we simulate the unsteady multiphase flow in high pressure hydro-pneumatic systems using a hybrid numerical-experimental method to study such rather complex effects suitably. For the computational fluid dynamics part of the simulation, we use a single... 

According to the climates of the country, using natural draft dry air cooling systems at the power plant is one of the proposed solutions for lower water consumption, but strong wind can make drop in performance of power plant cooling systems based on Rankine Cycle. This means that wind disrupted the order of the normal flow of air intake around the tower by creating areas of low pressure, preventing the flow of air into the cooling system. In the world, many researches and solutions have been proposed to solve the problem. The most common of these solutions is using of windbreaks as aerodynamic devices to compensate for the pressure drop in the cooling tower when the wind blows. But... 

Air-cooled condenser is widely used in thermal power plants as its main cooling system. However, the thermal capacity of air-cooled condensers reduces considerably in environmental wind drafts. So, the purpose of this study is to find practicable solutions to minimize the mal-performance of air-cooled condensers in windy conditions in either design or off-design conditions and consequently prevent the related steam turbines power reduction. The target combined cycle power plant consists of 4*160 MW steam turbines and 4 air-cooled condensers in its steam cycle part. This research presents two general and practical remedies, which are also applicable to many different powerplants irrespective...