Sharif Digital Repository

Many quantum systems are being investigated in the hope of building a large-scale quantum computer. All of these systems suffer from decoherence, resulting in errors during the execution of quantum gates. Quantum error correction enables reliable quantum computation given unreliable hardware. Unoptimized topological quantum error correction (TQEC), while still effective, performs very suboptimally, especially at low error rates. Hand optimizing the classical processing associated with a TQEC scheme for a specific system to achieve better error tolerance can be extremely laborious. We describe a tool, AUTOTUNE, capable of performing this optimization automatically, and give two highly... 

Solar energy will make a valuable contribution for power generation in the future. However the intermittency of solar energy has become an important issue in the utilization of PV system, especially small scale distributed solar energy conversion systems. The issue can be addressed through the management of production and storage of the energy in the form of hydrogen. The hydrogen can be produced by solar photovoltaic (PV) powered electrolysis of water. The amount of transferred energy to an electrolyzer from a PV module is a function of the distance between maximum power points (MPP) of PV module and the electrolyzer operating points. The distance can be minimized by optimizing the number... 

A generic framework is developed to study the application of energy hubs and its related network model to demonstrate the optimal design and operation of distributed energy systems (DESs) in urban areas. A novel multi-objective approach based on augmented epsilon constraint technique is employed to carry out this work. As an illustrative example, the proposed model is applied to an urban area in Ontario, Canada. Different scenarios are defined to investigate the effect of energy storage systems and energy exchange within a network on the optimal configuration and operation of the system. Moreover, multi-objective optimization is carried out based on two conflicting objectives, namely, total... 

Hydrogen is an important storage medium and can be produced by the water electrolysis. In this research, energy transfer loss between a photovoltaic (PV) unit and electrolyzer is minimized by optimizing the size and operating condition of an electrolyzer directly connected to a PV module. In directly coupled photovoltaic-electrolyzer (PV/EL) systems, there is a mismatch between output PV's maximum power point characteristic and input PEM electrolyzer's characteristic. With proper sizing optimization methods, it is possible to directly couple photovoltaic-electrolyzer systems. The evolutionary optimization algorithms like genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and... 

Energy hubs that incorporate a variety of energy generation and energy transformation technologies can be used to provide the energy storage needed to enable the efficient operation of a ‘smart energy network’. When these hubs are combined as a network and allowed to exchange energy, they create efficiency advantages in both financial and environmental performance. Further, the interconnectedness of the energy network design provides an added layer of reliability. In this paper, a complex network of energy hubs is modeled and optimized under different scenarios to examine both the financial viability and potential reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Two case studies consisting of two and... 

In this paper the creation of multiple energy hubs that make up a complex energy network are modeled and optimized for a selection of six scenarios to examine both their financial viability and potential reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As a proposed case study scenario for the model, three energy hubs are considered: a 'residential complex (RC)', a 'commercial shopping plaza (CS)', and a 'school (S)'. The use of combined heat and power systems, solar photovoltaic, solar collectors and network interaction are also examined for their impact on efficiency and cost. The modeling is undertaken and carried out by General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS). It is shown that cost can be reduced... 

In this work, we implement some analytical techniques such as the Exp-function, Tanh, and extended Tanh methods for solving nonlinear partial differential equation, which contains sine terms, its name Double Sine-Gordon equation. These methods obtain exact solutions of different types of differential equations in engineering mathematics  

A variational theory (VT), in which the potential energy of a real system is evaluated relative to the hard-sphere system, was used to investigate the medium's effects on the pair potential parameters. By adding the medium's effects to the isolated pair potential, the concept of an 'effective pair potential' (EPP) was introduced. The EPP parameters were compared with those of the average effective pair potential (AEPP) for Ar, which showed the importance of the medium effects and the long range interactions of the AEPP in dense fluids. The study showed that the depth parameter of the AEPP is much larger than that of the EPP  

Inclusion of nano-clays into hydrogels is an efficient approach to produce nanocomposite hydrogels. The introduction of nano-clay into hydrogels causes an increase in water absorbency. In the present work, Nanocomposite hydro-gels based on kappa-carrageenan were synthesized using sodium montmorillonite as nano-clay. Acrylamide and meth-ylenebisacrylamide were used as monomer and crosslinker, respectively. The structure of nanocomposite hydrogels was investigated by XRD and SEM techniques. Swelling behavior of nanocomposite hydrogels was studied by varying clay and carrageenan contents as well as methylenebisacrylamide concentration. An optimum swelling capacity was achieved at 12% of sodium... 

The performance of OFDM-based Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) is investigated by employing different smart antenna techniques at the receiver. The use of multiple antennas at the Access Point (AP) receiver in IEEE802.11a standard-compliant Single Input Multiple Output (SIMO) configuration, improves the physical layer performance in different channel scenarios and interference that may arise from other stations sharing the same frequency band. For this purpose, a comparative study of smart antenna architectures for IEEE802.11a WLAN system using pre-FFT and post-FFT array processing techniques is presented. Simulations are performed on a new model for IEEE802.11a system using a... 

γ-Alumina is used to catalyze the Cannizzaro reaction in the absence of any base under microwave irradiation in high yields. In the case of terephthalaldehyde the reaction is carried out with high selectivity  

In the present work, specimens were cut out from St-37 plates with 19 mm thickness. The thickness of plates was reduced to 12.5 mm by milling and grinding operations. Then a standard V-shaped fillet was made on one edge of the plates. Two plates were butt-welded by standard metal arc gas (MAG) welding process. Residual stresses induced by welding were measured on 20 specimens by centre hole drilling. Load controlled axial fatigue tests were carried out to determine the fatigue life of specimens. Crack growth rates were obtained from experiment. Fractography of specimens was performed. Genetic Algorithm (GA) was employed for prediction of residual stress value in weldments using the crack... 

The qualitative effects of residual stress parameters on fatigue crack growth are investigated using Monte Carlo probabilistic analysis technique. These parameters include the maximum residual stress,σ0, half-width of the tensile residual stress region, b, and the redistribution of residual stress parameter, β. A normal distribution is assumed for all parameters considered in the investigation and fatigue life is determined using Forman equation. The results indicate that: (i) fatigue life decreases nonlinearly if the mean of random maximum residual stress and the half-width of tensile residual stress region increases; (ii) fatigue life increases nonlinearly if the rate of residual stress... 

In this paper residual stresses induced by butt metal arc gas welding (MAGW), in accordance with ASTM E837, are determined by hole drilling. The results are analyzed by probabilistic methods. Also, the effect of fatigue life on relaxation of welding residual stress is investigated. The specimens are tested to measure fatigue life and crack growth rates in accordance with ASTM E466 for force controlled amplitude axial fatigue testing. © 2008 Verlag Stahleisen GmbH, Düsseldorf  

In this work effect of composition changes of injection gas, CH4 + CO2, on the performance of immiscible WAG injection in light oil, 41 oAPI, which has been rarely attended in the available literature is investigated. Presence of CO2 helps to reduce the MMP of CH4 significantly. Core flood experiments are conducted at reservoir conditions and fixed flow rate of 0.5cc/min on a sandstone sample with the brine concentration of 5000 ppm, and the influence of injection gas composition as well as WAG ratio on oil recovery is investigated. Different mole percents of methane in mixture, 0%, to 100% are examined, and the tests continued to ten alternate cycles with a slug size of 0.1 pore volumes and... 

The main scope of this study is to analyse muscle-driven forward dynamics simulation of stair locomotion to understand the functional differences of individual muscles during the movement. A static optimization was employed to minimize a performance criterion based on the muscle energy consumption to resolve muscle redundancy during forward dynamics simulation. The proposed method was employed to simulate a musculoskeletal system with ten degrees of freedom in the sagittal plane and containing 18 Hill-type musculotendon actuators per leg. Simulation results illustrated that simulated joint kinematics closely tracked experimental quantities with root-mean-squared errors less than 1 degree. In... 

The effect of the autofrettage process on high pressure cylinders has been investigated. Both numerical and experimental techniques have been used for the investigation. It was observed that the best autofrettage pressure for raising the pressure capacity of the cylinder was the pressure Py2 which is just sufficient to bring the outer surface of the cylinder to yielding. Pressures higher than Py2 will have the inverse effect. It was found that the number of autofrettage stages has no effect on pressure capacity. It was also shown that to reduce the flow stress within the wall of the cylinder, the autofrettage pressure must be greater than the working pressure. For pressures lower than... 

Hexapod robots gives us the ability to study walking robots without facing problems such as stability in many aspects. It has a great deal of flexibility in movement even if a leg becomes malfunctioned. Radially symmetric (hexagonal) hexapods have more flexibility in movement than rectangular leg alignments. Because of symmetry they can move in any direction and time efficiently. Inverse kinematic problem of this kind of hexapods is solved through a modular mobile view considering six degrees of freedom for the trunk. Then typical tripod and wave gaits are analyzed and simulated through the presented formulation. In Reinforcement Learning algorithm for walking it is important how to make... 

The expected phenomenology of noninteracting topological band insulators (TBIs) is now largely theoretically understood. However, the fate of TBIs in the presence of interactions remains an active area of research with novel, interaction-driven topological states possible, as well as new exotic magnetic states. In this work we study the magnetic phases of an exchange Hamiltonian arising in the strong interaction limit of a Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice whose noninteracting limit is a two-dimensional TBI recently proposed for the layered heavy transition metal oxide compound (Li,Na) 2IrO 3. By a combination of analytical methods and exact diagonalization studies on finite-size...