Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, the development of a controller for autonomous lateral alignment of fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with runway centerline in landing phase is presented. Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) is used in order to enable the vehicle to mimic the decision making procedure that a pilot follow in the same situation. Also, for longitudinal motion controller design for the UAV to follow a pre-defined trajectory, the pole-placement technique is used. It is assumed that the runway relative position and orientation are provided by a built in vision system and its associated image processing unit. The performance of the controller in the presence of the Gaussian noises is investigated by... 

This paper proposes a high performance voltage tracking and current sharing among parallel connected inverters by applying optimal control and minimizing the cost function. The control system forces the voltage of load to track the voltage reference, and the current of all inverters becomes equal. Therefore, both current sharing and voltage tracking are obtained. In addition, the smallest input energy and simplicity in control circuit are the other advantages of the suggested method. To show the performance of the proposed control scheme, the simulations with two-modular practical systems are performed and the results are provided. The results indicate that the control objectives are... 

Thermal analysis of Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) dams is generally carried out considering identical ambient boundary conditions at upstream and downstream faces. For the case of Shahri-Kor Dam (an RCC dam with a height of 57 m), recorded thermal data depicts a considerable difference between upstream and downstream ambient temperatures, especially during cold months. This paper investigates how taking this difference into account can affect the thermal response of the dam. For this purpose, two thermal analyses are carried out with and without consideration of these different ambient boundary conditions (DABC). Consequently, the computed temperatures at representative points are compared... 

Recorded ground accelerations at various locations of Karun III Dam during November 20, 2007, were recorded by an array of accelerometers located on the dam. In terms of amplitude and phase, these accelerations show non-uniformities in different elevations. In this paper, the effect of these non-uniform ground motions on the seismic response of the dam taking dam-reservoir-foundation interaction into account is investigated. The EACD-3D-2008 finite element program and ABAQUS Software are used for carrying out the seismic analyses. For this purpose, time histories of the earthquake accelerations are interpolated at nodal points located on the dam foundation interface. The analysis has been... 

Treatment of diatomaceous earth with sulfuric acid reduces mineral and organic impurities, such as Fe2O3, Al2O3 and alkali metal oxides (CaO, MgO and Na2O). In addition, wettability and porosity of the acid-treated diatomite are greatly enhanced. Acid-treated diatomite is suitable to be used as a siliceous support for catalysts, due to high silica content (> 90%), amorphous structure with low cristobalite and quartz phases, appropriate Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area, high absorptive capacity, good mechanical strength after calcinations and low cost of production. In the first part of this study, the influence of temperature, sulfuric acid concentration, acid-diatomite mass ratio and... 

Proton beam therapy (PBT) is a modern external beam radiation therapy characterized by superior dose distribution. Small field PBT refers to the treatment of tumor sizes less than 7 cm in diameter. In this study, a fast and accurate GATE model was developed and then validated for a small field scattering PBT delivery. To this aim, a fixed single scattering nozzle was modeled in the GATE platform. To accelerate the GATE simulations, a variance reduction technique (VRT) was also incorporated by ignoring the tracking of the secondary particles having a range below a predefined cutoff. In addition, the influence of collimator material on the model performance was evaluated. Beam uniformity,... 

The selection of a suitable duty factor (DF) remains a major challenge in respiratory-gated treatments. Therefore, this study aims at presenting a new methodology for fast optimizing the gating window width (duty factor (DF)) in respiratory-gated proton partial breast irradiation (PBI). To do so, GATE Monte Carlo simulations were performed for various target sizes and locations in supine and prone positions. Three different duty factors of 20, 25, and 33% were considered. Sparing factors (SF) for four organs-at-risk (OARs) were then assessed. The weighted-sum method was employed to search for an optimal DF. The results indicate that an SF higher than unity was obtained for all plans. The SF... 

Proton therapy (PT) is an emerging external beam radiation therapy characterized by superior dose distribution compared to conventional modalities. In the present study, an optimal GATE model was developed and then validated for a double scattering proton nozzle based on the previously constructed model. To this aim, a double scattering treatment nozzle was modeled in the GATE platform. To accelerate the GATE simulations, a virtual range modulation wheel (vRMW) and a variance reduction technique (VRT) were implemented. Proton beam flatness, symmetry, and delivery efficiency, secondary neutron dose, and dosimetric performance were characterized through a set of GATE simulations. The findings... 

Purpose: Proton Beam Therapy (PBT) is an emerging radiotherapy technique using beams of proton to treat cancer. As the first report addressing the topic, the principal aim is to highlight the present status of PBT research and development in Iran as a developing country. Materials and Methods: To do so, the demand for PBT in Iran and Iran National Ion Therapy Center (IRNitc) was investigated and introduced. Then, Scopus and PubMed were searched for studies that dealt with PBT research in Iran and subsequently 6 major subfields of interest were identified. Furthermore, international collaborations were extracted from the bibliographic data. To combine both research and development sides, a... 

An improved vorticity-based gridding technique is presented and applied to create optimal non-uniform Cartesian coarse grid for numerical simulation of two-phase flow. The optimal coarse grid distribution (OCGD) is obtained in a manner to capture variations in both permeability and fluid velocity of the fine grid using a single physical quantity called "vorticity". Only single-phase flow simulation on the fine grid is required to extract the vorticity. Based on the fine-scale vorticity information, several coarse grid models are generated for a given fine grid model. Then the vorticity map preservation error is used to predict how well each coarse grid model reproduces the fine-scale... 

A novel technique for upscaling of detailed geological reservoir descriptions is presented. The technique aims at reducing both numerical dispersion and homogenization error, generated due to incorporating a coarse computational grid and assigning effective permeability to coarse grid blocks respectively. In particular we consider implicit-pressure explicit-saturation (IMPES) scheme where homogenization error impacts the accuracy of the coarse grid solution of the pressure equation. To reduce the homogenization error, we employ the new vorticity-based gridding that generates a non-uniform coarse grid with high resolution at high vorticity zones. In addition, to control numerical dispersion,... 

In situ mixing by dispersive transport of salt and viscous fingering between the injected low-salinity (LS) brine and high-salinity (HS) formation brine can jeopardize the performance of low-salinity waterflooding (LSWF). In our previous papers, we demonstrated that in situ mixing can be suppressed by polymer-enhanced low-salinity waterflooding (PELS), in which a small amount of a viscosifying agent, such as a polymer, is added to the LS stream. Nevertheless, effective mixing control with PELS depends upon several factors and operational conditions, which have not yet been addressed. Therefore, this research focuses on the investigation of the impact of injection parameters, such as the... 

A novel photolithography-based technique was developed to fabricate a quasi-2D heterogeneous calcite micromodel of representative elementary volume size. The effect of brine-chemistry on the mobilization of capillarity and heterogeneity trapped oil after high salinity water injection was evaluated by using diluted seawater, and seawater modified with calcium, sulphate, and silica nanoparticles. Preliminary brine screening was performed based on modified contact angle experiments under dynamic salinity alteration. The main findings are that the chemical composition of brine impacts both the ultimate oil recovery and its speed. The highest and fastest oil recovery was obtained with diluted...