Sharif Digital Repository

Scalability has always been a challenge in software development, and agile methods have faced their own ordeal in this regard. The classic solution is to use modeling to manage the complexities of the system while facilitating intra-team and inter-team communication; however, agile methods tend to shy away from modeling to avoid its adverse effect on productivity. Model-driven development (MDD) has shown great potential for automatic code generation, thereby enhancing productivity, but the agile community seems unconvinced that this gain in productivity justifies the extra effort required for modeling. The challenge that the MDD community faces today is to incorporate MDD in agile... 

The presence of impurities in the copper electrolyte increases the energy consumption of an electrorefining process and contaminates the deposited copper on cathode. The concentration of impurities increases over time making it necessary to remove them from the solution. This research introduces a fast, effective, and simple method to refine the industrial electrolyte from arsenic, iron and antimony by solvent displacement crystallisation technique. In this method, when alcohol is added to the electrolyte, the impurities precipitate from the solution as amorphous arsenato antimonite phase. Results show that Fe, Sb, and As are removed from the copper electrolyte by 75.2, 96.9 and 99.8%,... 

The presence of impurities in the copper electrolyte increases the energy consumption of an electrorefining process and contaminates the deposited copper on cathode. The concentration of impurities increases over time making it necessary to remove them from the solution. This research introduces a fast, effective, and simple method to refine the industrial electrolyte from arsenic, iron and antimony by solvent displacement crystallisation technique. In this method, when alcohol is added to the electrolyte, the impurities precipitate from the solution as amorphous arsenato antimonite phase. Results show that Fe, Sb, and As are removed from the copper electrolyte by 75.2, 96.9 and 99.8%,... 

In this paper, a flux search controller is proposed to increase the efficiency of a direct torque-controlled induction motor in full load range. The value of the flux reference is determined through a minimization algorithm. The amplitude of stator current is used as the objective function since it is shown that samples of the stator current have better statistical properties than input power. In addition, the stator current has more sensitivity to the flux variation than input power. These two properties allow implementing an adaptive algorithm to determine the proper flux step without waste of time. The minimum allowable value of the flux step has been determined based on this process to... 

Nanostructured copper-doped uorapatite (Cux.Ca(10X).(PO4)6.F2) having crystallite sizes of 19, 29, and 34 nm at x = 0:9, 0.4, and 0.0, respectively, was synthesized by planetary ball milling of CaO, P2O5, CaF2, and CuO powders. Specifications of the products were determined by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, eld emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray di raction analyses. In-vitro studies and Mossman's Tetrazole Test (MTT) assays were also conducted by incubating Cux.Ca(10X).(PO6).F2 powder into Kokubo's Simulated Body Fluid (SBF) and against BT-20 cell, respectively, to determine bioactivity and biocompatibility of the materials.... 

We determined the mechanism of mechanochemical synthesis of fluorapatite from CaO, CaF2 and P2O5 by characterisation of the intermediate compounds. We used atomic absorption spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, FTIR spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy to find the transitional compounds. Investigation of the binary and ternary powder mixtures revealed the appearance of H3PO4, Ca(OH)2, Ca2P2O7 and CaCO3 as the intermediate compounds. At early stages of the milling, conversions of P2O5 to H3PO4 and CaO to Ca(OH)2 occurred in the wet atmosphere. Later, a combination of Ca(OH)2 and H3PO4 formed Ca2P2O7 while the unreacted CaO was converted to... 

In the present work, N-rich activated carbon was synthesized using hydrothermal carbonization of egg white biomass in the presence of sucrose, followed by chemical activation and magnetization of hydrochar in the presence of iron (II) and (III) at NaOH solution. The results showed that the sucrose has a critical role in hydrochar yield by increasing of sucrose content. This claim also proved by SEM analysis, which hydrochar morphology was changed from the layered to fused carbon spheres morphology that confirmed the increasing of nucleation site. The materials were characterized with VSM, SEM, CHN, FTIR, Raman spectroscopy and XRD techniques. Capacity of prepared magnetic activated carbon... 

A novel intelligent semi-active control system for an eleven degrees of freedom passenger car's suspension system using magnetorheological (MR) damper with neuro-fuzzy (NF) control strategy to enhance desired suspension performance is proposed. In comparison with earlier studies, an improvement in problem modeling is made. The proposed method consists of two parts: a fuzzy control strategy to establish an efficient controller to improve ride comfort and road handling (RCH) and an inverse mapping model to estimate the force needed for a semi-active damper. The fuzzy logic rules are extracted based on Sugeno inference engine. The inverse mapping model is based on an artificial neural network... 

Using CNG as an additive for gasoline is a proper choice due to higher octane number of CNG enriched gasoline with respect to that of gasoline. As a result, it is possible to use gasoline with lower octane number in the engine. This would also mean the increase of compression ratio in SI engines resulting in higher performance and lower gasoline consumption. Over the years, the use of simulation codes to model the thermodynamic cycle of an internal combustion engine have developed tools for more efficient engine designs and fuel combustion. In this study, a thermodynamic cycle simulation of a conventional four-stroke spark-ignition engine has been developed. The model is used to study the... 

With the declining energy resources and increase of pollutant emissions, a great deal of efforts has been focused on the development of alternatives for fossil fuels. One of the promising alternative fuels to gasoline in the internal combustion engine is natural gas [1-5]. The application of natural gas in current internal combustion engines is realistic due to its many benefits. The higher thermal efficiency due to the higher octane value and lower exhaust emissions including CO2 as a result of the lower carbon to hydrogen ratio of the fuel are the two important feature of using CNG as an alternative fuel. It is well known that computer simulation codes are valuable economically as a cost... 

Gaining insight into possible vibratory responses of dynamical systems around their stable equilibria is an essential step, which must be taken before their design and application. The results of such a study can significantly help prevent instability in closed-loop stabilized systems by avoiding the excitation of the system in the neighborhood of its resonance. This paper investigates nonlinear oscillations of a rotary inverted pendulum (RIP) with a full-state feedback controller. Lagrange’s equations are employed to derive an accurate 2-DoF mathematical model, whose parameter values are extracted by both the measurement and 3D modeling of the real system components. Although the governing... 

A suction-controlled ring device has been developed to continuously measure the coefficient of lateral soil pressure in deformable unsaturated soil samples from the at-rest to the active condition under application of increasing vertical pressure and controlled matric suction. The device incorporates a thin aluminum specimen ring equipped with horizontal strain gages for recording the lateral soil strains. In addition, a sensor recording water volume changes is utilized to continuously monitor the degree of saturation of the soil sample during tests. The matric suction within the soil texture is controlled using the axis translation technique. In order to verify the performance of the ring... 

We introduce a new smooth, non-toxic, biocompatible method for cross-linking of gum tragacanth (GT), a polysaccharide of natural origin, in order to serve as a new supporting matrix for immobilization systems. The modified gum is used as a matrix for the catalysis of the conversion of benzyl penicillin to 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA) by means of Escherichia coli ATCC11105 with penicillin G acylase (PGA) activity. The results show that GT beads can not only serve as a proper matrix for immobilization, but show enhanced hydrolysis rate and stability compared to other immobilization systems used for this reaction. This signifies the potential of GT as a biocompatible matrix for... 

The Class-E power amplifier has been widely studied and formulated in the literature. Although the majority of reported inductive coupling wireless power transfer (WPT) systems use a class-E power amplifier for driving the primary coil, still there is a lack of a comprehensive study on class-E circuit dedicated to WPT, providing a set of closed form design equations for proper class-E operation. This paper presents the required design equations needed to design a 'true' class-E circuit for WPT applications. Equations for the series-tuned secondary coil WPT system are presented, as well as two different design procedures for the parallel-tuned secondary coil. The derived equations have been... 

Pole Side Impact Tes is one out of three crash tests described by Euro NCAP standard for star rating of a vehicle and is required for assessing the Adult Occupant Protection. In this paper the goal is to determine the crashworthiness of side doors and B pillar in a Pole Side Impact Test based on Euro New Car Assessment Program (Euro-NCAP) using computer and simulation method. In this matter, a vehicle model has been prepared and meshed using Hypermesh and CATIA. The velocity of 29 km/h has been assigned to the vehicle which was on top of a cart while the pole has been assigned as a rigid static object based on Euro NCAP requirements specifically. Results show that different amounts of energy... 

To assess a car under the Euro New Car Assessment Program (Euro-NCAP), Adult Occupant Protection is one out of three parameters which need to be calculated with a weight factor of 50% while the other parameters, Child Occupant Protection and Pedestrian Occupant Protection, have a weight factor of 20%. The Pole Side Impact Test, beside two other tests, Side and Front Impact, is also required to calculate the Adult Occupant Protection. It shows how important the Pole Side Impact Test is and what an effective role it has in the car rating assessment. In this paper, the objective is to evaluate the effect of thickness on the energy absorbed by the side doors and the B pillar and its... 

In Euro NCAP standard, adult protection is one of the most important rating scores with 50% weight factor while child protection and pedestrian protection are accounted into consideration with 20% weight factor. For adult protection testing, three tests are required to perform: (1) side impact, (2) pole impact, (3) front impact. In the side impact test, dummy's head, chest, shoulder, thorax, ribs, abdomen, pelvic and femur must be studied to evaluate the rating score. Crashworthiness of a car during side impact can describe the score rated for that car. In this paper the goal is to determine the crashworthiness of side doors and B-pillar in side impact crash est by simulation using LS DYNA... 

In side impact test which is one out of three tests of Euro NCAP standard, front and rear doors and B pillar are most absorbance parts among vehicle body parts. Passengers are highly in danger while side crash, because of the distance between passenger's head and vehicle body. In this paper effect of material and thickness of doors and B-pillar and their absorbed energy during crash and improvement of its crashworthiness with respect to light weight design are studied using LS DYNA solver. The objective of this paper is to propose a material for doors and B-pillar with a specified thickness to achieve maximum absorbed energy and minimum weight. The shape of the doors and B-pillar remains... 

In this study, the influence of CO2 and CH4 on the performance and selectivity of Co-Ru/Al2O3 catalyst is investigated by injection of these gases (0-20 vol.% of feed) to the feed stream. The effect of temperature and feed flow rate are also inspected. The results show that low amounts of CO2 in the feed stream do not change the catalyst activity, but increasing the amount of CO2 (more than 10 vol.%), causes the CO conversion to decrease and the selectivity of heavy components to increase. Methane acts as an inert gas and does not affect the catalyst performance. Increasing feed flow rate has a negative effect on both CO conversion and heavy component selectivity. By raising the temperature,...