Sharif Digital Repository

Purpose: Healthcare failure mode and effect analysis (HFMEA) identifies potential risks and defines preventive actions to reduce the effects of risks. In addition, a discrete event simulation (DES) could evaluate the effects of every improvement scenario. Consequently, a proposed integrated HFMEA-DES model is presented for quality improvement in a general hospital. Design/methodology/approach: In the proposed model, HFMEA is implemented first. As any risk in the hospital is important and that there are many departments and different related risks, all defined risk factors are evaluated using the risk priority number (RPN) for which related corrective actions are defined based on experts'... 

Purpose: Healthcare failure mode and effect analysis (HFMEA) identifies potential risks and defines preventive actions to reduce the effects of risks. In addition, a discrete event simulation (DES) could evaluate the effects of every improvement scenario. Consequently, a proposed integrated HFMEA-DES model is presented for quality improvement in a general hospital. Design/methodology/approach: In the proposed model, HFMEA is implemented first. As any risk in the hospital is important and that there are many departments and different related risks, all defined risk factors are evaluated using the risk priority number (RPN) for which related corrective actions are defined based on experts'... 

Background and objective: In this study, the effect of the second excitation frequency mode under different conditions on the fluid streaming and its microparticles displacement is investigated. Methods: For this purpose, some variable parameters such as the particle diameter, microchannel aspect ratio, and applied frequency modes have been selected to study. The resulted acoustic streaming was scrutinized to understand the physics of the problem under different geometrical and input conditions. Finally, the effect of the increasing the microparticle size and aspect ratio of the microchannel, simultaneously, has been evaluated. Results: The results demonstrated that increasing the... 

System health management based on condition monitoring is of great value and significance for improving system performance and reliability. As more data from condition monitoring is obtained, the efficiency of system health monitoring improves. However, increasing the amount of data by installing new sensors on system components is restricted by a variety of factors such as budget, weight and space allowance. Therefore, sensor selection in the most optimal manner in order to achieve maximum valuable information from system is an important issue. In this study, a novel concept is introduced that can be used in sensor combination optimization problems. This concept employs failure modes and... 

The Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) method has been used to study the reliability of many different power generation systems. This paper now applies that method to a wind turbine (WT) system using a proprietary software reliability analysis tool. Comparison is made between the quantitative results of an FMEA and reliability field data from real wind turbine systems and their assemblies. These results are discussed to establish relationships which are useful for future wind turbine designs. The main system studied is an existing design 2 MW wind turbine with a Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG), which is then compared with a hypothetical wind turbine system using the Brushless... 

One of the major problems with projects is that they are not completed according to schedule. Uncertainty always exists at the heart of real-world project scheduling problems. This paper introduces a fuzzy project buffer management (FPBM) algorithm which is a combination of the adaptive procedure with resource tightness (APRT) and fuzzy failure mode and effects analysis (FFMEA) methods. This paper aims to present an efficient model for project buffer sizing by taking FFMEA into account to reach a more realistic schedule. In this research, for increasing the efficiency of the APRT method, the FFMEA technique is simultaneously applied with them. This research was carried out as a case study in... 

Of particular interest to restrict the short-circuit level of interconnected power systems is to exploit fault current limiter (FCL) technologies. FCLs let the system planners devise new reliable and rather economical substation configurations and provide the possibility of proposing a promising cost-effective and prompt solution to the fault current over duty problem in the existing substations. This paper attempts to assess reliability of substation architectures accommodating the FCL operation and, besides, numerically investigates the FCL's impacts on the substation reliability indices. In order to clarify the proposed approach, two case studies with and without FCL are analyzed and... 

Fault monitoring in internal-combustion engines is crucial for keeping the vehicle performance within the acceptable standards of emission levels and drivers' demands. This paper analyses how a vehicle's performance and engine variables are affected by a leakage fault in the exhaust manifold. The threshold leakage that causes the vehicle to exceed the emission standards is determined for a class M1 vehicle tested on a chassis dynamometer over the New European Driving Cycle. It is shown that, when a leakage of 6 mm diameter on the exhaust manifold is introduced, the vehicle emissions exceed those specified in the European 2013 on-board diagnostics standard. In addition, the effects of the... 

Background: An effective master robot for haptic tele-surgery applications needs to provide a solution for the inversed movements of the surgical tool, in addition to sufficient workspace and manipulability, with minimal moving inertia. Method: A novel 4+1-DOF mechanism was proposed, based on a triple parallelogram linkage, which provided a Remote Center of Motion (RCM) at the back of the user's hand. The kinematics of the robot was analyzed and a prototype was fabricated and evaluated by experimental tests. Results: With a RCM at the back of the user's hand the actuators far from the end effector, the robot could produce the sensation of hand-inside surgery with minimal moving inertia. The... 

Of particular interest to restrict the short-circuit level of interconnected power systems is to exploit fault current limiter (FCL) technologies. FCLs let the system planners devise new reliable and rather economical substation configurations and provide the possibility of proposing a promising cost-effective and prompt solution to the fault current over duty problem in the existing substations. This paper attempts to assess reliability of substation architectures accommodating the FCL operation and, besides, numerically investigates the FCL's impacts on the substation reliability indices. In order to clarify the proposed approach, two case studies with and without FCL are analyzed and... 

Porous shape memory alloys (SMAs) exhibit the interesting characteristics of porous metals together with shape memory effect and pseudo-elasticity of SMAs that make them appropriate for biomedical applications. In this paper, a 3-D phenomenological constitutive model for the pseudo-elastic behavior and shape memory effect of porous SMAs is developed within the framework of irreversible thermodynamics. Comparing to micromechanical and computational models, the proposed model is computationally cost effective and predicts the behavior of porous SMAs under proportional and non-proportional multiaxial loadings. Considering the pressure dependency of phase transformation in porous SMAs, proper... 

Concrete is widely used for many practices in Civil Engineering. Therefore, an understanding of its behavior helps engineers and researchers to perform more accurate and cost-effective analyses and designs. In this respect, several models have been proposed to predict the behaviors of concrete most of which are satisfactorily accurate. However, by increasing the accuracy of the models, their computational cost increases, too. In this study, a model with the least computational cost is proposed to predict the behaviors of various concretes and confinement conditions. This model does not require any experimental tests to determine its parameters. It was proved to be able to predict the... 

The present study compared different approaches to assessing the environmental cost-effectiveness of energy policy scenarios. As a case study, the megacity of Tehran in Iran was studied. A key policy challenge in this city is to curb high concentrations of PM2.5 and mitigate the associated adverse impacts. The results demonstrated that in the business as usual case, the spatially averaged primary and secondary PM2.5 concentration in Tehran will increase by 30% in the 2010–2030 period. Adopting certain planned policy scenarios and the corresponding pollutant concentration reductions in Tehran shows that although most of the emission comes from industrial activities around the city, the... 

This paper presents actual cases of steady reactive power oscillation of distributed generations (DGs) during parallel operation with the main grid. The cause of the problem was found to be the adverse effects of excitation system voltage regulation. It is shown, through preliminary investigation and detailed simulation studies, that how the excitation control system can be modified to overcome this problem. On-site test results verify the analysis results and effectiveness of the remedial actions. Finally, general practical recommendations are offered for excitation control of synchronous generator-based DG, such that it performs properly, both in grid connected and in islanding conditions