Sharif Digital Repository

Design and fabrication of solar collectors with high performance of energy efficiency to convert solar energy to utility energy is vitally important. This article reports the results obtained from design, construction and investigation of the performance of a Combined Multi-Purpose Vacuum Solar Collector (CMPVSC). This collector consists of three sections: the vacuum section, the liquid section and the air section. In the present collector, it is capable of transferring heat to two flows (liquid and air) simultaneously and separate with the possibility of multipurpose applications. The CMPVSC is compared with the existing individual collectors and the effects of different parameters on the... 

In this paper the relation between dissipated energy and pore pressure is studied using 1 g shaking table test results. Toyoura sand is used for the physical models. Both one and two dimensional variable phase loadings are applied to the models. Shear work was calculated using accelerations and displacements and normalized to the mean effective stress. Pore water pressure was also normalized to the vertical effective stress. The results show that the pore pressure has a unique relationship to the shear work no matter whether the shaking is one or two dimensional. The results also show that the generated normalized pore pressure is independent of loading type and confinement. © 2006 Taylor &... 

The present study attempts to use the methanol-silver nanofluid filled heat pipe heat exchanger and compares the effectiveness as well as the energy saving with pure methanol. A heat pipe heat exchanger has been tested in a test rig under steady-state conditions. The lengths of both the evaporator and the condenser sections of the heat exchanger were 700 mm, and its central adiabatic section had a length of 160 mm. The heat exchanger had 36 plate finned copper thermosyphons arranged in three rows. The inlet air temperature across the evaporator section was varied in the range of 33-43 °C while the inlet air temperature to the condenser section was nearly constant to be 13 °C. First, pure... 

In this paper, for obtaining an overall size-dependent yield function for nanocomposites containing aligned cylindrical nanofibers, the effects of interface residual stress and interface elasticity are taken into account within a micromechanical framework. Toward this goal, the modified Hill's condition is used, and then, in order to consider effects of the interface residual stress, strains are decomposed into two parts, a part due to the external loadings and the other due to the interface residual stress. Next, utilizing the field fluctuation method, an overall yield function containing effective elastic constants of the material is derived and then simplified for practical loading... 

Inspired by the effects of a switching surface on the stability of passive dynamic walking (Safa and Naraghi in Robotica 33(01):195–207, 2015; Safa et al. in Nonlinear Dyn. 81(4):2127–2140, 2015), this paper suggests a new control strategy for stabilization of dynamic bipedal locomotion. It verifies that the stability improvement of a dynamic walking system is feasible while preserving the speed, step-length, period, natural dynamics, and the energy effectiveness of the gait. The proposed control policy goes behind the three primary principles: (i) The system’s switching surface has to be replaced by a new one if an external disturbance is induced. (ii) The new switching surface has to be... 

Inspired by the effects of a switching surface on the stability of passive dynamic walking (Safa and Naraghi in Robotica 33(01):195–207, 2015; Safa et al. in Nonlinear Dyn. 81(4):2127–2140, 2015), this paper suggests a new control strategy for stabilization of dynamic bipedal locomotion. It verifies that the stability improvement of a dynamic walking system is feasible while preserving the speed, step-length, period, natural dynamics, and the energy effectiveness of the gait. The proposed control policy goes behind the three primary principles: (i) The system’s switching surface has to be replaced by a new one if an external disturbance is induced. (ii) The new switching surface has to be... 

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively review most of the significant works ever done worldwide to study the effects of essential parameters on pulsed plasma thruster (PPT) performance and to analyze the effects of each parameter on PPT performance. Design/methodology/approach - All the important works studying PPT performance are categorized by the parameter they have studied and its effect on the thruster performance, and their works have been reviewed to analyze the influence of each parameter. Findings - The analysis leads to elucidation of the effects of different geometrical parameters including aspect ratio, electrode width, electrode spacing, electrode shape,... 

Arrays of ZnO nanorods were synthesized on ZnO seed layer/glass substrates by a hydrothermal method at a low temperature of 70 °C. The effect of pH > 7 of the hydrated zinc nitrate-NaOH precursor on the morphology and topography (e.g. size, surface area and roughness), the optical characteristics (e.g. optical transmission and band-gap energy), hydrophilicity and antibacterial activity of the grown ZnO nanostructure and nanorod coatings were investigated. For pH = 11.33 of the precursor (NaOH concentration of 0.10M), a fast growth of ZnO nanorods on the seed layer (length of ∼1 νm in 1.5 h) was observed. The fast growth of the ZnO nanorods resulted in a significant reduction in the optical...