Sharif Digital Repository

In the present study, two-phase refrigerant flow is simulated using drift flux model for straight and helical capillary tubes. The conservation equations of mass, energy and momentum are solved using the 4th order Runge-Kutta method. This model is validated by previously published experimental and numerical results and also by experimental results presented in this work. The effect of various parameters such as inlet pressure, inlet temperature, sub-cooling degree, and geometric dimensions are studied. The results of the present study show that for the same length and under similar conditions, mass flux through helical capillary tube with coil diameter of 40 mm are about 11% less than that... 

Free surface vortex and air entrainment are not favorable experiences in hydropower and pumping projects. While complete omission of vortex and air entrainment is not always cost effective, partially weakened free-surface vortex flow is more economical and practical. Hence, in this study, a comprehensive set of experiments were conducted to partially reduce vortex strength and air entrainment at vertical pipe intakes, using rectangular anti-vortex plates. This phenomenon results in increasing water discharge compared with a corresponding free-surface vortex for the same water depth, i.e. in cases of shaft spillway. The plates were used as singles and in pairs and placed symmetrically and... 

The study of water hammer in air-water, two-phase flows in hydraulic structures such as pressurized pipelines and tunnels, siphons, culverts, and junctions is of great importance for design purposes. Water hammer if combined with a periodic slug flow would lead to severe periodic transient pressure fluctuations inside the conduit. Laboratory experiments have been conducted to investigate waterhammer pressure inside a horizontal rectangular conduit carrying a two-phase, air-water slug flow. Tests were performed in an experimental apparatus comprising a 6.8-m-long transparent pipeline 0.06 m wide and 0.1 m high. By rapidly closing a control gate at the end of the conduit, propagating pressure... 

A comprehensive set of experiments was performed on weirs placed obliquely in a rectangular open channel. The main objectives were to investigate the effect of the weir angle relative to the approach flow direction on the behaviour and the hydraulic flow characteristics and to examine methods such as using upstream guide vanes and inclined aprons to increase the effective oblique weir length. Results indicate that by increasing the oblique angle, the effective length of the oblique weir increases significantly. Relationships are provided for the threshold submergence and the effective length of the oblique weir. Design recommendations are also presented for the use of guide vanes and... 

Viscosity of mixed oil is an important parameter which is required in transportation and production processes of mixed crude oils. There is no universal and general model for prediction of viscosity of mixed oils at different conditions. Hence, developing simple, accurate and general models for prediction of mixed oil viscosity is of great importance. In this work three computer based models named MLP-NN, PSO-RBF and Hybrid-ANFIS were developed for prediction of viscosity of mixed oils. A number of 513 experimental data covering wide ranges of influencing parameters were utilized to develop the models. The accuracy of predictions of the developed models was examined by using different... 

Thermo-mechanical responses, developed microstructure, and mechanical properties in friction stir welding (FSW) of artificially aged AA2017 plates were investigated. A finite element analysis was first employed to evaluate hot deformation behavior of the alloy during welding. Also, hardness, yield strength, and microstructure of the welded alloy were examined using the results of the model and experimental testing. It was found that strain and temperature fields during welding are asymmetrically distributed and the maximum temperature locates in advancing side. Furthermore, considerable grain refinement is observed in the stir zone where recrystallized grains in the range of 3 to 8 m are... 

Oil production from asphaltenic oil reservoirs has always encountered difficulties, such as plugging and unpredictable fluid properties. To physically recognize the aspects of asphaltene deposition, several dynamic and static asphaltene deposition tests were designed and performed on one of the giant south Iranian oil reservoirs using dead and live crude oil and real core samples. Moreover, the effects of fluid velocity on the extent of damage were investigated. It was found that surface deposition of asphaltene particles is the main source of formation damages in the porous media and the resulting permeability impairment obeys an exponential behavior. All of the experiments confirm that... 

In this article, the digital image analysis (DIA) technique has been used to study the bubble size and bubble size distribution evolution in a pseudo-two-dimensional gas-solid fluidized bed. In addition, a numerical discrete bubble model (DBM) based on the bubble-bubble interactions was developed and the model predictions were compared with the experimental data. The developed model can predict the bubble size and bubble size distribution through the bed height and the lateral distribution of bubbles. Comparison between model predictions and the result of DIA measurements shows that bubble breakage has a significant effect on the bubble size distribution especially at heights far from the... 

Calculating leakage inductances between windings of multi-winding Traction transformers is one of the most important schemes in design procedure. In this paper, analytical and finite element methods (FEM) have been introduced for electromagnetic modeling of traction transformers with four pancake split windings. Using these models, the leakage inductances between the split windings are calculated and the models have been validated with the help of experimental data gathered from a typical 4000kVA cast-resin dry-type transformer. Some reformations are employed to improve the FEM results and effects of these reformations on accuracy of the model are studied. Employing the validated models, the... 

In this work, the modified Flory-Huggins coupled with the free-volume concept and the artificial neural network models were used to obtain the osmotic pressure of aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) solutions. In the artificial neural network, the osmotic pressure of aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) solutions depends on temperature, molecular weight and the mole fractions of poly(ethylene glycol) in aqueous solution. The network topology is optimized and the (3-1-1) architecture is found using optimization of an objective function with batch back propagation (BBP) method for 134 experimental data points. The results obtained from the neural network in obtaining of the osmotic pressure of aqueous... 

In this paper, we exploit a fuzzy controller on a flexible bevel-tip needle to manipulate the needle's base in order to steer its tip in a preset obstacle-free and target-tracking path. Although the needle tends to follow a curvature path, spinning the needle with an extremely high rotational velocity makes it symmetric with respect to the tissue to follow a straight path. The fuzzy controller determines an appropriate spinning to generate the planned trajectory and, the closed-loop system tries to match the needle body with that trajectory. The swine's brain tissue model, extracted from an in-vitro experimental setup, is a non-homogenous, uncertain and fast-updatable network to model real... 

Laser ablation of titanium target in distilled water for synthesis of colloidal nanoparticles is studied both experimentally and theoretically. The effects of laser parameters such as wavelength, pulse energy, fluence and shot numbers on the ablation rate and size properties of colloidal nanoparticles are investigated. The experimental approach addresses the interesting issue for finding the optimal main experimental parameters of laser ablation. The theoretical thermal model of nanosecond pulsed laser ablation is developed to visualize the evolution of temperature distributions and ablation depth. The simulation result of ablation depth has been compared with the experimental result... 

Shot peening is the most common surface treatment employed to enhance the fatigue performance of structural metallic materials and often carried out after other surface treatments. This paper mainly focuses on the effects of initial conditions of surface such as initial stress filed and hardness profile on shot peening residual stress field. The residual stress distribution induced by shot peening is obtained using Hertzian contact theory and elastic–plastic evaluation after yielding occurred during impingement and rebound of shots. Elastic plastic calculations are performed using different hardening models considering Bauschinger effect. The present model is able to predict redistribution... 

Using a mechanical model and dislocation density based model, the evolutions of dislocation density and flow stress of pure copper during constrained groove pressing (CGP) process are investigated. In this regard, the strain and strain rate are achieved from the mechanical model and then input into the dislocation model. To verify the predicted flow stress, the process of constrained groove pressing is performed on the sheets of pure copper from one to three passes. The predicted flow stresses are compared with the experimental data and a good agreement is observed. Also, it is found that during the straining of the copper sheet in CGP process, the dislocation density and strength dropping... 

Plasma actuator is a flow control device to improve the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine blades at low airspeeds. One of the most robust numerical models for simulation of plasma actuator interaction with the fluid flow is the electrostatic model. This model is improved recently and is extensively verified by the authors. Due to the high cost of performing experimental optimizations, the optimized geometrical dimensions and materials of a plasma actuator may be sought by this numerical model. The aim of the present study is the aerodynamic enhancement of a DU21 wind turbine blade airfoil in which the effect of geometric parameters and the dielectric material is examined separately.... 

In this research, mathematical modelling of an anaerobic hybrid bioreactor for effluent treatment of a Poly-Ethylene Terephthalate (PET) unit in a petrochemical complex was performed. The developed model included a combination of a biofilm model for describing the substrate kinetics; a fluidized bed model for determination of species profiles along the reactor length and a bioreactor model for particle distribution inside the reactor. The reactions performed in the bioreactor included; i) the polymers hydrolysis; ii) fermentation of the resulting monomers; iii) the volatile fatty acids fermentation to Acetate and Hydrogen and iv) the Methane formation as the final product. The reactor was... 

Gravity drainage is the main production mechanism in the gas invaded zone in naturally fractured reservoirs. However, there are large ambiguities and complexities, resulting from the dynamic of oil depletion from matrix blocks toward the fracture network. Visualization of drained oil at pore scale using glass micromodels provides the opportunity to better understand the effects of different parameters which might affect oil recovery from fractured reservoirs. In this work a micromodel apparatus generated by laser etching is used to perform some gravity drainage tests on the network patterns. The experiments were performed on double block systems using crude oil. The block to block... 

A chemical kinetic model for i-butane and n-butane catalytic cracking over synthesized HZSM-5 zeolite, with SiO 2/Al 2O 3 = 484, and in a plug flow reactor under various operating conditions, has been developed. To estimate the kinetic parameters of catalytic cracking reactions of i-butane and n-butane, a lump kinetic model consisting of six reaction steps and five lumped components is proposed. This kinetic model is based on mechanistic aspects of catalytic cracking of paraffins into olefins. Furthermore, our model takes into account the effects of both protolytic and bimolecular mechanisms. The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm was used to estimate kinetic parameters. Results from statistical... 

The objective of this work is making comparison between thermodynamic models and data-driven techniques accuracy in prediction of hydrate formation pressure as a function of temperature and composition of gas mixtures. The Peng-Robinson (PR) and Patel-Teja (PT) equations of state are used for thermodynamic modeling and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) are used as data-driven models. The capability of each method is evaluated by comparison with the experimental data collected from literature. It is shown that there is a good agreement between thermodynamic modeling and the experimental data in most of the cases; however, the prediction... 

A discrete bubble model has been developed taking into account multiple bubble-bubble interactions and a delayed coalescence method. The obtained simulation results were compared with experimental data reported in literature. The simulation results predicted by the developed model indicate clearly that the multiple interactions of bubbles lead to more reasonable results than those predicted by a binary interaction model. In addition, two types of interaction models were applied and predicted results were compared. The frequency of gas bubbles passing through the bed cross section versus bed height follows the same trend as the experimental data. A new modified discrete bubble model has been...