Sharif Digital Repository

For the first time, the simultaneous effects of sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB), soil type and moisture content on corrosion behavior of a pipeline steel were investigated. Corrosion weight loss measurements were performed in abiotic control and SRB-active conditions, at three different moisture contents, and in two types of soils. Results showed that the presence of SRB in the soils, although increased the corrosion rate and aggravated pitting corrosion at low moisture contents, had a protective effect at high moisture contents. The corrosion rates showed a maximum at the saturation moisture content (SMC) of the soils. Soil physicochemical analyses showed that the corrosion rate and soil... 

The soil water retention curve (SWRC) or soil–water characteristic curve (SWCC) is a fundamental feature of unsaturated soil that simply shows the relationship between soil suction and water content (in terms of the degree of saturation and volumetric or gravimetric water content). In this study, the applications of the SWRC or SWCC have been extensively reviewed, taking about 403 previously published research studies into consideration. This was achieved on the basis of classification-based problems and application-based problems, which solve the widest array of geotechnical engineering problems relevant to and correlating with SWRC geo-structural behavior. At the end of the exercises, the... 

In this study, the behavior of gavoshan dam was evaluated during construction and the first impounding. A two-dimensional (2D) numerical analysis was conducted based on a finite difference method on the largest cross-section of the dam using the results of instrument measurements and back analysis. These evaluations will be completed in the case that back analysis is carried out in order to control the degree of the accuracy and the level of confidence of the measured behavior since each of the measurements could be controlled by comparing it to the result obtained from the numerical model. Following that, by comparing the results of the numerical analysis with the measured values, it is... 

An experimental study is conducted to measure small-strain shear modulus of clay-cement mixture using bender element apparatus setup in a triaxial cell. Bender element tests were conducted on cement-treated soils and the results were analyzed to study the variation of shear modulus properties of soil specimens at different cement contents, confining pressures, curing times, and compaction moisture contents. Based on the obtained results increasing the cement ratio has a significant effect on the small-strain shear modulus of the treated soils, and this effect signifies with increasing the moisture content and curing time. Rates of shear modulus enhancements due to cement content, curing... 

During drying processes, moisture control of food products, such as dried tea, is of great importance. Improving dryer control, results in consistent production and reduction of energy consumption. However, the dryer is a complex system associated with model uncertainties. In this paper, a realistic uncertain model of a fluidized tea bed dryer is considered. Moisture content and temperature of tea leaves (or other products) are controlled at desired values by manipulating tea leaves heating rate. Developing a code by Robust Control Toolbox of MATLAB and modeling uncertainties, a robust controller is designed based on ′-synthesis with DK-iteration algorithm. Results show that in the presence... 

Production yield of solid-state (SSF) and submerged fermentation (SMF) on chitosan from Aspergillus niger was investigated. A. niger BBRC 20004 was grown on soybean residue and Sabouraud Dextrose Broth medium (2% glucose). Chitosan was extracted from the fungal mycelia using hot alkaline and acid treatment. Soybean residue at a moisture content of 37%, and 8-4 ± 0.26% of nitrogen content produced the highest amount of chitosan, 17.053 ± 0.95 g/kg dry substrate after 12 days. Also, chitosan was extracted from A. niger on Sabouraud Dextrose Broth medium in submerged fermentation (0.8455 g/l after 12 days of cultivation). The yield of chitosan isolated in SSF was about 15-20 times more than in... 

The effect of Solid State Fermentation (SSF) on Chitosan production by A. niger was investigated. A. niger BBRC 20004 from Biochemical and Bioenvironmental Research Centre of Sharif University of Technology (Tehran, Iran), was grown on corn residue. Chitosan was extracted from the fungal mycelia using hot alkaline and acid treatment. A. niger was incubated for 12 days on corn residue with moisture content of 35 % and 1.12 % of nitrogen. The Chitosan was obtained and 10.9 g/kg of Urea dry residue was added in various amounts to the medium in order to evaluate the effect of the nitrogen concentration in the production of Chitosan. The highest amount of Chitosan obtained by 6.5 g of urea after... 

The effect of moisture on Shengli lignite breakage behavior and energy efficiency was studied experimentally using a standard Hardgrove mill fitted with a wattmeter. The grinding process concerned both the inputs, namely the occurrence and content of water and instantaneous energy consumption and the outputs, size-reduction and product fineness. Results show that the energy-size reduction process for grinding lignite is markedly influenced by moisture occurrence and content. Removing surface moisture from 37.90% to 16.61% (the air-dried condition) resulted in a slight increase of input energy by 0.04 kWh.t−1 per 10 s. However, with further drying inherent moisture to 0%, the consumed energy... 

Recycling of wastepaper is an effective way to achieve the sustainable paper manufacturing regarding sustainable development goals. Focusing on the mixed wastepaper sorting, recovery of suitable papers for deinking purpose and minimizing the impurities were developed in this study. In a wastepaper sorting process, each equipment has its own role in increasing recycling performance. In this study, disc screen was applied and evaluated for sorting of the mixed wastepaper considering independent variables such as inclination, velocity and moisture content. Response surface method was applied for design of the experiments. Sorting efficiency of 100% was achieved in two conditions: 1–20%... 

In this research, organic solvent composed of hexane and methanol was used for lipid extraction from dry and wet biomass of Chlorella vulgaris. The results indicated that lipid and fatty acid extraction yield was decreased by increasing the moisture content of biomass. However, the maximum extraction efficiency was attained by applying equivolume mixture of hexane and methanol for both dry and wet biomass. Thermodynamic modeling was employed to estimate the effect of hexane/methanol ratio and moisture content on fatty acid extraction yield. Hansen solubility parameter was used in adjusting the interaction parameters of the model, which led to decrease the number of tuning parameters from 6... 

Nowadays, the growth of energy consumption in buildings is an important topic. Rammed earth (RE) structures have attracted the attention of engineers and contractors in recent years due to their advantages such as sustainability, availability and low embodied energy content. These advantages result in less energy consumption in the life cycle of the RE structures. However, there is a lack of research on the mixture composition of RE materials containing admixtures. This research introduced integrated analytic network process (ANP) and genetic algorithm (GA) methodology to select the optimum mixture of RE material containing cement, expanded polystyrene(EPS), and phase change materials(PCM)... 

Drying behavior of broad beans (Vicia faba) was studied in a pilot scaled fluidized bed dryer with inert particles assisted by dielectric heating. The effective diffusion coefficient of moisture transfer was determined by Fickian method at four different air drying temperatures of 35, 45, 55 and 65 °C. Correlations for moisture diffusivity as a function of moisture content and temperature of the drying medium were developed. The values of moisture diffusivity were obtained within the range of 1.27 × 10-9-6.48 × 10-9 m2/s and the activation energies for FBD and FBD + DE were found to be 27.71 and 17.10 kJ/mol, respectively. The shrinkage behavior of the broad beans was also investigated by... 

Wet cooling towers are one of the most water-intensive technologies, which are widely used in air conditioning applications, especially in dry regions. Considering the current water crisis around the world, it is essential to improve the design of these cooling towers to reduce their water consumption, while maintaining their cooling performance. Makeup water of cooling tower is usually a constant-temperature water which is cold enough to condensate the moisture content of the cooling tower exhaust air. Therefore, it has great potential to recycle water evaporation of cooling towers, which is not considered so far. This paper investigates a novel design for cooling towers utilising the... 

The drying of saffron stigma was investigated in a laboratory infrared dryer. The effect of temperature on the drying rate of samples at various temperatures (60,70...110 °C) was studied. The drying time decreased with an increase in drying air temperature. The constant-rate period is absent from the drying curve. The drying of saffron occurred in the falling rate period. Four, thin-layer drying models, namely, Lewis, Handerson and Pabis, Page, and Midilli and Kucuk, were fitted to drying data. The performance of these models was investigated by comparing the determination of coefficient ( R2) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) between the observed and predicted moisture ratios. Among these... 

In this paper, the effects of both pozzolans and (steel and poly-propylene) fibers on the mechanical properties of roller compacted concrete are studied. Specimens for the experiments were made using a soil-based approach; thus, the Kango's vibration hammer was used for compaction. The tests in the first stage were carried out to determine the optimal moisture requirements for mix designs using cubic 150 × 150 × 150 mm specimens. In the tests of the second stage, the mechanical behaviors of the main specimens made using the optimal moisture obtained in the previous stage were evaluated using 28, 90, and 210 day cubic specimens. The mechanical properties of RCC pavements were evaluated using... 

In this research, direct conversion of wet algal biomass into biodiesel using supercritical methanol was studied. In this process, microalgal lipids simultaneously was extracted and converted to biodiesel under high pressure and temperature conditions without using any catalyst. Several experiments have been performed to optimize the methanol amount and it has been revealed that the best performance was achieved by using methanol/wet biomass ratio of 8:1. The effect of using various co-solvents in increasing the efficiency of the supercritical process was investigated. It has been shown that hexane was the most effective co-solvent and its optimal ratio respect to wet biomass was 6:1. The... 

As a non-invasive method, photographic imaging techniques offer some interesting potentials for characterization of soil moisture content in unsaturated porous media, enabling mapping at very fine resolutions in both space and time. Although less explored, the wealth of soil moisture data provided by photographic imaging is also appealing for the estimation of unsaturated soil hydraulic parameters through inverse modeling. However, imaging data have some unique characteristics, including high susceptibility to noise, which can negatively affect the parameter estimation process. In this study a sequential data assimilation approach is developed to simultaneously update soil moisture content... 

Radon is released from soil and building materials and can accumulate in residential buildings. Breathing radon and radon progeny for extended periods hazardous to health and can lead to lung cancer. Indoor air conditions and ventilation systems strongly influence indoor radon concentrations. This paper focuses on effects of air change rate, indoor temperature and relative humidity on indoor radon concentrations in a one family detached house in Stockholm, Sweden.In this study a heat recovery ventilation system unit was used to control the ventilation rate and a continuous radon monitor (CRM) was used to measure radon levels. FLUENT, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package was...