Sharif Digital Repository

The specific fracture energy of dam concrete is a basic material characteristic needed for the prediction of concrete dam behavior. Data on fracture properties of dam concrete are quite limited to date. A series of tests was carried out based on the size effect due to a number of geometrically similar notched specimens of various sizes. Experimental tests include three-point bending tests. The specimens were of square cross section with a span to depth ratio of 2/5. Three different specimens with depth of 200, 400 and 800 mm were considered for the purpose of testing. Concrete mixtures are provided from the Caroon 3 dam project site using river gravel or commonly crushed stones from... 

Fiber core size determination from power transmission modulation for different fibers is reported.Three different fibers are tested and power variations of lateral displacement of the second fiber are obtained (lamp, red LED). From the averaged bandwidths of the response curves the core diameter of each fiber is determined. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:1225-1229, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.25967 Copyright  

Liquefaction of loose and saturated soils during earthquakes and strong ground motions has been a major cause of damage to buildings and earth embankments as well as other civil engineering structures. In order to evaluate the liquefaction potential and steady state characteristics of gravely sand of south west Tehran, a subsoil exploration program conducted dividing the region into 10 zones. In each zone of 500 m × 500 m a borehole of 20 m deep was drilled. SPT was performed at one meter intervals in each borehole and a total of 200 samples were recovered. Soils of similar grain size distribution have been considered to have similar steady state characteristics,therefore consolidated... 

This paper presents the effect of volume of coarse aggregate on fracture characteristics of self- compacting concrete (SCC). Based on an experimental programme, a series of three point bending tests were carried out on 58 notched beams. SCC was prepared with coarse aggregate in varying percentages of 30%, 40%, 50% and 60% (as the percentage of the total aggregate volume). For all mixes, the fracture parameters were analyzed by the work-of- fracture method (WFM) and by the size effect method (SEM) to obtain a suitable correlation between these methods which is used to calibrate fracture numerical models. The results showed that with decrease of volume of coarse aggregate from 60% to 30% in... 

In this paper, the nonlinear forced-vibration of Euler-Bernoulli beams with large deflections is investigated based on the modified couple stress theory, a non-classical theory capable of capturing size effects. The classical theory is unable to predict the size effects. In systems with the dimensions in order of microns and sub-microns the size effects are very significant. For some specific beams subjected to a concentrated force at its middle as the harmonic exciter, the size-dependent responses are investigated for primary, super-harmonic and sub-harmonic resonances. The results show that the frequency-responses of the system are highly size-dependent  

Coke deposition mechanism on a commercial Pt-Re/γ-Al 2O3 naphtha reforming catalyst was studied. A used catalyst that was in industrial reforming operation for 28 months, as well as the fresh catalyst of the unit were characterized using XRD, XRF, and nitrogen adsorption/desorption analyses. Carbon and sulfur contents of the fresh and the used catalysts were determined using Leco combustion analyzer. The pore size distributions (PSD) of the fresh and the used reforming catalysts were determined using BJH and Comparison Plot methods. The Comparison Plot method produced the most reasonable PSDs for the catalysts. Through comparison of the PSDs of the fresh and the used catalysts, it was... 

In the present study, free vibrations of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) on an elastic foundation is investigated by nonlocal theory of elasticity with both beam and shell models. The nonlocal boundary conditions are derived explicitly and effectiveness of nonlocal parameter appearing in nonlocal boundary conditions is studied. Also it is demonstrated that the beam model is comparatively incapable of capturing size effects while shell model captures size effects more precisely. Moreover, the effects of some parameters such as mechanical properties, foundation stiffness, length and radius ratios on the natural frequencies are studied and some conclusions are drawn  

Nowadays, by adding a small amount (about 0.5–5% by weight) of a desired nanomaterial to a matrix having certain properties one may design a multifunctional nanocomposites with a remarkably improved macroscopic properties of interest. The capability of conventional continuum theories in treating the problems of embedded ultra-small inhomogeneity with any of its dimensions comparable to the characteristic lengths of the involved constituent phases is questioned, mainly, on the grounds of the accuracy and the size effect. The micromechanical framework based on the Eshelby's ellipsoidal inclusion theory [1] which has been widely used to estimate the overall behavior of composites falls under... 

Due to inadequacy of the classical continuum theories at the nano-scale when dealing with defects, stress concentrators, and relevant deformation phenomena in solids, a refined approach that can capture the discrete atomic features of solids is essential. The inability to detect the size effect, giving unrealistically high values for some components of the stress field right on the edge of the stress concentrators, and infirmity to address the complex interaction between small inhomogeneities, cracks and as such when they are only a few nanometers apart, are among some of the drawbacks of the classical approach. An atomistic study which employs atomic finite element method in conjunction... 

The compressive strength of mass concrete in dams is obtained from laboratory experiments of various cylindrical specimens with diameters of 150, 250, and 300 mm, and heights of 300, 500, and 450 mm, respectively. These specimens with 37.5, 75, and 150 mm maximum size of aggregate were investigated. The 7- and 90-day compressive strength of concrete was found to be between 20 and 58 MPa depending on the size of the specimens. The results reveal the existence of a significant size effect. Based on test results, relationships between the strength of mass concrete specimens and their size and shape are developed. Finally, results and a discussion are presented regarding compressive strength... 

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... 

This study describes spectrometric monitored kinetic processes to determine the size of citrate-capped Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) based on aggregation induced by L-cysteine (L-Cys) as a molecular linker. The Au NPs association process is thoroughly dependent on pH, concentration and size of nanoparticles. Size dependency of aggregation inspirits to determine the average diameters of Au NPs. For this aim the procedure is achieved in aqueous medium at pH 7 (phosphate buffer), and multivariate data including kinetic spectra of Au NPs are collected during aggregation process. Subsequently partial least squares (PLS) modeling is carried out analyzing the obtained data. The model is built on the... 

Ising models in nanosystems are studied in the presence of a magnetic field. For a one-dimensional (1-D) array of spins interacting via nearest-neighbour and next-nearest-neighbour interactions we calculate the heat capacity, the surface energy, the finite-size free energy and the bulk free energy per site. The heat capacity versus temperature exhibits a common wide peak for systems of any size. A small peak also appears at lower temperatures for small arrays when the ratio of magnetic field spin interaction energy over the nearest-neighbour spin-spin interaction energy, f, is within 0 < F ≤ 0.10 . The peak becomes smaller for longer array and eventually vanishes for long arrays,... 

The usual continuum theories are inadequate in predicting the mechanical behavior of solids in the presence of small defects and stress concentrators; it is well known that such continuum methods are unable to detect the change of the size of the inhomogeneities and defects. For these reasons various augmented continuum theories and strain gradient theories have been proposed in the literature. The major difficulty in implication of these theories lies in the lack of information about the additional material constants which appear in such theories. For fcc metals, for the calculation of the associated characteristic lengths which arise in first strain gradient theory, an atomistic approach... 

In this study, a dislocation-based model is presented for investigating the evolution of micro structure and mechanical properties of thin films during a wide range of straining. The model is applied to the High Pressure Torsion (HPT) process of thin nickel disks that provides valuable information on the evolution of material parameters during deformation. The model considers a free surface theory for thin films and can explain the size effect phenomenon in agreement with previous reported trends in literature  

The Cauchy-Born hypothesis (CB) provides a hierarchical approach in the molecular theory of crystal elasticity to relate the continuum and atomic deformations. This kinematic theory has been extensively used as the constitutive law of continuum regions in multi-scale models. In these models, the fine scale is proposed to describe the real behavior of crystalline structure wherever the continuum description fails. The main objective of this article is to investigate the stability and size-dependency of CB hypothesis in three-dimensional applications by direct comparison of information between atomistic and continuous description of a medium. The Sutton-Chen many-body potential is used for the... 

A viscoelastic microcantilever beam is analytically analyzed based on the modified strain gradient theory. Kelvin-Voigt scheme is used to model beam viscoelasticity. By applying Euler-Bernoulli inextensibility of the centerline condition based on Hamilton's principle, the nonlinear equation of motion and the related boundary conditions are derived from shortening effect theory and discretized by Galerkin method. Inner damping, nonlinear curvature effect, and nonlinear inertia terms are also taken into account. In the present study, the generalized derived formulation allows modeling any nonlinear combination such as nonlinear terms that arise due to inertia, damping, and stiffness, as well...