Sharif Digital Repository

The physical nature of bright features in sunspot umbra such as umbral dots (UDs) is not fully understood yet. Here, by accepting magnetic field reduction in the UDs, the Joule heating mechanism in the UDs is investigated. In this investigation, a UD model is assumed which is characterized by a) a reduced (possibly zero) magnetic field strength in the UD column relative to its surroundings, b) the electric current generated by magnetic field gradient at the boundary of the UD column can produce some heat, and c) when the radius of the UD - because of pressure reduction inside the column - becomes zero, the death of the UD will occur. The rate of radius reduction is estimated to be nearly 100... 

Typically, the lack of effective stakeholder participation in a project—especially in the initial planning and implementation stages—has a negative impact on the expected performance of the project. These negative consequences require attempts to encourage their effective participation. Nevertheless, there are some challenges ahead, such as conflict of interest among the stakeholders. For more accurate identification of the interests, objectives, and performance of the stakeholders, this paper proposes an accurate and organized model for the analysis of results from the stakeholder impact index. We implemented the proposed model to determine the existing barriers to renewable energy... 

The mean monthly values of sky clearness index, K̄T, were estimated for 36 Iranian cities, utilizing the solar radiation data measured by the Iranian Meteorological Organization. The study shows that the city of Tabas, in the desert regions of Iran, with an annual average K̄T of 0.69 is the sunniest city, followed by the cities of Yazd, Khor, Birjand, Khorramabad, Kerman, and Shiraz. On the other hand, the cities of Babolsar, Gorgan, Ramsar and Rasht, located by the Caspian Sea with average values of K̄T of 0.41, 0.41, 0.39 and 0.39, respectively, are the cloudiest cities in Iran  

In this article, the linear genetic programming (LGP) is utilized to predict the solar global radiation. The solar radiation is formulated in terms of several climatological and meteorological parameters. Comprehensive databases containing monthly data collected for 6 years (1995-2000) in two nominal cities in Iran are used to develop LGP-based models. Separate models are established for each city. To verify the performance of the proposed models, they are applied to estimate the solar global radiation of test data of database. The contribution of the parameters affecting the solar radiation is evaluated through a sensitivity analysis. The results indicate that the LGP models give precise... 

In this study, performance of a flat plate solar collector operating in conjunction with a closed-loop pulsating heat pipe is investigated experimentally. The experiments were carried out in Yazd, Iran. The experimental setup consisted of a flat plate solar collector, pulsating heat pipe, and a tank. The pulsating heat pipe's evaporator is located inside the flat plate collector. In order to investigate the effect of the evaporator length on the efficiency of the system, three different length collectors are manufactured in the evaporating section. In addition, the effects of the pulsating heat pipe filling ratio, inclination angle, and flow rate are investigated for each collector... 

Domed roofs have been used in Iran and many other countries to cover large buildings such as mosques, shrines, churches, schools. They have been also employed in other buildings like bazaars or market places in Iran due to their favorable thermal performance. The aim of this research is to study about domed roofs thermal performance in order to determine how they can be helpful in reducing the maximum air temperature of inside buildings during the warm seasons considering all parameters like air flow around them, solar radiation, radiation heat transfer with the sky and the ground as well as some openings on the building. The results of the study show that the thermal performance of the... 

Solar radiation received and absorbed by four domed roofs was estimated and compared with that of a flat roof. The domed roofs all had the same base areas, and equal to that of the flat roof. One of the roofs considered was the dome of the St. Peter's Church in Rome. Compared with the other roofs considered, this dome had a higher aspect ratio. It was found that all domed roofs received more solar radiation than the flat roof. Considering glazed tiles to cover a selected dome in Iran and the dome of the St. Peter's Church, it was found that the solar radiation absorbed by these roofs is reduced appreciably. In the case of the dome of St. Peter's Church, the amount of radiation absorbed was... 

The effect of various methods of drying (sun drying, bin drying, vertical continuous drying, vertical cylindrical drying, and funnel cylindrical drying) on moisture content, lipid quality (peroxide value, thiobarbituric acid value, and free fatty acids), sensory attributes (firmness, sweetness, rancidity, roasted flavor, split shell, shell appearance, and overall palatability), and percent split shell of pistachio nuts (Pistacia vera L.) were studied. Sun drying and bin drying resulted in higher split shell percent on pistachio nuts than other drying methods. The different drying methods used in this study did not have any significant influence on the free fatty acids, peroxide value, and... 

A gyroless deterministic attitude determination algorithm based on simulation of sun in eclipse is stated in this paper and has been compared to stochastic filters like extended Kalman filter and unscented Kalman filter. Attitude determination with low cost sensors such as magnometer and sun sensor results in usage of recursive algorithms such as Kalman filter which has the probability of divergence, but with deterministic point to point algorithm such as the one introduced in this paper we can be sure to have an attitude determination with a fixed maximum error. Proposed method has been compared with Extended Kalman Filter and Unscented Kalman filter due to its modeling error, robustness... 

Recent advancements in photovoltaic (PV) system technologies have decreased their investment cost and enabled the construction of large PV farms for bulk power generations. The output power of PV farms is affected by both failure of composed components and solar radiation variability. These two factors cause the output power of PV farms be random and different from that of conventional units. Therefore, suitable models and methods should be developed to assess different aspects of PV farms integration into power systems, particularly from the system reliability viewpoint. In this context a reliability model has been developed for PV farms with considering both the uncertainties associated... 

In this paper, a new radiation model for a single-slope solar still has been developed which for the first time takes into account the effect of all walls of the still on the amount of incident solar radiation on the water surface and each wall. In this model, the walls are projected on the cover to calculate the amount of beam radiation received by any components inside the still. This is in contrary to the previous models in which stills' walls were projected on a horizontal surface and their shadows on the water surface and the walls were either neglected or not computed properly. The predictions of the proposed model are compared with the experimental data obtained in the present work... 

We report the design, fabrication and error analysis of a sun sensor array composed of six photodiodes. The sensor estimates the direction of the sun using a linear least squares method. The performance of the sensor is deteriorated by three major sources: fabrication errors, scattered environmental light, and inexact modeling of photodiodes. Using a calibration procedure and modeling the uniform component of the environmental light, we mitigate the first two errors and significantly reduce root mean squared error from 2.63° to 0.83°. For a Field of View (FOV) of 110°, the maximum estimation error also drops from 3.8° to 1.6°. Through exact mathematical modeling of photodiodes, we...