Sharif Digital Repository

Hydrocarbon contaminations due to their volatility, solubility and biodegradability properties can enter the vadose zone and adversely influence the soil properties. Recently, some deep and superficial signs of oil pollution have emerged in the soils around the refinery of Sarkhoun. In order to assess the exact type and behavior of pollutants, evaluate the environmental attributes and measure some important factors of oil contamination in this region, and also to see how pollution transfer in the underground environment, this study has been done. Materials & methods Sarkhoun refinery is located 50 kilometers away from ar Abbas in the northeast direction. The area is mostly composed of Marne... 

A new approach is presented that can be used to determine the kern of a general arbitrary section with any shape and conditions. The method is simple, practical and powerful, and is based on elementary calculus. Geometries containing curved boundaries and arbitrary shapes can be handled easily with the analytical equations presented, while the numerically specified shape of any other cross-section can also be analyzed by using a numerical form of the exact governing equations developed. The correctness of the results has been ascertained by comparison with analytical solutions, as well as with examples presented in the literature, and very good agreement has been achieved. © 2001 Elsevier... 

A new approach to measure the critical current density of bulk superconductors is presented in this paper. In the proposed technique, the characterization uses a pulsed current which passes through a small point contact at the middle of the bulk and distributes uniformly, while the other contact is a copper ring around the bulk. By increasing the pulsed current above a threshold current, a normal zone appears and develops into a semi-oblate spheroid forming around the contact point. By analyzing its size and shape, and electromagnetic fundamentals, the voltage-current relationship in the normal zone is obtainable. In addition, experimental works have been performed and the results are in... 

The proper design of the urban infrastructure is crucial to develop civilization in a developing area. While there are dozens of managerial suggestions to go along with the static aspects of components in urban infrastructure design, hardly any piece of advice may be found to ensure dynamic outcomes of the whole design in advance. In this paper, a novel system dynamics model is introduced and applied in this context as a contribution to fill the research gap. The modular nature of the model development helps to alleviate the challenge of simultaneous design of components and system, with the potential capability of both static and dynamic verification. It allows the decision aider to observe... 

Prediction of supersolubility and the width of the metastable zone has been a major concern among the workers in the field of industrial crystallization. Operation of crystallizers under the optimum supersaturation low enough to attain the desired product quality (Median Particle Size, Crystal Size Distribution (CSD), Shape, Purity) being one motif. The inherent relationship between the subject and the most fundamental concepts of crystallization being the other. Studying the conditions of primary homogenous nucleation and the crystal growth kinetics has been conducted for a wide range of inorganic materials. A simple probabilistic term called chance of having the desirable species... 

This paper investigated the headway distribution of platooning vehicles in work zones with and without automated Speed Photo Enforcement (SPE). Data from two work zones were collected and analyzed. The portion of vehicles traveling with a very short headway (less than 0.7 sec) was also examined. In addition, the behavior of vehicles near the law enforcement vehicles was analyzed in terms of applying brakes and changing lane in one of the work zones. The results indicated that the mean headway of cars in the median lane significantly increased in both work zones when the SPE van was present compared to the base condition. For trucks, the mean headway increase was significant only in the... 

This paper analytically determines the nondetection zone (NDZ) of an active islanding detection method, and proposes a solution to obviate the NDZ. The method actively injects a negative-sequence current through the interface voltage-sourced converter (VSC) of a distributed generation (DG) unit, as a disturbance signal for islanding detection. The estimated magnitude of the corresponding negative-sequence voltage at the PCC is used as the islanding detection signal. In this paper, based on a laboratory test system, the performance of the islanding detection method under UL1741 anti-islanding test conditions is evaluated. Then, determining the NDZ of the method and proposing the... 

Circulation is created in some parts of settling tanks. It can increase the mixing level, decrease the effective settling, and create a short circuiting from the inlet to the outlet. All above-mentioned phenomena act in such a way to decrease the tank's hydraulic efficiency, which quantitatively shows how flow within the tank is uniform and quiet. So, the main objective of the tank design process is to avoid forming the circulation zone, which is known as the dead zone. Prediction of the flow field and size of the recirculation zone is the first step in the design of settling tanks. In the present paper, the non-linear k - ε turbulence model is used for predicting the length of the... 

Aluminium alloys are lightweight materials relatively used in automotive industries. However, welding using the conventional welding methods is known to be difficult. In this study, the friction stir welding (FSW) known as the solid state joining process was extensively used for joining similar and dissimilar 5 mm aluminium alloy plates. The butt-joint type of similar joints (AA5083-AA5083) and dissimilar joints (AA5083-AA6061) were carried out under the same welding parameters; 1000 rpm (rotational speed) and 100 mm/min (transverse speed). Macro- and microstructural observations were acquired at the cross-section of the weld regions by stereo and optical microscopes. The microstructural... 

Generation scheduling is a crucial challenge in power systems especially under new environment of liberalization of electricity industry. This paper is focused on the economical aspect of UC problem, while the next load demand as a very important issue and prohibited operation zones and spinning reserve uncertainty as practical constraints have been taken in to account. The impacts of hot/cold start-up cost have been considered in this paper. Numerical results show a significant improvement in the solutions of a cost-based unit commitment in comparison with the other studies. © 2009 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l  

The densification and microstructural evolution during co-sintering of M2 tool steel/316L stainless steel composite layers with and without boron addition was studied. A pressureless sintering method in conjunction with a powder layering technique was used to fabricate the stepwise graded composite layers. Isothermal and non-isothermal sintering response of the individual and composite layers was examined and the microstructural features of the bonding zone were studied. Shear strength and microhardness of the bonding zone were also measured. It was shown that an enhanced densification is obtained in the composite layers due to (i) sintering shrinkage incompatibility between two steels, (ii)... 

Continuous habitability of a planet is a critical condition for advanced forms of life to appear, but it can be endangered by astronomical events such as stellar encounters. The purpose of this study is to analyze close stellar encounters able to change planetary orbits initially in circumstellar habitable zones and to investigate the expected encounter rates in a variety of stellar environments. Using gravitational simulations for three-body systems, this study analyzed the dependencies of encounter impact-parameters with kinematic, geometric, and habitability parameters of the system. We also used kinematic properties of various stellar regions and estimated encounter rates of the events.... 

Drilled shafts are one of the most important types of pile foundations. Several researchers have suggested different soil failure patterns for driven piles; however, for drilled shafts, this issue is inadequately addressed in the literature. In this paper, a numerical approach was pursued to obtain the location and dimensions of plastic zones around the tip of drilled shafts. The dependence of the suggested failure pattern size on the soil properties and drilled shaft dimensions was investigated. Based on several analyses, a soil jug-shaped failure pattern around the tip of drilled shafts was proposed, and its dimensions were determined using the regression-based and trial and error... 

Today, commercial CFD codes are widely used to simulate many different entry flow problems. The flow in the developing zone undergoes a transition from a specified velocity profile at the inlet section to a fully developed profile in the region far from the inlet. Previous investigations have shown that the hydrodynamic variables, such as velocity and pressure magnitudes, along the centreline converge to a mesh independent solution even when coarse grid distributions are utilised. However, the present work shows that the local velocity profile is highly dependent on grid resolution in the vicinity of solid boundaries. It is shown that failure to account for the grid resolution can result in... 

In this paper the element free Galerkin method (EFGM) has been extended to be used in the elastoplastic stress analysis. The developed method has been examined in planar stress analysis around the tip of a crack and in its opening mode of loading. To do this, at the first step by using the incremental relations of plastic deformation a system of elastoplastic EFGM equations has been derived. Since the obtained relations are nonlinear, a nonlinear solution technique has been chosen. To examine the validity of this technique, stress fields in two different plates with and without a crack have been calculated and the results have been compared with other similar analytical works in the...