Sharif Digital Repository

Nowadays, around 70% percent of global energy usage is consumed in urban areas. Undoubtedly, this figure will increase in coming decades due to population rise. As a result, energy resiliency can be considered as an important issue in urban context. Resilience of energy supply in urban areas can be categorized in two approaches, short-term and long-term. Short-term applies to cope with threats such as earthquakes and floods, and long-term applies to deal with impacts of climate change on global warming. In this study, literature review was applied to design questionnaire for expert survey, followed by Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process method to categorize 34 sub-criteria divided under four... 

This paper empirically examines the hydrodynamic performances of squat submarines under the resistance and wave tests beside numerical investigation of pressure drag reduction techniques. Despite vast information about the operation of the streamlined fluid vessels, there is not much information about the geometries and hydrodynamic behaviors of squat vessels with L/D ratios below four. This study experimentally investigates the impacts of various relative depths and flow inclinations, intending to find drag, heave, and sway forces at the velocities of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5-m/s. A one-tenth scaled model of a squat submarine is examined under the resistance and wave train scenarios as... 

Roll control of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) is a significant issue in the current field of research for many researchers in the subject of AUV control system designation. Especially at higher speeds, the roll angle generated by a single rotating propeller or other external disturbances can considerably influence the whole dynamics and therefore the operation of the vehicle. In this paper, the utilisation of a system of contra-rotating-propellers (CRP) to enhance the roll dynamics of an AUV is evaluated by developing a six-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) dynamics and control systems’ simulator. The results show that: 1. The single propeller system can cause roll angle deflections... 

Over the past few decades, industrial development has caused a dramatic increment in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as a leading cause of climate change. Modifying the industrial plants' environmental performance is the main pillar of improving efficiency that can reduce the waste of resources and make achieving lower-cost global emission reduction targets of the Kyoto protocol's clean development mechanism (CDM) possible. Considering the essentiality of knowledge-based research in increasing the awareness of policymakers by providing better access to accurate and reliable information, an analytical survey on efficiency in oil, gas, and petrochemical industries has been conducted by... 

One of the underlying factors in the conservation and development of urban green spaces is the available water resources use for green areas in each region. The primary purpose of this study is to introduce the integration of a proper simulation method for runoff along with AHP-PROMETHEE decision-making method for water resources management in urban basins. The application of this approach was investigated in the city Buin Zahra of Qazvin Province of Iran. In the first step by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), the available water resources in the case study were weighted. In the second step, the water resources of the municipal and residential wells and water collected by... 

Manta ray swimming or bio-inspiration propulsion system, as a special type of marine propulsion system, is used for submersible vehicles that require high-speed maneuverability and stability, such as glider and AUV. In a manta ray swimming, the thrust force is generated by a couple of undulation and oscillation of wing, so that the direction of undulation wave and oscillation is upright and perpendicular to the direction of thrust force, respectively. It is possible to combine these two movement modes (flapping motion) on the three-dimensional model without considering the effects of wing twisting and flexibility to simplify and better understand the physical behaviors or special study of... 

The main goal of environmental education program developers is to train resourceful experts to work, study and solve environmental issues. Thus, it is essential to conform educational knowledge and skills according to countries needs along with scientific and technological progress. The present study aimed to assess needs of educational programs by considering climate change issues in Iranian Universities. Therefore, needs of higher education sector have been identified and some recommendations were given in line with objectives of training programs. The study applied random selection method to determine a number of environmental professionals to answer the designed questioner. Delphi method... 

The main goal of environmental education program developers is to train resourceful experts to work, study and solve environmental issues. Thus, it is essential to conform educational knowledge and skills according to countries needs along with scientific and technological progress. The present study aimed to assess needs of educational programs by considering climate change issues in Iranian Universities. Therefore, needs of higher education sector have been identified and some recommendations were given in line with objectives of training programs. The study applied random selection method to determine a number of environmental professionals to answer the designed questioner. Delphi method... 

One of the most effective measures for building energy conservation is the implementation of energy codes. The building energy codes introduction in Iran started two decades after the first oil crisis in the early 1970s by establishing the building energy conservation regulation called Issue 19. Nowadays, due to some financial and executive barriers, the implementation of Issue 19 is faced with some difficulties. The most critical obstacle is the low price of energy carriers, which lead to high subsidies of energy and the reluctance of the building owners to implement the regulation. The main goal of this paper is the introduction of an innovative financial and executive mechanism for... 

The main goal of environmental education program developers is to train resourceful experts to work, study and solve environmental issues. Thus, it is essential to conform educational knowledge and skills according to countries needs along with scientific and technological progress. The present study aimed to assess needs of educational programs by considering climate change issues in Iranian Universities. Therefore, needs of higher education sector have been identified and some recommendations were given in line with objectives of training programs. The study applied random selection method to determine a number of environmental professionals to answer the designed questioner. Delphi method... 

Roll control of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) is a significant issue in the current field of research for many researchers in the subject of AUV control system designation. Especially at higher speeds, the roll angle generated by a single rotating propeller or other external disturbances can considerably influence the whole dynamics and therefore the operation of the vehicle. In this paper, the utilisation of a system of contra-rotating-propellers (CRP) to enhance the roll dynamics of an AUV is evaluated by developing a six-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) dynamics and control systems’ simulator. The results show that: 1. The single propeller system can cause roll angle deflections... 

Microbial desalination cell (MDC) is a new bio-electrochemical technique which converts chemical energy into electrical energy, and at the same time desalinates water and treats wastewater. In this study, MDC performance and water biofouling conditions were tested as an efficient pretreatment desalination process of reverse osmosis (RO). The experiments were designed in a three-chamber reactor to compare the performance of batch and continuous fed modes, using bio-cathode and synthetic wastewater in four different hydraulic retention times and 17 and 35 g/L NaCl concentrations. According to the results, maximum salt removal of about 52.3% was obtained in the continuously fed MDC at 35 g/L... 

Floating wind turbines are subjected to highly dynamic and complicated environmental conditions leading to significant platform motions and structural vibrations during operation and survival conditions. These motions and vibrations alter the induced loading characteristics; and consequently, affect the dynamic behavior of the system. In order to better understand the influence of such motions and structural vibrations, herein elastic structural disturbance of tower, on the system behavior, the spectral and statistical characteristics of a floating wind turbine dynamic responses under operational and survival conditions are fully explored using a fully coupled... 

Accurate modeling of runoff in watersheds requires calibration and uncertainty analysis of effective flow parameters and identifying of their statistical characteristics based on inter-parameter relationships and model inputs. In this research, the transport and diffusion of pollution (nutrients) in the river were simulated through the two-dimensional finite-volume method using the shallow water equations. To numerically solve these equations, the governing equations were converted into linear equations. Uncertainty and sensitivity of the prepared pollution model were analyzed to achieve better results in estimating pollution concentrations in rivers within a reliable range. In this study,... 

Over the past few decades, industrial development has caused a dramatic increment in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as a leading cause of climate change. Modifying the industrial plants' environmental performance is the main pillar of improving efficiency that can reduce the waste of resources and make achieving lower-cost global emission reduction targets of the Kyoto protocol's clean development mechanism (CDM) possible. Considering the essentiality of knowledge-based research in increasing the awareness of policymakers by providing better access to accurate and reliable information, an analytical survey on efficiency in oil, gas, and petrochemical industries has been conducted by... 

One of the underlying factors in the conservation and development of urban green spaces is the available water resources use for green areas in each region. The primary purpose of this study is to introduce the integration of a proper simulation method for runoff along with AHP-PROMETHEE decision-making method for water resources management in urban basins. The application of this approach was investigated in the city Buin Zahra of Qazvin Province of Iran. In the first step by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), the available water resources in the case study were weighted. In the second step, the water resources of the municipal and residential wells and water collected by... 

This paper provides a feasibility study on a low cost system called Hydrokinetic Wells turbine for surface wave energy conversion without using plenum chambers. The elimination of the plenum chamber and its complicated valve systems can reduce the expenses of wave energy conversion up to 23%.The feasibility process were done for high and low frequency conditions. For the low frequency waves, we offer the 300 rpm angular velocity as an optimum selection for further studies. For the high frequency condition a reliable analytical approach based on validated methods was developed. The analytical results indicate that a wells turbine with 60 cm diameter could produce up to 1600 Watts power in... 

This paper reports on the application of low-grade sensible waste heat (liquid phase) driven multi-effect distillation (MED) technology to exploit waste heat sources that are generally abundant in the petrochemical industries especially, those located close to the Persian Gulf's coastline. For this purpose, a techno-economic feasibility study by considering local capital and operating costs for a selected petrochemical plant has been conducted. In this study, a sensible waste heat stream (practically at 80 °C in the liquid phase), which is actively cooled by the cooling process of the plant, is considered as the heat source for the proposed desalination process. This process can recover... 

Dam construction in arid and semiarid regions is generally related to the risk of increased salinity, due to water passage in contact with salty formations. Hence, it is important to take reservoir thermal and salinity stratification into account in operational rules. In the present study, a simulation–optimization model was developed to determine the amount of water release from various outlets to discharge the brine from hypolimnion layer considering the downstream water quality limitations. The most appropriate time, rate, and concentration to release brine were determined based on water consumption conditions and downstream water demand and river ecology characteristics. The proposed... 

Considering the wide spread locations of wind farms in Iran, it is important to develop a suitable decision support system (DSS) to fulfill proper management of wind farms. Extensive literature survey indicates that there are no integrated forms of DSS to manage a set of wind farms. The existing wind farms are performing independently, and there is no practical method for exchanging the online data. DSS can contribute to optimal operation of wind farms, operation and maintenance scheduling, pricing policy, etc. In this study, a geographic information system and RETSCREEN software were linked to the designed DSS to achieve a more suitable result. Also, a huge number of data are constantly...