Sharif Digital Repository

This paper develops a behavioral analysis of freight mode choice decisions that could provide a basis for an acceptable analytical tool for policy assessment. The paper specifically examines the way that truck and rail compete for commodity movement in the US. Two binary mode choice models are introduced in which some shipment-specific variables (e.g. distance, weight and value) and mode-specific variables (e.g. haul time and cost) are found to be determinants. The specifications of the non-selected choice are imputed in a machine learning module. Shipping cost is found to be a central factor for rail shipments, while road shipments are found to be more sensitive to haul time. Sensitivity of... 

This paper presents a matrix form model for determination of sloshing frequencies and modes in 3D liquid tanks. The governing equations of the incompressible inviscid potential flow are used to derive the governing boundary integral equation and then the boundary element method along with the collocation method is applied to obtain a matrix form standard eigenvalue problem. The sloshing mass and stiffness matrices are computed using analytical formulas which are given for quadratic boundary elements. Two typical examples are used to validate the introduced model and very good results are achieved in comparison with the exact results in the literature  

Effective diffusion coefficient is an important parameter which needs to be determined in different fields of study, such as cathode catalyst layers of PEM fuel. For this purpose, a Loschmidt diffusion cell can be used. When a porous medium is placed in Loschmidt apparatus, the effective gas diffusion coefficient (EGDC) of this section must be correlated by diffusion coefficient in absence of a porous medium. In the previous researches studying the Loschmidt diffusion cell, a simplifying infinite-length assumption was used in the analytical solution. Therefore, the solution is only applicable for a short time range, and this can result in high error. In order to overcome this challenge, the... 

In this study, a new model of microbial fuel cell (MFC) was obtained for the first time. The modeled MFC was made using a combination of two approaches; the conduction-based method and two-step anaerobic digestion. Performance of the MFC was based on calculations for current evolution and polarization curves with different subsequent variables of the biofilm and anolyte. The model was able to make predictions for performance of the MFC for a simple substrate to more complex ones. The model was successfully validated with a variety of substrates (acetate, glucose and dairy wastewater) and the results were compared with previously published measurements. The model polarization results showed... 

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been a potential green energy source for a long time but one of the problems is that either the technology must be used on a large scale or special equipment have been necessary to keep the fuel cells running such as syringe pumps. Paper-based microbial fuel cells do not need to have a syringe pump to run and can run entirely by themselves when placed in contact with the fluids that are necessary for it to run. Paper-based microbial fuel cells are also more compact than traditional MFCs since the device doesn't need any external equipment to run. The goal of this paper is to develop a microbial fuel cell that does not require a syringe pump to function. This... 

With the declining energy resources and increase of pollutant emissions, a great deal of efforts has been focused on the development of alternatives for fossil fuels. One of the promising alternative fuels to gasoline in the internal combustion engine is natural gas [1-5]. The application of natural gas in current internal combustion engines is realistic due to its many benefits. The higher thermal efficiency due to the higher octane value and lower exhaust emissions including CO2 as a result of the lower carbon to hydrogen ratio of the fuel are the two important feature of using CNG as an alternative fuel. It is well known that computer simulation codes are valuable economically as a cost... 

HVOF-sprayed coatings (WC-17%Co) and hard chromium coatings corrosion resistances have been compared through electrochemical polarization test in 3.5% NaCl solution. WC-17%Co alloy coatings were deposited on mild steel substrates by High Velocity Oxy-Fuel (HVOF) spray process. The layers of standard and crack free hard chromium coatings were prepared by using Direct Current (DC) and Pulse Current (PC) electroplating process on the mild steel substrates. Hard chromium coatings was characterized as a reference material, to verify whether HVOF-sprayed coatings are suitable as a hard chromium coatings replacement. The microstructure of the coatings was examined by OM, SEM and XRD. Standard hard... 

Two kinds of carbon coated and uncoated 316L stainless steel are studied to use as bipolar plates in fuel cells. The results show that the conductive amorphous carbon film has a low corrosion rate in simulated PEMFC environment. Rather long term potentiostatic tests and SEM investigations indicate that carbon thin films can be a good candidate to use as bipolar plate  

Urban transportation is one of the leading causes of air pollution in big cities. In-use emissions of vehicles are higher than the emission control certification levels. The current study uses a roadside remote sensing emission monitoring campaign to investigate (a) fraction of high emitters in the light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet and their contributions to the total emissions, (b) emission inspection (I/M) programs' effectiveness, and (c) alternate fuel (natural gas) encouragement policy. LDVs consist of passenger or freight transport vehicles with four wheels equivalent to classes M1 and N1 of European union vehicle classifications. The motivation is to assess the current emission inspection... 

Storage tanks are always under different hazards such as corrosion and leaking. In this work we have introduced a computational analysis on storage tanks in which a real-time yet efficient monitoring technique using Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors for corrosion detection on the bottom plate and vibration monitoring on outer surfaces of storage tanks is proposed. A finite element model for the tank is developed, in which the outer tanks surfaces are considered as plate elements and FBG sensors as beam elements. An array of FBG sensors is utilized to compute the generated strain in the FBGs due to losing thickness in the tank's bottom plate and due to vibration on the outer surfaces in... 

This paper proposes a control strategy for an islanded microgrid to effectively coordinate hybrid power source (HPS) units and to robustly control individual interfaced inverters under unbalanced and nonlinear load conditions. Cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverters are flexibly deployed in order to enhance the power quality and redundancy. The HPS employs fuel cell (FC) as the main and supercapacitors (SC) as complementary power sources. Fast transient response; high performance; and high power density are the main characteristics of the proposed HPS system. The presented control strategy consists of a power management strategy for the HPS units and a voltage control strategy for the... 

This paper proposes a hierarchical active power management strategy for a medium voltage (MV) islanded microgrid including a multihybrid power conversion system (MHPCS). To guarantee excellent power management, a modular power conversion system is realized by parallel connection of small MHPCS units. The hybrid system includes fuel cells (FC) as main and supercapacitors (SC) as complementary power sources. The SC energy storage compensates the slow transient response of the FC stack and supports the FC to meet the grid power demand. The proposed control strategy of the MHPCS comprises three control loops; dc-link voltage controller, power management controller, and load current sharing... 

The high dependence of the atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions on fossil fuels has led it to increment. Process design along with the economic aspects, improves the technology diffusion of the carbon capturing. In the pressure swing adsorption as a promising carbon capturing technology, increasing the pressure leads to more adsorbed amount of carbon dioxide and energy consumption of compressor, which is a source for carbon dioxide emission. Experimental data shows that for pressures between 3 to 5bar, the avoided CO2 is in maximum rate. The economic analysis reveals that the pressure of 3bar is appropriate. Also, the utilization of CO2 in the aerogel production, as a nano-based thermal... 

The high dependence of the atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions on fossil fuels has led it to increment. Process design along with the economic aspects, improves the technology diffusion of the carbon capturing. In the pressure swing adsorption as a promising carbon capturing technology, increasing the pressure leads to more adsorbed amount of carbon dioxide and energy consumption of compressor, which is a source for carbon dioxide emission. Experimental data shows that for pressures between 3 to 5 bar, the avoided CO2 is in maximum rate. The economic analysis reveals that the pressure of 3 bar is appropriate. Also, the utilization of CO2 in the aerogel production, as a nano-based thermal... 

Ultra-deep desulfurization for production of clean fuels is of great significance from environmental outlook. In this paper, adsorptive desulfurization (ADS) of wild naphtha was investigated in pilot scale using Mg(OH)2-impregnated aluminosilicate ceramic foam filters (ASCFs) as adsorbent. Effects of four operating parameters including temperature, pressure, adsorption bed length and initial sulfur concentration on sulfur removal efficiency of the process were studied via central composite design of experiment methodology. Sobol's sensitivity analysis was employed to quantitatively determine the impacts of the operating parameters on the removal performance of the separation system. The... 

The conventional relations for calculating the fracture stresses consider only elastic deformation but ignore viscoelastic and viscoplastic behaviors. Measuring the joining strength of a composite glass sealant-metallic interconnect specimen at solid oxide cell application relevant at high temperatures is a case where such effects can become significant. In the current study, three-point and four-point bending test results were analyzed using the finite element method (FEM) to assess systematic and random errors. It is shown that plastic deformation of the steel interconnect material at high temperature, although having a large effect on the stress distribution in the... 

We report improved performance of Li-ion polymer batteries through advanced gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs). Compared to solid and liquid electrolytes, GPEs are advantageous as they can be fabricated in different shapes and geometries; also ionic properties are significantly superior to that of solid and liquid electrolytes. We have synthetized GPE in form of membranes by trapping ethylene carbonate and propylene carbonate in a composite of polyvinylidene fluoride and N-methylpyrrolidinore. By applying phase-transfer method, we synthetized membranes with micro-pores, which led to higher ionic conductivity. The proposed membrane is to be modified further to have higher capacity, stronger... 

The objective of this study was to construct a novel model to be applied in a general manner to simulate microbial electrochemical cells (MXCs); for both microbial fuel cell (MFC) and microbial electrolysis cell (MEC). The liquid bulk was modeled based on the organic matters degradation to acetate via the anaerobic digestion process. Biofilm simulation was established based upon one-dimensional distribution and the dynamical electron transfer was completed by means of the conduction-based mechanism. We, for the first time, introduced biofilm local potential modeling for MEC simulation with general and simplified linear boundary conditions. The MFC-related part of the model was evaluated... 

The fast growth of technologies most of which depend on natural sources of energy has resulted in a huge consumption of fossil fuels. In this regard, many solutions have been suggested to alleviate the side effects such as air pollution and global warming. Among these solutions, mobile storages like electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable generations, have grown significantly due to being more applicable. But uncoordinated operation and uncertain nature of these distributed energy resources (DERs) can bring forward new challenges and issues to the operators of power system. Thus, in many cases it is more efficient to co-operate them in a hybrid system. In this study, we address a virtual power... 

The present study aims to analyze a combined heat and power (CHP) system with an approach towards exergy analysis and employing biomass gasification. The cycle modeling was carried out using Cycle-Tempo and the main purpose was to achieve parametric analysis of the model. The systems function was studied by categorizing alternative biomass fuels, also qualitative and quantitative analyses of the biomass fuel samples were presented and considering the trade-off points, most appropriate biomass fuel with respect to exergy efficiency and delivered power were determined. The results indicated that the bagasse and wood chips had the total exergy efficiency of 54.5 and 57.1% in trade-off point,...