Sharif Digital Repository

The present study deals with the development of development of fragility curves for confined masonry buildings with the emphasis on masonry school buildings by means of numerical simulation. In doing so and based on the results of several previously-performed tests in Iran, simple analytical models for confined masonry walls capable of predicting various failure modes and also simulating different behavioral characteristics of these walls in the form of cyclic force-displacement curves were presented. In order to endure the ability of the proposed analytical models in simulation of seismic response of existing confined masonry buildings, a static-cyclic in-situ test on a real typical... 

Cleanrooms have a broad scope of applications from electronics, pharmacy, biotechnology to hospital industries, and are susceptible to fine and ultra-fine particles. In this work operating room in the category of hospital applications is chosen. Airborne particles in the operating room depends on many factors such as room geometry, inlet and outlet design, air displacement rate, obstacles, etc. Surgical light is one of the most critical obstacles in the operating room as it is upstream to the surgery zone. The study presented in this thesis aimed to numerically investigate the influence of radiation emitted from the medical lamps on the indoor airflow quality in operating room environment.... 

Out of several ground improvement techniques available, stone columns have been widely used. This technique has been successfully applied to increase the bearing capacity and to reduce the settlement for foundation of structures like liquid storage tanks, earthen embankments, raft foundations, etc., where a relatively large settlement is permissible. This technique has, generally, been proven successful in increasing the stiffness of weak soils, upgrading their safe bearing capacity, and reducing their total and differential settlements, as well as speeding up their consolidation process. The beneficial effects of stone column installation in weak deposits is manifested in the form of... 

Reinforced concrete buildings with open ground storey are vulnerable to accumulate of large lateral displacement at the ground story. This is due to drastic reduction in the relative stiffness of the ground story compared to the upper stories, a phenomenon known as soft storey effect. Furthermore inevitable Existence of Opening in masonry infill and increasing it’s area reduces both the lateral strength and stiffness of the fully infilled RC frames so when percentage of the central opening is very high, the behaviour of the infilled frame approaches the bare frame. It is a perception about open ground storey buildings that openings in the upper stories infilled frame offset the soft storey... 

In-situ tests are strongly recommended in site investigations, since laboratory studies are not sufficient for precise determination of soil parameters. Effects of soil disturbance on laboratory studies questions the validation of obtained soil parameters. In the in-situ tests, soil experience less disturbance and these tests are conducted in stress levels resembling to soil initial horizontal and vertical stresses. Also more volume of soil is tested by in-situ tests in comparison to laboratory studies. Pressuremeter instrument was invented by Menard (1954). In this test, a flexible cylinder is expanded in the cavity under fluid pressure and the volume and stress changes of the cavity are... 

Hydrogen is one of the favorite substitute for fossil fuels due to various properties including the flammability, ubiquity, and easy extraction from plain water. These properties have made it an appropriate alternative source of energy that can be used in internal combustion engines. Compared with fossil fuel energy, in addition to much lower emissions, hydrogen has proved to be much more efficient when applied as a clean source of energy. The main purpose of the present project is to study the effect of applying hydrogen on performance of compression - ignition as internal combustion engines as an alternative fuel. These studies encompass the results derived from the experiment of using... 

The exploitation of oil and gas were changed dramatically with the advent of hydraulic fracturing. By using enhanced oil recovery methods in unconventional reservoirs, USA could raise the rate of production in comparison with the rate of consumption. Hydraulic fracturing is one of the enhanced oil recovery methods.The purpose of this research is the study of the effects of geomechanical parameters in the characteristics of the cracks induced by hydraulic fracturing in unconventional oil reservoirs. The minimum in-situ stress and tensile stress of rock can be overcome by injecting fluid and thus the rock will be cracked. Changes in geomechanical parameters such as modulus of elasticity,... 

Due to anthropogenic activities and climate change, Lake Urmia, one of the largest hypersaline lakes, is exposed to desiccating. The increase in salinity in this lake up to more than 400 p.s.u has endangered the ecology of this lake. In this study, a three-dimensional, unstructured grid and finite volume model FVCOM has been developed to investigate Lake Urmia's hydrodynamics, salinity, and water temperature over the year 2016. Some of the model inputs were lake bathymetry, meteorological data (including air temperature and pressure, wind speed and direction, short-wave and longwave radiation), precipitation, evaporation, river flux, salinity, and temperature. The model was calibrated... 

This study proposes a new metallic yielding damper for seismic applications. First, considering the damper proposed by curadelli in 2009 a simple lead yielding damper was manufactured to determine its maximum allowable axial deformation showing that it cannot tolerate suitable axial deformations. To solve this problem a telescopic damper with curadelli damper’s descriptions was manufactured and tested which increased the last damper’s allowable deformation 100%. Although new damper’s allowable deformation is twofold the old one, it was not enough for seismic applications. In the next step 6 dampers called lead shear dampers (LSD) with modified lead section were tested. LSD deformation... 

The main purpose of designing machine foundation is to limit its motion to such an amount that not to prevent the perfect workability of machine, not to let the foundation strains exceed the elastic limit and also not to disturb the persons working around the machine. The key note in successfull design of machine foundation, is to precisely analyse the response of foundation to dynamic loads induced by machine operations.The numerical study of shallow foundations response to vertical harmonic loads induced by machinaries have been discussed in this investigation.To aim this purpose, FLACD3D has been utilized in order to 3 dimensionally analyse a continuum medium comprising soil-foundation or... 

The phenomenon of lateral spreading occurs as a consequence of earthquakes induced liquefaction in grounds with mild slopes or ending to an opening. This phenomenon has caused many damages to deep foundations and associated structures. Therefore, it is necessary to study and estimate the forces which may be induced by lateral spreading to these structures. Due to the complex mechanism of the effect of lateral spreading on the piles, various tests have been carried out in the form of shaking table as well as centrifuge tests. According to the results of these tests, the forces applied to the piles are significant and can cause crucial damages to deep foundations. On the other hand, because... 

The behavior of a new steel shear wall, already devised by the supervisor of this project, and tested by other students, was modeled numerically. Such numerical simulation was carried out using the Finite Element Methods of analysis. Hexagonal solid elements were employed in order to discretize the tested specimens and those parts of the test assembly which had to be included in the models. Both, Monotonic and Cyclic tests were simulated numerically. Comparison of the tests results with those of the numerical models showed fair correlation between them. Percentages of error in the dissipated energy for the three monotonic tests were 6.9%, 6.4% and 11.2%, respectively, whereas that of the... 

The present research illustrate the finite element modeling of contact between solid bodies, with a special emphasis on the imposing the contact constraints and modification of contact properties on surface in the case of frictional slip. A new approach for both two-dimensional and three-dimensional formulation of contact constraint that allows for a simple and unified treatment of all potential contact scenarios in the presence of large deformations in static case, is presented. The most important outstanding issue in this approach is symmetrical contact stiffness matrix which reduces computational efforts. Based on the observation of numerical results and comparison by experimental models,... 

This thesis is about modeling of liquid-vapor two phase flows through nozzle. Liquid-vapor two phase flow is very applicable in industries such as boilers, expansion valves, refrigeration and sudden failures in pipelines. Two models are used for modeling of fluid flow through nozzle, transient and steady state. In Both model the solution field is considered as saturated liquid and vapor and the mass, momentum and energy equations as well as equation of state is used for describing of fluid flow properties. Homogeneous equilibrium model is used and for complete modeling of fluid flow heat transfer and friction force is also considered.
Numerical solutions are used for solving of the... 

Adobe structures are considered as masonry structures which are out of scope of 2800 Iranian code. Due to this code, since these structures are made of weak materials, they do not have a considerable resistance to earthquakes. Since these structures can be found all around Iran; therefore, seismic study of walls as an important component of these structures, is, indeed, necessary. During this study, cyclic tests on three types of adobe walls, without opening, with window-opening, and with door-and-window-opening with a scale of 2:3 were done to study their in-plane behavior and also their failure modes. Based on our observations, in these walls, because of small ratio of height to length,... 

Nowadays, pile usage in construction of deep foundations has increased significantly, instead of shallow foundation in areas that shallow foundations doesn’t provide enough bearing capacity and measuring the velocity and acceleration due to pile driving is very important. Because, all responses of building and individuals located near the pile driving site influenced by these three parameters: pile vertical displacement, peak particle acceleration (PPA) and peak particle velocity (PPV). One can estimates these important parameters by numerical analysis of pile driving process in different distances and depths to determining the effect of pile driving. Compared values obtained from numerical... 

Soil liquefaction occurring in loose saturated sand deposits during seismic loadings is one of the most destructive earthquake-induced phenomena in the field of earthquake geotechnical engineering. Catastrophic destructions due to this phenomenon that have been observed in the earthquakes such as Kobe (1995), Chi-Chi (1999), etc. has led to extensive studies in this field. In case of soil slopes prone to liquefaction hazard, detailed analysis of this phenomenon requires considering soil-related factors (e.g. shear strength, relative density, permeability, slope geometry) on the one hand, and earthquake-related characteristics (e.g. amplitude, frequency, duration) on the other. Numerical... 

The purpose of this study is to analyze the stability and creeping behavior of rock salt in underground gas and oil reservoirs. Preparation of natural salt caverns and operating them can manipulate the initial state of previously existed stress and to produce deviatoric stresses around the cavern. New state of stress and with creeping behavior of rock salt, causes a significant decrease in cavern’s volume and damages the surrounding area. Reduction of internal minimum pressure of cavern, increases the intensity of mentioned problems. Geometrical characteristics of cavern can also be significantly effective in the magnitude of damages around the reservoir. For instance, Deflection of cavern... 

Nowadays, application of ultrasonic wave technology as a novel method of enhancing oil recovery and also gas an oil well stimulation is prevailing. Not only this method is environment friendly, but also it is economic. Although the application of this method is proved to be of outstanding positive influences in field operations, it suffers from lack of knowledge about the main governing mechanisms and also there are few mathematical models describing the process. In this study it is intended to investigate the role of ultrasonic waves on rate of recovery and the total recovery from porous media. A model is proposed which can predict the recovery at different times of operation. The results... 

In recent years, dust storms have been recognized as one of the most crucial problems for people worldwide. Provided that the dust masses transport mechanisms are properly known, the main dust sources can be identified, and therefore, appropriate actions can be taken. Therefore, the main goals of the present study are estimating dust concentration, determination of dust distribution with an emphasis on Iran (especially Tehran), and finding the main dust sources which will be followed in five steps. In the first step, by analyzing the measured data during dust observations in Tehran through 2013-2016, several simple and multivariate nonlinear regression models have been established in order...