Sharif Digital Repository

Blockchain Technology (BCT) is expanding day by day and is used in all pillars of life and projects. In this research, we survey applicable BCT in project management for the first time. We presented a Resource-Constrained Time–Cost-Quality-Energy-Environment Tradeoff Problem by considering BCT, Risk and Robustness (RCTCQEETPBCTRR) in project scheduling. We utilize hybrid robust stochastic programming, worst case, and Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) to cope with uncertainty and risks. This type of robustification and risk-averse is presented in this research. A real case study is presented in a healthcare project. We utilize GAMS-CPLEX to solve the model. Finally, we analyze finish time,... 

In this research, the design of a solar reverse osmosis desalination plant was investigated by integrating various components using TRNSYS and ROSA software. To this goal, a two-stage reverse osmosis system with 50% recovery in the city of Chabahar was modeled. The calculations were performed in three different case studies, i.e., a photovoltaic power plant, a solar collector power plant with Organic Rankine Cycles, and a photovoltaic thermal power plant with Organic Rankine Cycles, with the reverse osmosis desalination plant being a novel investigation. Water production and electrical energy generation of each case study were evaluated both on a daily and yearly bases. The simulation... 

In this paper, a numerical model is developed for the assessment of carbon dioxide transport through naturally fractured cap-rocks during CO2 sequestration in underground aquifers. The cap-rock contains two types of fracture with different length scales: micro-cracks (fissures) and macro-cracks (faults). The effect of micro-cracks is incorporated implicitly by modifying the intrinsic permeability tensor of porous matrix, while the macro-cracks are modeled explicitly using the extended finite element method (X-FEM). The fractured porous medium is decomposed into the porous matrix and fracture domain, which are occupied with two immiscible fluid phases, water and CO2. The flow inside the... 

More than 80% of desalination plants use the multi-stage flash (MSF) technology in the Persian Gulf and hence may have a severe irreversible impact on the marine environment. In the present study, geometrical, mixing, and turbulence characteristics of thermal-saline jets, similar to MSF effluents, are numerically investigated using the dynamic Smagorinsky sub-grid scale (SGS) model and UNESCO equation of state. For this purpose, two affecting dimensionless parameters are considered: (1) density ratio, which is thermal flux to salinity flux ratio, and (2) salinity Froude number. Examining the effects of density ratio reveals that the jet flow pattern only depends on the density ratio with a... 

Liquid impingement cooling in the form of jet or spray is an appropriate method to remove heat from small surfaces progressively utilized in industry. In this study, numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the effect of surface structure on heat transfer characteristics. Five different three-dimensional structured surfaces are investigated using Euler-Lagrangian approach. The effect of surface structures is discussed on the liquid film thickness, the liquid film velocity, and the heat flux with its uniformity for a given spray and temperature characteristics. The results show that the convective heat transfer strongly depends on both liquid film thickness and velocity. While the... 

This study aims to develop the Consistent Fish-Bone (CFB) simplified model for efficient estimation of Engineering Demand Parameters (EDPs) in irregular steel Moment Resisting Frames (steel-MRFs). To achieve this goal, some modifications based on the energy consistent approach have been applied to the Improved Fish-Bone (IFB) simplified model previously presented for reinforced concrete MRFs. These modifications include: 1) adding truss elements to the IFB model to consider the effect of flexural deformations and determining their areas by balancing the overturning moment and the strain energy due to the axial deformation of columns in the original steel-MRF with the overturning moment and... 

This work studies the natural frequencies and modes of liquid sloshing in a rectangular 3D tank with the slotted baffles in middle. A new vibrational model incorporating the pressure difference between the two sides of the baffle, using a transmission function in Laplace space is presented. To this end, a part of the baffle that includes the wall and the slot is modeled in Fluent software, to express this pressure difference as a function of the fluid velocity passing through the baffle. Then, using the boundary element method, and boundary conditions, the equations of the fluid domain are developed. In this research, the rigid baffle is surrounded by a three-dimensional irrotational... 

A comprehensive investigation of historical hydro-climatic changes at a county level is an essential prerequisite of developing any adaptation or mitigation strategies to deal with the destructive impacts of climate change. In this study, spatial distributions and trends in thirty-seven hydro-climatic mean and extreme indices across Iran were analyzed based on the state-of-the-art reanalysis datasets (ERA5-Land and AgERA5) at the county level from 1986 to 2015 using several nonparametric approaches such as multiple modified Mann–Kendall statistical tests and Sen’s Slope estimator. Their interannual oscillations were also examined using continuous wavelet transform to portray a complete... 

Today, passenger and racing boats increasingly utilize surface-piercing propellers. This type of propeller operates in two distinct phases of water and air simultaneously. As a result, this propeller type has additional characteristics that must be investigated separately from conventional propellers. A new family of surface piercing propellers was investigated using experimental and numerical methods. The family consisted of five propeller models with varying geometric features operating at an immersion ratio of 0.7. Experiments were conducted in the Sharif University of Technology's hydrodynamic group's cavitation tunnel. Additionally, using Star-CCM + software, the numerical simulation... 

Porosity and permeability alteration due to the thermo-poro-elastic stress field disturbance from the cold fluid injection is a deciding factor for longer, more economic, and safer heat extraction from an enhanced geothermal system (EGS). In the Soultz-sous-Forêts geothermal system, faulted zones are the main flow paths, and the resulting porosity–permeability development over time due to stress reorientation is more sensitive in comparison with the regions without faulted zones. Available operational and field data are combined through a validated numerical simulation model to examine the mechanical impact on the pressure and temperature evolution. Results shows that near the injection... 

This paper studies a two-echelon reverse supply chain (RSC) involving a remanufacturer and a collector, in which the collector receives the used products by paying a reward to consumers. The reward amount given to customers is crucial for encouraging them to exchange used products. An exchanged item is accepted if it meets the minimum acceptable quality level (AQL). Both the remanufacturing capacity and the quality of exchanged products present uncertainties. Under the buyback contract, the remanufacturer purchases used products at a higher price than in the decentralized and centralized cases from the collector. In return, the collector undertakes to repurchase a certain number of used... 

CPU caches are powerful sources of information leakage. To develop practical cache-based attacks, the need for automation of the process of finding exploitable cachebased side-channels in computer systems is felt more than ever. Cache template attack is a generic technique that utilizes Flush+Reload attack in order to automatically exploit cache vulnerability of Intel platforms. Cache template attack on the T-table-based AES implementation consists of two phases including the profiling phase and key exploitation phase. Profiling is a preprocessing phase to monitor dependencies between the secret key and behavior of the cache memory. In addition, the addresses of T-tables can be obtained... 

This study evaluated the efficiency of different Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), including ALOS-12.5 m, SRTM-30 m, SRTM-90 m, and ASTER-30 m v3 when being applied for the hydraulic simulation of flood inundation areas. HEC-RAS-2D model was employed to simulate inundation extent of a 400-year flood (Mar 17, 2019, with peak discharge ~ 547.92 m3/s) along 70 km reach of low-gradient Gorganrood River, northeastern Iran. Fit percentage indicator (FI) and BIAS percentage indicator (BI) were used to evaluate the results in comparison with the remotely sensed inundated area data. The results revealed that the accuracy and capability of the ALOS and SRTM-30 m were higher in simulation of flood... 

A modified two-surface critical state plasticity model for saturated and unsaturated soil is presented in this study. The key modification in new model is inclusion of an alternative yield surface used to simulate the behavior of unsaturated soils in addition to corresponding saturated conditions. Moreover, a numerical technique is used to obtain an incremental stress–strain response from loading curves. Modification is applied continuously in each incremental step to return the final stress states and hardening parameters to the yield surface. Results revealed that the adopted modeling approach can predict two independent sets of laboratory unsaturated experiments under various conditions... 

The equalizing wake flow into the propeller behind the ship is important from the hydrodynamic performance viewpoint. In this study, numerical simulations of the DTMB4119 propeller with two symmetric and asymmetric duct types behind the KRISO Container Ship (KCS) are performed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In order to improve the wake equaling flow, a combined duct and stators' configurations are installed before the propeller in the stern of the ship and its hydrodynamic performance is studied using CFD. A duct with the NACA4415 section and two types of stator configurations are selected. The STAR-CCM+ software using the finite volume discretization method was used to solve the... 

This research addresses the location problem of congested facilities, assuming service interruptions and customer withdrawals. Service interruptions can occur as a result of events such as machine failures, power outages, and communication system disconnections. As long as no interruption occurs, each facility functions as a M/M/1 queuing system. Upon an interruption, the server stops working, and customers receiving service or waiting in line leave the queue before being served. Moreover, customers who visit the facility during the repair avoid entering the facility. The problem is first formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model, for which two piecewise mixed-integer... 

In this study, we perform numerical simulations to investigate the thermal and flow characteristics of a parabolic trough solar collector equipped with a porous receiver tube and internal longitudinal fins. The heat transfer medium is a synthetic oil-Cu-Al2O3 hybrid nanofluid. We examine the thermal characteristics of the nanofluid in response to variations in several system parameters. We find that at Reynolds numbers between 5 × 103 and 5 × 105, increasing the volume fraction of Cu nanoparticles can increase the temperature gain at the exit of the receiver tube by 6.4%. Furthermore, the temperature gradient in the cross-section of the collector increases as the direct normal solar... 

In recent years, the number and severity of natural disasters occurring in various regions of the world have increased dramatically incurring heavy financial and human losses. Therefore, decision-makers have been concerned with ways of providing relief to reduce the losses. Here, we present a multi-objective bi-level model for disaster location-routing problem that provides the needed supplies through multiple suppliers, considering the supply risk. Moreover, to reduce the risk and increase efficiency, special attention is given to people's help for supplying goods having high priority and low risk. At the first level of the model, the cost and time objectives are considered, and at the... 

An experimental setup has been developed to analyse the impact of cylinder transverse vibration caused by flow-induced vibration, and to improve wind energy harvesting from these vibrations. The setup consists of a cylinder mounted on four springs and is subjected to a uniform and steady flow of wind. In the first part, the effect of mounting a fixed cylinder as an obstacle with different diameters and distances from the downstream vibrating cylinder is investigated. It has been observed that the vibration amplitude on the wake of an unequal-sized obstacle is greatly amplified compared to the case of a single cylinder or an equal-sized cylinder. Numerical simulations has been conducted to... 

This study presents a set of rules for optimal tuning of a class of integer-order controllers, known as implementable fractional-order PID controllers, so that they can be employed to control First Order Plus Dead Time (FOPDT) processes. To this end, "tuning based on the implementable form of the controller"is an approach that has been applied instead of the common approach of "tuning based on the ideal form of the controller". Consequently, no contradiction is found between the behavior of the tuned controller and that of the implemented controller. Also, algebraic relations between the values of cost functions, which are defined based on Integral Square Error (ISE) and Integral Square Time...