Sharif Digital Repository

Both theoretical and experimental results of an optical beam shaping system are investigated in this report. The described system is a two-stage beam shaping device including a fiber-bundle and a prism-duct. A source light is used to illuminate the fiber-bundle and the image of output beam is captured by a CCD camera. The fiber-bundle output beam shape shows a linear arrangement of circular spots lights, which are placed in a rectangular cross section of about 21.37 mm×2.44 mm. In another study, the photograph picture of the prism output beam is taken by a digital camera. The prism output beam cross section is a square shape with a dimension of about 4×4 mm2. According to the experimental... 

Application update at run-time remains a challenging issue in software engineering. There are many techniques with different evaluation metrics, resulting in different behaviours in the application being updated. In this paper, we provide an extensive review of research work on dynamic software updating. A framework for the evaluation of dynamic updating features is developed, and the articles are categorized and discussed based on the provided framework. Areas of online software maintenance requiring further research are also identified and highlighted. This information is deemed to not only assist practitioners in selecting appropriate dynamic updating techniques for their systems, but... 

A library of probabilistic models for prediction of seismic risk is presented. The models are specifically intended for use with reliability methods to compute event probabilities, such as seismic loss probabilities. Several models are presented here for the first time. In particular, new and generic models are proposed for earthquake location, regional loss, building response, building damage, and building loss. Each model is presented with an explanation of its development and a discussion of its predictions. In addition, models from the literature are " smoothed" to make them amenable to reliability analysis. The models are implemented in a new computer program that is tailored for... 

The Software Product Line (SPL) approach is a paradigm for systematic reuse of software products, and a Software Factory is a SPL aimed at the industrialization of software development. Based on the notion that a software/RE process can be developed via an engineering process (much akin to engineering other types of software), this research aims to provide a feature-based RE process factory to develop RE processes based on the characteristics of the project at hand (project situation). In our approach, the project situation is modeled as the problem domain through using the i* modeling language (resulting in a situation model). A feature model can encapsulate all the features in an SPL;... 

Object-oriented frameworks are widely used to develop new applications. They provide reusable concepts that are instantiated in application code through potentially complex implementation steps such as subclassing, implementing interfaces, and calling framework operations. Unfortunately, many modern frameworks are difficult to use because of their large and complex APIs and frequently incomplete user documentation. To cope with these problems, developers often use existing framework applications as a guide. However, locating concept implementations in those sample applications is typically challenging due to code tangling and scattering. To address this challenge, we introduce the notion of... 

Test Driven Development (TDD), as a quality promotion approach, suffers from some shortages that discourage its usage. One of the most challenging shortcomings of TDD is the low level of granularity and abstraction. This may lead to production of software that is not acceptable by the end users. Additionally, exploiting of TDD is not applicable in the enterprise systems development. To overcome this defect, we have merged TDD with Model Based Testing (MBT) and suggested a framework named Model Based Test Driven Development (MBTDD). According to TDD, writing test cases comes before programming, and based on our improved method of TDD, modeling precedes writing test cases. To validate the... 

The use of Computer Science in order to categorize and store information, improve diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, patient education and the training of a skilled labor force, has taken important steps and there are constantly new developments in this area  

Nano-micro grippers are able to pick-transport-place the micro or nanometer -sized materials, such as manipulation of biological cells or DNA molecules in a liquid medium. This paper proposes a novel monolithic nano-micro gripper structure with two axis piezoresistive force sensor which its resolution is under nanoNewton. The results of the study have been obtained by the simulation of the proposed gripper structure in Matlab software. Motion of the gripper arm is produced by a voice coil actuator. The behavior of the cell has been derived using the assumptions in the literatures. Moreover, two simple PID controllers, one for control of the gripper motion and another for control of the force... 

Memristive devices have gained significant research attention lately because of their unique properties and wide application spectrum. In particular, memristor-based resistive random access memory (RRAM) offers the high density, low power, and low volatility required for next-generation nonvolatile memory. Nowadays, despite significant advances in hardware technology, in the case of massively parallel systems still new computational architectures are required. Simulation of large quantity of memristors in the crossbar structure is a known challenge encountering these barriers. Using graphic processing units (GPU) as a low-cost and high-performance computing platform is an efficient preferred... 

To determine the curvature of the exit profile in the extrusion process of non-symmetrical flat dies, the dead metal zone profile was predicted using the energy minimization method. The dead zone is a natural non-linear die for the process and it is pragmatic to use this non-linear die to estimate the value of the exit profile curvature and the required bearing length for reducing this deviation. The velocity field is calculated based on Hermite cubic spline and some additional assumptions. In non-symmetrical dies the entrance section of the deformation region is not flat. Considering this fact, axial velocity decreases with increasing the distance to die center line which is in agreement... 

A nonlinear inverse finite element method is developed for estimation of initial blank shape and strain distribution in final shape. This method often based on implicit static algorithms, causes sometimes convergence problems because of strong nonlinearities. In order to avoid the converging problems, especially in the quasi vertical walls, an appropriate initial guess is introduced. By using this initial guess, the number of iterations in the nonlinear numerical solution is decreased, solution speed is significantly increased and complicated geometries can be analyzed by this method with good accuracy. Application to a Srail part shows good agreement between commercially available finite... 

Selecting a suitable Requirements Engineering (RE) process is usually based on personal preferences or existing company practices rather than on the characteristics of the project at hand (project situation). Feature-oriented software development is the overall process of developing software systems in terms of their features. The Software Product Line (SPL) approach is a paradigm for systematic reuse of software products, and a Software Factory is a SPL aimed at the industrialization of software development. Based on the notion that a software/RE process can be developed via an engineering process, this research aims to provide a feature-based RE process factory to develop RE processes... 

In this work, the thermomechanical responses during the dissimilar friction stir welding of aluminum alloys have been evaluated employing a three-dimensional model and the finite element software ABAQUS. Furthermore, welding experiments have been conducted under different working conditions and the temperature variations during and after welding as well as the produced residual stresses in various positions of the welded samples were measured using hole-drilling technique. The model results were then examined by experimental data, and a reasonable agreement was observed. It is found that tool rotational speed significantly affects the amount of maximum tensile residual stress while traverse... 

The effects of temperature, seed mass and agitation rate on agglomeration kinetics of aluminum hydroxide in Bayer process have been studied in a batch system. Collected raw data were analyzed and the kinetics data of agglomeration were derived through simulation of the process using a pre-developed software. The results showed that agglomeration kinetics constant (agglomeration kernel) increases with increase in temperature and agitation rate. Moreover a maximum value of agglomeration rate versus added seed mass was observed. Furthermore the magnitude of calculated activation energy of agglomeration was close to that of growth  

Injection molding is one of the most important manufacturing processes for mass production of complex plastic parts. In this study, mold filling is simulated by using the OpenFOAM software for Non- isothermal Newtonian fluid. The OpenFOAM is an open source software that is used in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools. The studied mold shape has a rectangular structure with a gate for Newtonian fluid injection. The simulation carried out at non-isothermal conditions and two-dimensional flow is considered. The velocity, shear stress and temperature changes in different parts of the mold are critically studied. We show that vortex formation plays an important role on changes of shear stress... 

Cobalt is the most common binder in cemented carbides industry. However, there are some interests in use of alternatives. The similarity in properties has made nickel the first choice. In the present work, the effect of initial composition on modern hardmetals containing transition metal carbides/carbonitrides that are called "cemented carbonitrides" with nickel as binder was investigated. Change in quantity of additive carbides and tungsten to carbon (C/W) weight ratio through applying metallic tungsten powder in primary powder mixture had some effects on final hardness, transverse rupture strength, and microstructure of studied alloys. Addition of vanadium carbide not more than 0.2 wt.%,... 

This paper summarizes the possibility of carbon dioxide gas Injection and compares the results with natural depletion in one of Iranian under saturated oil reservoir. At first with using PVTi software and Eclipse simulator, slim tube test has been simulated and Minimum Miscibility Pressure (MMP) of carbon dioxide gas with reservoir fluid determined then simulation of CO2 injection had done and at the end assessment of economic conditions for CO2 injection had been considered. Results had shown CO2 is an optimized choice for gas injection in this oil reservoir  

This paper presents an event-driven simulation-based optimization method for solving the train timetabling problem to minimize the total traveling time in the hybrid single and double track railway networks. The simulation approach is well applied for solving the train timetabling problems. In present simulation model, the stations and block sections of the railway network are respectively considered as the nodes and edges of the network model. The developed software named SIMARAIL has the capability of scheduling trains in large scale networks respecting the capacity constraints and infrastructure characteristics. This simulation model for railway timetabling is based on a detailed... 

This paper presents a robust control scheme for an islanded microgrid in the presence of structured uncertainties. The microgrid consists of parallel connection of two Distributed Generation (DG) units and a passive load. The DG units are connected to the passive load by using the power electronics converters. The microgrid model is structurally uncertain due to the large perturbations in the load parameters. To deal with the uncertainties, a Linear Fractional Representation (LFR) of the parametrically uncertain system is obtained. To achieve robust performance, the μ-synthesis approach is applied to the derived LFR model to design a μ controller. The resultant controller is structurally... 

In the present paper, numerical simulation of thermal barrier coating system under thermo-mechanical loadings is performed, using the finite element method in ABAQUS software. The base material is Aluminum-silicon alloy, A356.0 which is widely used in automotive components such as diesel engine cylinder heads. Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are applied to combustion chamber in order to reduce fuel consumption and pollutions and also improve fatigue life of components. The roughness effect of coating layers on stress distribution of test specimens is investigated. Semi-ellipsoid roughness of the interfaces between substrate/bond coat and bond coat/top coat are simulated to get the stress...