Sharif Digital Repository

Effects of sprue base size and design on flow pattern during aluminum gravity casting have been investigated by employing different sprue base sizes and using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Calculations was carried out using SUTCAST simulation software based on solving Navier-Stokes equation and tracing the free surface using SOLA-VOF algorithm. Flow pattern was analyzed with focusing on streamlines and velocity distribution in sprue base, runner and in-gate. Increasing well size was produced a vortex flow at the bottom of sprue base which increased the surface velocity of liquid metal in runner. Using a rather big sprue well could eliminate vena contracta, but in-gate velocity was... 

Bluetooth headsets are one of the popular accessories of mobile phones because of their convenience. It is necessary to assess the impact of electromagnetic waves on the human head when a person is using a headset. In this paper different scenarios closely modeling the situations that a subject may use the headset in real life are simulated. Simulations are performed for two types of materials commonly used to manufacture the headsets, namely silicone and acetal, and for two different orientation angle of the headset on the ear. Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) and path loss values are then obtained for two different environments, the open space and inside a car. SEMCAD-X software is used as a... 

An environmentally benign, aqueous synthesis of 1,2-azidoalcohols via regioselective ring opening of their epoxides using magnetic imidazolium based dicationic room temperature ionic liquid, [pbmim](FeCl4)2, as an efficient magnetic phase transfer catalyst in water has been described. The present approach offers the advantages of clean reaction, simple methodology, short reaction time, high yield, easy purification and reusable catalyst  

Network-on-Chips are now the popular communication medium to support inter-IP communications in complex on-chip systems with tens to hundreds IP cores. Higher scalability (compared to the traditional shared bus and point-to-point interconnects), throughput, and reliability are among the most important advantages of NoCs. Moreover, NoCs can well match current CAD methodologies mainly relying on modular and reusable structures with regularity of structural pattern. However, since NoCs are resource-limited, determining how to distribute application load over limited on-chip resources (e.g. switches, buffers, virtual channels, and wires) in order to improve the metrics of interest and satisfy... 

This paper presents a new set of reliability sensitivity measures. The purpose is to identify the optimal manner in which to mitigate risk to civil infrastructure, and reduce model uncertainty in order to improve risk estimates. Three measures are presented. One identifies the infrastructure components that should be prioritized for retrofit. Another measure identifies the infrastructure that should be prioritized for more refined modeling. The third measure identifies the models that should be prioritized in research to improve models, for example by gathering new data. The developments are presented in the context of a region with 622 buildings that are subjected to seismicity from several... 

Reliability methods are employed in this paper to analyze the seismic risk to the Vancouver metropolitan region in Canada. The use of reliability methods contrasts with several contemporary approaches for risk analysis. In this paper, two analysis approaches are presented and implemented in a new computer program. One utilizes the first-order and second-order reliability methods together with a hazard combination technique. The other is a sampling-based method that repeatedly generates damage scenarios in the time period of interest. Both strategies employ the same collection of probabilistic models for seismic risk analysis. While the models are presented in the companion paper, this paper... 

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... 

In this article, the finite element and cellular automata models are coupled to determine static recrystallization kinetics after cold deformation of low carbon steels. The deformation analysis is first performed to predict the strain, stress, and stored energy distributions within the deformed steel employing the finite element software, ABAQUS. Then, the kinetics of static recrystallization and distribution of recrystallized grain size are evaluated by means of a cellular automata model together with the stored energy calculated by the deformation analysis. To examine the predictions, the experimental results of recrystallized fractions and grain sizes after cold side-pressing of low... 

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...