Sharif Digital Repository

Air–water flow is a complex and challenging subject in many engineering fields as well as hydraulic engineering; and discovery of its characteristics can help the engineers to predict and analyze a probable phenomenon. In the present paper, development of a device capable of measuring the flow velocity, air concentration, diameter and counts of bubbles in air–water flows is described. The heart of the present device is two resistive probes with a novel configuration. Being pressure and corrosion resistant and also having negligible resistivity in the flow are some of the unique features of the employed needles. Moreover, sampling frequency and time can be adjusted for the intended... 

The current study investigates the effect of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) addition on morphology and antifouling properties of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) asymmetric flat ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. The membranes are prepared via phase inversion method induced by immersion precipitation at different PVC/PAN blending ratio up to 40 wt% PAN. Also, membranes with blending ratio of PVC/ PAN:70/30, which showed the highest water flux and flux recovery ratio, were used for membrane preparation with 4 wt% of Polyethylene glycol (PEG) addition in four different molecular weight, 600 Da, 1,000 Da, 6,000 Da and 20,000 Da, which was used as pore former and hydrophilic polymeric additive. The performance... 

Multi-phase induction motors feature a high fault-tolerance capability that makes them suitable for safety critical applications. On the other hand, concentrated winding is more fault-tolerant than conventional distributed winding. Therefore, the general idea is to use concentrated winding on the six-phase induction motor to gain more fault-tolerance capacity. Using concentrated winding has several advantages over distributed one, but it has the disadvantage of higher distortion of air gap flux density, which affects the motor performance significantly. In this paper, some concentrated windings are studied analytically by using the winding function analysis, and the layout with better... 

Optical and thermal analysis of the most well-known solar concentrator system; parabolic trough collector (PTC) are investigated and analyzed. To evaluate performance of the PTC, four cities of Iran with different weather conditions are chosen as case studies. Effective parameters such as concentration ratio, incident angle correction factor, collector mass flow rate are considered. The main objective of this work is evaluation of the solar energy potential using PTC in under consideration cities with different climates. Numerical modeling of the analysis is done using MATLAB software. Simulation results shows that Shiraz, with an average annual thermal efficiency of 13.91% and annual useful... 

Phosphorene is a new two-dimensional material that has great potentials in Nano electronic application, so it has attracted more researchers' attention nowadays. Indeed, phosphorene is an interesting material in gas sensing, due to its high surface-to-volume ratio and its carrier mobility. Many studies have been reported on phosphorene gas sensing, but there is not enough study on analytical modeling of phosphorene gas sensing properties. In this research, by adopting data from experimental NO2-based gas sensor, an analytical model of the phosphorene gas sensing behavior is presented. Then, the experimental results of NO2 gas sensing are compared with the proposed model and acceptable... 

Turbidity currents are responsible for much of the sedimentation in reservoirs. In order to control these flows, various methods such as placing an obstacle in their path have been proposed. In this study, the effect of inlet sediment concentration and obstacle height on the behaviour of turbidity currents is investigated experimentally. For this purpose, some experiments were carried out with different inlet concentrations and various obstacle heights. Velocity and concentration profiles were measured using an acoustic Doppler velocimeter. To examine the depositional behaviour of turbidity current, suspended sediment flux was calculated using velocity and concentration profiles of the... 

Concentration gradient generators (CGGs) help biologists to perform large scale, fast and high-throughput experiments. This paper introduces a design tool called Tree-like Concentration gradient generator Design Tool (TCDT). The performance of this tool is validated both numerically and experimentally. Three CGGs were fabricated using three different fabrication methods and design parameters. The performance of these devices was examined using the measurement of fluorescent and dye intensity. The performance of the design tool for non-linear and multi-drug concentration gradient generations was investigated as well. In addition, a method was developed to investigate the multi-drug... 

In this work, a new control strategy for controlling the particle size distribution (PSD) in emulsion polymerization has been proposed. It is shown that the desired PSD can be achieved by controlling the free surfactant concentration which in turn can be done by manipulating the surfactant feed rate. Simulation results show that the closed-loop control of free surfactant concentration results in a better control of PSD compared to open-loop control strategy, in presence of model mismatch and disturbances. Since the on-line measuring of ionic free surfactant concentration is difficult, conductivity which is related to it is measured instead and used for control purposes. The closed-loop... 

The present study investigates the turbulence characteristic of density current experimentally. The 3D Acoustic-Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) was used to measure the instantaneous velocity and characteristics of the turbulent flow. The courses of experiment were conducted in a three-dimensional channel for different discharge flows, concentrations, and bed slopes. Results are expressed at various distances from the inlet, for all flow rates, slopes and concentrations as the distribution of turbulence energy, Reynolds stress and the turbulent intensity. It was concluded that the maximum turbulence intensity happens in both the interface and near the wall. Also it was observed that turbulence... 

In copper electrorefining process, some additives are added to the electrolyte to improve the morphology of cathode deposits as well as the quality of products. In the present investigation, the effects of thiourea, glue and chloride ions (as additives) on the passivation of industrial copper anodes under high current densities have been reported. Experiments were conducted at 65 °C; using a synthetic electrolyte containing 40 g/l Cu2+ and 160 g/l H2SO4. Results obtained from chronopotentiometry experiments showed that increasing the concentration of chloride ion leads to increase in passivation time. The results also indicated that from a certain level on, namely 2 ppm, the increase in... 

The liquid-phase dehydration of 1,4-butanediol to tetrahydrofuran was investigated over various materials including synthetic zeolites, namely, ZSM-5, Y, Mordenite, Ferrierite, and Beta as well as silica and alumina. The key characters investigated were the Si/Al ratio and cation exchange. The results showed that the ZSM-5 zeolite exchanged with NH4+ exhibited the highest activity in dehydration of 1,4-butanediol. In all tests, nearly 100% selectivity to tetrahydrofuran was observed. After finding the most active catalyst, the kinetics of dehydration of 1,4-butanediol to tetrahydrofuran was studied over this material. The influence of operating parameters such as temperature, pressure, and... 

The effects of several variables on zinc recovery in column bioleaching have been investigated. The ore contained sphalerite and pyrite as the main sulfide minerals and chalcopyrite and galena as minor minerals. Tests were carried out using a bench-scale column leach reactor which was inoculated with mesophilic (Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans) and thermophilic (Sulfobacillus) iron oxidizing bacteria; initially isolated from the Sarcheshmeh chalcopyrite concentrate (Kerman, Iran) and Kooshk sphalerite concentrate (Yazd, Iran), respectively. In the inoculated column, jarosite and elemental sulfur were formed. The leaching rate of sphalerite tended to increase with dissolved ferric ion... 

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the photocatalytic degradation of anthracene using Fe-doped TiO2 nanoparticles in the presence of UV. The structure and morphology of Fe-doped TiO2 nanoparticles were studied by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The applied nanoparticles were synthesized by the sol–gel method. The effect of influential parameters on the degradation of anthracene, including pH, time, nanopar-ticles dosage, and the concentration of anthracene was studied. Using the UV/Fe-doped TiO2 system, the optimum experimental values were obtained to be as follows: pH = 7, contact time = 60 min, anthracene concentration =... 

Herein, NiO and Co2 O3, NiCo2 O4, and NiCo2 O4 /multi-walled carbon nanotubes nanocomposite were synthesized by the hydrothermal method and characterized by scanning electron micros-copy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized materials was evaluated by Reactive Red 120 dye degradation. The photocatalytic activity of NiO and Co3 O4 was enhanced not only by the formation of NiCo2 O4, but also by its interaction with the functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes support. The response surface methodology (RSM) was used to obtain the optimum parameters, including catalyst dosage, initial dye concen-tration, and pH on the dye... 

The purpose of this research is to investigate the response of concrete-filled composite tube column under concentric and eccentric loads. To evaluate the influence of PVC pipe on the behavior of concrete-filled composite tubes, concrete-filled PVC pipe (CFPT) were modeled by ABAQUS software. The results demonstrate that the presence of the PVC pipe makes the concrete column more ductile and have a significant effect on the stress–strain curve of the CFPT after the peak strength, in a way that the confinement increased by raising the thickness of PVC pipe, but the confinement effect of the PVC pipe decreased by the increment of the column diameter and compressive strength of the concrete... 

The purpose of this research is to investigate the response of concrete-filled composite tube column under concentric and eccentric loads. To evaluate the influence of PVC pipe on the behavior of concrete-filled composite tubes, concrete-filled PVC pipe (CFPT) were modeled by ABAQUS software. The results demonstrate that the presence of the PVC pipe makes the concrete column more ductile and have a significant effect on the stress–strain curve of the CFPT after the peak strength, in a way that the confinement increased by raising the thickness of PVC pipe, but the confinement effect of the PVC pipe decreased by the increment of the column diameter and compressive strength of the concrete... 

The electronic structure of high temperature superconductor YBCO is calculated by pseudopotential density functional theory using VASP code for different values of ZO(4). Comparison of the results of equilibrium ZO(4) with other calculation techniques indicates the capability of pseudopotential VASP code in energy band structure calculations for HTSCs. Both charge distribution and band structure calculations indicate the transfer of hole carriers from the CuO chains to the CuU2 planes with the increase of ZO(4). It is resulted that the increase of Cu(1)-0(4) bond lengths causes the creation of holes in the CuO2 planes. The redistribution of charge density confirms the charge transfer... 

A new, simple and sensitive method for the simultaneous determination of mercury(II) and methylmercury chloride at sub-ng 1-1 levels in river waters is described. Inorganic and organic mercury were preconcentrated from fresh water samples simultaneously on a laboratory-made column containing 2-mercaptobenzimidazol loaded on silica gel and then quantitatively eluted with 0.05 M KCN solution and 2.0 M HCl to desorp inorganic and methylmercury species, respectively. After irradiation with an intensive UV source, MeHg+ was decomposed and mercury vapours were generated from inorganic and organic mercury using an acidic SnCl2 solution in a continuous flow system and were subsequently determined... 

The CMC of a set of51 alkylpolyoxyethylene glycol ethers, R(EO)(m), and alkylphenol (ethylene oxide) ethers, RΦ(EO)(m), was related to topological, electronic and molecular structure parameters using a stepwise regression method. In development of the models linear and quadratic terms were used without the use of cross terms. Different strategies including Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) were used for choosing the best model. Specification of the best model in agreement with the experiment indicates that volume of the hydrophobic group and surface area of the molecule play a major role in the mechanism of micellization of nonionic surfactants. It was demonstrated that the CMC of these... 

The size of the rock specimen affects the stress concentrates in the vicinity of the top/bottom of the rock specimen during the evaluation of the geomechanical parameters in the laboratory, which causes unreliable results. However, the appropriate size for geomechanical evaluation is not well understood yet because of limitations in the sampling and analysis. In this study, a series of numerical simulations using a finite element package was conducted to investigate the effect of sample aspect ratio, fluid saturation, and porosity, on the mechanical behavior of the rock under elastic and poroelastic conditions. In addition, two concepts, stress/strain homogeneity index (SHI) and...