Sharif Digital Repository

Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia, which has been recognized as the seventh most common fatal disease in the elderly over 65 years of age. Despite all the research done to recognize and treat this disease, so far there is no cure for this disease, and even most of the chemical treatments that are prescribed for Alzheimer's patients are only effective towards reducing the symptoms of this disease and lose their effectiveness as it progresses. Therefore, in the last two decades, in order to find a way to better understand and even treat AD, scientists have reached a concept called brain frequency stimulation, which can improve people's cognitive performance without the... 

The use of concrete and steel composite structural systems has been extensively studied both numerically and experimentally. Composite concrete and steel beams consist of a steel beam on which the concrete slab is constructed using shear connections. The performance of concrete slabs and steel beams in steel composite concrete structures is generally provided by welded shear connectors on the upper flange of the steel beam. In this study, a more accurate model in numerical form will be conducted to investigate the effect of shear connectors installed in the composite beam in the critical area of beam to column connection, which is considered as a protected zone. The main objective of this... 

Increase in growing concerns over environmental pollution and depletion of fossil fuel resources motivate the need for cleaner energy technologies and stimulate research in facilitating renewable energy systems. In recent years, photovoltaic systems have attracted great attention since they remove the need for energy storage systems and intermediate processess for energy conversion. However, high capital cost, low efficiency and low energy density per area of these systems, as compared with other technologies hinder its industrial use. To surmount these bottlenecks and improve technical performance of PV systems, it is crucial to optimize configuration of convertor connection and to improve... 

Global growth of electrical energy consumption and various limitations on the use of fossil fuels, such as environmental problems, rising prices and their limited available resources, have resulted in growing interest and investment in the usage of renewable energy generation, especially photovoltaic (PV) systems. Although the off-grid operation of PV systems was its dominant operation form in the past, proliferation of these systems has made the grid-connected operating mode widespread in recent years. However, their grid connection causes technical problems which need to be resolved. This thesis studies and analyses the steady state and dynamic operation of PV systems in grid-connected... 

A quasi-Z-source inverter is a beneficial structure in photovoltaic applications. In a transformerless grid-connected inverter system, the common-mode voltage fluctuations cause the leakage current flow through the ground. The low-frequency harmonics of the common-mode voltage results in the malfunction of the residual current device. On the other hand, the high-frequency harmonics of the common-mode voltage cause EMI problems, additional loss and disturbance in the output currents. In this thesis, some methods are presented to reduce the leakage current in a three-phase quasi-Z-source inverter. First, different shoot-through implementation methods are investigated. By modifying the number... 

The use of shape memory alloys (SMAs) has been seriously considered in earthquake engineering due to their unique capabilities, such as the ability to tolerate cyclic deformations, recentering, and dissipating energy. Consequently, the effect of hybrid connections (SMA and steel based beam-column connection) in asymmetric structures is investigated in this research.A 4 story steel special moment resisting frame with 0%, 10%, and 20% eccentricities have been considered to find out the performance of a novel beam-column connection in reducing the seismic response of structures such as maximum drift ratio and residual displacement. In order to find out this issue first, the symmetric model has... 

Performance of reinforced concrete frames is highly dependent on detailing of the joint connections between its members, such as beams and columns. To have a good structural behavior, joints must show ductile behavior and designed based on the philosophy of strong column-weak beam. In the case of sever lacking ductility, strength or even rigidity of the connections, or having a weak column-strong beam, in the existing structures, there is a need for seismic upgrading of the connection. There are several ways for seismic upgrading of this type of connections.In this research, using steel plates for seismic upgrading of Concrete Beam-Column connections subjected to axial and cyclic loads has... 

Performance of reinforced concrete frames is highly dependent on detailing of the joint connections between its members, such as beams and columns. To have a good structural behavior, joints must show ductile behavior and designed based on the philosophy of strong column-weak beam. In the case of sever lacking ductility, strength or even rigidity of the connections, or having a weak column-strong beam, in the existing structures, there is a need for seismic upgrading of the connection. There are several ways for seismic upgrading of this type of connections.In the last decade Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) widely has been used to strengthening the reinforced concrete (RC) members. Most of... 

Existing design methods for steel frames has been improved over the last three decades in order to incorporate the behavior of semi-rigid steel connections in furtherance of frame design and since the analysis and design of structures is often done based on the assumption of completely rigid or pinned behavior,therefore, the actual behavior of connections and their modeling can help to understand the actual behavior of structures.Knowledge of the initial rotational stiffness of the connection is important for elastic analysis of structures. Investigations show that structures with semi-rigid connections have many features which are the causes to prefer these kinds of connections to the... 

Perceptual memory used in novel vs familiar discrimination is not only vital for the evaluation of environmental variations but also essential for learning, perception, and correcting behavioral policies. On the other hand, value-based memory which allows for discrimination of valuable objects among equally familiar ones also drives behavioral interactions and decision making. Although many studies have been conducted to address the neuronal association regarding each separately, the neural correspondence between perceptual and value-based memory is not scrutinized adequately. To this end, the differential neural activation in two macaque monkeys to unrewarded novel vs familiar fractals (>100... 

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the base metal capacity of stiffened seated angle connections and to inspect their behaviour. The effect of different parameters on the capacity of connections is examined, considering the damage in the column. This research is important since for welding design, codes require the designer to control the base metal capacity to check the connection capacity, while the method of calculating this capacity is not provided, and this issue is not considered in the design. In this research, ABAQUS finite element software was used to model and analyze the results. A total of 90 stiffened seated angle connections, which were connected to the flange... 

In this research, the effect of the changes of the factors affecting the stability and vibrations of the rotating shaft with the middle universal joint has been investigated. Using the energy method, the rotor motion equations for two five-degree-of-freedom Jefkat rotors have been obtained. By considering the effect of system vibrations on the angle between the rotors and using the existing constraint relations at the connection point of the rotors and inserting them into the equations, finally the equation of motion of the investigated system has been obtained as seven degrees of freedom. Due to the variable speed of the output shaft, the coefficients of the degrees of freedom are dependent... 

In recent years use of concrete filled steel tube column structures has been increased due to their several advantages. In these columns the steel tube provides confinement for the concrete core of the column, so it increases axial strength and flexibility of the concrete core, and prevents spalling of the concrete. On the other hand the concrete core delays the local buckling steel tube and increases its bearing capacity. In addition, these columns have higher stiffness and strength than typical concrete columns due to placement of steel in farthest point of column cross section. The steel tube besides its structural role acts as framework for the concrete core and reduces time and cost of... 

This thesis presents the investigation and development of a Finite Element Model (FEM) for a new type of Beam-Column Semi-Rigid steel connection. One of the main parts of this connection is a steel T profile inserted on top of a beam connecting it to a column by bolts. It seems that changes in the geometry of the T profile and its bolt positions can have a great influence on the rigidity or flexibility of the connection. Therefore, meaningful categories of the T profile geometry with different bolt positions have been modeled and analyzed by means of a Finite Element Modeling software ABAQUS, and their moment-rotation curves were driven. Also the Initial and Nonlinear Stiffness and the... 

Double angle connections, which are welded to the beam web and bolted to the column flange, are usually used to make hinged or semi-hinged connections. Several models are presented in this study whose geometrical properties are different. The finite element software package is used to develop the finite element analysis of the connections. An analytical method is presented that can be used to determine the behavior and deformation for this type of connection. The correctness of Moment-rotation curves of finite element analysis for each connection has been ascertained by comparison, using analytical technique; and a very good agreement has been obtained  

Khorjini connection is a type of connection in steel frames, in which the beam remains continuous at the intersection with column. In its ordinary form, this beam is connected to the face of column section using upper and lower angles. This type of connection is frequently used in construction of steel frames in Iran due to economic advantages and ease of fabrication. However since it is rarely used in other countries, its behavior and method of design is not described in international references and standards. The failure of the connections is a dominant type of seismic fraction in a building (The main reason of structural failures in Manjil and Roudbar earthquake – 1990). Contrary to the... 

In this thesis we study circuit models and their step responses of the Interconnects. First of all, we solve the Maxwell’s equations for lossless line to understand the models deeply and then generalize it for lossy lines. Only with equations that govern the model, one can realize the regions in which his model behaves correctly. After that, the transfer function of a single line with arbitrary load and source impedance is derived, based on lossy segmented model. Knowing this, we introduce different methods of getting the inverse Laplace of transfer function and their pros and cons. Finite pole approximation, Fourier series harmonics, and changing variable are various methods to simplify... 

Reduced beam section connection was one of the connections that were introduced and prequalified by SAC project to replace pre-northridge connections. This connection reduces both flanges of the beam at appropriate distances from beam to column connection to make a fuse protecting welds from brittle fracture. The RBS is prequalified in limited span-to-depth ratio, for designing this connection for short and deep beams may effect its performance. Since these limitations are based on limited experiments, forty three numerical models were analysed to recheck them in this study. These models are verified based on two published experiments and are capable of predicting all known yield mechanisms... 

In recent years a large number of passive energy dissipating systems developed in accordance with pioneering work on friction dampers which was firstly reported by pall(1979). Uusing Friction dampers reduce the inelastic demand of the structure during severe earthquake motions by sliping and a large portion of input energy dissipated mechanically in friction instead of yielding the main components of the structure. Based on economical purposes, it is valuable to know in which storey and slip force should be employ the friction devices to have an optimized performance of the structure. Due to kinematic conditions of slip and stick stages, as well as transition zones between them in friction... 

Composite Reinforced Concrete-Steel (RCS) frames which have reinforced concrete columns and steel beams attracted a lot of attention in recent years. They take advantage from the benefits of both reinforced concrete and steel frames thorough using the optimum combination of concrete and steel structural elements. In this research six structures including three 3-story, and three 6-story buildings are designed in a region with very high seismicity risk. These structures include composite RCS moment frames, special steel moment frames, and reinforced concrete special moment frames. RCS moment frames which are designed they not only have reinforced concrete columns similar to reinforced...