Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, the V-shape development model approach for designing an automotive floor panel made by laminated structure is investigated to attain the best trade-off between the system and subsystem level requirements while improving the local and global performance of the vehicle. For this purpose, the bending and torsional stiffness of the body structure, as well as mass, strength, and vibration attenuation of the floor panel, are considered as design objectives at the system and subsystem levels. A multi-objective discrete optimization of a laminated configuration is performed using the Taguchi-based grey relational analysis. Material grades and thicknesses of the sandwich panel face... 

In this contribution, reduced grapheme oxides (rGO) with immobilized tin oxide (SnO2) nanocatalysts were synthesized via the Incipient Wetness Impregnation (IWI) method. To characterize the SnO2/rGO composites, several analyses including the; XRD, Raman, FTIR, ICP-OES, BET-BJH, XPS, TEM, and TPD were utilized. Then the effects of parameters including reaction time, total metal loading, and the initial sulfur concentration of model fuel in the dibenzothiophene (DBT) oxidation desulfurization process were evaluated. After determining the optimal conditions for the aforementioned parameters, the influences of 3 effective factors of the molar ratio of oxidant/substrate (O/S), the molar ratio of... 

Due to significance of high-accuracy attitude control, the fuel sloshing effects on the satellite attitude should be considered, more precisely. This work deals with the attitude control of a liquid propellant-filled satellite considering the incompressible fuel sloshing in the planar maneuver. The satellite consists of a rigid body, a partially-filled tank and a flexible diaphragm. Hamilton's principle is employed to derive nonlinear coupled PDEs-ODEs governing the coupled satellite-diaphragm propellant tank system. Afterwards, to dispense with the spillover instability, a PDE-based controller is designed to realize the satellite attitude control while tracking a desired pitch angle and... 

Landfill leachate is a highly contaminated liquid generated in municipal solid waste landfills. The application of sulfate radical-based advanced oxidation processes (SR-AOP) in landfill leachate treatments is emerging due to their ability to degrade both organic refractory matters and ammonia nitrogen. In this paper, application of peroxymonosulfate (PMS), activated by Fe2+ and UV was used as an economical and environmentally friendly approach for treatment of landfill leachate. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia removals were measured as the two primary responses of landfill leachate to UV/PMS/Fe2+ treatment system. The main parameters (pH, PMS/Fe2+ mass ratio, Fe2+ dosage) affecting... 

This study aims to develop a low computational cost framework to optimize the seismic performance of the steel moment-resisting frames (SMRFs) equipped with friction dampers at different performance levels. To achieve the optimal design of dampers in a structure, a novel approach called adaptive optimisation technique (AOT) is adopted. The basis of this method is to achieve a uniform distribution of damage (UDD) in the structure to exploit the maximum energy dissipation capacity of the dampers. The optimisation objective is to obtain the best position of friction dampers and minimize their slip-threshold force to satisfy a predefined inter-story drift (i.e. selected performance target). The... 

In this research, the cyclic performance of double corrugated steel plate shear walls (DCSPSWs) is investigated experimentally and confirmed numerically. Three half-scale one-story single-bay specimens with different infill plate designs were constructed and tested under lateral cyclic loads. The design parameters examined were the connection between the corrugated plates and the connection between the infill plate and the columns. The results showed that regardless of the infill plate design, the DCSPSWs had a spindle-shaped hysteresis curve with good cyclic performance. However, the beam-only-connected DCSPSW exhibited slightly lower lateral load resistance. Finite element (FE) models of... 

Current seismic design codes use lateral load distributions that do not consider 3D structural behavior, nonlinear structural state, and soil-structure interaction. Moreover, calculated seismic force does not reflect the energy content of the earthquake and record-to-record variability in its lateral distribution. This research proposes a new design procedure for steel structures that reach nonlinear state to address the mentioned shortcomings. First, nine 3D 6-story steel structures in 3 different soil types and three different structural systems are analyzed under 12 earthquakes for each soil type. Soil-structure interaction is taken into account using the cone model. Then, the general... 

Multi-party computation (MPC) allows each peer to take part in the execution of a common function with their private share of data without the need to expose it to other participants. The Legendre symbol is a pseudo-random function (PRF) that is suitable for MPC protocols due to their efficient evaluation process compared to other symmetric primitives. Recently, Legendre-based PRFs have also been employed in the construction of a post-quantum signature scheme, namely LegRoast. In this paper, we propose, to the best of our knowledge, the first hardware implementations for the Legendre symbol by three approaches: 1) low-area, 2) high-speed, and 3) high-frequency. The high-speed architecture... 

Reinforcement learning methods such as Q-learning have shown promising results in the model-free design of linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controllers for linear time-invariant (LTI) systems. However, challenges such as sample-efficiency, sensitivity to hyper-parameters, and compatibility with classical control paradigms limit the integration of such algorithms in critical control applications. This paper aims to take some steps towards bridging the well-known classical control requirements and learning algorithms by using optimization frameworks and properties of conic constraints. Accordingly, a new off-policy model-free approach is proposed for learning the Q-function and designing the... 

Drying is a common practice for delaying deterioration, preserving quality, and easier prolonged storage of agricultural products. According to the climatic and geographical conditions of Arsanjan County, Fars, Iran. So far, many studies have been conducted on the design and use of various barriers on absorber plates with the aim of increasing heat exchange and subsequently increasing the efficiency of air heaters and solar dryers. However, the effect of using the metal of the sewing machine bobbin on the performance of these dryers has not been studied yet. Therefore, in this study, for the first time, this metal and also pipes containing PCM (phase change material) were used as a barrier... 

Dynamic analyses are necessary problems in offshore jacket structures design and assessment. These analyses have various applications in recognition of dynamic behavior, fatigue analysis, damage detection, etc. Natural frequencies and mode shapes, as inherent vibrational features of a structure, are key parameters in referred analyses. These parameters are mainly affected by mass and stiffness matrices and slightly by damping. Therefore, it is more important to estimate the stiffness matrix of a structure accurately, especially in stiff structures such as offshore jacket platforms. In many cases, the stiffness of levels is required. For example, it can be useful in the construction of an... 

A common solution for increasing the accuracy of wound-rotor (WR) resolvers is to increase the number of poles. To achieve a compact design, fractional slot concentrated winding (FSCW) is used for multi-pole WR resolvers. However, employing such windings leads to rich sub-harmonics in the induced voltages. To suppress these undesirable sub-harmonics, multi-layer windings with an appropriate shifting angle between the layers are suggested. However, the said shifting angle is limited by the slot pitch so that the capability of the multi-layer winding is not utilized fully. To overcome the mentioned deficiency, a slotless disk type configuration is proposed in this article. Then, an... 

Purpose: The aim of this research is to propose a buffer sizing and buffer controlling algorithm (BSCA) as a heuristic algorithm for calculating project buffer and feeding buffers as well as dynamic controlling of buffer consumption in different phases of a wind power plant project in order to achieve a more realistic project duration. Design/methodology/approach: The BSCA algorithm has two main phases of planning and buffer sizing and construction and buffer consumption. Project buffer and feeding buffers are determined in the planning and buffer sizing phase, and their consumption is controlled in the construction and buffer consumption phase. The heuristic algorithm was coded and run in... 

Silica nanoparticles, which have a broad range of sizes and specific surface features, have been used in many industrial applications. This study was conducted to synthesize monodispersed silica nanoparticles directly from tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) with an alkaline catalyst (NH3) based on the sol–gel process and the Stöber method. A central composite design (CCD) is used to build a second-order (quadratic) model for the response variables without requiring a complete threelevel factorial experiment. The process was then optimized to achieve the minimum particle size with the lowest concentration of TEOS. Dynamic light scattering and scanning electron microscopy were used to analyze the... 

The classification of biological sequences is an open issue for a variety of data sets, such as viral and metagenomics sequences. Therefore, many studies utilize neural network tools, as the well-known methods in this field, and focus on designing customized network structures. However, a few works focus on more effective factors, such as input encoding method or implementation technology, to address accuracy and efficiency issues in this area. Therefore, in this work, we propose an image-based encoding method, called as WalkIm, whose adoption, even in a simple neural network, provides competitive accuracy and superior efficiency, compared to the existing classification methods (e.g. VGDC,... 

Abstract: Advancements in microscale technologies have prompted a demand for high precision micro-manipulation. Microgrippers are the primary means of conducting micro-scale operations, and they significantly affect the procedure's performance. This paper presents a novel optimized design for compliant microgrippers, intending to enhance functionality and durability. The mainframe of the proposed microgripper is based on a compact flexure-based compliant structure with four stages of movement amplification. Experiments were designed based on the L25 Taguchi orthogonal arrays. The experiments were conducted using the finite element method in Abaqus 6.14 workbench. Range of motion and maximum... 

Separation and lysis of RBCs play an important role in diagnosis of different diseases. Although they have been partially studied in several researches, a comprehensive study on integrating both separation and lysis units on a single chip has been seen rarely in the literature. Also, the factors related to the chemical lysis process have not been investigated in detail. In this study, we introduce a novel microfluidic channel design for sequential RBC's separation and lysis. For the separation part, an active method with an electric field was applied to the cells. Besides, a novel mixer was designed for mixing the cell solution and lysis reagent. In the lysis section, we used a mathematical... 

Atherosclerotic plaques and thrombosis are chronic inflammatory complications and the main manifestations of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), the leading cause of death globally. Achieving non/minimal-invasive therapeutic means for these implications in the coronary network is vital and has become an interdisciplinary concern. Accordingly, smart drug delivery systems, specifically based on micro- and nanoparticles, as a promising method to offer non/minimal-invasive therapeutic mechanisms are under active research. Notably, computational models enable us to study, design, and predict treatment strategies based on smart drug delivery systems with less time and cost compared with conventional...