Sharif Digital Repository

Contaminant materials in lubricants are signs for prediction and measurement of wear in engines. Therefore oil monitoring is considered as one of the most effective techniques for maintaining the heavy equipments. However based on oil analysis data, the identification of engine problem is very hard due to different contribution factors. Hence, this paper is purposed to analyze the wear behavior of some sets of selected heavy equipment engine based on documented oil analysis data during two years in different conditions to track engine failures using trend analysis. Furthermore the selected equipments are divided into two major groups (plantation and forestry, and general construction) based... 

Proper operation of an engine requires accurate measurement or estimation of the engine's air charge provided to the control unit which reduces both the engine's fuel consumption and the emissions. The volumetric efficiency of the engine is a key variable in computations using the engine control unit to estimate the air charge using the speed-density equation. This paper presents a new approach for real-time estimation of the volumetric efficiency using the sliding-mode methodology. An adaptive sliding-mode observer is proposed which relies on measurements from the engine's conventional sensors. The observer is shown to estimate asymptotically the volumetric efficiency of the engine for... 

Detection and isolation of faults in the exhaust gas path of a turbocharged spark ignition (SI) engine is an essential part of the engine control unit (ECU) strategies to minimize exhaust emission and ensure safe operation of a turbocharger. This paper proposes a novel model-based strategy to detect and isolate an exhaust manifold leakage and a stuckclosed wastegate fault. The strategy is based on a globally optimal parameter estimation algorithm which detects a virtual hole area in the exhaust manifold. The estimation algorithm requires observation of the exhaust manifold’s input and output flows. The input flow is estimated by a nonlinear Luenberger observer which is analytically shown to... 

Norouzak oil seeds that are the source of bio-diesel (Norouzak) fuel grow mostly in Gonabad and Kashmar located in Khorasan, north east of Iran. Spray characteristics of Norouzak bio-diesel have been experimentally and theoretically studied in this work. Norouzak fuel is added to the conventional diesel fuel, and mixture formations of several blends have been investigated and compared with each other. Moreover, by varying ambient and injection conditions, behaviors of spray of different blends have been explored. Microscopic and macroscopic properties of spray such as Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD), Ohnesorge number, spray tip penetration, spray cone angle, spray projected area and volume have... 

Using an in-house developed software the signal level, the best server cells, and the amount of interference using standard propagation models are determined in a cellular environment. The program is also able to assign the frequency channels automatically to the TRXs taking into account the carrier to interference and the traffic distribution using a genetic algorithm. In this paper, the cost function is based on the total Carrier to Interference ratio (C/I) and the traffic density of the serving area. The software by means of a genetic algorithm approaches a frequency assignment which increases the overall quality of service throughout the cellular network. The package has been used in a... 

This paper presents an efficient High-Level Synthesis (HLS) approach to improve RT-Level concurrent testing. The proposed method used for both fault detection and fault location. At first the available resources are used in their dead intervals to test active resources for fault detection, and then some changes are applied to the RT-Level controller to locate the faults. The fault detection step is based on a genetic algorithm (GA) search technique. This genetic algorithm is applied to the design after high level synthesis process to explore the test map. The proposed method has been evaluated based on dependability enhancement and area/latency overhead imposed to different benchmarks after... 

Using word base n-gram language models in continuous speech recognition systems is so prevalent. For using this type of language models, we should extract them from large corpora. Since Persian corpora are not rich, therefore the extracted language models are not credible. For this reason, most researchers extract class n-grams instead of finding word n-grams. In this research a new idea for fuzzy word clustering is represented that each word can be assigned to more that one class. The Fuzzy c-mean algorithm is used for our clustering method and we have examined its various parameters of it. Finally, this algorithm was applied on 20000 most frequent Persian words extracted from "Persian Text... 

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques provide detailed anatomic information non-invasively and without the use of ionizing radiation. The development of new pulse sequences in MRI has allowed obtaining images with high clinical importance and thus joint analysis (multispectral MRI) is required for interpretation of these images. Fuzz rule-based systems can combine many inputs from widely varying sources so that they can be useful for description of tissues in MRI. In a fuzzy system an error free and optimized classifier can be obtained by genetic algorithms. In this paper, we have utilized a genetic fuzzy system for modeling different tissues in brain MRI and proposed a statistical... 

The ultimate purpose of the nuclear power plant safety is to protect the public and the environment from unacceptable radiation exposure in all operational states. This paper presents a novel severe accident management framework to cope with the risk of radioactive material release to the environment. The objective is to reduce the contribution of severe accidents to the large and early release frequencies of radioactive materials for a VVER-1000 nuclear reactor. The proposed approach includes the emergency actions of NPP personnel aiming to recover the lost alternating power and restore the core cooling process by all means available at the site. In addition, mobile equipment including a... 

Fine particulate matter characterized as PM2.5 is the most important criteria air pollutant in the city of Tehran. Tehran is one of the most polluted cities of the Middle East based on annual mean PM2.5 concentrations. Tehran emission inventory shows the large contribution of mobile sources to the total particles. PM2.5 source apportionment studies show large fraction of black carbon (BC) in the total mass of PM2.5, especially during the cold seasons. BC is the product of incomplete combustion that is mainly derived from diesel engines and rich-burned gasoline carburetor engines on scooters and light-duty vehicles. The present study shows the results of a large experimental campaign in which... 

In this research, a finite element model was developed in order to simulate the two-step residual stress distribution of a thermal barrier coating system, considered to be used in diesel engine cylinder head, with a real roughness and real porosity. Two steps including the bond coat and the top coat deposition processes were taken into account. The real geometry of coating layers, including the roughness and the porosity, was also considered based on a scanning electron microscopy image. Then, effects of the convective heat transfer coefficient and initial substrate and substrate/bond coat preheating temperatures on the residual stress were studied. Obtained results illustrate that the... 

Emission characteristics of pure natural gas is fairly known, however more experimental investigation of natural gas combustion is necessary. In this research, emission and performance of a turbocharged natural gas SI engine are investigated experimentally at WOT and lean burn conditions. A computer code is also developed in MATLAB environment for predicting engine performance and NO emission and the results are validated with experimental data. Thermal boundary layer, as a novel approach, is considered in the simulation and a better agreement of predicted mass fraction burned was achieved at end part of combustion process when compared with experimental results. Experimental results have... 

This paper presents the fatigue lifetime of an aluminum-silicon-magnesium alloy, widely used in diesel engine cylinder heads, both with and without a thermal barrier coating (TBC) system. The coating system in this study consists of two layers including a 150 μm thick metallic bond coat and a zirconium oxide top coat 350 μm thick. These coating layers were applied on the substrate of A356.0 alloy by air plasma thermal spraying. The isothermal fatigue tests were conducted in low cycle fatigue (LCF) regime at various temperatures. Out-of-phase thermo-mechanical fatigue (OP-TMF) tests were also performed at different maximum temperatures and constraint factors. Experimental results demonstrate... 

In the present paper, the heat treatment effect on A356.0, a cast aluminum alloy which has been widely used in diesel engine cylinder heads, is investigated under out-of-phase thermo-mechanical fatigue and low cycle fatigue (at different temperatures) loadings. A typical heat treatment is applied to the material including 8. h solution at 535 °C, water quench and 3. h ageing at 180 °C. The experimental fatigue results show that the heat treatment process has considerable influence on mechanical and low cycle fatigue behaviors, especially at room temperature, but its effect on thermo-mechanical fatigue lifetime is not significant. The improvement in the strength can be explained by the... 

In the present study, the out-of-phase thermomechanical fatigue (OP-TMF) behavior of a cast aluminum-silicon-magnesium alloy, the A356.0 alloy which has been widely used in diesel engine cylinder heads, is compared to room-temperature and high-temperature low cycle fatigue (RT-, HT-LCF) behaviors. For this purpose, strain/temperature-controlled isothermal and non-isothermal fatigue tests were performed based on realistic loading conditions in cylinder heads. Fatigue tests results showed that the plastic strain increased during cycles under constant mechanical strain amplitude, while the specimen failed. Under LCF loadings, the cyclic hardening occurred at low temperatures for the A356.0... 

This paper studies the transit network scheduling problem and aims to minimize the waiting time at transfer stations. First, the problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming model that gives the departure times of vehicles in lines so that passengers can transfer between lines at transfer stations with minimum waiting times. Then, the model is expanded to a second model by considering the extra stopping time of vehicles at transfer stations as a new variable set. By calculating the optimal values for these variables, transfers can be better performed. The sizes of the models, compared with the existing models, are small enough that the models can be solved for small- and medium-sized... 

This study mainly aims to investigate the effect of reformer gas (RG) addition on the performance of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines using a multi zone model. The developed model is validated using a wide range of experimental data of a cooperative fuel research engine. Blended fuels of isooctane and n-heptane, known as primary reference fuels, with different octane numbers are used as the main engine fuel. A semi detailed chemical-kinetic mechanism containing 101 species and 594 reactions is used to simulate the combustion of blended fuels. The study is performed with different percentages of RG (0–30%). The results show that RG reduces the rate of some H abstraction... 

Homogeneous charge compression ignition engines require a smart control system to regulate the input quantities of the engine in various operational conditions. Achieving an optimum combustion needs an appropriate system response for different engine loads and speeds according to the power acquired from the engine, as well as the amounts of emissions present in the exhaust. Therefore, performing a set of experimental tests together with numerical simulations in a wide range of conditions facilitates calibration of the input parameters of the engine. In this study, the effects of the thermodynamic parameters and the thermokinetic parameters on the engine output in the preliminary design stage... 

High-sulphur and medium-sulphur diesel fuels are still used in several countries. Although diesel particulate filter technology for on-road diesel engines has existed since 1989, the availability of high-sulphur and medium-sulphur diesel fuels in the market causes delays in the use of catalysed filter technologies. However, the situation in places such as Tehran is considered unhealthy because of particles and black carbon, and full distribution of ultra-low-sulphur diesel is awaited eagerly. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the sulphur content in fuels on the gaseous and solid exhaust emissions of a 220 kW Euro II engine equipped with a sintered metal active-passive... 

Noise emission from vehicles in urban transportation has become of interest for researchers in addition to the engine exhaust gas emissions due to its significant effect on public health. In this work, an optimal energy management strategy is proposed for a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) by taking the effect of engine noise into account. The engine noise is calculated based on a pressure-based combustion noise model at different operating points of a 1.5 L gasoline engine. The optimal operating points of the engine are defined using the calculated engine noise from in-cylinder pressure data and experimental data of brake specific fuel consumption (FC). A modification on the electric assist...