Sharif Digital Repository

Photovoltaic (PV) panels provide a suitable way for the direct conversion of solar energy into electricity. The electrical output and efficiency of PV modules are dependent on working temperature. The present study contributes to investigate the efficiency of utilizing a flat plate closed-loop pulsating heat pipe (CLPHP) to cool down a PV panel in both thermal and economic aspects. Accordingly, a numerical investigation is employed to obtain the surface temperature and electrical gain of the PV panel through four scenarios, including natural cooling without additional equipment, CLPHP-based passive cooling, CLPHP-based active cooling, and a conventional flat plate cooling methods. The... 

In the present work, a micro combustor for thermophotovoltaic (TPV) devices is proposed which is included a U-shaped microtube in a box with a secondary fluid in space between U-shaped microtube and box walls. By utilizing the three-dimensional CFD model, combustion characteristics of the premixed lean hydrogen-air mixture in the present micro combustor are studied numerically with detailed chemistry and transport taking into account heat transfer through the wall. The results show that the establishment of secondary flows and better preheating in the curved tubes is caused the flammability limits to be at least four times in comparison with straight tubes. Combustion characteristics are... 

Lifetime is the mos important concern in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) due to limited battery power of sensor nodes. Moreover, a WSN should be capable of timely fulfilling its mission without losing important information in event-critical applications. In this paper, we focus on designing an energy-efficient and energy-aware real-time routing algorithm aiming to explore the long lifetime routing schemes in which delay constraint is satisfied in the presence of lossy communication links. To achieve this goal, our energy-aware forwarding protocol utilizes an optimum distance real-time routing algorithm to minimize energy consumption in unreliable WSNs. Simulation results reveal that the... 

Three novel geothermal-based organic Rankine cycle (ORC) systems are proposed to enhance the efficiency and for waste heat recovery purpose. The proposed systems are modeled based on a basic ORC system (concept 1), an ORC system with an internal heat exchanger (concept 2), and a regenerative ORC system (concept 3). Accordingly, two thermoelectric generators (TEG) are introduced into the systems to exploit the waste heat of the system. The condenser is replaced with a TEG unit while the other TEG unit is used to recover the waste heat of the reinjected geothermal fluid. A comprehensive numerical investigation is conducted to compare the proposed systems from the thermodynamic and... 

Three novel geothermal-based organic Rankine cycle (ORC) systems are proposed to enhance the efficiency and for waste heat recovery purpose. The proposed systems are modeled based on a basic ORC system (concept 1), an ORC system with an internal heat exchanger (concept 2), and a regenerative ORC system (concept 3). Accordingly, two thermoelectric generators (TEG) are introduced into the systems to exploit the waste heat of the system. The condenser is replaced with a TEG unit while the other TEG unit is used to recover the waste heat of the reinjected geothermal fluid. A comprehensive numerical investigation is conducted to compare the proposed systems from the thermodynamic and... 

Pulsating heat pipes (PHPs) are compact cooling equipment used for various applications. This type of heat pipes can be used in renewable energy systems, cooling electronic devices, heat recovery systems and many other applications. Since PHPs have superior thermal performance, by applying them in energy systems enhance their efficiency. In addition, PHPs are a reliable medium for cooling various devices which have high heat flux. In this study, various works conducted on the applications of PHPs are reviewed and analyzed. It is concluded that PHPs are efficient and reliable devices for utilization in various energy systems. Moreover, at very low temperatures, such as cryogenic applications,... 

Covalently functionalized carbon nanoplatelets and non-covalent functionalized metal oxides nanoparticles (surfactant-treated) have been used to synthesize water-based nanofluids in this paper. To prove nanofluid stability, ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy is used, and the results show that nanofluid is stable for sixty days for carbon and thirty days for metal oxides. The thermophysical properties are evaluated experimentally and validated with theoretical models. Thermal conductivities of f-GNPs, SiO2, and ZnO nanofluids are enhanced by 25.68%, 11.49%, and 15.42%, respectively. Lu-Li and Bruggeman's thermal conductivity models are correctly matched with the experimental data.... 

Covalently functionalized carbon nanoplatelets and non-covalent functionalized metal oxides nanoparticles (surfactant-treated) have been used to synthesize water-based nanofluids in this paper. To prove nanofluid stability, ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy is used, and the results show that nanofluid is stable for sixty days for carbon and thirty days for metal oxides. The thermophysical properties are evaluated experimentally and validated with theoretical models. Thermal conductivities of f-GNPs, SiO2, and ZnO nanofluids are enhanced by 25.68%, 11.49%, and 15.42%, respectively. Lu-Li and Bruggeman's thermal conductivity models are correctly matched with the experimental data.... 

The spatial sparsity of targets in the radar scene is widely used in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar signal processing, either to improve the detection/estimation performance of the radar or to reduce the cost of the conventional MIMO radars (e.g., by reducing the number of antennas). While sparse target estimation is the main challenge in such an approach, here, we address the design of a compressive-sensing-based MIMO radar, which facilitates such estimations. In particular, we propose an efficient solution for the problem of joint power allocation and antenna placement based on minimizing the number of transmit antennas while constraining the coherence of the sensing matrix.... 

In natural gas transmission networks, the efficiency of daily operation is strongly dependent on our knowledge about the customer future demands. Unavailability of accurate demand forecasts makes it more important to be able to characterize the loads and quantify the corresponding uncertainty. A planning strategy for natural gas transmission networks under future demand uncertainty is addressed, which involves coupling of a gas transmission network dynamic simulator with the stochastic optimization framework. Loads from a gas-fired power plant are studied where the loads are characterized by a number of uncertain parameters, and unscented transform is utilized for uncertainty propagation.... 

Recently, the tradeoff between low energy consumption and high fault-tolerance has attracted a lot of attention as a key issue in the design of real-time systems. Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) is commonly employed as one of the most effective low energy techniques for real-time systems. It has been observed that the use of feedback-based methods can improve the effectiveness of DVS-enabled systems. In this paper, we have investigated reducing the energy consumption of fault-tolerant hard real-time systems using the feedback control theory. Our proposed method makes the system capable of selecting the proper frequency and voltage settings in order to reduce the energy consumption, while... 

This study concentrated on the formulation of self-flowing and an energy efficient lightweight aggregate foamed concrete (LAFC) to be employed as thermal insulation, thermal mass and structural material. Low density concrete mixtures (for the density values from 800 to 1300 kg/m3) were prepared by changing the volume of lightweight expanded clay aggregate (ECA) from 49.4% to 20.1%. Flowing properties of concrete mixtures were improved with the help of stable foam. Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) was replaced by the 5% and 10% silica fume (SF) to examine the influence of SF on the properties of LAFC. Compressive strength and tensile strength of LAFC mixtures were respectively enhanced from 6.5... 

The quality of service in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSN) is related to congestion in network. Recently different studies have been done on developing efficient protocols in the transport layer for controlling packet loss in WMSN. However, all of these protocols are independent of the characteristics of multimedia content. In this paper, a novel transport layer protocol, called Energy Efficient Congestion Avoidance (EECA), is proposed to minimize the packet loss ratio in WMSN by predicting congestion in network, and adjusting the source nodes output rate before congestion happening. EECA adjusts the output video quality in source nodes to adjust the source nodes video quality. The... 

Energy constraint is the most critical problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). To address this issue, clustering has been introduced as an efficient way for routing. However, the available clustering algorithms do not efficiently consider the geographical information of nodes in cluster-head election. This leads to uneven distribution of cluster-heads and unbalanced cluster sizes that brings about uneven energy dissipation in clusters. In this paper, an Efficient Distributed Cluster-head Election technique for Load balancing (EDCEL) is proposed. The main criterion of the algorithm, dispersal of cluster-heads, is achieved by increasing the Euclidian distance between cluster-heads.... 

Simulation, design and fabrication of a sealing enclosure is carried out for a NaI(Tl) 2″×2″ detector, to be used as in situ gamma radioactivity measurement system in marine environment. Effect of sealing enclosure on performance of the system in laboratory and marine environment (distinct tank with 10 m3 volume) were studied using point sources. The marine volumetric efficiency for radiation with 1461 keV energy (from 40K) is measured with KCl volumetric liquid source diluted in distinct tank. The experimental and simulated efficiency values agreed well. Marine volumetric efficiency calibration curve is calculated for 60 keV to 1461 keV energy with Monte Carlo method. This curve indicates... 

In advanced combined-cycle power plants, significant improvements in the thermodynamic performance are mainly achieved by the development of more efficient gas-turbine systems. This paper evaluates the effect of selected decision variables in the steam system for optimization of Thermal Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (TCCGT) power plant using an iterative exergoeconomic. The design variables were the thermodynamic parameters that establish the configuration both of the steam and gas systems. The design data of an existing plant (Damavand power plant in Tehran-Iran) is used. Two different objective functions are proposed: one minimizes the total cost of production per unit of output, and the... 

A solar natural vacuum desalination system was experimentally investigated. Using a barometric water column and creating an equilibrium with atmospheric pressure and gravity, vacuum conditions were maintained inside the evaporation chamber throughout the day, which led to the beginning of evaporation at lower temperatures and as a result, lower energy consumption compared to conventional methods. Solar evacuated tubes were used to more efficiently absorb solar radiation and raise the temperature of saline water. In addition, at the system startup, a vacuum pump was utilized to fill the water column and create vacuum conditions. Then, the existing vacuum in the system was maintained naturally...