Sharif Digital Repository

Lorentz force is the pumping basis of many electromagnetic micropumps used in lab-on-a-chip. In this paper a novel reciprocating single-chamber micropump is proposed, in which the actuation technique is based on Lorentz force acting on an array of microwires attached on a membrane surface. An alternating current is applied through the microwires in the presence of a magnetic field. The resultant force causes the membrane to oscillate and pushes the fluid to flow through microchannel using a ball-valve. The pump chamber (3 mm depth) was fabricated on a Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) substrate using laser engraving technique. The chamber was covered by a 60 μm thick hyper-elastic latex rubber... 

Integration of renewable energies in generation sector of power systems has caused many new issues for planners and decision makers. Therefore, new concepts such as flexibility are introduced to properly cover these problems. In this paper, a recently announced short-term flexibility product, namely, 'Flexible ramping product' (FRP) in power markets is put under investigation from different aspects. FRP is the capacity reserved to meet next upcoming five-minute net load (load minus intermittent supply) uncertainty. Therefore, at first, the mathematical model of real-time dispatch (RTD) problem in presence of the FRP is formulated. Modeling this problem as a linear programming (LP)... 

In recent years, the technological advancement of supercapacitors has been increasing exponentially due to the high demand in electronic consumer products. As so, researchers have found a way to meet that demand by fabricating graphene. As developments are made toward the future, two big advancements to be made are large-scale fabrication of graphene and fabricating graphene as a flexible electrode. This would allow for use in larger products and for manipulation of the unique properties of graphene to accommodate superior design alternatives. While large scale production is still mentioned, this review is specifically focusing on different methods used to fabricate graphene as a flexible... 

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) can harvest mechanical energy through coupling triboelectric effect and electrostatic induction. Typically, TENGs consist of organic materials, however on account of the potentially wide range of applications of TENGs as the self-powered portable/wearable electronics, biomedical devices, and sensors; semiconductor metal oxide materials can be promising candidates to be incorporating in TENG structure. Here, flexible TENG based on self-organized TiO2 nanotube arrays (TNTAs) is fabricated via anodization method. The introduced flexible large area nanotubular electrode is employed as the moving electrode in contact with Kapton film in vertical contact... 

In most approaches to adaptive robust control design for manipulators, a constant upper bound is considered for unmodeled dynamics. However, experiments show that the nature of the control input affects the magnitude of the unmodeled dynamics. For example, in an almost rigid manipulator where the mechanical flexibilities are considered as unmodeled dynamics, high frequency components of the input torque which are resulted form non-smooth control laws, can themselves excite system flexibilities. In this paper, we consider different characterizations of the unmodeled dynamics to take into account the effect of control input signal on the unmodeled dynamics. Simulation results illustrate the... 

Flexible ramping product (FRP) has been recently launched in a number of electricity markets to enhance the power grid flexibility and accommodate additional deals of uncertainty introduced by renewable energy resources. The FRP procures additional ramp capacities provided by the dispatchable generating units and consumers in the real-time market (RTM) with the aim to enhance the ability of supply to closely follow the net-load at the next immediate time-interval. An important challenge in widespread adoption of this technology is a key question: Does the available energy capacity of the RTM participants contain sufficient ramp capacity to tackle the net-load uncertainties? Indeed, shortage... 

Increasing rate of renewable energy sources (RESs) integration in the distribution system and development of multi-microgrids (MMG) structures have changed the operational condition of power grids. In this context, the stochastic and intermittent nature of the RESs has increased the need for ramp up power to balance the supply and demand when electricity generation of these resources drops. Moreover, bulk power generation units, which conventionally have the possibility to provide flexibility ramp, would face lack of financial justification for expansion and operation in a system with high rate penetration of RESs. Therefore, distribution system operators (DSOs) should rely on local... 

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) employ a significant amount of SRAM cells in order to provide a flexible routing architecture. While this flexibility allows for a rather easy realization of arbitrary functionality, the respectively required cells significantly increase the area and power consumption of the FPGA. At the same time, it can be observed that full routing flexibility is frequently not needed in order to efficiently realize the desired functionality. In this work, we are proposing an FPGA realization which focuses on what is needed and realizes only a subset of the possible routing options using what we call Turn-Restricted Switch-Boxes. While this may yield a slight... 

Large customers are considered as major flexible electricity demands which can reduce their electricity costs by choosing appropriate strategies to participate in demand response programs. However, practical methods to aid the large customers for handling the complex decision making process for participating in the programs have remained scarce. This paper proposes a novel decision-making tool for enabling large customers to determine how they adjust their electricity usage from normal consumption patterns in expectation of gaining profit in response to changes in prices and incentive payments offered by the system operators. The proposed model, formulated as a mixed-integer linear... 

Large customers are considered as major flexible electricity demands which can reduce their electricity costs by choosing appropriate strategies to participate in demand response programs. However, practical methods to aid the large customers for handling the complex decision making process for participating in the programs have remained scarce. This paper proposes a novel decision-making tool for enabling large customers to determine how they adjust their electricity usage from normal consumption patterns in expectation of gaining profit in response to changes in prices and incentive payments offered by the system operators. The proposed model, formulated as a mixed-integer linear... 

In this paper, a new approach is used to obtain the nonlinear mode for a flexible cantilever beam. The dependency of resonance of the beam on the exciting force amplitude is observed experimentally and theoretically. In this regard, the end response of a cantilever beam under the base excitation is measured for various force amplitudes. Then, by using the nonlinear normal modes, the reduced-order governing equation is obtained. The discrete model obtained according to identification of nonlinear terms can predict the frequency response of the beam and jump phenomenon properly. Comparison between experimental data and theoretical outputs show acceptable agreement. © 2020 Faculty of... 

Due to environmental and economic advantages, cold mix asphalt (CMA) can be considered as a good alternative to conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA). Nevertheless, it has inferior performance compared to HMA, so that the application of CMA is not recommended in the surface layer of pavements subjected to high traffic volume and/or regions with very cold or hot climate. Considering the high potential of distress occurring in the CMAs, this research is aimed at investigating the effect of crumb rubber (CR) on fracture and moisture damage resistance of the CMAs. Different CR percentages were applied through two different modification methods and, then by means of Semi-Circular Bending (SCB) test,... 

Power systems have been undergoing significant restructuring as a result of increasing independently operated local resources. Consequently, new entities, i.e. microgrids (MGs), are developed, which facilitate the integration of local resources, specifically renewable energy sources (RESs), into the operation of power systems. Despite many benefits, the integration of RESs could cause severe rampings in the net-load, which would challenge the reliable operation of the system. Therefore, it seems essential that flexible local resources in an MG should be employed to provide flexibility services to the main grid, thus ensuring that ramping in the MG's net-load would meet the ramping capability... 

Introduction of renewable energy sources (RESs) and independently operated multi-microgrid (MMG) systems have led to new issues in the management of power systems. In this context, uncertainty associated with RESs as well as intense ramps inflicted on the network called system flexibility constraints have raised new challenges in power systems. The new condition necessitates the implementation of novel frameworks that enable local system operators to efficiently manage the available resources to cope with the flexibility-ramp constraints. Moreover, the new framework should facilitate energy management in a system with an MMG structure considering uncertainty of RESs. Consequently, in this... 

The attitude fault-tolerant control of a flexible satellite actuated by reaction wheels and magnetic torquer bars is investigated in this article. A low earth orbit is considered for moment perturbations such as drag and gravity gradient. Furthermore, the flexible panels attached to a rigid central body are modeled through the assumed mode approach by a finite set of bending modal motion. The ordinary differential equations of their generalized coordinates are found using Lagrange’s equation, and the resulting dynamical model is validated by comparing its simulation results to the NX Siemens software results. Finally, a fault-tolerant controller based on sliding mode control is suggested and... 

A flexible, porous and biocompatible titanium dioxide nanotubes (TNT) - polyurethane (PU) film has been produced as a new scaffold for artificial vascular grafts. Synergistic improvements in the properties of vertical TNT and PU was reached, including enhancements in their biocompatibility, mechanical strength, flexibility and porosity. Open-ended (OE) TNT-PU and close-ended (CE) TNT-PU films were synthesized and their mechanical and biological properties were compared with their pure PU counterparts. TNT were attached to PU with a new strategy. The resulting flexible structure was hydrophilic and super hydrophilic in OE-TNT-PU and CE-TNT-PU scaffolds, respectively. The gas leakage during... 

In this paper, boundary control (BC) laws are designed to find a BC solution for a single-link nonlinear vertical manipulator to suppress the link’s transverse vibrations and control the rigid body nonlinear large rotating motion. The governing equations of motions and boundary conditions, which all consist of a set of PDEs and ODEs have been derived based on the Hamilton principle. It is desired to regulate large angular orientation, suppress the flexible link’s transverse vibrations and compensate the boundary disturbance simultaneously. The amount of elastic boundary vibration has remained within the constraint range. By considering novel Barrier-Integral Lyapunov functional in order to... 

Due to environmental and economic advantages, cold mix asphalt (CMA) can be considered as a good alternative to conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA). Nevertheless, it has inferior performance compared to HMA, so that the application of CMA is not recommended in the surface layer of pavements subjected to high traffic volume and/or regions with very cold or hot climate. Considering the high potential of distress occurring in the CMAs, this research is aimed at investigating the effect of crumb rubber (CR) on fracture and moisture damage resistance of the CMAs. Different CR percentages were applied through two different modification methods and, then by means of Semi-Circular Bending (SCB) test,...