Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents the design and part-load operation of a molten carbonate-micro gas turbine (MCFC/MGT) hybrid system (HS), and proposes a multiloop control strategy for the HS. A mathematical model of the system is introduced. Then, the structure of process is changed and the performance of HSs at part-load operation is studied. The novelty includes utilizing some part of the main fuel instead of auxiliary fuel in the combustion stage. The results show that the new configuration has more efficiency (about 63%). In order to keep the operating system within safe limits, variables of the control system are determined. Those controlled variables are as follows: stack temperature, fuel... 

This paper discusses a novel and detailed approach for dynamic modeling and control design of a coupled hydraulic dynamometer/turbine-engine system. This study presents a comprehensive model to reveal the coupling effects and an adaptive multiobjective controller to ensure a safe and reliable operation. A fuzzy-based strategy is employed to dynamically adjust the controller gains to keep the state variables and power loading within the desirable operational limits. This approach uses the dynamometer inlet, outlet, and trim valves as well as the turbine fuel flow rate and bleed valve in order to control the system performance during the engine testing process. The proposed fuzzy control... 

Temperature gradient on the thick Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV), caused by sudden overcooling events, especially in the downcomer, would intensify the propagation of structural defects. This situation known as Pressurized Thermal Shock (PTS) could be created in case of Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) actuation which leads to injection of cold water into the cold leg of the primary loop in some accidents, e.g. Loss Of Coolant Accident (LOCA). Prediction of Plant response to LOCA and water temperature gradient in the downcomer are performed in thermal-hydraulic section of PTS analysis. Employment of system codes is one of the proposed procedures in literature to obtain plant response and... 

In this paper, a computational model is developed for the simulation of hydro-fracture growth in naturally layered impervious media using the extended finite element method (X-FEM). The equilibrium equation of the bulk is solved in conjunction with the hydro-fracture inflow and continuity equations using the staggered Newton method. The hydro-fracture inflow is governed by the lubrication theory, where the permeability of the fracture is incorporated by taking advantage of the cubic law. The Eigen-function expansion method is utilised in order to develop enrichment functions suited for the asymptotic stress field in the vicinity of the singular points. An energy release rate-based criterion... 

The results of previous studies on silt and clay indicated that variations in the small strain shear modulus, Gmax, during hydraulic hysteresis had a non-linear increasing trend with matric suction, with greater values upon wetting. However, due to differences in material properties and inter-particle forces, a different behavior is expected for the Gmax of unsaturated sand. Although considerable research has been devoted in recent years to characterizing the behavior of the Gmax of sand during drying, less attention has been paid to the effect of hydraulic hysteresis on Gmax and its variations during wetting. In the study presented herein, an effective stress-based semi-empirical model was... 

The overall heat transfer coefficient (OHTC) of air in a double-pipe helical heat exchanger is studied and experimentally investigated. In order to increase the rate of heat transfer in the annulus section, a copper-wire fin is soldered on the outside area of the internal tube. The literature correlations’ results are presented against the experimental data by changing mass flow rate and temperature, and consequently changing the Reynolds number. Further, a new method is suggested to obtain the heat transfer coefficients of double-pipe helical heat exchangers for the internal tube and the annulus section by combining two of the previously proposed approaches and making subsequent... 

Non-pumping reactive wells (NPRWs) filled by zero-valent iron (ZVI) can be utilized for the remediation of groundwater contamination of deep aquifers. The efficiency of NPRWs mainly depends on the hydraulic contact time (HCT) of the pollutant with the reactive materials, the extent of the well capture zone (Wcz), and the relative hydraulic conductivity of aquifer and reactive material (Kr). We investigated nitrate removal from groundwater using NPRWs filled by ZVI (in nano and micro scales) and examined the effect of NPRWs orientations (i.e. vertical, slanted, and horizontal) on HCT and Wcz. The dependence of HCT on Wcz for different Kr values was derived theoretically for a homogeneous and... 

The Henry problem (HP) continues to play a useful role in theoretical and practical studies related to seawater intrusion (SWI) into coastal aquifers. The popularity of this problem is attributed to its simplicity and precision to the existence of semi-analytical (SA) solutions. The first SA solution has been developed for a high uniform diffusion coefficient. Several further studies have contributed more realistic solutions with lower diffusion coefficients or velocity-dependent dispersion. All the existing SA solutions are limited to homogenous and isotropic domains. This work attempts to improve the realism of the SA solution of the dispersive HP by extending it to heterogeneous and... 

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have been widely used to study the structure of metallic glasses (MGs) at atomic scale. However, ultrafast cooling rates in MD simulations create structures that are substantially under-relaxed. In this study, we introduce long-term pressurized annealing up to 1 μs slightly below the glass-transition temperature, Tg, in MD simulation, which effectively relaxes the structure of Cu64Zr36 MG toward experimental conditions. It is found that applying hydrostatic pressure up to 2 GPa relaxes the MG to low-energy states whereas higher pressures retard relaxation events. In the sample annealed at 2 GPa pressure, equivalent cooling rate reaches to 3.7 × 107 K/s,... 

In this paper, an extended finite element method is presented for simulation of interaction between hydraulic fracturing and natural fractures in saturated porous media. The well-known u−p formulation is employed in order to obtain the fully coupled set of governing equations. Natural faults are modeled for both opening and closure modes where the fluid inflow and contact conditions are considered at the interface, respectively. The Darcy law is employed in conjunction with an aperture dependent permeability for the fracture channel to describe the interfacial inflow. The contact constraints of both the solid and fluid phases are imposed using the Penalty method. The Heaviside and modified... 

Hydrostatic pressure is one of the most fundamental and common mechanical stimuli in the body, playing a critical role in the homeostasis of all organ systems. Kidney function is affected by high blood pressure, namely hypertension, by the increased pressure acting on the glomerular capillary walls. This general effect of hypertension is diagnosed as a chronic disease, but underlying mechanistic causes are still not well understood. This paper reports a portable and adaptive device for studying the effects of hydrostatic pressure on a monolayer of cells. The fabricated device fits within a conventional incubation system and microscope. The effects of various pressures and durations were... 

This article aims to simulate the sudden and fast pressure drop of VVER-1000 reactor core coolant, regarding acoustic phenomenon. It is used to acquire a more accurate method in order to simulate the various accidents of reactor core. Neutronic equations should be solved concurrently by means of DRAGON 4 and DONJON 4 coupling codes. The results of the developed package are compared with WIMS/CITATION and final safety analysis report of Bushehr VVER-1000 reactor (FSAR). Afterwards, time dependent thermal-hydraulic equations are answered by employing Single Heated Channel by Sectionalized Compressible Fluid method. Then, the obtained results were validated by the same transient simulation in a... 

Understanding the effect of impact loading on the mechanical response of the intervertebral disc (IVD) is valuable for investigating injury mechanisms and devising effective therapeutic modalities. This study used 24 porcine thoracic motion segments to characterize the mechanical response of intact (N = 8), degenerated (Trypsin-denatured, N = 8), and repaired (Genepin-treated, N = 8) IVDs subject to impact loading. A meta-model analysis of poroelastic finite element simulations was used in combination with ex-vivo creep and impact tests to extract the material properties. Forward analyses using updated specimen-specific FE models were performed to evaluate the effect of impact duration. The... 

The construction of permeable pavement (PP) in sidewalks of urban areas is an alternative low impact development (LID) to control stormwater runoff volume and consequently decrease the discharge of pollutants in receiving water bodies. In this paper, some laboratory experiments were performed to evaluate the efficiency of a PP subjected to sediment loadings during its life span. Simple infiltration models were validated by the laboratory experiments to evaluate the trend and extend of PP infiltration capacity throughout the life of the pavement operation. In addition, performances of the PP in removing total suspended solids (TSS) and selective nutrient pollutants such as NO3 −, NH4 + and... 

In the present study, the performance of three moving bed biofilm reactors (MBBRs) has been evaluated in series with anaerobic/anoxic/oxic (A2O) units for simultaneous removal of organic matter and nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) from a synthetic wastewater with characteristics similar to those of a typical municipal wastewater. Response surface methodology based on central composite design was used to investigate the effects of nitrate recycle ratio, hydraulic retention time (HRT), and influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) on the organic and nutrient removal and optimization process. The optimized values of influent COD, HRT, and R were 462 mg/L, 10 h, and 3.52, respectively. The... 

The volume change that occurs due to membrane penetration into peripheral voids of gravelly specimens during hydrostatic compression test in a conventional triaxial apparatus is studied by performing a set of hydrostatic compression tests on gravelly specimens with different initial relative densities. During the isotropic loading on the specimens, the total volume changes of the specimens were determined by measuring the amount of water seeping out of the specimens at different loading steps. Image processing technique was implemented simultaneously to determine the skeletal volume changes of the specimens. In this regard specimens were compressed to isotopic pressures from 10 to 500 kPa... 

Supercritical water reactor is one of the generation IV reactors which is basically a creative mixture of conventional PWRs and supercritical pressure steam boilers. Application of nanoparticles provides an effective way of improving heat transfer characteristics of conventional coolants; thus, utilization of a nanofluid coolant in the conceptual design of this reactors is quite reasonable and inevitable. Reactor coolant at supercritical pressure dose not experience any phase change and is heated up to 500 °C in three pass core design. In this paper, thermal–hydraulic analysis of applying a water base Al2O3 nanofluid with different nanoparticle mass fractions were investigated using a porous... 

During the past decade, Electro-Hydraulic system has performed a significant role in industrial engineering as an actuator for high performance and precision positioning applications. In this case, many control methods have been developed for an electro-hydraulic actuated clutch. In this paper a Linear Quadratic Regulators (LQR) is proposed to trajectory control of a wet clutch actuated by a hydraulic servo valve mechanism. Simulation study was performed using linearized mathematical model of the system implemented in MATLAB software. Based on the simulation results performance of the proposed controller was evaluated and discussed  

Mechanical properties of nano-composites produced by shock wave sintering of aluminum and silicon carbide nano-powders are investigated using Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. In this regard, the shock wave response of aluminum and silicon carbide nano-particles, arranged in a BCC super-lattice, is studied via the NPHug Hugoniostat method. Moreover, the effect of the initial hydrostatic compaction of powders as well as the cooling rate of the shocked material on the mechanical properties of the shock-sintered nano-composites is investigated. Employing the Hugoniot curves corresponding to the powders, it is concluded that an initial hydrostatic pressure, leads to a less temperature rise... 

An inexpensive silicon rubber-based chip was constructed by fabricating a triangle-shaped microcanal with a 135 μm width and 234 μm depth by laser ablation technique. The fabricated groove was sealed by a thin glass cover while two pieces of stainless-steel tubing were connected to each side of the canal. Then, a thin polyaniline film was synthesized on the walls of the canal by chemical oxidation using a syringe pump to deliver the relevant reagents. The microfluidic system was eventually connected to a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. To evaluate the capability of the constructed microfluidic system, it was implemented to the analysis of submilliliter volumes of environmental samples...