Sharif Digital Repository

The behavior of pile foundations under earthquake loading is an important issue that affects the performance of structures. Design procedures have been developed for evaluating pile behavior under earthquake loading; however, the application of these procedures to cases involving liquefiable ground is uncertain. The performance of piles in liquefied soil layers is much more complex than that of non-liquefying soil layers because not only the superstructure and the surrounding soil exert different dynamic loads on pile, but also the stiffness and shear strength of surrounding soil diminishes over time due to both non-linear behavior of soil and pore water pressure generation. In this... 

Soil liquefaction is a phenomenon in which soil loses much of its strength or stiffness for a generally short time but nevertheless long enough for liquefaction to be the cause of many losses. Thus, many researchers have worked on the factors which affect this phenomenon. Effects of initial static shear stress on liquefaction strength of loose and medium dense Babolsar sand specimens were investigated in this study. Babolsar sand is fine to medium uniform sand classified as SP in USCS. Tests were performed with cyclic simple shear and static triaxial devices. All tests were performed under consolidated undrained conditions. Cyclic simple shear tests were performed under constant vertical... 

The lateral movement of a liquefiable layer on gently slopes is the most visible and devastating type of liquefaction-induced ground failure. Occurrence of liquefaction in sloping ground causes large deformations on ground surface, which may lead to several meters in some cases. Recent earthquakes have shown that this phenomenon causes severe damages to coastal structures, piers of bridges and life-lines, by exerting large lateral forces. In this research, a fully coupled two-dimensional dynamic analysis has been used to simulate the lateral spreading phenomenon and to evaluate the magnitude of deformations occurred in liquefiable soils. The critical state bounding surface elastic-plastic... 

The behavior of pile foundations under earthquake loading is an important issue that affects the performance of structures. Design procedures have been developed for evaluating pile behavior under earthquake loading; however, the application of these procedures to cases involving liquefiable ground is uncertain. The performance of piles in liquefied soil layers is much more complex than that of non-liquefying soil layers because not only the superstructure and the surrounding soil exert different dynamic loads on pile, but also the stiffness and shear strength of surrounding soil diminishes over time due to both non-linear behavior of soil and pore water pressure generation. In this... 

Gas liquefication in low temperatures is one of the most challenging fields in engineering due to complexity of its thermodynamic analisys and fabrication of equipments. Heat Exchangers are one of the most important equipments in these prosseces. High prices of Heat Exchangers in these facilities makes their Optimal and cost effective design, of crucial importance. In this thesis three dimensional model of a Plate Fin Heat Exchanger is thoroughly investigated. Fistly, by means of Aspen Heat Exchanger design Software a counter flow Heat Exchanger is designed. This HX is to be placed in Collins cycle, so, working fluid in both hot and cold streams is Helium Gas. The HX then by means of ANSYS... 

One of the main geotechnical phenomena that causes severe damage during earthquake is liquefaction. This incident occurs due to the undrained behavior of loose sandy soils. In this occurrence, the interaction between the solid and liquid phases in a cyclic motion leads to an increase in pore water pressure and a decrease in interactive forces (effective forces) between grains in the solid grains. Therefore, shear strength decreases. Different aspects of the aforementioned phenomenon is investigated, namely, field, laboratory, and numerical; nevertheless, the study is largely focused on the numerical modelling. Most studies in this field are carried out on a one-layer saturated sand. However,... 

Study on gravelly soils is one of the topics that Geotechnical Engineering researches have been concentrated on. Although several researches have enlightened the way to understand the behavior of gravelly soils, yet, there are some shortage of information about the dynamic behavior of this kind of soil in undrained condition. In this research, a series of cyclic triaxial tests have been performed using cyclic triaxial apparatus of Advanced Soil Mechanics Laboratory of Sharif University of Technology to study the effect of anisotropic consolidation (initial static shear stress) on dynamic behavior of a kind of gravel. The performed tests were divided into four groups with different initial... 

Lateral spreading is a common mode of earthquake-induced failure that usually occurs as a result of liquefaction in gently sloped sandy layers. Numerical simulation of this phenomenon requires fully coupled analysis of displacement of solid sand particles and pore water pressure under seismic loading. Predicting occurrence of initial liquefaction and sub-sequent ground movement requires employing an efficient and robust constitutive model that can predict the undrained behavior of saturated sand under different conditions. In this study, a fully coupled finite element code “PISA” utilizing a critical state two-surface plasticity constitutive model, proposed by Manzari and Dafalias (1997),... 

Pile foundations suffered severe damages during the past earthquakes in all around the world. These damages were more severe in laterally spreading grounds and they mostly have been observed in gently sloping grounds and coastal areas. In these cases, Pile foundations not only are subjected to structures inertial loads and kinematic loads of liquefied soil but also lateral spreading intensifies damages. Thus, in the recent decade, several researches have been conducted to investigate the behavior of pile foundations in liquefiable and laterally spreading grounds, however, some uncertainties still remain in modeling of soil-pile interaction. In this study, the effects of liquefaction- induced... 

Liquefaction has a profound effect on buildings, bridges, buried pipes and other engineering structures. This phenomenon can lead to the sliding of huge earth masses, submersion and bending of substantial structures, uplift of buried light structures and collapse of retaining walls. In recorded earthquakes, liquefaction has caused major damage to structures and deep foundations, proving that pile foundations are not designed to withstand at liquefaction condition. Considerable damages in pile foundations due to liquefaction in destructive earthquakes has called for extensive study and research concerning the behavior and response of piles under the influence of liquefaction, resulting in... 

Soil liquefaction occurring in loose saturated sand deposits during seismic loadings is one of the most destructive earthquake-induced phenomena in the field of earthquake geotechnical engineering. Catastrophic destructions due to this phenomenon that have been observed in the earthquakes such as Kobe (1995), Chi-Chi (1999), etc. has led to extensive studies in this field. In case of soil slopes prone to liquefaction hazard, detailed analysis of this phenomenon requires considering soil-related factors (e.g. shear strength, relative density, permeability, slope geometry) on the one hand, and earthquake-related characteristics (e.g. amplitude, frequency, duration) on the other. Numerical... 

A numerical framework is proposed to estimate the liquefaction-induced settlement of the fully saturated sandy layers in the free fields due to earthquake excitation and the results of the proposed method are compared with those of the empirical or probabilistic methods suggested by the previous researchers. Liquefaction is a sudden transformation of saturated sandy soil into a viscous fluid which is caused by the increase in the pore pressure and decrease in the effective stress and results in the reduction of the shear strength of the soil. One of the most important consequences of liquefaction is the liquefaction induced settlement which has caused severe damages in many places in the... 

Softening and liquefaction of granular soils due to earthquakes have been a major cause for much destruction in preceding decades. This phenomenon mostly occurs in sandy soils, yet its occurrence has also been reported in gravelly soils in the last three decades. Despite the numerous researches which have investigated the undrained cyclic behavior of gravelly soils during earthquakes, there are still some aspects that need further study.This research investigates the effect of initial static shear stress on undrained cyclic resistance of a well graded, medium dense gravelly soil by conducting a series of cyclic triaxial tests. The 23 performed tests are categorized into 5 groups with... 

Lateral spreading is defined as finite lateral displacement of mildly sloping grounds or those ending in free faces induced by liquefaction. Severe damages of pile groups due to lateral spreading in past earthquakes has been reported. Since earthquake is unavoidable, it is necessary to study the response of piles, especially pile groups, to liquefaction induced lateral spreading. Until now, a number of methods have been developed by researchers for design of deep foundations against lateral spreading, but reported failure of piles in last earthquakes indicates that these methods are associated with high uncertainties. This is due to the lack of laboratory and experimental data to evaluate... 

The behavior of pile foundations during earthquakes is one of the most important factors that affect the performance of structures. Therefore, a large number of studies have been performed on the behavior of pile foundations under dynamic loading. A lot of procedures for the analysis and design of piles under earthquake loading have been developed, especially after the earthquakes which took place in 1964 in Niigata and Alaska. They introduced two major mechanisms for the failure of pile foundations in liquefiable grounds: Bending mechanism and buckling mechanism.In this research the focus is the evaluation of pile failure under buckling mechanism. A fully coupled three-dimensional dynamic... 

In the present work, the possibility of using a cross flow microchannel heat exchanger in cryogenic service for natural gas liquefaction has been numerically investigated using 3D computational fluid dynamics approach. Microchannels of rectangular and triangular cross section with a hydraulic diameter of 0.667 and 0.472 mm respectively have been constructed in Gambit and Fluent is used as the solver of numerical simulations.For solver’s equations validation, the existing experimental data on flow of water through rectangular microchannels has been modeled by CFD. Comparison of CFD results with experimental data shows a good agreement.Both models are constructed of three distinct layers. In... 

In recent earthquakes piles have been severely damaged due to liquefaction-induced lateral spreading. Liquefaction causes lateral spreading in gently sloped saturated soft granular soils, leading to significant damage in structures and deep foundations. Although in recent years many studies have focused on different aspects of this phenomenon, the complex nature of the dynamic interaction between piles and liquefied soil is not yet fully understood. Thus more studies in this regard is inevitable. The present research focuses on the discussion and analysis of two large scale shaking table tests of 2x2 and 3x3 group piles. A three layer soil profile was used for the model, consisting of one... 

Natural gas liquefaction is a gas refrigeration technology, which enables the export of natural gas worldwide, in liquids formed and stored at very low temperatures. In this project, a plate-fin type of heat exchanger, which is used for liquefaction of natural gas (mainly methane) at very low temperatures, has been investigated. The most important and effective part of this gas refrigeration cycle is the cold box heat exchanger. The cold box consists of two or more floors in which some sorts of fins are installed in each floor. In this simulation, the three-sream heat exchanger is designed in such a way that the input temperature of the natural gas is about 200 K and the output is 145 K at a... 

Natural gas liquefaction is an enabling technology which could make natural gas resources globally accessible. Nonetheless, the design and operation of LNG processes is highly complex, and is subject to multiple criteria including energetic, environmental and safety performance. Moreover, such processes must be flexible enough to operate under different feed conditions. The present research applies integrated process and product design framework to enhance simultaneously energy efficiency, environmental benignness, and inherent safety of a small-scale LNG process. The challenge is that the current group contribution methods applied for the estimation of the thermophysical properties, suffer... 

Multistream plate-fin heat exchangers are used to supply the energy required by process units in the oil and gas industry. improving their performance is very important to reduce operating costs. In many applications, mixed refrigerants have replaced to improve the performance of plate-fin heat ecxhangers; Because the greater adaptability of the mixed refrigerant to the required refrigeration conditions that reduces the exergy losses. The Prico liquefaction cycle is one of the most commercial and commonly used liquefaction cycles. One of the most important parameters in designing a Prico liquefaction cycle is the molar percentage of the mixed refrigerant components. Proper determination of...