Sharif Digital Repository

Iran's proved natural gas reserves are the world's second largest. Mainly, because of climate changes and different reservoirs' characterizations, studying the behavior of production fluids and their transportation is essential. One of the main problems which occurs in the gas reservoirs is related to the hydrate formation while producing from a well, either in production strings or production lines (before and after choke). Effective parameters which influence the formation of hydrates are: high pressure, low temperature and water presence; and therefore, the high possibility of having this phenomenon in Iranian reservoirs is quite obvious especially in cold climates and for gas wells.... 

The morphological manipulation and structural characterisation of TiO 2-MgO binary system by an aqueous particulate sol-gel route were reported. Different crystal structures including pure MgTiO 3, mixtures of MgTiO 3 and TiO 2 and mixtures of MgTiO 3 and Mg 2TiO 4 were tailored by controlling Mg:Ti molar ratio and annealing temperatures as the processing parameters. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed that all compounds crystallised at the low temperature of 500 °C. Furthermore, it was found that the average crystallite size of the compounds depends upon the Mg:Ti molar ratio as well as the annealing temperature, being in the range 3-5 nm at... 

Pb(Zr 0.52Ti 0.48)O 3 (PZT) nanotubes with diameters of 80-100 nm and a wall thickness of 15-20 nm were prepared by sol-gel template technique and using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) as sacrificial templates. The coating process of MWCNT with PZT precursor sol and removal of the carbon nanotubes by an interrupt heat treatment were discussed and studied by Raman spectroscopy. Simultaneous thermal analysis (STA) revealed that PZT nanotube crystallized at the low temperature of 410°C by the significantly low activation energy of crystallization of 103.7 kJ/mol. Moreover, based on the X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and selected area electron diffraction pattern the crystal structure of... 

This experimental study is aimed at evaluation of the performance of secondary WAG injection in carbonate cores at different pressures. To do so, a comprehensive series of high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) core flooding tests are conducted. The fluid system includes reservoir dead and live crude oil, CO 2, and synthetic brine while the chosen porous media consists of a number of fractured carbonate core samples. Parameters such as oil recovery factor, water and oil production rates, and pressure drop along the core are recorded for both dead and live oil. According to results, at first increasing pressure improves the oil recovery, but this improvement after MMP is not as significant as... 

In this study the effect of deposition temperature and thickness on the physical properties of carbon films deposited by magnetron sputtering PVD was investigated. The results of Raman spectra and grazing incidence XRD (GIXRD) patterns show that the graphitization increases by increasing the deposition temperature. There is a change in deposition mechanism at 400 °C from amorphous carbon deposition to nano-structured graphite deposition. Also by increasing substrate temperature the electrical resistance of carbon films reduces significantly up to 300 °C and then remains largely constant. High intrinsic compressive stress in low temperature deposited carbon films causes cracks and... 

TiO2 nanotubes were synthesized using a modified autoclave-free thermal method from as-prepared initial powders. The size of initial powders (IP) was found to be critical in determining the morphology and crystal structure of the final product. Oleylamine (OA) was used as the polymer agent in the preparation of initial powders with different mol ratios of OA/Ti: 1, 5, and 10. X-ray diffraction analysis depicted that the increase of mole ratio up to 10 resulted in smaller nanoparticles with the sizes of about 8 nm. It was also deliberated that low temperature thermally treated IP showed the characteristic diffraction pattern of titanate phase of nanotubes. Scanning electron... 

Titanium dioxide nanopowders were synthesized by the diffusion controlled sol-gel process (LaMer model) and characterized by DTA-TG, XRD, and SEM. The prepared TiO 2 nanoparticles have uniform size and morphology, and the phase transformation kinetics of obtained material was studied by interpretation of the X-ray diffraction patterns peaks on the base of Avrami equation. The stating point of anatase-rutile phase transformation temperature in the prepared nanoparticles was found between 100 and 200 C. A decreasing trend on the intensity of X-ray peaks of anatase phase was observed up to 600 C when the presence of the rutile phase became predominant. Results indicated that the transition... 

In this study, effect of desiccant wheel, heat exchanger and cooling coil will be evaluated on decreasing the wet bulb temperature of entering air to cooling tower and decreasing the outlet cold water temperature. For this purpose, change effect of desiccant wheel parameters will be investigated on wet bulb temperature of outlet air from heat exchanger. After that, optimum parameters and minimum wet bulb temperature will be selected. Then, outlet cold water temperature will be achieved for various cooling coil surface temperature with definition of by pass factor and also by using optimum desiccant wheel parameters and entrance air wet bulb temperature to tower related to cooling coil... 

We have investigated the zero-and finite-temperature behaviors of the anisotropic antiferromagnetic Heisenberg XXZ spin-1/2 chain in the presence of a transverse magnetic field (h). The attention is concentrated on an interval of magnetic field between the factorizing field (hf) and the critical one (hc). The model presents a spin-flop phase for 0 < h < hf with an energy scale which is defined by the long range antiferromagnetic order while it undergoes an entanglement phase transition at h = hf. The entanglement estimators clearly show that the entanglement is lost exactly at h = hf, which justifies different quantum correlations on both sides of the factorizing field. As a consequence of... 

Through the strategic highway research program (SHRP) project, time-temperature superposition (TTS) was used to reduce the loading time of bending beam rheometer (BBR) test. Based on TTS, stiffness of the asphalt binder after a two-hour loading time is similar to that after 60 s at 10 °C above. This study attempted to evaluate the TTS validity using finite element (FE) method by developing master curves in a broad range of low temperatures. The results indicated that TTS was neither valid for modified asphalt binders nor for neat binder. Also, in addition to the loading time dependency of m-value, limiting values of stiffness and m-value find no rheological acceptance. As a remedy, thermally... 

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... 

Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to investigate the friction behavior of nanocrystalline nickel (Ni) at low temperature. Grain sizes ranging from 4–11 nm are used to explore the behavior of nanocrystalline Ni near the Hall-Petch breakdown. Effects of grain size, grain morphology and scratch depth on coefficient of friction (COF) and deformation mechanism of nanocrystalline Ni are investigated. Reduction of the COF with the refinement of grain size in nanocrystalline nickel is observed, however, for a grain size of 5 nm this trend is observed to be reversed. It is also found that scratch depth can influence the estimation of friction behavior of nanocrystalline... 

Today manufacturing of high efficiency chalcogenide thin film solar cells is based on high cost vacuum-based deposition processes at high temperature (>500 °C) and in chalcogen -containing atmosphere. In this paper, we introduce a simple vacuum-free and selenization-free, solution processing for fabricating a superstrate-type CuInS2 (CIS) solar cell. The absorber, buffer and blocking layers were all deposited by spin coating of molecular precursor inks. We demonstrate the deposition of In2S3 buffer layer by sol-gel spin casting for the first time. The rapid sintering process of CIS layer was carried out at 250 °C that is considered a very low temperature in CIGS thin-film technologies. A... 

Pulsating Heat Pipes (PHPs) are cooling devices that are compact in size and have an ability to transfer heat in low temperature differences. Working fluids strongly affect the thermal performance of PHPs. In this paper, effects of some thermophysical parameters relating to working fluids, such as boiling point, latent heat of vaporization, surface tension, thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity, are presented based on experimental and numerical studies done in recent years. Addition of nanoparticles to fluids, or making nanofuild, is a new method of improving thermophysical properties of fluids. Recently, many studies are carried out on thermophysical properties of nano-fuild. Results... 

Molecular dynamic simulation was performed to calculate the configurational entropy and the free energy for colloidal silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) in 1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium Hexafluorophosphate [EMim][PF6] ionic liquid (IL). Furthermore, the density functional theory (DFT) was used to get the potential interaction between the metal surface and ion in IL. The effect of size and temperature on the configurational entropy and the free energy of colloidal Ag NPs were investigated. Then, it was compared with the gas phase. The Tsallis nonextensivity of entropy was investigated for different sizes of colloidal Ag NPs and it was shown that sub-extensivity of entropy occurs for colloidal Ag... 

In this study, the fatigue behavior of Ti-6Al-4V alloy is tend to be improved by severe plastic deformation via shot peening and plasma nitriding. Shot peening with sub-branches: Conventional shot peening (A12-14), severe shot peening (A28–30 and A34-36) and repeening (N6-8) are exposed. Besides plasma nitriding is implemented at 500 °C, 550 °C and 600 °C with the durations of 4, 8 and 16 h. Due to utilization of shot peening as prior severe plastic deformation during diffusion of nitrogen, two methods are applied in sequence. Severe shot peening forms ultra-fine crystals and oriented grains by disintegrating of α and β phases just below the surface and increases surface roughness. Plasma... 

Bolometric response and noise characteristics of YBCO superconductor transition edge IR detectors with relatively sharp transition and its resulting detectivity are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The magnitude of response of a fabricated device was obtained for different bias currents and modulation frequencies. Using the measured and calculated bolometric response and noise characteristics, we found and analyzed the device detectivity versus frequency for different bias currents. The detectivity versus chopping frequency of the device did not decrease following the response strongly, due to the decrease of the noise at higher frequencies up to 1 kHz, resulting in... 

A rapid wax injection tool of a gearbox shift fork was designed, simulated, and manufactured using rapid prototyping and rapid tooling technology to save time and cost of producing wax models used for the investment casting process. CAE simulation softwares, in particular, MoldFlow, are used to get wax injection moulding parameters such as filling parameters, temperature profiles, freeze time, speed, and pressure. The results of this research were compared with conventional wax model production methods. The criteria of such comparison were based upon parameters such as time, cost, and other related characteristics, which resulted in saving of 50% in time and 60% in cost. In this research,... 

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... 

Extraction of thermal heat from a salinity-gradient solar pond (SGSP) as a way of accumulating solar energy, stockpiling and taking merit of it for medium and low temperature demands is presented as an interesting topic in recent decades. This reliable supply of heat can be used for low-temperature refrigeration systems to yield cooling load for residential applications. For this purpose, theoretical investigation of ejector refrigeration cycle (ERC) driven by a SGSP is carried out to produce cooling output. Also, thermoelectric generator (TEG) is used as a potential device replacing condenser of the ERC for the sake of bolstering performance of the fundamental system by producing power,...