Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, the soil-pile-structure interaction effects on seismic displacement demands are investigated using various dimensionless parameters. The code prescribed procedures for estimating seismic displacement demands are built upon fixed-base structure assumption and neglect the effect of foundation uplift. Tensile index, the ratio of the summation of the tensile strength of all piles to the weight of the structure, is introduced as a novel dimensionless ratio for the seismic assessments. The seismic behavior of the structures with a small tensile index is close to the structures with uplift-allowed shallow foundations. Structures with a large tensile index behave like tied foundation... 

Abstract: Bead-on-plate submerged arc welding was conducted on St37 steel by manufactured Cr, Mo, and Cr–Mo active basic fluxes produced via the unfused bonded method. The base metal heat-affected zone and weld metal (WM) microstructures were identified and characterized by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, each element’s recovery rate (η) and slag factor (α) determine the amount of element transferred from flux into WM. Then, the ferrite morphologies volume fraction of WMs was measured. Moreover, the chemical analysis of slag and inclusions was evaluated by point scan energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and extensively discussed. The number density and... 

Surface integrity is one of the important parameters affecting the quality and functionality of mechanical components. This paper presents an investigation on effect of drilling parameter on the surface integrity of Inconel 718 through a combination of experimental and simulation works. The machining responses that are determined through the experimental work include microhardness, microstructure changes, and surface roughness. The average grain size of the microstructure of the workpiece is estimated by using a simulation model. The experimental and simulation results show that higher spindle speed facilitates the formation of white layer near the machined surface and decreases the average... 

The goal of this study is to investigate the effects of tendon and cannulated drill bit diameter on the strength of the bone and site hold tendon inside (BASHTI) fixation technique for an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. Bovine digital tendons and Sawbones blocks were used to mimic the ACL reconstruction. Mechanical strength of the specimens was measured using a cyclic loading continued by a single cycle pullout load until failure to simulate the real postsurgical loading conditions. Finally, failure modes of specimens and ultimate failure load were recorded. The maximum possible tendon surface strain (i.e., tendon compression [TC]) for tendon diameters of 6, 7, 8, and 9 mm... 

Spontaneous imbibition of water from fracture into the matrix is considered as one of the most important recovery mechanisms in the fractured porous media. However, water cannot spontaneously imbibe into the oil-wet rocks and as a result oil won't be produced, unless the capillary pressure barrier between fracture conduits and matrix is overcome. Wettability alteration is known as the main affecting mechanism for low salinity water flooding (LSWF), however, its effectiveness in fractured porous media has been less investigated, especially in the case of possible pore scale displacement mechanisms. In this study, the effectiveness of LSWF (diluted seawater) on oil recovery is compared to the... 

Different heating rates of 200-1200 deg;C/s were utilized during ultra-rapid annealing (URA) up to the temperatures of 730 and 760 °C on the severely deformed low carbon steel. Higher hardness, strength and ductility achieved for the sample heated at 730 °C with 600 °C/s due to formation of bimodal grain size (BGS) microstructure than them for non-BGS samples. The BGS enhancement for the hardness, strength and ductility with respect to those of as received sample was 67%, 80% and 7%, respectively, and, with respect to those of severely deformed one was 16%, 44% and 24%, respectively. URA with the heating rate of 200 °C/s and 1000 °C/s leads to fully recrystallized and non-recrystallized... 

Bone And Site Hold Tendon Inside (BASHTI) implant-less technique is proposed as an alternative to conventional tendon repair methods. This study aims to evaluate the strength of this technique under biceps loading conditions with different xation strategies. Twelve specimens with bovine tendons and Sawbones were constructed using two different insertion methods; in Group 1, 4 samples were prepared using a hand-hammer with a hitting frequency of 300 Beats Per Minute (BPM), while Group 2 included eight specimens with insertion using an auto-hammer applying a frequency of 3600 BPM. Both of the groups were tested under cyclic loading, followed by a pull-out until the failure. All the samples... 

With the advent of high-throughput assays, a large number of biological experiments can be carried out. Image-based assays are among the most accessible and inexpensive technologies for this purpose. Indeed, these assays have proved to be effective in characterizing unknown functions of genes and small molecules. Image analysis pipelines have a pivotal role in translating raw images that are captured in such assays into useful and compact representation, also known as measurements. CellProfiler is a popular and commonly used tool for this purpose through providing readily available modules for the cell/nuclei segmentation, and making various measurements, or features, for each cell/nuclei.... 

The most common reasons for hard-tissue implant failure are structural loosening and prosthetic infections. Hence, in this study, to overcome the first problem, different bioinspired coatings, including dual acid-etched, anodic TiO2 nanotubes array, anodic hierarchical titanium oxide (HO), micro- and nanostructured hydroxyapatite (HA) layers, and HA/chitosan (HA/CS) nanocomposite, were applied to the titanium alloy surfaces. X-ray diffraction and FTIR analysis demonstrated that the in situ HA/CS nanocomposite formed successfully. The MTT assay showed that all samples had excellent cell viability, with cell proliferation rates ranging from 120% to 150% after 10 days. The HO coating... 

In this paper, we study the degrees of freedom (DoF) region and sum DoF of the time-selective K-user interference channel in the presence of intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs). We consider both active and passive IRSs. While both types of IRS can attenuate the amplitude and change the phase of a reflected electromagnetic wave, active IRSs are also capable of amplifying the wave. We derive inner and outer bounds for the DoF region and lower and upper bounds for the sum DoF of the K-user interference channel in the presence of an active IRS and prove that the maximum value of K for the sum DoF can be achieved if the number of IRS elements exceeds a certain finite value. The analysis... 

The growing popularity of community question answering websites can be seen by the growing number of users. Many methods are proposed to identify talented users in these communities, but many of them suffer from vocabulary mismatches. The solution to this problem can be found in translation approaches. The present paper proposes two translation methods for extracting more relevant translations. The proposed methods rely on the attention mechanism. The methods use multi-label classifiers that take each question as input and predict the skills related to the question. Using the attention mechanism, the model is able to focus on specific parts of the given input and predict the correct labels.... 

Saddle connections are semi-rigid connections that are widely used in Iran. Many existing buildings contain this type of connection. The present study conducted full-scale experiments and used extensive numerical modeling to study the mechanical characteristics of saddle connections. The mechanical characteristics examined were the moment-transfer mechanism, initial stiffness, yield moment, maximum moment, and fracture rotation. The configuration and dimensions of the experimental and numerical specimens were chosen to be similar to those of saddle connections in existing buildings. A parametric study was conducted to determine the factors affecting the mechanical characteristics of these... 

In this paper an integrated core, high reliability, linear-rotational resolver with a simple slotless configuration is proposed. The moving part of the proposed resolver has only one helical winding. While, its stator needs at least two individual windings to be able to determine the linear and angular position in simultaneous linear and rotational, helical, motions. Three different configurations are proposed for the stator's windings: (1) helical and horizontally skewed winding (2) helical and vertically skewed winding (3) horizontally and vertically skewed windings. The influence of the mentioned configurations is discussed in the terms of sensor's accuracy in independent and simultaneous... 

Tunable metamaterials functionalities change in response to external stimuli. Mechanical deformation is known to be an efficient approach to tune the electromagnetic response of a deformable metamaterial. However, in the case of large mechanical deformations, which are usually required to fully exploit the potential of the tunable metamaterials, the linear elastic mechanical analysis is no longer suitable. Nevertheless, nonlinear mechanical analysis is missing in the studies of mechanically tunable metamaterials. In this paper, we study the importance of considering nonlinearity in mechanical behavior when analyzing the response of a deformable metamaterial and its effects on electromagnetic... 

The effects of Sr additions (0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 wt%) on the microstructural evolution, thermal stability, and mechanical properties of a cast Mg–4Zn alloy were investigated. The extent of grain growth and stability of the intermetallic compounds were studied by optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. Mechanical properties of the studied alloys were evaluated by shear punch testing (SPT) method and also the hardness test. Hardness and shear strength of the base alloy were increased by Sr additions in the as-cast condition, due to the grain refinement effect of Sr and also presence of the Sr-containing Mg17Sr2 and Mg70Zn25Sr5 precipitates. However, the optimum amount of Sr... 

When a quantum system is coupled to two thermal baths at different temperatures, the temperature gradient as a thermodynamic force causes stationary heat flow within the system. We present a theoretical model to study how quantum features of squeezed thermal reservoirs affect the classical formulation of entropy production in terms of generalized forces and flows. Applying the quantum phase-space method to calculate Wigner entropy production helps us identify heat and squeezing fluxes and their corresponding generalized forces in terms of input-noise correlations of both reservoirs. Our study highlights the essential role played by the correlation of the input-noise operators of the thermal... 

In the seismic design of steel special moment frames, it is necessary to ensure that columns are generally stronger than beams. This reduces the probability of a weak story failure mechanism of the frame and ensures the formation of beams' plastic hinges earlier than the columns'. This criterion is known as strong column-weak beam (SCWB) in seismic design codes and is checked by a formula in the form of a ratio of total flexural strengths of columns to beams framing at each joint. It is common practice to ignore the column section change at the splice location and to use the flexural strength of the larger column section in evaluating this ratio. In this paper, several steel special moment... 

This study aimed to investigate the influence of processing parameters on the mechanical properties of auxetic polyurethane foams including Poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus. 12 different processing scenarios were considered using the method of Plackett–Burman in the design of experiments with three replicates for each one. Eventually, 36 foams were prepared with different densities and initial thicknesses, heating temperatures and times, applied compression ratios, and the rest times between two heating steps. The microstructures of the conventional and auxetic samples were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). All samples were subjected to tensile loading in one direction with... 

Predicting the failure probability of composite laminates under fatigue loading has many uncertainties, such as material properties, loading, boundary conditions, etc. In this paper, the failure probability of pin-loaded composite laminates is investigated. For this purpose, the continuum damage mechanics (CDM) theory has been combined with Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) as a physics of failure tool to predict the failure of composite laminates in different directions (fibers, matrix, and shear) to calculate the probability of failure of the composite laminates under fatigue loading. Therefore, the failure function will be formed using the CDM theory and random variables identified. Finally,... 

Biodegradable magnesium implants possess excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility, which make them suitable candidates to be employed as temporary structures for the bone regeneration purposes. However, there are still important challenges which limit their extensive use in biomedical applications, where the most important ones include implant-associated infection, rapid degradation rate and the need for improved mechanical properties. Silver, which is a strong antimicrobial agent, has been extensively used for improving the mentioned challenges in biodegradable Mg alloys either as alloying element or incorporation in the protective coating. Ag addition has been reported to have...