Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents a novel heat based measurement model for attitude determination (AD) using temperature data via two filtering techniques. Within the space environment, the Sun and Earth are considered as the major sources of external radiation that affect satellite surface temperature. In order to perform the required AD task, the satellite surface temperatures are related to its attitude via a proposed heat model (HM), assuming that the satellite navigational data is available. The proposed HM relates the net heat flux of three satellite orthogonal surfaces to its attitude. Filtering implementation of the proposed HM using the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) for AD is the key contribution... 

In this study, two conceptual models, the classic reservoir (CR) model and exchange reservoirs model embedded by dual porosity approach (DPR) are developed for simulation of karst aquifer functioning drained by multiple outlets. The performances of two developed models are demonstrated at a less developed karstic aquifer with three spring outlets located in Zagros Mountain in the south-west of Iran using 22-years of daily data. During the surface recharge, a production function based on water mass balance is implemented for computing the time series of surface recharge to the karst formations. The efficiency of both models has been assessed for simulation of daily spring discharge during the... 

OFDM is an effective multicarrier transmission technique with one primary disadvantage; it suffers from high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR). Although clipping and filtering is a simple and effective method for PAPR reduction, it makes in-band and out-of-band noise, which degrades the bit error rate performance and spectral efficiency. Publications on this subject show that clipped samples could be reconstructed at the receiver by using oversampled signal and bandwidth expansion. By building on published literature, this paper aims to achieve a low-complexity method. The proposed method has complexity order of O(L2) to solve linear system, where L indicates the number of clipped samples.... 

In the present study, enhancing the heat transfer is experimentally investigated by the electro-hydrodynamics (EHD) through a single-pass air-cooled PV/T (Photovoltaic/Thermal System). The corona wind increases the heat transfer coefficient by producing a secondary flow and vortex, and consequently, increases the PV/T system efficiency. The effects of the corona wind are studied by changing the voltage values and the flow rates in the air channel. The results show that the corona wind is effective on enhancing the system performance; so that the heat transfer coefficient increases by 65% in natural flow regime by applying 11 kV voltage in the pilot setup. Totally, the thermal efficiency of... 

In this paper, a simpler implementation of the well-known droop method for the control of parallel Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems is presented. In this method, in the power-sharing control scheme, the output current is calculated by software without the need for a current sensor, resulting in a simpler and cheaper structure. By doing so, the number of feedback sensors is reduced from three to two. The paralleling strategy uses the droop method in which the control strategy is based on the drop in the inverter output frequency and amplitude. The application of Proportional-Resonant (PR) controllers is also extended to parallel inverter and its superior performance over the... 

Various damage indexes have been introduced in recent years incorporating different parameters for estimating structural damage. Amongst these indexes, Plastic Ductility and Drift have been the center of attention of standards and building codes, like FEMA-356, because of their straightforward physical interpretation and ease of calculation. In this paper, several steel moment frames have been considered and their responses have been evaluated under a set of scaled earthquakes. A group of various damage indexes, which included cumulative and non cumulative, cyclic fatigue based, deformation based and modal parameter based, has been considered and the damage to structures has been evaluated... 

The aim of this study was to develop a predictive method for heat transfer coefficients in solar water heaters and their performance evaluation of such heaters with different materials used as heat collectors. Two approaches have been used: conventional method and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict the performance of solar water heaters and to compare these two approaches. This performance is measured in terms of outlet temperature by using a set of conventional feed forward multi-layer neural networks. The actual experimental data which were used as our network's input gathered from published literature (for polypropylene tubes) and from the experiments carried out recently using... 

Certain stratified charge divided chamber engines have a very small pre-chamber, equipped with a spark plug and a main chamber connected to the pre-chamber through nozzles, A theoretical model is presented in this research to predict ignition delay and initiation of combustion in the pre-chamber. It considers flame progress in the pre-chamber up to the point where the flame penetrates the main chamber through the connecting nozzles. Step by step calculations then continue in the main chamber and the mass fraction burned and the energy release rate are calculated. The process continues to the point where all the fuel is burned. At each step, due to a one degree rotation of the crank shaft,... 

In this paper, a complete four axle rail vehicle model with 70 Degrees Of Freedom (DOFs) is addressed, which includes; a carbody, two bogies and four axles. In order to include track irregularity effects on vehicle behavior, a simplified track model for a straight line is proposed. As the performance of the suspension components, especially for air springs, has significant effects on rail-vehicle dynamics and the ride comfort of passengers, a complete nonlinear thermo-dynamical air spring model which is a combination of two different models is introduced and then implemented in the complete rail-vehicle dynamics. By implementing the Presthus formulation [1], the thermo-dynamical parameters... 

The seismic behaviour of a 4-story building is investigated under horizontal excitation of simulated earthquakes. The model has been constructed with a 3D sandwich panel system without any conventional frame system in four storeys on a shaking table. The building has been modelled before construction. Due to the table limit, the scale factor of the model is chosen as 1: 2.35 of a prototype. The shaking table test of the scaled model of the building is carried out under several ground motions to verify the safety of the system. The simulated motions were applied to the model in two-perpendicular directions, simultaneously. The failure mechanism and dynamic behaviour of the model, as a... 

This paper presents a new combined method for accurate upscaling of two-phase displacements in highly heterogeneous reservoirs. The method has the capability to retain its high performance for various flow regimes, from viscous to gravity dominant displacements, without the need for further modifications and computational steps. Two different grids are incorporated for simulation. The grid on fine scale is used to recognize the complicated physics of flow which depends on dominated driving forces and their interaction with heterogeneity. However, to achieve a fast simulation, the global flow calculation is performed on the coarse scale grid using upscaled equivalent properties. The... 

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) measures the relative efficiency of a homogenous set of decision-making units (DMUs) when multiple inputs and outputs are present. The DEA-based Malmquist productivity index measuring the productivity change of DMUs over time has proven itself to be a valid tool to compare group performance. However, in the previous models developed for this purpose, it was supposed that all factors were controllable or discretionary. It is noteworthy that in most real cases, there are some inputs and outputs that are non-discretionary or semi-discretionary. Therefore, the main objective of the present study was to develop the DEA-based Malmquist productivity index on such... 

In this paper, the performance of a turbocharger twin-entry radial inflow turbine is investigated analytically and experimentally under steady state, full and partial admission conditions. In this modeling, the mass flow rate, pressure ratio and efficiency of the turbine are assumed unknown. The turbine geometry and the inlet total pressure and temperature are known, hence, the turbine performance characteristics can be obtained. In the turbocharger laboratory, performance characteristics of the turbine are determined, measuring the main parameters for various operating conditions. Comparing the model and experimental results shows good agreement. Also, considering the effect of test... 

In this paper the performance characteristics of a turbocharger twin-entry radial inflow gas turbine with asymmetrical volute and rotor tip diameter of 73.6 mm in steady state and under full and partial admission conditions are investigated. The employed method is based on one dimensional performance prediction which is developed for partial admission conditions. Furthermore, this method is developed for the asymmetrical volute of the turbine considering the flow specifications. Experimental investigation of the research was carried out on special test facilities under full and partial admission conditions for a wide range of speeds. A comparison of experimental and modeling results shows... 

This paper describes a procedure that uses particle swarm optimization (PSO) combined with the simulated annealing (SA) to analyze the bidding strategy of Generating Companies (Gencos) in an electricity market where they have incomplete information about their opponents. In the proposed methodology, Gencos prepare their strategic bids according to the Supply Function Equilibrium (SFE) model and they change their bidding strategies until Nash equilibrium points are obtained. Nash equilibrium points constitute a central solution concept in the game theory and are computed with solving a global optimization problem. In this paper a new computational intelligence technique is introduced that can... 

Traditional fragmented and mechanistic science is unable to cope with issues about sustainability, as these are often related to complex, self-organizing systems. In the paper, sustainable development is seen as an unending process defined neither by fixed goals nor by specific means of achieving them. It is argued that, in order to understand the sources of and the solutions to modern problems, linear and mechanistic thinking must give way to non-linear and organic thinking, more commonly referred to as systems thinking. System Dynamics, which operates in a whole-system fashion, is put forward as a powerful methodology to deal with issues of sustainability. Examples of successful...