Sharif Digital Repository

Humans need the five senses to understand and interact constructively with their surrounding environment; in the world of robots and intelligent systems, this is achieved using sensors. In the modern world, tactile sensors based on triboelectric effect play a prominent role in important application areas such as health monitoring, human-computer interaction, robotics, pressure mapping, and electronic signature. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are one type of energy harvesting systems that convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. In these sensors, due to the contact and touch with the triboelectric material, an electric charge is generated and induced into the electrode, then... 

Nowadays, beside of two-dimensional tungsten disulfide nanosheets, its hybrid nanostructures also provide active sites for physisorption of gas molecules due to their high surface-to-volume ratio, surface active site (such as sulfur vacancies, surface defects, and p-n junctions) and active edges, and are very attractive for gas sensing applications. In this research, tungsten disulfide layered crystallines were grown by chemical vapor phase transport and its two-dimensional nanoflakes were prepared by liquid exfoliation method. So, a thin film of the nanoflakes was deposited on a silicon oxide substrate by drop casting method, and its gas sensing properties were investigated for water and... 

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) works based on the accumulation of electrostatic charges produced on the surface of two dissimilar materials while they are brought into physical contact. When the surfaces are separated by a mechanical force, the induced triboelectric charges generate a potential drop, which can lead to generate an electrical current. Since their invention in 2012, TENGs have shown a rapid development in diversity of structure, amount of output power and range of applications, such as self-powered sensors, touch pads, and smart skin. Various kinds of mechanical force can be used for producing electrical energy: human motion, walking, vibration, rotating tire, wind, flowing... 

Titanium trisulfide (TiS3), a transition metal chalcogenide, bears the potential to replace silicon, when taking the form of nanoflakes, due to its favorable band gap and optical response. In this work, first we investigate the response of TiS3 nanoflakes to gas detection through a careful quantum computational approach and a few succinct measurements. The computations are benchmarked and compared with a relevant experiment at each step, where their results/conclusions are discussed. The most stable surface of TiS3 particles is determined to (001), in agreement with the literature. The adsorption of 5 gas molecules is characterized through formulating and estimating their adsorption... 

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanoflakes, a two-dimensional crystal with tunable bandgap depends on number of layers, is a promising candidate for future nanoelectronic devices. In the present research, flower shaped MoS2 nanoflakes have been synthesized via hydrothermal method. As part of the research, the growth of triangular MoS2 monolayer up to 10 micrometers has optimized by carring out several chemical vapor deposition experiments with varying deposition parameters. The prepared samples were characterized using optical, scanning electron, and atomic force microscopes, x-ray diffraction analysis, and Raman spectroscopy. Based on the experimental results, the growth mechanism has been... 

H2S is a toxic and corrosive gas which is detrimental for both human’s health and some of important industries such as oil and gas. Based on different experimental research among various systems, resistive sensors fabricated from SnO2-CuO nanostructures have promising performance toward detection of this gas. High sensitivity and selectivity, response time of order of seconds, recovery times of order of tens of seconds and determining concentration of H2S gas below ppm level are advantages of this system. Unfortunately due to lack of a theoretical model, current experimental researches are excessively based on “trial and error” methodology. In this research some of the basic questions which... 

Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in graphene and graphene-based materials due to their extraordinary electrical properties, large specific surface area, fascinating mechanical properties, good chemical stability and remarkable electrochemical activity. The combination of these properties make graphene an attractive candidate for a wide range of applications including energy conversion and storage devices (batteries and supercapacitors), electronic devices (transistors and memory devices) and solar cells. On the other hand, graphene has a potential application in constructing different kind of sensors such as biosensors and electrochemical sensors due to its planar... 

Luminescent semiconductor nanocrystals otherwise known as quantum dots (QDs) have attracted intense interest over the past decade due to their unique properties and great potential in various applications. In this work we have studied the growth and luminescence properties of CdTe QDs and CdTe/CdS core-shell QDs and their application in hybrid organic/inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and fluorescent sensors. CdTe QDs were synthesized using a thermochemical method in aqueous phase. Central composite design (CCD) was applied to obtain the optimized conditions of the synthesis. The effects of four independent parameters including molar ratios of Cd to Te ions, TGA to Te ions, pH of the... 

In this thesis we present fabrication, characterization, and experimental results describing electrical actuation and readout of the mechanical vibratory response of PVP, graphene-doped and ZnO fibers by employing electrical actuation. For a fiber resonator with an approximate radius of 850 nm and length of 100 µm, we observed a resonance frequency around 580 kHz with a quality factor (Q) of about 2511 in air at ambient conditions. Through the use of finite element simulations, we show that the reported frequency of resonance is relevant. Also, the measurements were performed in an enclosed chamber with controlled levels of ethanol vapor. The adsorption of ethanol causes a shift in the... 

In this project, two types of graphene obtained from chemical and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) methods were studied for gas/vapor sensing applications . In chemical method, oxidation and exfoliation of graphite was performed in liquid phase. AFM, XPS, Raman spectroscopy and Uv-visible spectroscopy were indicated that single layers synthesis of graphene oxide (GO) sheets was formed successfully. Reduction of the GO to reduced graphene oxide (RGO) was chemically done by hydrazine as a conventional reducing agent and melatonin as a green alternative. Photocatalytic reduction and hybridization of GO with TiO2 was also studied. TEM, SEM and AFM analyses confirmed nucleation and growth of TiO2... 

We have studied binary structures contain; as grown thin film of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) , CNT rich polymeric composite, Pd doped WO3 thin film, and also hybrid thin film which was mixed CNTs and WO3 nanoparticles and ternary structure which was obtained by adding Pd to hybrid structure as a hydrogen gas sensor. The structure, morphology, chemical composition and quality of as–grown and functionalized CNTs and sensitive films were studied by SEM, TEM, XRD, XPS, DLS, FTIR and Raman spectroscopy methods. Variation of film’s electrical resistance after exposure gases is utilized as the principle of gas sensing. Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube (MWCNTs) films were obtained by Thermal Chemical Vapor... 

Sensors are one of the most vital instruments in Nuclear Power Plants (NPP), and operators and safety systems monitor various parts of the NPP and control transients by analyzing the values reported by the sensors. Failure to detect malfunctions or anomalies in them would lead to catastrophic consequences. A new approach based on thermo-hydraulic simulation by RELAP5 code and Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) is given to detect faulty sensors and estimate their correct value which are two main objectives of the current study. This approach consists of two main parts; The first part, Fault Detection Hyper Block (FDHB), responsible for detecting faulty sensors, and the second part,... 

As an essential laboratory instrument in aerospace engineering, wind tunnels need to be calibrated. Therefore, this thesis takes into account the calibration of the subsonic wind tunnel at the Sharif University of Technology, with the test section dimensions of 90 × 42 × 30 cm3. It is necessary to accurately and correctly determine the effective parameters for the wind tunnel results to be reliable. A pitot-static tube, a standard wing, pressure sensors, a force balance, a turbulence sphere, rake, yawhead, a digital level, a protractor, and a data acquisition system were used for this experiment. For calibration, variables including flow uniformity, flow Angularity, turbulence intensity,... 

Laminar-to-turbulent transition is very important concept in fluid dynamics due to its significant role on skin friction drag and heat transfer. It is more important in the fluid-based systems such as wind turbines. Employing computational fluid dynamics is still not efficient on prediction of flow transition, especially in complex problems such as oscillating airfoils. In one hand, flow transition models are not still suitable for general engineering flows such as oscillating airfoils. On other hand, due to the lack of experimental data, the existing flow solvers have not proven in the accurate simulation of the flow field simulation for complex problems such as oscillating airfoils. This... 

In this work, a high-order accurate gas kinetic scheme based on the compact finite-difference Boltzmann method (CFDBM) is developed and applied for simulating the compressible rarefied gas flows. Here, the Shakhov model of the Boltzmann equation is considered and the spatial derivative term in the resulting equation is discretized by using the fourth-order compact finite-difference method and the time integration is performed by using the third-order TVD Runge-Kutta method. A filtering procedure with three discontinuity-detecting sensors is applied and examined for the stabilization of the solution method especially for the problems involving the discontinuity regions such as the shock. The... 

In this document, the cooperative estimation of states between two interceptors and one target is expressed in order to evaluate the effect of information sharing in different situations on the estimation performance. Due to the importance of the proper estimation of the target acceleration in advanced navigation rules, the main focus of the document is on a more precise estimation of the absolute states of the target. For this purpose, a filter based on the extended Kalman filter was used as an estimator, and to evaluate the promotion of the estimation performance, the combination of measured data was used in two different ways. Matlab Simulink is the simulation software used. The dynamics... 

In this research the problem is the development and simulation of Transfer Alignment algorithm for an aerial launch space launch vehicle. In the references there is no complete study on development of this algorithm for the case space launch vehicle. In order to develop the algorithm, the carrying airplane and the space launch navigation systems are considered as the Master INS and Slave INS respectively. First a 6DOF simulation of the airplane is presented. Then the desired inputs for simulation of Master and Slave INS are generated. Also the differences of the inputs of Slave INS caused by the distance between the Master and Slave INS is considered. Master INS performs as an ideal INS and... 

Attaining accurate information about satellite attitude is one of the most important requirements in space missions in order to improve the accuracy of the satellite control and mission objectives. Many different sensors such as sun sensor, star sensor, horizon sensor, etc. are used to estimate spacecraft’s attitude. Attitude estimation using temperature sensors is a topic that has recently been addressed by some related researchers because, they need less power and budget to operate in comparison with the other sensors.Accuracy and heat model performance improvement is the main purpose of this project. To achieve a more accurate perspective of space thermal model, and the way heat transfers... 

To provide a safe environment for space equipments and infrastructures in addition to managing the role of hazardous objects that are known as space debris, the presented thesis describes a new robust technique to estimate the dynamic states and inertial parameters of Uncooperative Space Objects (USO) with uncertain dynamics in the cluttered orbits. The prescribed method is especially effective to capture stray objects, capture and servicing of the satellites, rendezvous and collision avoidance maneuvers, space explorations as well as Actrive Debris Removal (ADR) missions. Such missions call for high degree of precision and reliable estimation methods. The proposed estimation architecture... 

Today, considering the structural health monitoring system is approximately essential for aerospace structure due to more safety and reduction of maintenance costs. In this manner, aircraft designers and manufactures have recently attempted to usage of the monitoring system on their new products to maintain the superirority of them among the competitors. Furtheremore, installation of these systems on the aircraft will also becom one of the requirements of the aviation regulation in near future which must be complied.The lap joints are one of the major and inevitable components of the metallic airframe structure and the multisite damage such as fatigue cracks are the high probable damages...