Sharif Digital Repository

This research has investigated the effect of certain geometric parameters on cooling performance of three vortex tubes. The influencing parameters include three length/diameter ratios L/D = 10, 25, 40, three nozzle cases and each case with number n = 2, 4, 6 nozzles, three cold orifice/diameter ratios β = 0.389, 0.5, 0.611 and three inlet pressures Pi = 2, 2.5 and 3 bar. The experiments are conducted based on three factors, two-level and central composite face-centred design with full factorial. The results are analysed according to the principle of response surface methodology. The goodness of fit of the regression model is inspected using the analysis of variance and F-ratio test. The... 

Porous carbon (PC) material was prepared from the carbonization of pomegranate peel waste. Subsequently, magnetically separable Fe3O4@PC was synthesized from Fe3O4 nanoparticles decorated on PC by the co-precipitation method of iron ions. Finally, Fe3O4@PC was successfully decorated with palladium nanoparticles in a simple route by reducing H2PdCl4 in the presence of sodium dodecylsulfate, which was used as both surfactant and reducing agent. Additionally, the effect of temperature on the carbonization process was studied. The Pd/Fe3O4@PC nanocomposite was used as an efficient and heterogeneous catalyst for Suzuki–Miyaura and Sonogashira cross-coupling reactions in an environmentally... 

In recent years axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) machines have found industrial applications because of such characteristics as high power density, compact structure and disc-like shape. Like other electrical machines, prediction of flux density distribution in the air gap of AFPM is essential. In this paper, an analytical method for calculation of air gap flux density caused by armature reaction is presented. The solution is based on Maxwell's equations. Separation of variables method is applied to field equations and 2D distribution of magnetic flux density in the air gap calculated in term of Fourier series. The 2-D distribution of three-phase armature winding is modeled exactly.... 

This study investigates the aerodynamic loads and energy losses of a typical 600 kW wind turbine with S816 airfoil blade under two different icing conditions. Three sections at different radial positions were considered to estimate the icing effect along the blade. Ice accretion simulations in wet and dry regimes were carried out using the NASA LEWICE 3.2 computer program. The airflow simulations were performed with CFD method and SST k -ω turbulence model. The results of these simulations, including streamlines, surface pressure, skin friction, lift, and drag coefficients, were inspected for both clean and iced airfoils. In the case of wet iced airfoil, a separation bubble was created in... 

In this paper, a multiscale finite element framework is developed based on the first-order homogenization method for fully coupled saturated porous media using an extension of the Hill-Mandel theory in the presence of microdynamic effects. The multiscale method is employed for the consolidation problem of a 2-dimensional saturated soil medium generated from the periodic arrangement of circular particles embedded in a square matrix, which is compared with the direct numerical simulation method. The effects of various issues, including the boundary conditions, size effects, particle arrangements, and the integral domain constraints for the microscale boundary value problem, are numerically... 

The three-dimensional power law fluid flow through rough microchannels has been studied numerically to determine the effects of the topographic structures on the thermal and hydrodynamic characteristics of the system. Rectangular, triangular and sinusoidal element shapes have been considered in order to investigate the effects of roughness height, width, pitch and channel separation on the pressure drop and heat transfer. Uniform wall heat flux boundary condition has been applied for all the peripheral walls. The results indicate that the global heat transfer performance can be improved or reduced by the roughness elements at the expense of pressure head when compared with the smooth... 

In this research, a continuous microsolvent extraction-reaction was developed for the efficient separation of calcium ion. This study gives a preliminary possible practical application of microfluidic devices in chemical exchange reaction for enrichment of 48Ca stable isotope. For this purpose, in the first stage, the hydrodynamic behavior of two immiscible liquids in a simple Y-shaped microfluidic junction is experimentally investigated, and then ion-pair extraction-reaction of Ca2+ using picric acid as a counter-ion and dicyclohexano-18-crown-6 (DC18C6) as a lipophilic ionophore is studied in this microfluidic and conventional batch method. The impact of main process parameters, including... 

In recent years, applications of dielectrophoresis-based platforms have been recognized as effective and dependable approach to separate cells and bioparticles, suspended in different carrier fluids, based on particle size and electrical properties. In this study, a microfluidic device was fabricated by an unprecedented electrode pattern, and several experiments were performed to enrich samples including either of yeast, Escherichia coli, or latex particles. A chemical deposition-based method was employed for fabrication of microelectrodes, inducing nonuniform electric field required for dielectrophoresis-based separation. One major advantage of our employed method is low fabrication cost,... 

Biodegradable acrylate-terminated polyurethane/acrylate (APUA) filled with 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate functionalized carbon nanotube (CNT-HEMA) was prepared by in situ free radical crosslinking. CNT-HEMA enhanced crystallinity of soft domain and caused more phase separation between hard and soft domains of APUA. Tensile testing showed a considerable improvement in elastic modulus (∼160%) and tensile strength (∼30%) at 1 wt% loading. Morphological features of APUA induced by nanotubes were found to be dominant on mechanical properties of APUA/CNT-HEMA. CNT-HEMA increased water contact angle of APUA; however, wettability of APUA/CNT-HEMA maintained in acceptable range for biomedical... 

In this paper, a modeling procedure is carried out to numerically analyze the end bearing capacity of drilled shafts in sand. The Mohr-Coulomb elastic plastic constitutive law with stress dependent elastic parameters is used for all numerical analyses performed in this study. The numerical results are compared with the available experimental equations. It is seen that numerical results are in good agreement with experimental equations. The variation of the end bearing capacity of drilled shafts versus embedment depth is also studied. Numerical results show that with increase in pile embedment depth, the end bearing capacity increases. However, the rate of increase becomes smaller as the pile... 

In this study the properties of muscle synergies, arising from optimal feedback control are investigated. Three different tasks namely reaching, via-point, and hitting are performed using optimization of corresponding cost functions. Then by applying non-negative matrix factorization method to a dataset of muscle tensions, synchronous muscle synergies are obtained. In this way, different muscle patterns can be generated by linear combination of these basis vectors with non-negative time-varying scaling coefficients. According to our simulations some of obtained muscle synergies are shared between tasks and some of them are specific for one task. This finding is also in agreement with the... 

A crude phenolic glycolipid extract from Mycobacterium bovis BCG was fractionated by column chromatography. A reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with UV detection at 275nm was developed for simultaneous detection and separation of phenolic glycolipids (PGLs) in Mycobacterium bovis BCG. This analysis provides a good resolution. Different solvent systems and columns for HPLC were compared. A system composed of acetonitrile-water in the ratio of 0→80% at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min and C8 analytical column were found to be optimum for HPLC of the phenolic glycolipids. This simple method is therefore appropriate to purify these compounds present in M. bovis extract... 

In this paper simulation results for integration of CO2 pre-combustion capture by steam methane reforming (SMR) in membrane reactors (MR) with natural gas fired combined cycle (NGCC) power plants are presented. The integrated combined cycle was simulated by GTPRO (Thermoflow) simulator along with the results from simulation of membrane reactor for SMR process developed in this work. The results show that the overall efficiency of the integrated combined cycles decreased due to the energy required for SMR process. On the other hand, by integration of MR in combined cycles, emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere can be avoided. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved  

The axisymmetric contact problem of a rigid inclusion embedded in the piezoelectric bimaterial frictionless interface subjected to simultaneous far-field compression and electric displacement is addressed. With the aid of a robust technique, the coupled governing integral equations of this mixed boundary-value problem are reduced to decoupled Fredholm integral equations with a constraint equation. A useful limiting case for the contact problem of transversely isotropic bimaterials is addressed. The present solution is analytically in agreement with the existing solution for an isotropic bimaterial. Selected numerical results of interest to engineering applications including the radius of... 

A novel modified carbon-paste electrode was employed for the simultaneous determination of dopamine (DA) and ascorbic acid (AA) with good selectivity and high sensitivity. Silver nanoparticle and carbon nanotube modified carbon-paste electrode (Ag/CNT-CPE) displayed excellent electrochemical catalytic activities towards dopamine (DA) and ascorbic acid (AA). The oxidation overpotentials of DA and AA were decreased significantly compared with those obtained at the bare CPE. Differential pulse voltammetry was used for the simultaneous determination of DA and AA. The peak separation between DA and AA was 67 mV. The calibration curves for DA and AA were obtained in the range of 8.0 × 10-7-6.4 ×... 

In this paper, an adaptive finite element procedure is presented in modeling of mixed-mode cohesive crack propagation via the modified superconvergent path recovery technique. The adaptive mesh refinement is performed based on the Zienkiewicz-Zhu error estimator. The weighted-SPR recovery technique is employed to improve the accuracy of error estimation. The Espinosa-Zavattieri bilinear cohesive zone model is applied to implement the traction-separation law. It is worth mentioning that no previous information is necessary for the path of crack growth and no region of the domain is necessary to be filled by the cohesive elements. The maximum principal stress criterion is employed for... 

In this study, EVAc/PLA/organo clay nanocomposites were prepared via solution mixing method. The SEM images were used to investigate the morphology of nanocomposites revealing no phase separation or agglomeration of disperse phase in EVAc/PLA blends and nanocomposites. SAXS spectra confirmed the intercalated morphology of nanocomposites. Soil burial test were carried out and the rate of degradation of the samples were measured indirectly. Oxygen gas permeability of EVAc was slightly decreased by adding PLA to the matrix, when small loads of clay caused dramatic improvement in barrier properties. Melt rheological frequency sweep test illustrated the compatibility of EVAc with low contents of... 

In this study, a numerical investigation is carried out to reveal the potential of obtaining uniform cooling on a planar surface by impinging jets in a turbulent flow regime using the SST k−ω turbulence model. Twin turbulent sweeping impinging jets (TTSIJ), as an idealization of an array of jets, are considered for heat transfer with the planar target surface. Unlike other studies that focused on a few effective parameters or limited the impinging jets to certain conditions, in this study, a more general investigation is performed to clarify the effects of all influential parameters on heat transfer. To this end, the effects of 8 design variables namely Reynolds number, the jet-to-target... 

Up until now, different methods, including; flow pressure signal, ultrasonic, gamma-ray and combination of them with the neural network approach have been proposed for multiphase flow measurement. More sophisticated techniques such as ultrasonic waves and electricity, as well as high-cost procedures such as gamma waves gradually, can be replaced by simple methods. In this research, only flow parameters such as temperature, viscosity, pressure signals, standard deviation and coefficients of kurtosis and skewness are used as inputs of an artificial neural network to determine the three phase flow rates. The model is validated by the field data which were obtained from separators of two oil... 

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems, which are based on motor imagery, enable humans to command artificial peripherals by merely thinking about the task. There is a tremendous interest in implementing BCIs on portable platforms, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAS) due to their low-cost, low-power and portability characteristics. This article presents the design and implementation of a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system based on motor imagery on a Virtex-6 FPGA. In order to design an accurate algorithm, the proposed method avails statistical learning methods such as Mutual Information (MI), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and Support Vector Machine (SVM). It also uses...