Sharif Digital Repository

This paper is devoted to study the effects of pressure drop in heat exchangers on the dynamics of a free piston Stirling engine. First, the dynamic equations governing the pistons as well as the gas pressure equations for hot and cold spaces of the engine are extracted. Then, by substituting the obtained pressure equations into the dynamic relationships the final nonlinear dynamic equations governing the free piston Stirling engine are acquired. Next, effects of the gas pressure drop in heat exchangers on maximum strokes of the pistons and their velocities and accelerations are investigated. Furthermore, influences of pressure drop increase in the heat exchangers on maximum and minimum gas... 

Dam failure can result in a catastrophic break followed by a ood wave, often with considerable loss of life or property. One of the main causes of dam failure is loss of shear strength and the existence of discontinuity within the foundation. Dynamic analysis of concrete dams usually considered concrete behavior to be nonlinear and the foundation rock is assumed to be linear. In this study, seismic analysis of a concrete gravity dam was conducted to investigate the effect of the foundation on the nonlinear response. A finite element model of a dam-reservoir-foundation was considered to properly model the foundation as well as dam body nonlinear behaviors. An elasto-plastic formulation was... 

Hepatitis is one of the most perilous viral infectious diseases and many people suffer from it all around the world. In particular, hepatitis B is a terribly dangerous disease which may cause severe liver damage or cancer if it is not treated. Recently, several dynamic models have been developed from experimental studies for describing such diseases mathematically. The certainty of these dynamics models is questionable in realistic treatment processes. Thus, the modeling uncertainties should be considered in the dynamics, which necessitates employing robust control strategies capable to overcome these uncertainties. Accordingly, in this research, a control strategy is developed in order to... 

In the present paper, the nonlinear seismic behavior of a concrete gravity damreservoir- massed foundation system is studied focusing on the foundation material nonlinearity. For this purpose, a finite element program utilizing the elasto-plastic formulation for the foundation medium is provided considering the tensile and shear failure modes. Hoek-Brown and Mohr Coulomb criteria are used as the yield and plastic potential function of the shear failure mode, respectively; and in the tensile failure mode, various levels of the tensile strength are applied to the foundation. Bearing capacity is studied considering the localized plastic elements and forming the sliding path by plastic elements... 

A new robust adaptive controller is developed for the control of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection inside the body. The non-linear HBV model has three state variables: uninfected cells, infected cells and free viruses. A control law is designed for the antiviral therapy such that the volume of infected cells and the volume of free viruses are decreased to their desired values which are zero. One control input represents the efficiency of drug therapy in inhibiting viral production and the other control input represents the efficiency of drug therapy in blocking new infection. The proposed controller ensures the stability and robust performance in the presence of parametric and... 

In this paper, a nonlinear adaptive control method is presented for the treatment of the Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection. Nonlinear dynamics of the HBV, modeling uncertainties and three state variables (the numbers of uninfected and infected cells and free viruses) are taken into account. The proposed control law is designed for the antiviral drug input such that the number of free viruses and consequently the number of infected cells decrease to the desired values. An adaptation law is also presented to overcome modeling uncertainties by updating estimations of the system parameters during the treatment period. The stability of the process and convergence to desired state values are... 

A multistage decoder for the internally convolutionally coded fibre-optic time-hopping code division multiple access system recently introduced is considered. In this system, the decoder consists of several stages. The first stage is implemented using one of the single-user decoders introduced. The following stages are maximum likelihood (ML) decoders each of which use the decisions made by the previous stage. The performance of the proposed decoder is evaluated by a Monte Carlo simulation. Numerical results show that a multistage decoder with only two stages greatly outperforms the single-stage decoder with negligible increase in complexity. The authors also derive the Chernoff bound for... 

A low cytotoxic metal–organic framework (MOF) UiO-66 (UiO stands for University of Oslo) and NH2-UiO-66, that showed high cell viability of HFF-2 via 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl) 2, 5-diphenyl tetrazolium assay, was reported as an effective adsorbent (antidotal) agents. The structure of MOFs was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared, Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction. Thermal behavior of MOFs was investigated using with thermogravimetric analyzer in nitrogen atmosphere to check the thermal stability. FESEM showed NH2-UiO-66 displayed symmetrical crystals with triangular base pyramid morphology, with the particle size around 100 nm and uniform size... 

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) UiO-66 (UiO stands for University of Oslo) and NH2-UiO-66 were prepared and characterized as sorbent (antidotal agents) for curcumin (CUR) adsorption. The structure of products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), and N2 adsorption–desorption measurements. FESEM showed NH2-UiO-66 displayed symmetrical crystals with triangular base pyramid morphology, with the particle size around 100 nm and uniform size distribution. Adsorption capacities of CUR/MOFs with different mass ratios... 

A low cytotoxic metal–organic framework (MOF) UiO-66 (UiO stands for University of Oslo) and NH2-UiO-66, that showed high cell viability of HFF-2 via 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl) 2, 5-diphenyl tetrazolium assay, was reported as an effective adsorbent (antidotal) agents. The structure of MOFs was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared, Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction. Thermal behavior of MOFs was investigated using with thermogravimetric analyzer in nitrogen atmosphere to check the thermal stability. FESEM showed NH2-UiO-66 displayed symmetrical crystals with triangular base pyramid morphology, with the particle size around 100 nm and uniform size... 

We introduce dynamic plastic continuous neural network (DPCNN), which is comprised of neurons distributed in a nonlinear plastic medium where wire-like connections of neural networks are replaced with the continuous medium. We use finite element method to model the dynamic phenomenon of information processing within the DPCNNs. During the training, instead of weights, the properties of the continuous material at its different locations and some properties of neurons are modified. Input and output can be vectors and/or continuous functions over lines and/or areas. Delay and feedback from neurons to themselves and from outputs occur in the DPCNNs. We model a simple form of the DPCNN where the... 

Real-time detection of Covid-19 has definitely been the most widely-used world-wide classification problem since the start of the pandemic from 2020 until now. In the meantime, airspace opacities spreads related to lung have been of the most challenging problems in this area. A common approach to do on that score has been using chest X-ray images to better diagnose positive Covid-19 cases. Similar to most other classification problems, machine learning-based approaches have been the first/most-used candidates in this application. Many schemes based on machine/deep learning have been proposed in recent years though increasing the performance and accuracy of the system has still remained an... 

Vertically aligned ZnO@CdS nanorod heterostructure films with various loadings of CdS nanoparticle shell were synthesized and applied in photoinactivation of Escherichia coli bacteria under visible light irradiation. While neither the bare ZnO nanorods (with band-gap energy (Eg) of ∼3.28 eV) under visible light irradiation nor the nanorod heterostructures in dark exhibited any significant antibacterial activity, the ZnO@CdS nanorod heterostructures (with Eg ∼2.5-2.6 eV) could successfully inactivate the bacteria under visible light irradiation. Furthermore, it was found that an optimum loading of the CdS shell (corresponding to the effective thickness less than ∼15 nm) is required to achieve... 

Travel speeds between 25–300 mm/min and tool rotational speeds of 800 and 1250 rpm were employed for this study. The microstructure, mechanical properties and fracture surfaces of the joints were studied. Underwater environment and an increase in travel speed significantly increase the precipitates’ volume fraction, reduce the average grain and precipitate sizes of the weld nugget zones. A critical travel speed of 150 mm/min is attained in underwater welds beyond which the average grain sizes remain relatively the same. Average grain and precipitate sizes have linear relationships with the tool rotational and travel speed ratio. Optimum weld strengths of 396 and 360 MPa were obtained in the... 

This paper examines the use of pre-fabricated interlocking arms/threading in enhancing the strength of friction stir spot welded hybrid joints of AA2219/PP-C30S polypropylene polymer by varying parameter combination. The process involves the fabrication of a pre-threaded hole on the Al alloy prior to the joining process, and the threading/crest-pitch profile aids mechanical interlocking. The peak temperature, crest-pitch interlocked profiles, microstructural and mechanical properties of the joints were examined. The results show that an increase in the tool rotational speed increases the thickness of the reaction layer (between the Al and the polymer substrates), the shear-tensile load... 

Graphene oxide (GO)–chitosan composite layers with stacked layer structures were synthesized using chemically exfoliated GO sheets (with lateral dimensions of ∼1 μm and thickness of ∼1 nm), and applied as antibacterial and flexible nanostructured templates for stem cell proliferation. By increasing the GO content from zero to 6 wt%, the strength and elastic modulus of the layers increased ∼80% and 45%, respectively. Similar to the chitosan layer, the GO–chitosan composite layers showed significant antibacterial activity (>77% inactivation after only 3 h) against Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Surface density of the actin cytoskeleton fibers of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) cultured... 

Superparamagnetic ZnFe2O4/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composites containing ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles (with ∼5-20 nm sizes) attached onto rGO sheets (with ∼1 μm lateral dimensions) were synthesized by hydrothermal reaction method. By increasing the graphene content of the composite from 0 to 40 wt%, the size as well as the number of the ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles decreased and the saturated magnetization of the composites reduced from 10.2 to 1.8 emu/g, resulting in lower responses to external magnetic fields. Concerning this, the time needed for 90% separation of ZnFe2O4/rGO (40 wt%) composite from its solution (2 mg/mL in ethanol) was found 60 min in the presence of an external magnetic field (∼1... 

Tungsten oxide thin films (deposited by thermal evaporation or sol gel method) were used for photocatalytic reduction of graphene oxide (GO) platelets (synthesized through a chemical exfoliation method) on surface of the films under UV or visible light of the environment, in the absence of any aqueous ambient at room temperature. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique was employed to characterize surface morphology of the GO sheets and the tungsten oxide films. Moreover, using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), chemical state of the tungsten oxide films and the photocatalytic reduction of the GO platelets were quantitatively investigated. The better performance of the sol-gel tungsten...