Sharif Digital Repository

The primary purpose of the present research is development and implementation of advanced state estimation and control techniques for space rendezvous and docking. To achieve this aim, the present study has first investigated the use of graph neural networks (GNNs) to filter out the noise of the sensor data in the state estimation process. The measurement package is consisted of a gyroscope, star trackers, and a GPS sensor providing inputs to the GNNs. The obtained results showed that the use of GNNs significantly improves the accuracy of the state estimation compared to traditional methods. In addition, the study has focused on developing advanced control techniques for spacecraft position... 

In this Thesis hydroelastic analysis of 3D hydrofoil is investigated while partial sheet cavitation effects are considered. To this aim, first steady cavity boundary must be recognized.This region is calculated by means of conventional iterative procedure, stood upon potential flow theorem. In the second step, the reduced order fluid dynamics equations are derived based on potential flow theorem along with finite element method. This procedure is done in a way that real time system of equations are derived and iterative algorithm of conventional methods is omitted. To this aim, it is assumed that amplitude and frequency of the body oscillations are altered so that the cavity length in... 

In this thesis, the relationships between various leadership styles and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) were examined. For this, with a qualitative perspective and using the Grounded Method as the research methodology, dominant OCBs, effective leadership styles, the relationships between leadership behaviors and OCBs, and other influencing parameters were identified. In this regard, with a preliminary feasibility study, the possibility of implementing this research was verified and then, by using twelve in-depth interviews, required information was gathered. Main categories were recognized by coding the data and analyzing the relationship between the coded information. The... 

Several studies in the field of performance management have paid attention to the effect of systemic and instrumental factors on the effectiveness of performance management system. However, the impact of communication and relational factors has received less attention. Furthermore, it seems that similar approach has been used in organizations for considering systemic factors in designing performance management systems rather than human factors. The goal of this research was to study the relationship between employees' trust in their manager as an relational variable with the effectiveness of performance management system and to compare this relationship with the relationship between the... 

Nowadays in high-tech industries there is a serious demand for using advanced materials. Functionally graded materials (FGMs) are in the last generations of these group of materials. FGMs have shown good behavior in special conditions. According to sensitive applications of FGMs , there is a large amount of effort to understand it’s behavior in the presence of crack. Finite element method and other numerical methods, in recent years are widely used in modeling fracture problems.Remeshing requirements and mesh sensitivity are among the disadvantages of analyzing crack growth using the conventional FEM. Recent finite element methods such as extended finite element method, are proposed to model... 

According to sensitive applications of polymers and polymeric materials, there is a large amount of efforts to understand its behavior in the presence of crack. In this thesis, the influence of nonlinear behavior of the polymers is investigated on the behavior of theory fracture process zone. First, a nonlinear rate-dependent cohesive rule based on a novel incorporation by Schapery nonlinear coefficients is suggested to model crack growth in the case of polyethylene which is well-defined through the Schapery nonlinear constitutive equation. As the matter between the crack faces in a polymeric medium like polyethylene may tolerate large strain ranges during crazing and before complete... 

In today’s competitive world, productivity is one of the main components that guarantee the success and profitability of an industry or a project. This research has studied productivity of dam construction projects in Iran that are usually classified as mega projects. First, the major factors influencing productivity of dam construction projects in Iran were identified and evaluated. Three main sources of information namely; literature review, records and lesson learned from previous projects and experts’ opinions were used to identify these factors. Then, 41 main factors influencing productivity were selected and the effect of each factor was measured based on the results obtained from... 

This thesis presents the seismic performance evaluation of steel MRFs with nonlinear replaceable links. Although existing MRFs can provide life safety during a design level earthquake, they are expected to sustain significant damage at the locations of flexural yielding fuses in the beams .These drawbacks can be mitigated by introducing replaceable links at the locations of expected inelastic action. Codes require that the span-to-depth ratio of the beams in moment resisting frames (MRF) should be limited to guarantee the development of plastic hinges with a sufficient length at beam ends. To overcome the abovementioned limits, in this paper a new replaceable shear structural fuse is... 

Software defect prediction is a significant and growing field in software development that focuses on identifying software modules prone to defects before the testing phase. The challenge of lacking historical data has shifted software defect prediction towards a cross-project approach. In this method, identifying defective software modules in a project (target project) is done using historical data collected from other projects (source project). The difference in data distribution between source and target projects is a major challenge in cross-project defect prediction. One way to overcome this challenge is the appropriate selection of the source project, which most existing studies... 

Multi-participant virtual environments are network applications that simulate the experience of real-time interaction among multiple usersdistributed all over the internet In order to share the common sense of time and place, multiple entities interacting in the shared virtual environment should become aware of the modification to the shared environment, or the result of on the other objects interactions shortly after such events occur. This is achieved through the distribution of update messages. As the number of users and entities increases, there is a considerable increase in the amount of update messages exchanged among the users and entities. This is considered as one of the most... 

Pipe freezing has become well established in industry as a method of short-termisolation in order to carry out maintenance or repairs. It is often necessary to repair system components without plant shutdown or drainage of system having many piping structures which may have hazardous or expensive fluid. Therefore, a series of tests has been arranged to investigate the ice plug formation in two standard pipes with different diameter size. The freeze zone on the pipe has been created by means of an aluminum jacket which liquid nitrogen flows in it. In the tests the freezing time, amount of liquid nitrogen usage andthe pressure tolerance of ice plug have been determined. Moreover, the numerical... 

The purpose of this study was to identify the dimensions of readiness for change in senior managers in the academic environment. In the literature, the emotional component of readiness for change requires more empirical research. The main question of this research is to identify cognitive and affective dimensions of readiness for change. This research has an exploratory approach, and a qualitative research method has been used to reach the research goals. In order to answer the questions of this research, a case study of Strategic Budgeting Implementation Plan at Sharif University of Technology has been studied. Interviews were conducted with the heads of the depatments of Sharif University... 

In recent years, the area of research on micro flying robots has been developed due to the development in micro manufacturing technologies. Due to extra advantages of these flying robots, they are implemented in military and civilian missions such as identifying, espionage, aerial relays, traffic surveillance, rescue, aid, etc. Ability to fly in specified areas, without human injuries, low manufacturing and energy costs, easy and fast implementation, Easy Maintenance, etc, which are some advantages of these robots. We can control these robots manually by remote controllers (RC) or by Auto guidance systems. On the other hand, these robots are used in research laboratories for testing new... 

Range Profile (RP) is known as one of the most important tools for radar target recognition. The main problem with range profile for radar target recognition is its sensitivity to aspect angle. To overcome this problem, range profiles are assumed to have the same statistical characteristics in small frames of aspect angles or context dependent models such as HMM may be used. All methods presented, seems to have some shortcomings to offer a model based on physical circumstances of target maneuver. For example in such models, consecutive samples of RPs in an aspect frame are assumed to be statistically independent with the same distribution (IID). Here we propose dynamic system (DS) for... 

The present thesis aims at investigating the dynamic interaction of slosh and aeroelasticity in the fuel contained aero vehicles. The main approach in this research is to develop reduced order models for description of the coupled system. In this regard, boundary element method is used to develop slosh dynamic model. Axisymmetric boundary element method with non-symmetric boundary conditions is used to develop slosh dynamic model for axisymmetric containers. Zoning method is used to develop slosh dynamic model for the multi-baffled tanks and based on it, slosh equivalent mechanical model is developed for multi-baffled tanks. Finite element method along with modal technique is used to develop... 

There are numerous ways available to achieve low temperatures that cryocoolers might be among the most important of them. In the meantime, the pulse tube refrigerator has a special place due to its simple geometry and not be using any moving parts. This simple property make the pulse tube refrigerator one of the most popular methods to achieve low temperatures. Nowadays, a pulse tube refrigerator is used for cooling in the range of 4 to 123 Kelvin in two form of one-stage and two-stage and up to an approximate power of 1 KW. Today, due to the temperature and the amount of power required for cooling, as well as the time it takes to reach that temperature, this chiller is used in medical,... 

This thesis seeks to identify the critical barriers to strategy implementation in an Iranian firm, and also concentrates on the readiness for strategy implementation phase. Previous studies show that many of strategic plans fail in implementation phase. Therefore, implementation and readiness for implementation phases are both important phases. The very few studies in this topic in Iranian industrial context illustrate the same issue in local context; however, these barriers may vary from one context to another. Different approaches and frameworks in the literature have been reviewed in order to build a theoretical frame work to seek the barriers to implementing a strategic plan in an... 

Despite the profound impact of formal strategic planning on the performance of companies, there have been a few researches on the factors that influence the starting phase of strategic planning process. This research tries to identify these factors and clarify the decision process of conducting strategic planning. In other words, the main purpose of this study is to identify the rationales of companies for initiation of strategic planning. Regarding limited previous studies on this topic, especially about the decision process about conducting strategic planning in Iranian companies, the case study methodology is used. The study is conducted in two phases. In the first phase, five companies... 

Understanding the behavioral processes of boards has been a new line of inquiry in the board literature. This study has focused on the leadership roles of heads of boards of subsidiary companies in a corporation. This subject is widely practical in most industries but rarely explored. An embedded multiple case study design was used to compare the leadership roles of heads of boards of two groups of boards with high and low effectiveness in a corporation assessed by a multi-source appraisal method. Based on several interviews with different stakeholders of the corporation within subsidiary boards of these two groups and the staff managers of the parent company, we compared the mechanisms that...