Sharif Digital Repository

Diabetes mellitus is a global endemic with a rapidly increasing prevalence in both developing and developed countries. Recently, hemoglobin A1c has been recommended by the American Diabetes Associations as a possible substitute for fasting blood glucose for the diagnosis of diabetes, because it is an indicator of long-term glycemic control. Also, centrifugal microfluidic systems have good potential for use in the point of care testing systems. In this study, a centrifugal microfluidic disc was designed and manufactured to measure hemoglobin A1c in whole blood using an immunoturbidimetry based method. Also, a new passive valve, named septum valve, was presented to precisely control the entry... 

Proliferation of photovoltaic (PV) panels may cause voltage increases in low voltage (LV) distribution feeders. This issue confines PV hosting capacity of the feeders. To overcome this issue and enable higher PV hosting capacity, a model to manage the operation cycles of the domestic electric water heater and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning loads in order to avoid the voltage rise, thereby increasing PV hosting capacity in LV feeders is presented in this study. The model respects users' thermal comfort by setting the associated temperatures within allowed ranges. To preserve customers' privacy, the presented model is then decomposed into a master problem and several sub-problems... 

The current study presents one of the first investigations in which the simultaneous effect of the curved gold substrates and temperature changes on C60 and C60-wheeled nano-machines’ migration was evaluated. For this aim, the cylindrical and concave substrates with different radii were chosen to attain the size of the most appropriate substrate for nano-machines. Results indicated that the chassis' flexibility substantially affected the nanocar's mobility. Nano-machines' deviation from their desired direction was adequately restricted due to selected substrate geometries (The cylindrical and concave). Besides, for the first time, the effect of the substrate radius changes on nano-machine's... 

The main objective of this paper is to provide comparative quantitative examinations on the capabilities of two-dimensional horizontal and pseudo-three-dimensional (3D) modelling approaches for simulating spatial and temporal variability of the flow and salinity in Lake Urmia, Iran. The water quality in the lake has been an environmentally important subject partly because this shallow hypersaline aquatic ecosystem is considered to be one of the largest natural habitats of a unique multicellular organism, Artemia urmiana. This brine shrimp is the major food source for many of the protected and rare shorebirds that visit the lake. A.urmiana can grow and survive in certain ranges of salinity,... 

Self-excited and forced vibrations are important topics in machining processes because their occurrence results in poor surface finish, increase in tool wear and hampers productivity. In this paper, turning process is modeled as a SDOF dynamic system including quadratic and cubic structural nonlinearities. The effect of tool flank wear, as a contact force between the work-piece and tool, is addressed vigorously. Multiple scale method is used to find the solution of the nonlinear dynamic equation including regenerative chatter, forced excitation and tool wear. It is shown that, width of cut can be considered as the bifurcation parameter of the system. Primary, super-harmonic and sub-harmonic... 

Microfluidics has been becoming more and more popular over last two decades. The reason for this, is inherent features of microfluidics including low consumption of samples and reagents, high sensitivity, short analysis time, and low cost. As well as, centrifugal microfluidics as a subset of microfluidics has been able to prove itself as a helpful tool in analytic assays. The main application of centrifugal microfluidic devices is being used in point-of-care testing systems. Herein, we presented a microfluidic disc for measuring hemoglobin(Hb) concentration in the EDTA-anticoagulated venous blood using cyanmethemoglobin method. In this experiment, at first a hand-made standard solution was... 

Undoubtedly, microfluidics has been a focal point of interdisciplinary science during the last two decades, resulting in many developments in this area. Centrifugal microfluidic platforms have good potential for use in point-of-care devices because they take advantage of some intrinsic forces, most notably centrifugal force, which obviates the need to any external driving forces. Herein, we introduce a newly designed detection chamber for use on microfluidic discs that can be employed as an absorbance readout step in cases where the final solution has a very low viscosity and surface tension. In such situations, our chamber easily eliminates the air bubbles from the final solution without... 

The effects of addition of an ionic liquid to pure water as a physical absorbent and monoethanolamine (MEA) solutions as a chemical absorbent on carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption through hollow fiber membrane contactors were investigated using a 2D axisymmetric model. A numerical simulation was developed based on finite element method using computational fluid dynamics techniques. Liquid phase flowed in the tube side and gas mixture containing CO2 passed in the shell side of the membrane contactor in co-current and countercurrent modes. The simulation results are consistent with experimental data, and the root-mean-square error was calculated as 9 and 13% for pure water and 25 wt % for ionic... 

Optimization of transient liquid phase (TLP) bonding variables is essential to achieve a joint free from deleterious intermetallic constituents as well as with appropriate mechanical properties. In this research, TLP bonding of FSX-414 superalloy was performed using the MBF-80 interlayer. The effects of bonding time (1-30. min) and gap size (25-100 μm) were studied on the joint microstructure and its mechanical properties. Continuous centerline eutectic phases, characterized as nickel-rich and chromium-rich borides, were observed at the joints with incomplete isothermal solidification. The globular and acicular phases were seen at diffusion affected zone (DAZ). These phases could be... 

The as-cast samples of FSX-414 Co-based superalloy were heat treated at the standard solution and aging heat treatment cycles. Specimens for joining were cut from the as-cast ingot. Transient liquid phase (TLP) bonding was carried out at the standard solution cycle, using MBF-30 interlayer. Also, bonded specimens were homogenized at the standard aging condition. The microstructure of the as-cast, heat treated and TLP bonded specimens were studied. These studies showed that the non-uniform distributed carbides of the as-cast specimen were replaced by uniform ones during the heat treatment. Eutectic M 23C 6 carbides were observed in all specimens. Due to the complete isothermal solidification,... 

The as-cast FSX-414 Co-based superalloy samples were solution treated at 1150°C for 4h and then aged at 980°C for 4h. Specimens for joining were cut from the as-cast ingot and TLP bonding carried out at the same conditions as for the solution and solution+aging treatment, using MBF-30 interlayer. Microstructures were studied for as-cast, heat treated and TLP bonded specimens. These studies showed that the ununiform distributed carbides of MC type in the as-cast specimens replaced by M23C6 type carbides with uniform distribution in the heat treated microstructure. Due to complete isothermal solidification, no eutectic structure in the bond region were wasobserved, but some intermetallics in... 

4340 steel bars were austenitized at 850°C for 1 hour followed by heating at 700°C (ferrite and austenite region) for 90 min and quenching into a salt bath with different temperatures of 300, 350, 400 and 450°C. The steel bars were held for 1 hour at these temperatures before air cooling to room temperature. Various ferrite-bainite microstructures with 34% volume fraction of ferrite and different bainite morphologies were obtained. The results of SEM studies showed that by increasing the austempering temperature, the morphology of bainite varies from lower to upper bainite. According to the T-T-T diagram of the studied steel, the bainite transformation will not complete for the holding time... 

4340 steel bars were austenitized at 850 °C for 1 h followed by heating at 700 °C for 90 min and quenching into a salt bath at the temperature range of 300-450 °C for 1 h to obtain dual structures with 34 vol.% fraction ferrite and various bainite morphologies. SEM studies showed that by increasing the austempering temperature, bainite morphology varies from lower to upper bainite. Tensile, impact and hardness tests revealed that increasing the austempering temperature from 300 to 400 °C leads to a reduction in yield and ultimate tensile strength, hardness, uniform and total elongation and impact energy. But in dual phase steel produced by austempering at 450 °C, yield and tensile strength... 

Due to demands for the economical operations of power plants and environmental awareness, performance control of a boiler-turbine unit is of great importance. In this paper, a nonlinear Multi Input-Multi Output model (MIMO) of a utility boilerturbine unit is considered. Drum pressure, generator electric output and drum water level (as the output variables) are controlled by manipulation of valves position for fuel, feedwater and steam flows. After state space representation of the problem, two controllers, based on gain scheduling and feedback linearization, are designed. Tracking performance of the system is investigated and discussed for three cases of 'near', 'far' and 'so far' setpoints.... 

Current researches on the development of gas turbine related power plants such as HAT cycle and Combined Cycle are aimed to increase the plant efficiency and output power, while reducing the cost of power generation and emission. Humid air turbine cycle (HAT) is one of innovative cycles, which are able to provide a substantial power boost of the system and an efficiency rise of several percentage points. In order to perform energy analysis of Full Flow HAT cycle and Part Flow HAT cycle an advanced thermodynamic model is developed, which is enabling evaluation of behavior of Full Flow and Part Flow Humid Air Turbines and predicting the influence of operational parameters in the performance of... 

In this research the characteristics of free (partially purified) and immobilized (mould pellets of Absidia griseola) α-galactosidase have been investigated. Inhibition studies of the enzyme showed that p-nitrophenol and sucrose do not have any inhibitory effect on the enzyme, but that galactose is a competitive inhibitor. In the immobilized form, inhibition was lower than in the free enzyme and the level of inhibition decreased as the temperature increased. The activity and stability of free and immobilized enzyme were investigated with respect to temperature, and the results showed that the optimal temperature range of the free enzyme was 45-50°C, while the immobilized enzyme had an...