Sharif Digital Repository

This study aims at analyzing the performance of three units known as low salt rejection reverse osmosis (LSRRO), split-feed counterflow reverse osmosis (SF-CFRO), and split-brine counterflow reverse osmosis (SB-CFRO) and implementing them in a modified multi-stage multi-feed counter-current membrane with cascade recycle for dewatering hypersaline streams to the salinity appropriate for crystallizers' feed. Exergy and primitive pinch analysis showed that dewatering is limited in SF-CFRO as the permeate inlet dictates the maximum salinity difference at the pinch point as well as high frictional pressure loss in the permeate channel. SB-CFRO and LSRRO units can reach high salinities by... 

With the development of science and technology through social networks, the process of diffusion has become a controversial subject. In social networks, the process of diffusion is transmitted from one individual to another. The influence maximization problem, in which at least k nodes are chosen as the initial nodes of the spreader in the smallest amount of time, is one of the most critical aspects of the diffusion process. Furthermore, the initial nodes in the social network should generate the most influence on the other nodes in the network. However, in the algorithms proposed to solve the problem of influence maximization, the real-world factors which affect the influence probability in... 

Abstract New bi-anchoring donor-π-acceptor metal-free organic dyes based on diphenylamine as donor, and barbituric acid and thiobarbituric acid as the acceptor/anchor were synthesized, characterized and used in dye-sensitized solar cells applications. Among the fabricated dye sensitized solar cells, device based on the diphenylamine as donor, and barbituric acid as the acceptor exhibits a high power conversion efficiency of 1.53% with a short circuit current density of 3.71 mA cm-2, an open-circuit photo voltage of 0.55 V and a fill factor of 0.75% under AM 1.5 illumination (85 mW cm-2) compared to the other fabricated devices. The structure of synthesized dyes was optimized and their... 

In this study, cobalt-ruthenium nanocatalysts supported on nitrogen-doped graphene aerogel (NGA) and carbon nanotubes (CNT) were synthesized using the wet impregnation method for Fischer-Tropsch process with a cobalt to ruthenium ratio of 1:50. The synthesized catalysts underwent various characterizations such as FTIR, ICP, BET, XRD, EDX, TPR and TEM. The performance of the synthesized catalysts was compared to that of a cobalt-ruthenium nanostructured catalyst supported on NGA and CNTs. The catalysts were evaluated in a fixed-bed reactor at 25 bar, with a gas ratio H2/CO: 2 and Gas Hourly Space Velocity (GHSV) 10,000 mlg-1h-1, at temperatures of 260 °C and 280 °C. The use of NGA as a cobalt... 

In this paper, modified Adomian decomposition (MAD) is introduced to investigate the effect of the Casimir attraction on pull-in instability of beam-type NEMS theoretically. Two engineering cases including cantilever and double cantilever nano-beam are considered. The proposed MAD method is employed to solve the nonlinear constitutive equation of nano-beams. The basic engineering parameters such as critical deflection and pull-in voltage of nano-beams are computed. It is found that the Casimir forces decrease the pull-in deflection and voltage of nano-beams. On the other hand, the fringing field increases the pull-in deflection while decreases the pull-in voltage of the actuators. As a... 

Fatigue behavior of quasi-isotropic carbon/epoxy laminates were studied, using six stacking sequences. Experimental results show that there is a significant stacking sequence effect on monotonic and cyclic performance of laminates. Though by changing the stacking sequence the difference between failure strength of the strongest and weakest lay-ups reaches only to ∼ 12 %, the difference between fatigue lives (cycles to failure) increased ∼ 1000% in some loading regions. In addition, both linear and sigmoidal functions were examined to model the fatigue life behavior  

In the current investigation, four novel donoracceptor type organic dyes including (DPA-Ba, DPA-Hy, DPA-Rh, DPA-Cy), are proposed and their photophysical and electrochemical properties as well as dye-sensitized solar cell performance are systematically investigated. Among these dyes diphenylamine is utilized as an-electron donor while barbituric acid, hydantoin, rhodanine-n-acetic acid and cyano acetic acid, are proposed as anchoring groups as dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The synthesized dyes are characterized using FT-IR, NMR, mass spectrometry, absorbance and electrochemical measurements. The photophysical, electrochemical and photovoltaic properties of the solar cells based on... 

In this paper, we study a supply chain problem where a whole seller/producer distributes goods among different retailers. Such problems are always faces with uncertainty with input data and we have to use various techniques to handle the uncertainty. The proposed model of this paper considers different input parameters such as demand, capacity and cost in trapezoid fuzzy forms and using two ranking methods, we handle the uncertainty. The results of the proposed model of this paper have been compared with the crisp and other existing fuzzy techniques using some randomly generated data. The preliminary results indicate that the proposed models of this paper provides better values for the... 

Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) method is widely used for simulation of large deformation problems, such as metal forming. However, in many such applications, modeling of the heat generation and transfer in conjunction with the stress analysis is necessary. In this work, a fully coupled dynamic ALE formulation is developed. The ALE form of energy balance equation is derived, and is coupled with the dynamic, rate dependent ALE stress analysis. The proposed formulation is used for simulation of a few thermo-mechanical problems. The effectiveness and efficiency of the ALE method is verified by comparing the results of this simulation with available experimental and numerical results  

Carbazole is an alternant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon consisting of three fused rings with a large, aromatic system, containing nitrogen atom showing extensive electron delocalization. In this work, carbazole applied as π-conjugated bridge to construct electron donor–π–electron acceptor (D–π–A) organic dyes, where barbutiric acid and thiazolidine-2,4-dione as electron acceptor. The effects of these three acceptors and length of alkyl on the performance of the DSSCs were investigated systematically along with their photophysical and photo electrochemical properties. These series of organic dyes include (B-CH, B-C B, DT-CB, DB-CB). Our investigation indicate among dyes containing butyl as... 

Direct reduction of iron process in steel industry has special production conditions. Low quality cooling water, low cold and high hot cooling water temperature, space limitation for new equipment installation, high value-added of product and severe effect of cooling water temperature on production rate are of these conditions. Considering technical and economic constraints and limitations, this situation makes this process an attractive case study for converting the existing wet cooling tower to hybrid cooling system. In this paper, based on integration of process, dry and wet cooling system and ambient conditions profiles, a new method for designing hybrid cooling system has been proposed.... 

In the first part of this paper series, a complete formulation for fully coupled ALE analysis of large deformation solid mechanic problems was developed. The formulation incorporated inertial, rate and thermal effects, and the treatment of rate and temperature dependent constitutive equations were presented. In this part, the ALE equations are discretized to form finite element equations. An algorithm for the treatment of mesh motion is described and example problems are presented to demonstrate the capability of the proposed formulation  

Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) finite element method is extensively used for numerical simulation of solid mechanics problem. The versatility of the mesh in ALE approach makes it particularly effective and efficient in solving large deformation problems. In this work, a complete treatment of fully coupled ALE formulation is presented incorporating inertial, rate and thermal effects. The formulation may be used in conjunction with thermo-elasto-viscoplactic material models. A consistent and efficient tangent operator is developed in closed form to handle stress integration. The applications of this formulation are given in the second part of this paper  

In this paper, formulation and implementation of finite element analysis within an Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) description is presented for large deformation analysis of elasto-viscoplastic materials. The rate effects are included using a consistent procedure. An implicit algorithm with backward Euler integration scheme is used to integrate the elasto-viscoplastic constitutive equations. Also, the closed form of the consistent tangent operator is derived using the momentum balance equation to reduce the computation time. A fully coupled ALE procedure is used which includes dynamic effects. The proposed algorithm is implemented in an ALE code and its effectiveness and efficiency is... 

Three new chromophores based on the triphenylamine (MM, DM, DN) with various novel electron withdrawing anchoring groups have been synthesized for use in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The sensitizers were characterized by 1H and 13C NMR, Mass, UV–Vis, and electrochemical analysis. The HOMO and LUMO electron distributions of the sensitizers were calculated using density functional theory on a B3LYP level for geometry optimization. The DSSC device based on DM dye showed the best photovoltaic performance among MM and DN dyes: maximum monochromatic incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 98 %, short circuit current (JSC) of 4.58 mA/cm2, open circuit voltage (VOC) of... 

The motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) have been shown to significantly improve by Levodopa. However, despite the widespread adoption of Levodopa as a standard pharmaceutical drug for the treatment of PD, cognitive impairments linked to PD do not show visible improvement with Levodopa treatment. Furthermore, the neuronal and network mechanisms behind the PD-induced cognitive impairments are not clearly understood. In this work, we aim to explain these cognitive impairments, as well as the ones exacerbated by Levodopa, through examining the differential dynamic patterns of the phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) during cognitive functions. EEG data recorded in an auditory oddball task... 

During last decade, the electricity demand in Iran grows up more than 8% per year due to an increasing economic growth. The main part of this load growth is related to industrial and agricultural demand. At this period, electric utilities tried to provide the peak load demand using all different types of available generating units especially with hydro generation plants. However, moving the time of peak demand occurring from night hours to day time and also increasing of load demand at mid day hours, created a new challenge to hydro-generation planning. As the number of daily peak hours increases from the nightly to daily peak hours and considering that Iran is a sub-tropical country, use of...