Sharif Digital Repository

Although viability of low-salinity waterflooding (LSWF) at the laboratory scale has been proven, there are some challenges associated with its field application, which sheds uncertainties on its economic success. One of the challenges is the minimum required volume of low-salinity water, which should be injected to the reservoir due to the salt dispersion in porous media. Once the low-saline brine is injected into the reservoir, mixing of injected (low-salinity) and resident (high-salinity) brines occurs and the developed mixing zone grows continuously as the front moves from the injection well toward the production well. Increase in the salinity of the front reduces the efficiency of LSWF.... 

In situ mixing by dispersive transport of salt and viscous fingering between the injected low-salinity (LS) brine and high-salinity (HS) formation brine can jeopardize the performance of low-salinity waterflooding (LSWF). In our previous papers, we demonstrated that in situ mixing can be suppressed by polymer-enhanced low-salinity waterflooding (PELS), in which a small amount of a viscosifying agent, such as a polymer, is added to the LS stream. Nevertheless, effective mixing control with PELS depends upon several factors and operational conditions, which have not yet been addressed. Therefore, this research focuses on the investigation of the impact of injection parameters, such as the... 

Smart water flooding as a developing technique utilizes modified water chemistry in terms of salinity and composition to prepare the best-suited brine composition for a specific brine/oil/rock system to obtain higher oil recovery efficiency. Huge amount of unrecovered oil is expected to be remained in carbonate reservoirs; however, few research works on incremental oil recovery during smart water injection in carbonate cores at reservoir condition are reported. Several core flooding tests using one of the Iranian carbonate reservoir rock are conducted to check the effectiveness of smart water injection for more oil recovery efficiency. The results reaffirm the positive effect of sulfate ions... 

In this study, based on the reduced from of elasticity displacement field for a long laminate, an analytical method is established to exactly obtain the interlaminar stresses near the free edges of generally laminated composite plates under the extension and bending. The constant parameters, which describe the global deformation of a laminate, are properly computed by means of the improved first-order shear deformation theory. Reddys layerwise theory is subsequently utilized for analytical and numerical examinations of the boundary layer stresses within arbitrary laminated composite plates. A variety of numerical results are obtained for the interlaminar normal and shear stresses along the... 

Within the tunneling Hamiltonian formulation for the eight-component spinors, the Josephson critical supercurrent has been calculated in a planar superconductor-normal graphene-superconductor junction. Coupling between superconductor regions and graphene is taken into account by a tunneling Hamiltonian which contains two types of tunneling, intravalley and intervalley tunneling. Within the present tunneling approach, we find that the contributions of two kinds of tunneling to the critical supercurrent are completely separable. Therefore, it is possible to consider the effect of the intervalley tunnelings in the critical supercurrent. The incorporation of these type of processes into the... 

In certain types of biomimetic surgery systems, micro robots inspired by Paramecium are designed to swim in a capillary tube for gaining access to internal organs with minimal invasion. Gaining insight into the mechanics of Paramecium swimming in a capillary tube is vital for optimizing the design of such systems. There are two approaches to modeling the physics of micro swimming. In the envelope approach, which is widely accepted by researchers, Paramecium is approximated as a sphere, self-propelled by tangential and normal surface distortions. However, not only is this approach incapable of considering the specific geometry of Paramecium, but it also neglects short range hydrodynamic... 

In this study, the mechanisms of passing water and salt ions through nanoporous single-layer graphene membrane are simulated using classical molecular dynamics. The effects of functional groups placed in nanopores and feed water's salt concentration on water desalination are investigated. In order to understand the role of functional groups in desalination process, Methyl, Ethyl and a combination of Fluorine and Hydrogen molecules are distributed around the nanopores. In all cases, different number of functional molecules is employed in order to find an optimum distribution of the groups at hand. The results show that an appropriate distribution of Alkyl groups can properly stop the salt... 

The water desalination process using nanoporous single-layer graphene membranes is simulated through classical molecular dynamics. The effect of nanopores shapes on the capacity of the membrane for filtration of water is investigated. According to the results, the geometry of the nanopores considerably affects the performance of the membrane and can completely change the water flow rate and salt rejection. The results reveal that the effective area of the nanopores plays a critical role and for a better understanding of the impact of this parameter, aspect ratio and the equal diameter of noncircular pores based on different methods such as equal area, equal perimeter, and hydraulic diameter... 

The novel N2O2 unsymmetrical tetradentate Schiff bases complexes are used as catalysts for the selective aerobic oxidation of cyclohexene. In general, conversion percentages decrease with increasing ΔEp and decreasing Eredox 0′. Catalytic activity increases with decrease of the number of electron-donating groups and the catalytic selectivity varies according to the types of substituents in the ligands. The catalytic system described here is an inexpensive method for selective oxidation of olefins, with advantages of high activity, selectivity, re-usability and short reaction times. Analysing GC and redox potential results shows a moderate correlation between selectivity and activity. © 2004... 

In the present study, an analytical solution is proposed to determine the interlaminar stresses in long symmetric laminated composite plates subjected to shearing loads. An improved first-order shear deformation theory (IFSDT) and a simplified IFSDT (SIFSDT) are utilized to calculate the unknown constants appearing in the reduced elasticity displacement field which actually demonstrate the global deformations of the plate. Then the numerical values of the interlaminar normal and shear stresses are established through the laminates by using Reddy's layerwise theory. Finally, several numerical examples are presented to study the interlaminar stresses in the interfaces of the layers and through... 

Paramecium or other ciliates have the potential to be utilized for minimally invasive surgery systems, making internal body organs accessible. Paramecium shows interesting responses to changes in the concentration of specific ions such as K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ in the ambient fluid. Some specific responses are observed as, changes in beat pattern of cilia and swimming toward or apart from the ion source. Therefore developing a model for chemotactic motility of small organisms is necessary in order to control the directional movements of these microorganisms before testing them. In this article, we have developed a numerical model, investigating the effects of Ca2+ on swimming trajectory of... 

Within elasticity theory, the reduced form of a displacement field is obtained for general cross-ply composite laminates subjected to a bending moment. The firstorder shear deformation theory of plates and Reddy's layerwise theory are then utilized to determine the global deformation parameters and the local deformation parameters appearing in the displacement fields, respectively. For a special set of boundary conditions an elasticity solution is developed to verify the validity and accuracy of the layerwise theory. Finally, various numerical results are presented within the layerwise theory for edge-effect problems of several cross-ply laminates under the bending moment. The results... 

A typical scientist has no responsibility other than to explain how a natural event occurred. However, when a philosopher asks about the conditions under which a scientist’s explanation is true, he is, in fact, raising an ultimate question, the concept which Karl Popper used for the first time. Answering this question requires that no elements are neglected in the explanation, and no significant factors in the explanation are overlooked. In other words, in explaining a phenomenon, at any level of its explanation, there should be no remainder. These requirements can be achieved through the full explanation. In the present article, by drawing on concepts such as theory-ladenness of... 

To differentiate between the laws of nature and accidental generalizations, we must adopt a view of necessity that is capable of being realized in relationships existing among natural objects. In neo-Sadraian Islamic philosophy, metaphysical necessity is accepted as part of the cause-effect relationship. This paper compares the neo-Sadraian interpretation of necessity and necessitarian theories about the laws of nature, particularly essentialism and universal theory. By resorting to specific forms al-shûrat al-naw’iyyah, the origin of the essential properties of natural objects, I argue that neo-Sadraians have proposed a perspective on metaphysical necessity that is epistemologically a... 

Some proponents of new atheism, including Dawkins, claim that religion, especially Islam, is the cause of the war because it encourages divisiveness and labeling. In this article, in the first step, I will show that Islam is not the cause of war, but rather it is a misconception of Islam that is the cause of divisiveness and eventually war. Then, I will demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on societies and religious behaviors somehow could, and still can, modify this misconception and blur divisions. This effect occurs in two ways: firstly, a pandemic creates common human problems for all people worldwide, making people more aware of their common points that Islam refers to... 

To date, the existing theories pertinent to the determination of the scattered fields of an inhomogeneity have been limited to certain topological symmetries for which the method of wave-function expansion is widely used. In the literature the wave-function expansion method has also been employed to the case involving concentric coated fiber. An alternative approach is the dynamic equivalent inclusion method (DEIM) proposed by Fu and Mura [L.S. Fu, T. Mura, The determination of elastodynamic fields of an ellipsoidal inhomogeneity. ASME J. Appl. Mech. 50 (1983) 390-396.] who found the scattered field of a single spheroidal inhomogeneity. The pioneering work of Eshelby [J.D. Eshelby, The... 

In situ mixing of injection low-salinity (LS) and resident high-salinity (HS) brines negatively affects the performance of low-salinity waterflooding (LSWF), particularly in tertiary injection mode. Our preceding research on the core-scale demonstrated that viscosifying the injection LS brine by adding a small amount of partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) polymer can efficiently mitigate this challenge. Adding polymer to LS brine modifies the mobility ratio at the miscible front and increases the displacement front integrity. This study focuses on gaining direct pore-scale insights into polymer-enhanced low-salinity waterflooding (PELS) using microfluidic technique in granular porous... 

The performance analysis of junctionless (JL) gate-all-around (GAA) metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) is investigated using the Non-Equilibrium Green's Function (NEGF) formalism. The main problem of JL transistors is found to be the OFF-state current. In the present work, the OFF-state current of such devices is decreased by choosing channel materials with a large band gap and heavy effective mass. Our simulation results show that the OFF-state current of JL transistors with p-type GaAs is less than that of n-type GaAs. Plus, the heterostructure (HES) channel is proposed in this study for improving the device characteristics of JL-FETs as compared to homostructure...