Sharif Digital Repository

The stability of unsaturated slopes under seismic loading has become an important issue over the past few years which is the indication of its practical significance in geoengineering. This study aims at exploring the seismic stability of unsaturated sandy clay and silty clayey sand slopes using 2D limit equilibrium analysis for different slope geometries and ground water levels. To this end, the pseudo-static and the displacement-based sliding block Newmark’s approaches are employed for parametric studies by considering the records of the 2003 earthquake that devastated the city of Bam, in the southeast of Iran. In all analyses, the unsaturated state of the soil materials is taken into... 

Focused on the assessment of the diphenhydramine hydrochloride (DPH) capabilities as an alternative to conventional and harmful industrial corrosion inhibitors, electrochemical techniques were employed. The optimum concentration of 1000 ppm was determined by molecular simulation and validated through electrochemical experiments. The results acquired from the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) study showed that DPH at a concentration of 1000 ppm has a corrosion efficiency of 91.43% after 6 h immersion. The DPH molecules' orientation on the surface was assessed based on EIS predicting horizontal adsorption on the surface. Molecular simulations were done to explore the adsorption... 

In this paper effects of material properties estimations, used for particulate reinforced composites, on the thermo-mechanical response of functionally graded sphere and cylinder are presented. A numerical solution for an arbitrary material gradation is obtained for each geometry independently. With this assumption, the governing partial differential equations are reduced to an ordinary differential equation in each geometry. The thermo-elastic solution for hollow sphere is derived using spherical symmetry. However, plane strain and axial symmetry are assumed for solving hollow cylinder. In the numerical method, radial domain is divided into some finite sub-domains and material properties... 

Blotches are the common artifacts in degraded motion picture sequences. They are usually caused by placing dust and dirt on film surfaces as well as abrasion of film materials. Blotches are seen as dark and bright flashes spreading through the frames, randomly. The spike detection index (SDIa) method is the simplest approach used to detect these artifacts. However, when the motion vectors are not precise enough in some points they might be declared as blotches too. This situation can also occur in areas containing a high level of noise. To overcome these difficulties, two post-processing methods are proposed in this paper. In the first method, the edge points are first omitted from the set... 

The evaluation of multigroup constants in reactor calculations depends on several parameters. One of these parameters is the Dancoff factor which is used for calculating the resonance integral and flux depression in the resonance region in heterogeneous systems. In the current paper, a computer program (MCDAN-3D) is developed for calculating three dimensional black and gray Dancoff coefficients, based on Monte Carlo, escape probability and neutron free flight methods. The developed program is capable to calculate the Dancoff factor for an arbitrary arrangement of fuel and moderator pebbles. Moreover this program can simulate fuels with homogeneous and heterogeneous compositions. It might... 

Evaluation of multigroup constants in reactor calculations depends on several parameters, the Dancoff factor amid them is used for calculation of the resonance integral as well as flux depression in the resonance region in the heterogeneous systems. This paper focuses on the computer program (MCDAN-3D) developed for calculation of the multigroup black and gray Dancoff factor in three dimensional geometry based on Monte Carlo and escape probability methods. The developed program is capable to calculate the Dancoff factor for an arbitrary arrangement of fuel rods with different cylindrical fuel dimensions and control rods with various lengths inserted in the reactor core. The initiative... 

Shear yielding (SY) and shear rupture (SR) are base metal failure modes in welded connections of brace members to gusset plates. Although gusset plated connections have been extensively investigated in the past nonetheless, the shear failure limit states of welded brace members have not received significant attention. This paper aims to shed some light on the shear failure mechanism and strength of welded brace members consisting of single and double channels and angles. For this purpose, a nonlinear finite element (FE) model with ductile damage simulation is developed and validated against the authors’ experiments and other available test results. Then an extensive parametric study using... 

Double angle braces are used extensively in structures to resist lateral loads such as wind, earthquake, and blast loads. A possible failure mode in the gusset plate when all-around weld is used for the angles is the block shear failure. To date, only limited test data on welded gusset plates failing in this mode have been reported in the literature, and all of them only considered concentrically loaded gusset plates. This paper investigates the block shear failure in welded gusset plates experimentally and numerically when connected to double angle members with possible in-plane load eccentricity effects. The test results, including failure loads, fracture sequences, and load-displacement... 

Block shear rupture is a potential failure mode in welded steel gusset plates. The research on this failure mode in welded connections is scarce, and in available few studies, only concentric loading condition has been considered. Nevertheless, gusset plates are often loaded eccentrically, either in-plane or out-of-plane, depending on the connection. This paper examines the block shear failure in welded gusset plates under eccentric loading. First, an advanced nonlinear finite element model with ductile fracture prediction capability was developed and verified in detail against the authors’ experiment. Then, a comprehensive parametric study consisting of 260 connections was performed. Based... 

Porphyrins are organic compounds that continue to attract much theoretical interest, and have been called the “pigments of life”. They have a wide role in photodynamic and sonodynamic therapy, along with uses in magnetic resonance, fluorescence and photoacoustic imaging. There is a vast range of porphyrins that have been isolated or designed, but few of them have real clinical applications. Due to the hydrophobic properties of porphyrins, and their tendency to aggregate by stacking of the planar molecules they are difficult to work with in aqueous media. Therefore encapsulating them in nanoparticles (NPs) or attachment to various delivery vehicles have been used to improve delivery...