Sharif Digital Repository

Clay liners are widely used as porous membrane barriers to control solute transport and to prevent the leakage of leachate both in horizontal and vertical flow scenarios, such as the isolated base and ramps of sanitary landfills. Despite the primary importance of saturated hydraulic conductivity in a reliable simulation of fluid flow through clay barriers, there is no model to predict hydraulic conductivity of clayey soils permeated with saline aqueous solutions because most of the current models were developed for pure water. Therefore, the main motivation behind this study is to derive semi-empirical models for simulating the hydraulic conductivity of clayey soils in the presence of... 

Clayey soils are widely used as barriers to control leachate leakage in landfills. Chemico-osmosis is one of the important phenomena influencing soluble contamination transport through clay barriers acting as a membrane. The membrane ability to restrict contamination transport is referred to as membrane efficiency. Experimental reports have revealed that membrane efficiency is a function of soil void ratio and contamination concentration. However, the currently used empirical function expresses the membrane efficiency simply in terms of average concentration. Therefore, the merit of this study is to enhance the reliability of this function to take into account various concentrations and void... 

Geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) are synthetic materials manufactured and widely used in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering due to their very low permeability and ease of use. As the most critical function of GCLs are their isolating features, it is of primary importance to precisely predict their water retention properties, especially when subjected to impure water having considerable solute concentrations because of landfill leachate. Despite numerous efforts on analytical modeling of bare soil-distilled water retention, less attention has been given to the retention characteristics of GCLs. Therefore, the current study's primary goal is to introduce a new analytical GCL-water... 

The unique properties of modified Hermite pulses is utilized to develop a novel pulse technique for Ultra Wideband (UWB) communications. The proposed method increases the bandwidth of the pulse up to 10 GHz and overcomes the coexistence problem of UWB and vulnerable narrowband systems through suppressing narrowband interference. Consequently it improves the range of UWB communications by increasing the power, without disturbing the narrowband systems. The pulse technique is implemented in high frequency pulse generation circuits and could be fully integrated in BiCMOS process. The nulls of the frequency response are tuned to be located in a definite narrowband system with the number of the... 

Solid waste is often buried in landfills isolated with a bentonite-based clay barrier to guarantee the high quality of groundwater. As the efficiency of clay barriers is highly dependent on solute concentration, this study aims to modify membrane efficiency, effective diffusion, and hydraulic conductivity of bentonite-based clayey barriers exposed to saline environments for numerical investigation of solute transport in such barriers. Therefore, the theoretical equations were modified as a function of solute concentration instead of constant values. First, a model was extended for membrane efficiency as a function of void ratio and solute concentration. Second, an apparent tortuosity model... 

This paper proposes an innovative robust-fuzzy method for multi-objective, multi-period supplier selection problem under multiple uncertainties. This approach integrates robust optimization and fuzzy programming. Uncertain parameters are modeled as random variables that take value within a symmetrical interval. However, due to the complexity or ambiguity of some real world problems and especially the nature of some of the available input data, the length of interval is also highly uncertain. This ambiguity motivated us to present a new approach, which could be applicable to multiple uncertainties conditions. Thus, in our approach, the half-length of these intervals is also represented by... 

Purpose - A numerical method is developed to capture the interaction of solid object with two-phase flow with high density ratios. The current computational tool would be the first step of accurate modeling of wave energy converters in which the immense energy of the ocean can be extracted at low cost. Design/methodology/approach - The full two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations are discretized on a regular structured grid, and the two-step projection method along with multi-processing (OpenMP) is used to efficiently solve the flow equations. The level set and the immersed boundary methods are used to capture the free surface of a fluid and a solid object, respectively. The full... 

The present study aims to convert waste cooking oil (WCO) into biodiesel via phosphomolybdic acid (H3PMo12O40, PMA) supported on Clinoptilolite as a novel green acid catalyst through an electrolysis procedure. The prepared catalysts were characterized by XRD, FTIR, FESEM, EDS, Elemental map, and TEM analyses. The effect of four independent variables on biodiesel yield including methanol to oil molar ratio (6:1–14:1), catalyst weight (2–5 wt%), time (3–5 h), and voltage (15–35 V) was optimized and evaluated by the response surface methodology (RSM) employing central composite design (CCD). The maximum value of biodiesel yield was 96% under the optimal conditions, including the methanol to oil... 

The new paradigm of good governance has an emphasis on international transparency, and this in this study takes into account the actual impacts of organizational intelligence in policymaker organizations. This study primarily aims to design an intelligent model of transparent governance in policymaker organizations with the approach of good governance. The study is a fundamental research in terms of objectives. In the qualitative section, data collection was done through Delphi interview questions, and the statistical population was senior managers, specialists, and policymakers with targeted sampling. In the quantitative part, the population was mid-level managers and organizational... 

The development of new technologies has confronted the entire domain of science and industry with issues of big data's scalability as well as its integration with the purpose of forecasting analytics in its life cycle. In predictive analytics, the forecast of near-future and recent past - or in other words, the now-casting - is the continuous study of real-time events and constantly updated where it considers eventuality. So, it is necessary to consider the highly data-driven technologies and to use new methods of analysis, like machine learning and visualization tools, with the ability of interaction and connection to different data resources with varieties of data regarding the type of big... 

A computational tool is developed to capture the interaction of solid object with two-phase flow. The full two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations are solved on a regular structured grid to resolve the flow field. The level set and the immersed boundary methods are used to capture the free surface of a fluid and a solid object, respectively. A two-step projection method along with Multi-Processing (OpenMP) is employed to solve the flow equations. The computational tool is verified based on numerical and experimental data with three scenarios: a cylinder falling into a rectangular domain due to gravity, transient vertical oscillation of a cylinder by releasing above its equilibrium position,... 

In this paper a new IR-UWB pulse generator circuit is proposed which is capable of solving the coexistence problem of narrowband and ultra wideband communication systems. This is done by creating a notch in the PSD of the generated UWB signal and adjusting its center frequency at the frequency of the narrowband interference. Using a triangular pulse generator, a triangular signal is generated and applied to the proposed circuit which consists of three main function blocks including quadratic, exponential and differentiator circuits. A differential pair MOS transistors in sub threshold region is utilized in order to realize the exponential block. The circuit is designed using a 0.18-μm RF... 

In this study, biodiesel (FAME) was prepared using a novel heterogeneous catalyst of phosphomolybdic acid (H3PMo12O40, HPMo)/support graphene oxide (GO). The characterization of the catalyst was evaluated by SEM, EDX, Map analysis, TEM, FT-IR, and Raman analyses. The production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil (WCO) was carried out by the electrolysis method. The process of the trans-esterification reaction was optimized by applying the response surface methodology (RSM) based on the central composite design (CCD) approach. The effects of four independent variables of methanol to oil molar ratio (6–12 mol:mol), catalyst weight (0.5–1.5 wt%), time (8–24 h), and voltage (30–70 V) were... 

In this study, biodiesel (FAME) was prepared using a novel heterogeneous catalyst of phosphomolybdic acid (H3PMo12O40, HPMo)/support graphene oxide (GO). The characterization of the catalyst was evaluated by SEM, EDX, Map analysis, TEM, FT-IR, and Raman analyses. The production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil (WCO) was carried out by the electrolysis method. The process of the trans-esterification reaction was optimized by applying the response surface methodology (RSM) based on the central composite design (CCD) approach. The effects of four independent variables of methanol to oil molar ratio (6–12 mol:mol), catalyst weight (0.5–1.5 wt%), time (8–24 h), and voltage (30–70 V) were... 

An assessment study of two different shunt FACTS devices for compensating disturbances due to voltage variation in power systems is presented in this paper. Namely, Static Compensator (STATCOM) and Static Var Compensator (SVC) are Considered in this study. Eigen Value analysis and nonlinear time domain simulations for starting motor, motor in load varying state and short circuit on motor terminals show that STATCOM DC Voltage regulation has a better performance Compared to that of SVC. The result that will be presented in the paper will prove the superiorly of STATCOM over SVC in increasing motor speeding up and improving system voltage profile particularly at starting. © 2005 IEEE  

Optimal production-distribution planning prevents capital accumulation, reduces costs, unemployment of machinery, and provides a good plan to satisfying customer needs. In this paper, a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed to determine optimal production-distribution planning in electromotor manufacturing industries. The proposed model is a multi-product and multi-period one in which optimal amounts of production, inventory and distribution are determined in different periods. Also, the possibility of capacity expansion of facilities in different periods are modelled to optimally determine the capacity increase if necessary. To validate the proposed model, it is applied... 

Promising properties of boron nitride nanomaterials such as their chemical, thermal, and mechanical stability have made them suitable materials in a various range of applications. However, their low electrical conductivity and wide bandgap, particularly in the case of boron nitride quantum dots (BNQDs), have given rise to severe limitations. Efforts on bandgap engineering through doping and surface functionalization have gained little success due to their high thermodynamic stability and inertness. Herein, we present a novel approach to functionalize BNQDs by hydroxyl, methyl, and amine functional groups aiming to adjust the electronic structure. The successful exfoliation is demonstrated by... 

This paper introduces a straightforward technique for parameters estimation of the RC equivalent circuit model of a battery cell with the main aim of its implementation in real-time digital simulator frameworks. The RC model parameters are precisely estimated by the analysis of the battery cell voltage curve during relaxation time using the pulse current test. In this regard, Least-squares fitting is used to mitigate the error of the battery cell voltage response, which leads to a precise estimation of the RC model parameters as a function of the state-of-charge. Exponential and Gaussian functions are utilized to define the resistances and the capacitances in the RC model respectively based...