Sharif Digital Repository

Ceramic-matrix composites containing TiC-TiN have been used in a variety of application because of their superior properties such as high hardness, good wear resistance and high chemical stability. In this research, effect of coke and coke/calcium beds in synthesis of Al2O3-Ti(C, N) composites using alumino-carbothermic reduction ofTiO2 has been investigated. Al, TiO2 and active carbon with additives of extra carbon and NaCl and without additives, in separate procedures, have been mixed. Afterwards, mixtures were pressed and synthesized in 1200°C for 4hrs, in coke and coke/calcium beds, separately. Al2O3-Ti(C,N) composite was synthesized in ternary system of Al-TiO2-C with excess carbon and... 

Ultrasound hyperthermia is used to treat tumors in human tissue by heat. It is characterized by the application of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), high local temperatures and short treating time of a few seconds. HIFU is a non-invasive treatment modality for a variety of cancers, including breast, prostate, kidney, liver, bone, uterus, and pancreatic cancers. Computer models have been used to determine tissue temperatures during ultrasound hyperthermia. In this work, we consider a liver tissue with a tumor at its center. We calculated temperature distribution in the presence a large blood vessel. We studied the effect of varying the exposure time (heating duration) and the diameter... 

This paper studies simultaneous lot sizing and scheduling problem in a job shop environment over a finite number of periods. The machines are flexible such that the production manager is able to change their working speeds. Also, the production schedule of the items over machines should be in consistence with technological precedence relationships. The problem is formulated as an integer linear program. Then, a number of valid inequalities are developed based on the problem structures. The proposed valid inequalities are added to the problem formulation in a "cut and branch" manner to accelerate the search process by common solvers. Finally, performance of the valid inequalities is... 

We propose and analyze a circularly polarized slot antenna built on a ferrite substrate which is saturated normal to its plane and metalized on both sides. The antenna is built by etching a circular slot in the top metal layer. The antenna operates in the frequency range where the effective permeability of ferrite is negative. An accurate analytical model is derived for the antenna by solving the integral equation for the electric field on the circular slot. The results obtained are in good agreement with numerical simulations. Using the analytical results, a practical antenna is designed that uses a microstrip feed line. For an antenna with inner and outer radii of 4.9 and 5.9 mm, the... 

The objective of this article is to study gas temperature estimation in a partially filled rotating cylinder. From the measured temperatures on the shell, an inverse analysis is presented for estimating the gas temperature in an arbitrary cross-section of the aforementioned system. A finite-volume method is employed to solve the direct problem. By minimizing the objective function, a hybrid effective algorithm, which contains a local optimization algorithm, is adopted to estimate the unknown parameter. The measured data are simulated by adding random errors to the exact solution. The effects of measurement errors on the accuracy of the inverse analysis are investigated. Two optimization... 

A fuzzy controller has been suggested for attitude control of magnetic actuated satellites in order to calculate the desired mechanical torque based on the attitude error including error in the angles and their rates. The problem of selecting proper magnetic dipole based on the known desired mechanical torque has been investigated, two different methods for the purpose has been suggested and the performance of the attained fuzzy magnetic attitude controllers has been shown under two different simulated conditions. © 2009 IEEE  

This paper presents mathematical modeling of joint lot sizing and scheduling problem in a job shop environment under a set of realistic working conditions. One main realistic assumption of the current study is dealing with flexible machines able to change their working speeds, known as process compressibility. The production schedules should be subject to limited available time in every planning period. Also, the model assumes that periodical sequences should be determined in a way that they obey from a fixed global sequence. Another complicating aspect of the problem is about consideration of precedence relationships for the needed processes of an item type over the corresponding machines.... 

In this paper, a continuous model for flexural vibration of beams with a vertical edge crack including the effects of shear deformation and rotary inertia is presented. The crack is assumed to be an open-edge crack perpendicular to the neutral plane. A quasi-linear displacement filed is suggested for the beam, and the strain and stress fields are calculated. The governing equation of motion for the beam has been obtained using Hamilton principle. The equation of motion is solved with a modified weighted residual method, and the natural frequencies and mode shapes are obtained. The results are compared to the results of similar model with Euler–Bernoulli assumptions and finite element model... 

In this study, biodegradation of corn starch/glycerol/Na-MMT nanocomposites by soil burial tests were carried out for up to 6 months. Films were prepared by casting method according to central composite design and response surface methodology was applied for analysis of the results. The effects of formulation on the water solubility, contact angle and tensile strength of starch films were investigated. Increasing in Na-MMT content decreased biodegradability; while presence of glycerol, increased it. The effect of nanoparticles content might have been attributed to interactions between starch and Na-MMT that further prevented enzymatic attack on the biopolymer. In addition, the films with... 

In this research, response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to study the effects of Na-Montmorillonite (Na-MMT) and glycerol on some functional properties of corn starch films. Films were prepared by casting method according to central composite design (CCD). Originally image processing technique was used in order to estimate transparency of the films. It was found that Na-MMT absorbed UV light from 216 to 266. nm. No antimicrobial activities were observed against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Contact angle analysis revealed hydrophilicity of starch films decreased utilizing nanoparticles and increased with plasticizer content. Increase in glycerol content decreased... 

This paper presents an algorithm for synchronizing two different chaotic systems by using a combination of Unscented Kalman-Bucy Filter (UKBF) and sliding mode controller. It is assumed that the drive chaotic system is perturbed by white noise and shows stochastic chaotic behavior. In addition the output of the system does not contain the whole state variables of the system, and it is also affected by some independent white noise. By combining the UKBF and the sliding mode control, a synchronizing control law is proposed. Simulation results show the ability of the proposed method in synchronizing chaotic systems in presence of noise  

In this paper, a continuous model for vibration analysis of a beam with an open edge crack including the effects of shear deformation and rotary inertia is presented. A displacement field is suggested for the beam and the strain, and stress fields are calculated. The governing equation of motion for the beam has been obtained using Hamilton's principle. The equation of motion is solved with a modified Galerkin method and the natural frequencies and mode shapes are obtained. A good agreement has been observed between the results of this research and the results of previous work done in this fiels. The results are also compared to results of a similar model with Euler-Bernoulli assumptions to... 

A new nonlinear optimization method for parameter estimation in Michaelis-Menten equation has been developed. This method is based on a special mathematical form of the Michaelis-Menten equation to finding the best fit of the linear plot of R versus S/(S + Km) where R, S, and Km are the reaction rate, concentration of substrate, and the Michaelis-Menten constant, respectively. By setting the intercept of this line to zero, the proper Km will be obtained and the slope would give the saturation rate, Vmax. As a result, a nonlinear, two-parameter optimization is simplified into finding the roots of a nonlinear equation. Generated data sets were used... 

This paper presents mathematical modelling of joint lot sizing and scheduling problem in job shop environment under a set of working conditions. The main feature of the problem is to deal with flexible machines able to change their working speeds, known as process compressibility. Furthermore, produced items should be assembled together to make final products. In other words, the products have a multilevel structure, shown with bill of materials. As the problem is proved to be strongly NP-hard, it is solved by a memetic algorithm here. Computational experiences on the data of Mega Motor company are reported. Also, further experiences on random test data confirm the performance of the... 

Demand response (DR) and flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices can be effectively used for congestion management in power transmission systems. However, demand response program (DRP) implementation can itself affect the optimum location of FACTS devices, which is one of the main issues in power system planning. This paper investigates the impact of DRPs on unified power flow controller (UPFC) placement. The harmony search algorithm is employed to determine the optimum locations and parameter setting of UPFC in a long-term framework. The optimization problem is solved with different objectives including generation and congestion cost reduction, as well as loss reduction. In this... 

A new wearable assistive device (WAD) was developed to decrease required force on the lumbar spine in static holding tasks. In order to obtain moments on lumbar spine in two conditions, with and without WAD, a biomechanical static model was used for estimation of external moments on lumbar spine. The results of biomechanical models indicated that there was a reduction in the lumbar moment ranging from 20% to 43% using WAD depending on the load and flexion angle. A total of 15 male healthy subjects were tested to experimentally verify the predicted reduction of external moments on the spine by wearing WAD. Normalized electromyography (EMG) of the right and left lumbar and thoracic erector... 

We propose two nonlinear regression methods, namely, Adversarial Orthogonal Regression (AdOR) for additive noise models and Adversarial Orthogonal Structural Equation Model (AdOSE) for the general case of structural equation models. Both methods try to make the residual of regression independent from regressors, while putting no assumption on noise distribution. In both methods, two adversarial networks are trained simultaneously where a regression network outputs predictions and a loss network that estimates mutual information (in AdOR) and KL-divergence (in AdOSE). These methods can be formulated as a minimax two-player game; at equilibrium, AdOR finds a deterministic map between inputs... 

In this paper, GyroSym, a compact highly-stable single-wheel robot is introduced. Symmetrical flywheels have been used as its stabilization mechanism to keep the wheel upright. Thanks to the type of the flywheel used, the dynamic equations of the robot is simplified, the torque needed to tilt the spin axis is reduced, and the space is drastically minimized. Besides, a centrifugal clutch is used to smooth the motion of the robot in forward motion. Two controllers, fuzzy and fuzzy-Padé, were implemented based on their ability to stabilize the robot. Although both prevented the GyroSym from falling over, neither can entirely cancel out the effects of nonlinear behaviors that is present in the... 

The objective of this study is to develop and apply an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian unstructured finite-volume lattice-Boltzmann method (ALE-FVLBM) for solving two-dimensional compressible inviscid flows around moving bodies. The two-dimensional compressible form of the LB equation is considered and the resulting LB equation is formulated in the ALE framework on an unstructured body-fitted mesh to correctly model the body shape and properly incorporate the mesh movement due to the body motion. The spatial discretization of the resulting system of equations is performed by a second-order cell-centered finite-volume method on arbitrary quadrilateral meshes and an implicit dual-time stepping... 

In this paper, an algorithm for fault diagnosis of permanent magnet DC electromotors.has been investigated, based on vibration and electrical current monitoring. Several permanent magnet DC electromotors.with previously determined faults have been prepared and the vibration, current and speed data have been measured. The relationship between certain related measured data and faults has been determined. A fault diagnosis algorithm has been developed in this research based on these relationships. This algorithm can be used in mass production lines for quality control