Sharif Digital Repository

A new generalized and non-group contribution method has been developed to predict critical temperature (Tc), critical pressure (Pc), critical volume (Vc) and acentric factor (ω) for pure substances and petroleum fractions based on two types of input parameters. This method can take either refractive index and molecular weight or refractive index and normal boiling point as its input. Since refractive index cannot be obtained for an unknown mixture (petroleum fraction), in order to apply the proposed method for petroleum fractions, refractive index is converted to mass density at 293K using the one-third rule. Moreover, the proposed correlation is capable of predicting the properties using... 

Estimation of petroleum fractions properties is one of the major problems in the reservoir fluids analysis, due to the fact that they cannot exactly be diagnosed and their constituents are not available clearly. In this study, a simple model has been developed to estimate the viscosity of pure hydrocarbon substances, bitumens, size-asymmetric mixtures and reservoir fluids (containing unknown hydrocarbon mixtures or petroleum fractions). The proposed model has been extended based on the two conventional and physical properties which can be measured for both pure components and unknown mixtures, without requiring to have their components and compositions. This model uses the pressure (P),... 

A new-generation equation of state, perturbed-chain statistical association fluid theory (PC-SAFT), has attracted much attention to modeling the phase behavior of fluids using molecular-based equations of state. A set of three pure component parameters is needed for non-associative compounds, conventionally determined by fitting vapor pressure and liquid density data simultaneously. Unfortunately, experimental data are scarce, and the number of pure substances is too large. Thus, it is indispensable for developing predictive methods to determine the pure component parameters. In the present paper, a new model has been developed to estimate PC-SAFT parameters for different pure components,... 

The recrystallization behavior of a commercial nickel-cobalt base superalloy, AEREX 350, is investigated by means of hardness test, X-ray diffraction, and microscopy. It is found that the alloy resists recrystallization up to a high temperature of 1025 °C. Recrystallized grains are readily formed at grain boundaries below this temperature; however, the growth of these new grains is inhibited by Widmanstätten η particles having coherent facets with the nickel matrix (γ). The passage of the recrystallization front results in coherency loss and consequently dissolution of the η platelets. Recrystallization proceeds with a discontinuous precipitation of the η phase behind the moving boundary  

A large variety of modifications have been presented for the temperature dependent function (α) existing in the attractive term of cubic equations of state (CEOS). Most of α-functions attempted to modify the vapor pressure prediction of polar components while other modifications have focused on both polar and non-polar compounds and other relations have considered an expansion of polynomials in the acentric factor (ω) and reduced temperature (Tr) to predict vapor pressure more accurately. In most cases such as Soave and Peng-Robinson equations of state, the suggested α-functions do not show a limiting behavior when temperature increases infinitely. In addition, the incompetency of many... 

This study investigates the effect of cold rolling prior to inter-critical annealing on microstructure and mechanical properties of ferrite-martensite dual phase steel. Samples were heated to 850 °C for 1 h followed by oil quenching, then the steel sheet were cold rolled by 0%,10%,15% and 20% reduction in thickness. The inter-critical annealing treatment (750 °C, 120min) was performed to generate a ferrite-martensite microstructure. Microstructural studies showed that increasing the applied cold rolling, leading to increase in volume fraction of martensite and decrease in ferrite grain size. Mechanical properties of dual phase steel were measured by tensile, impact and hardness tests.... 

In this work, PC-SAFT, an equation of state based on perturbation theory, is applied to predict the reservoir fluids phase behavior. PC-SAFT parameters for pure components have previously been assessed, but they cannot be determined for petroleum fractions with unspecified components and composition. In order to remove this difficulty and making use of PC-SAFT model in the reservoir fluids simulations, a new approach is studied which leads to appearing generalized correlations for the estimation of PC-SAFT parameters for petroleum cuts and plus fractions using only their molecular weight and specific gravity, without the essential need for the characterization of petroleum fractions in... 

We investigate large wireless networks subject to security constraints. In contrast to point-to-point, interferencelimited communications considered in prior works, we propose active cooperative relaying-based schemes. We consider a network with nl legitimate nodes, ne eavesdroppers, and path loss exponent α ≥ 2. As long as n2e (log(ne))γ = o(nl ), for some positive γ , we show that one can obtain unbounded secure aggregate rate. This means zero-cost secure communication, given fixed total power constraint for the entire network. We achieve this result through: 1) the source using Wyner randomized encoder and a serial (multi-stage) block Markov scheme, to cooperate with the relays and 2) the... 

Investigating the impact of geological uncertainty (i.e., spatial distribution of fractures) on reservoir performance may aid management decisions. The conventional approach to address this is to build a number of possible reservoir models, upscale them, and then run flow simulations. The problem with this approach is that it is computationally very expensive. In this study, we use another approach based on the permeability contrasts that control the flow, called percolation approach. This assumes that the permeability disorder of a rock can be simplified to either permeable or impermeable. The advantage is that by using some universal laws from percolation theory, the effect of the complex... 

Recently, a new class of binary codes for overloaded CDMA systems are proposed that not only has the ability of errorless communication but also suitable for detecting active users. These codes are called COWDA. In [1], a Maximum Likelihood (ML) decoder is proposed for this class of codes. Although the proposed scheme for coding/decoding shows impressive performance, the decoder can be significantly improved. In this paper, by assuming practical conditions for the traffic in the system, we suggest and prove an algorithm that increases the performance of the decoder several orders of magnitude (the Bit-Error-Rate (BER) is divided by a factor of about 400 in some E b/N0's). The algorithm... 

In this paper we present new methods to estimate the effective permeability (keff) of heterogeneous porous media with a wide distribution of permeabilities and various underlying structures, using percolation concepts. We first set a threshold permeability (kth) on the permeability density function and use standard algorithms from percolation theory to check whether the high permeable grid blocks (i.e., those with permeability higher than kth) with occupied fraction of “p” first forms a cluster connecting two opposite sides of the system in the direction of the flow (high permeability flow pathway). Then we estimate the effective permeability of the heterogeneous porous media in different... 

It has long been understood that flow behavior in heterogeneous porous media is largely controlled by the continuity of permeability contrasts. With this in mind, we are looking in new methods for a fast estimation of the effective permeability which concentrates on the properties of the percolating cluster. From percolation concepts we use a threshold permeability value (Kth) by which the gridblocks with the highest permeability values connect two opposite side of the system in the direction of the flow. Those methods can be applied to heterogeneous media of a range of permeabilities distribution and various underlying structures. We use power law relations and weighted power averages that... 

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films have been deposited using RF sputtering technique at different pressures, RF powers, and substrate temperatures. Variations in surface morphology, optical properties, and film resistances were measured and analyzed. It is shown that a very low value of sheet resistance (1.96 ω/sq.) can be achieved with suitable arrangement of the deposition experiments. First, at constant RF power, deposition at different pressure values is done, and the condition for achieving minimum sheet resistance (26.43 ω/sq.) is found. In the next step, different values of RF powers are tried, while keeping the pressure fixed on the previously found minimum point (1-2 Pa). Finally,... 

Seven different types of gasification-based coal conversion processes for producing mainly electricity and in some cases hydrogen (H2), with and without carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, were compared on a consistent basis through simulation studies. The flowsheet for each process was developed in a chemical process simulation tool "Aspen Plus". The pressure swing adsorption (PSA), physical absorption (Selexol), and chemical looping combustion (CLC) technologies were separately analyzed for processes with CO2 capture. The performances of the above three capture technologies were compared with respect to energetic and exergetic efficiencies, and the level of CO2 emission. The effect of air... 

Single-crystal hydroxyapatite (HAp) nanorods and nanogranules have been synthesized successfully by a mechanochemical process using two distinct experimental procedures. The experimental outcomes are characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. In this work, the feasibility of using polymeric milling media to prepare hydroxyapatite nanoparticles is described. The resulting hydroxyapatite powder exhibits an average size of about 20 to 23 nm. Final results indicate that the proposed synthesis strategy provides a facile pathway to obtain single-crystal HAp with high quality and suitable morphology. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights... 

Migration to the cloud has been a popular topic in industry and academia in recent years. Despite many benefits that the cloud presents, such as high availability and scalability, most of the on-premise application architectures are not ready to fully exploit the benefits of this environment, and adapting them to this environment is a non-trivial task. Microservices have appeared recently as novel architectural styles that are native to the cloud. These cloud-native architectures can facilitate migrating on-premise architectures to fully benefit from the cloud environments because non-functional attributes, like scalability, are inherent in this style. The existing approaches on cloud... 

Estimating available hydrocarbon to be produced during secondary oil recovery is an ongoing activity in field development. The primary plan is normally scheduled during early stage of field's life through master development plan studies. During this period, due to the lake of certain data, estimation of the field efficiency is usually based on rules of thumb and not detailed field characterization. Hence, there is a great motivation to produce simpler physically-based methodologies. The minimum necessity inputs of percolation approach make it a useful tool for foration performance prediction. This approach enables us to attain a better assessment of the efficiency of secondary recovery...