Sharif Digital Repository

The hydrodistilled oils of the aerial parts of Artemisia armeniaca and Artemisia splendens have been analyzed by a combination of GC and GC/MS. The main components of A. armeniaca were α-pinene (41.9%) and 1,8-cineole (20.6%) followed by spathulenol (6.7%) and limonene (5.6%). l,8-cineole(14.5%), germacrene D (14.3%), α-pinene (11.3%) and bicyclogermacrene (11.3%) were found to be the major constituents of A. splendens  

The buckling of generally laminated conical shells having thickness variations under axial compression is investigated. This problem usually arises in the filament wound conical shells where the thickness changes through the length of the cone. The thickness may be assumed to change linearly through the length of the cone. The fundamental relations for a conical shell with variable thickness applying thin-walled shallow shell theory of Donnell-type and theorem of minimum potential energy have been derived. Nonlinear terms of Donnell equations are linearized by the use of adjacent-equilibrium criterion. Governing equations are solved using power series method. This procedure enables us to... 

The buckling of generally laminated conical shells having thickness variations under axial compression is investigated. This problem usually arises in the filament wound conical shells where the thickness changes through the length of the cone. The thickness may be assumed to change linearly through the length of the cone. The fundamental relations for a conical shell with variable thickness applying thin-walled shallow shell theory of Donnell-type and theorem of minimum potential energy have been derived. Nonlinear terms of Donnell equations are linearized by the use of adjacent-equilibrium criterion. Governing equations are solved using power series method. This procedure enables us to... 

The development of a nonenzymatic glucose sensor working in real human body conditions through a noninvasive sampling approach has attracted considerable attention. Hence, this work focuses on the development of a new nonenzymatic glucose sensor based on flower-like Au nanostructures (F-AuNTs) and graphene oxide (GO) as a supporting matrix. The F-AuNTs-GO hybrid was synthesized by simple drop casting of the GO suspension onto the graphite sheet (GS) followed by electrodeposition of F-AuNTs on GO nanosheets at 3 V in a two-electrode system. The electrocatalytic activity of the F-AuNTs-GO/GS sensor toward glucose electrooxidation was initially evaluated in a 0.1 M buffer phosphate solution (pH... 

For a given set of n colored points with k colors in the plane, we study the problem of computing the smallest color-spanning axis-parallel square. First, for a dynamic set of colored points on the real line, we propose a dynamic structure with O(log2 n) update time per insertion and deletion for maintaining the smallest color-spanning interval. Next, we use this result to compute the smallest color-spanning square. Although we show there could be Ω(kn) minimal color-spanning squares, our algorithm runs in O(nlog2 n) time and O(n) space  

We study a variant of the problem of spanning colored objects where the goal is to span colored objects with two similar regions. We dedicate our attention in this paper to the case where objects are points lying on the real line and regions are intervals. Precisely, the goal is to compute two intervals together spanning all colors. As the main ingredient of our algorithm, we first introduce a kinetic data structure to keep track of minimal intervals spanning all colors. Then we present a novel algorithm using the proposed KDS to compute a pair of intervals which together span all the colors with the property that the largest one is as small as possible. The algorithm runs in O(n2 log n)... 

Suppose n colored points with k colors in Rd are given. The Smallest Color-Spanning Ball (SCSB) is the smallest ball containing at least one point of each color. As the computation of the SCSB in Lp metric (p≥1) is time-consuming, we focus on approximately computing the SCSB in near-linear time. Initially, we propose a 3-approximation algorithm running in O(n logn) time. This algorithm is then utilized to present a (1+ε)-approximation algorithm with the running time of O((1/ε)dn logn). We improve the running time to O((1/ε)dn) using randomized techniques. Afterward, spanning colors with two balls is studied. For a special case where d=1, there is an algorithm with O(n2) time. We demonstrate... 

Effective diffusion coefficient is an important parameter which needs to be determined in different fields of study, such as cathode catalyst layers of PEM fuel. For this purpose, a Loschmidt diffusion cell can be used. When a porous medium is placed in Loschmidt apparatus, the effective gas diffusion coefficient (EGDC) of this section must be correlated by diffusion coefficient in absence of a porous medium. In the previous researches studying the Loschmidt diffusion cell, a simplifying infinite-length assumption was used in the analytical solution. Therefore, the solution is only applicable for a short time range, and this can result in high error. In order to overcome this challenge, the... 

Diffusivity equation which can provide us with the pressure distribution, is a Partial Differential Equation (PDE) describing fluid flow in porous media. The quadratic pressure gradient term in the diffusivity equation is nearly neglected in hydrology and petroleum engineering problems such as well test analysis. When a compressible liquid is injected into a well at high pressure gradient or when the reservoir possess a small permeability value, the effect of ignoring this term increases. In such cases, neglecting this parameter can result in high errors. Previous models basically focused on numerical and semi-analytical methods for semi-infinite domain. To the best of our knowledge, no... 

Purpose: This paper aims to study the lateral behavior of cold-formed steel walls with K-shaped bracing by finite element modeling. Design/methodology/approach: The braces which have the same section as those for studs and tracks are connected to the frame by screw connections. By pushover analysis, lateral performance of two frame categories, with different dimensions and bracing arrangements, is examined, and the force-displacement diagram and the ultimate strength of walls are extracted. Probable failure modes during lateral loading including distortional buckling of studs, buckling in braces and failure of connections are simulated in the numerical model, and some strengthening... 

Because of the complicated buckling characteristics of Y-shaped bracings, calculation of their strength is beyond routine engineering procedures. A method based on slope-deflection equations incorporating stability functions has been used for computation of buckling eigenvalues and effective length factors. Lateral strength is computed based on the least buckling strength of bracing members. This study is limited to bracings with similar sections and fixed end connections resisting out-of-plane rotation. Lateral strengths predicted by the analytical method for two cases are compared with experimental results on full-scale specimens. It is shown that the proposed analytical method predicts... 

In this paper, fungal rennin production has been carried out by solid state fermentation of Mucor miehei NRRL 3420. The optimum dilution ratio, temperature and fermentation time of the enzymatic solution were determined to be 1:30, 40°C and 4 days after the beginning of the fermentation process, respectively. Also, the enzyme recovery by precipitation was studied using (NH4)2SO4, acetone and ethanol, respectively. The effects of pH, salt and solvent concentration on rennin recovery were studied and the optimum pH value as well as the optimum salt concentration were determined. The maximum specific activity of the enzyme was obtained by precipitation at pH of 6.5 and 50% saturated solution of... 

The Cauchy-Born hypothesis has been used to concurrently bridge atomistic information to continuum model. It has been a prevalent assumption in computational nano-mechanics during the past decade. This kinematic assumption relates the deformation of the continuum to the deformation of its underlying crystalline structure. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the validity of this hypothesis by means of direct atomistic simulations and the continuum mechanic calculations. In fact, we intend to determine under which strain or stress state the crystalline structure undergoes inhomogeneous deformation due to a small perturbation of the homogeneously deformed system. Two failure... 

For a set of colored points, a region is called color-spanning if it contains at least one point of each color. In this paper, we first consider the problem of maintaining the smallest color-spanning interval for a set of n points with k colors on the real line, such that the insertion and deletion of an arbitrary point takes O(log2 n) the worst-case time. Then, we exploit the data structure to show that there is O(n log2 n) time algorithm to compute the smallest color-spanning square for a set of n points with k colors in the plane. This is a new way to improve O(nk log n) time algorithm presented by Abellanas et al. [1] when k = !(log n). We also consider the problem of computing the... 

To obtain wider openings than those provided by Chevron bracing, the braces are cranked and connected to the frame corner by an additional brace to form double y-shaped bracings. However, y-bracings are prone to instability and out of plane buckling, accompanied by low hysteretic energy absorption. An experimental research program, focused on y-bracing, was conducted at the BHRC structural engineering laboratory. Specimens presented in this paper include three full-scale single bay frames, with symmetric y-bracing of different cross sections and connection types. In addition, one specimen with Chevron bracing was tested as a reference. A quasi-static cyclic loading was applied increasingly... 

This paper deals with investigation of fracture behavior of steel fiber reinforced high strength concrete (SFRHSC) and compare it to plain high strength concrete (HSC). Based on an experimental program, a series of three point bending tests were carried out on 54 notched beams, as recommended by RILEM. The fracture parameters were measured by two methods: work of fracture method (WFM) and size effect method (SEM). Then the fracture parameters obtained from these two methods were compared. The results showed that with increase of steel fibers, fracture energy of GF in WFM and Gf in SEM increase but this increase in work of fracture method is more significant. The effective size of the process... 

An exact analytical solution for one-dimensional fluid flow through rock matrix block is presented. The nonlinearity induced from flow functions makes the governing equations describing this mechanism difficult to be analytically solved. In this paper, an analytical solution to the infiltration problems considering non-linear relative permeability functions is presented for finite depth, despite its profound and fundamental importance. Elimination of the nonlinear terms in the equation, as a complex and tedious task, is done by applying several successive mathematical manipulations including: Hopf-Cole transformation to obtain a diffusive type PDE; an exponential type transformation to get a... 

The online condition assessment of circuit breakers (CBs) has been increasingly requested by power utilities in recent years. Trip and close coil current (CC) signature is an effective and noninvasive parameter in CB online condition monitoring. This paper gives an insight into the impacts of the various failures on the coil current waveform, as well as on the CB operation time. The failures and their causes are categorized based on the outcome of these investigations. Finally, a new algorithm using trip/close CC is proposed to detect the mode and cause of CB incipient failures. In this study, the CC patterns are acquired by measurements carried out on (healthy and faulty) CBs of 72.5-kV and... 

Recognition of the circuit-breaker's (CB) vital role in reliable operation and protection of power systems (i.e., during energization, disconnecting loads, and clearing faults), helps to understand the requirement and importance of its maintenance management as well as maintenance scheduling. Condition-based maintenance (CBM), employing online monitoring (OLM) of CBs, has been long reported as the most practical maintenance policy on the power system CBs. There are a large number of CBs in a power system to be monitored; however, to address the financial limitations for OLM implementation (in utilities), a method will be proposed to find the most critical breakers for enforcing effectively... 

The proper and reliable operation of circuit breakers (CBs) directly affects the reliability and continuity of electricity services in a power systems. Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is the best economic CB maintenance strategy through its online monitoring (OLM) possibilities. Since there is a large number of CBs in a power system, to equip all CBs with OLM systems is not economically justifiable however. This paper, as the second part of a two-part paper, presents an effective optimization framework to find the optimal number of CBs to be monitored online as the kernel of CBM process. To prove its feasibility, the proposed approach is applied to the IEEE Roy Billinton Test System, which...