Sharif Digital Repository

In recent years, the application of base isolation as a seismic design strategy for reducing the effects of earthquake ground motion has become an advantageous method and much effort has been devoted to base isolation research and there has been a growing acceptance of this approach. In this research, the effect of using base isolators in reducing the dynamic forces of piers and abutments of bridges is studied. More specifically double-span bridges are the target of this research. After modeling a regular bridge in a typical analysis program, it is excited by different earthquake accelerograms and then the effect of using base isolators in dissipating the earthquake energy is investigated  

Software-Defined Networking is a new approach in networking which provides a great opportunity to improve network management. Network policy decisions and reachability policies are one of the main concerns of the network administrators. These policies are traditionally configured in different network devices. The configurations are manually implemented using ACLs in routers, firewalls, VLANs, etc. Network engineers configure every single device on the network with its vendor-specific low level language. As a result, access control policies of the network lie in the configuration files of the network devices or even only in the minds of the network engineers. Moreover, access control policies... 

Lack of force feedback during minimally invasive procedures is one of the downsides of such interventions and might result to excessive damage to surrounding tissues. The goal of the present research is to introduce a vision-based approach to estimate contact forces on soft tissues. In this approach, a model was developed in which, image of deformation of a sample soft tissue, under the jaws of laparoscopic gripper, is the input and the output is the gripper force.
In this method, using finite element simulation, a database from different deformations of a rectangular soft tissue was generated. Accordingly, from the geometric position of nodes of the upper surface of the... 

The continuous rise in electricity demand and the ever growing power generation in different power networks over the world have caused the short circuit level in the power systems to exceed the operational rating of the installed power devices (including cables, circuit breakers and buses). Replacing these devices with new higher rating devices is an expensive solution. From this point of view, utilizing fault current limiters is an economical solution. Superconducting fault current limiters form an efficient category of current limiters. This type is expected to be studied and used widely in future due to their advantages. In this thesis, the first chapter reviews the superconductivity... 

Terahertz waves which includes frequencies between 100 GHz to 10 THz of electromagnetic spectrum have found many applications in science, medical treatments and industry. One of the recent methods to produce these waves is using nonlinear properties of superconductors based on Josephson junctions which inherently appear in some superconductors called BSCCO. Stack of intrinsic junctions of these superconducting materials can radiate terahertz waves by only applying a DC voltage across them. This Thesis investigates some of these structures based on Josephson junctions to produce coherent radiation of terahertz waves. For the optimization of the radiation power, this study also investigates... 

There are different approaches in modifications of General Relativity as the theory of gravity. The modified theories of gravity are important cases in this context, which mostly start by modifying the Einstein-Hilbert action, while keeping the general covariance. Within the modified theories of gravity, we consider two cases. The first is the f(R) theories of gravity, and the second is curvature squared theories of gravity with an action like S = ∫d4x pg( 116GR + (R)2 + R2 +(R)2). Curvature squared theories of gravity have interesting feautures, most important of which is renormalizability, in contrast with General Relativity. But this advantage, as noted by K.S. Stelle in 1977 comes at... 

Near Horizon Extremal Geometries (NHEG), are geometries which may appear in the near horizon region of the extremal black holes. These geometries have SL(2;R)U(1)n isometry, and constitute a family of solutions to the theory under consideration. In the first part of this report,their thermodynamic properties are reviewed, and their three universal laws are derived. In addition, at the end of the first part, the role of these laws in black hole thermodynamics is presented. In the second part of this thesis, we review building their classical phase space in the Einstein-Hilbert theory. The elements in the NHEG phase space manifold are built by appropriately chosen coordinate transformations of... 

Multiverse scenario has been recently addressed by physicists and they have found it useful in many areas of physics. In this dissertation, I have treated some issues about multiverse such as the kinds of multiverses, the arguments for or against multiverse, areas in which multiverse is introduced, etc. This dissertation has six chapters and an appendix. In the chapter one, some classifications of multiverse is introduced, and also some definitions of the concept of a world is presented. Then, my classification and definition of a multiverse and a world is introduced. In the chapter two, the concept of possible worlds in philosophy and its relationship with multiverse hypothesis is examined.... 

Employing high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes, instead of copper or aluminum wires for winding in a superconducting transformer, results in a series of significant advantages; such as: smaller volume, lighter weight, higher efficieny, greatly extended overload capability, better voltage regulation, lower life cycle cost, fault current limiting capability, lower environmental pollution and lower risk potential against fire hazards.In this thesis, optimal design of flux diverter using genetic algorithm for axial short circuit force reduction in HTS transformers has been performed. Then, multilayered flux diverters have been proposed for reduction of weight and losses. The impact of... 

Valve leak detection is very important due to bad direct effects on parts life and engine power. Acoustic emission (AE) has a good known ability on leak detection between fault detection methods. The aim of this thesis is presenting the ability of AE method for valve leak detection in internal combustion engines. The research method in a general framework based on the idea that firstly some evaluations were done in static tests for leakage due to three faults including clearance, quasi-crack and notch. Then, the evaluations were continued with dynamic analysis of rotational speeds and different loads on the engine. Finally, the neural network approach was used to automatically detect all... 

Inrush Current is a form of over-current that occurs during energization of a transformer. For power transformers, the magnitude of the first peak of inrush current is initially several times the rated load current but slowly decreases until it finally reaches the normal exciting current value. This process typically takes several minutes. Time-variant axial and radial electromagnetic forces under inrush current and short-circuit current are calculated (by finite element method; FEM), and compared. An analytic method is presented for computation of inrush current in transformer. The simulation results obtained by this proposed method are compared with the measured values. A compact... 

The goal of this thesis is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the two existing formulations of Bohmian mechanics. The first one was proposed by Bohm, and emphasizes on the dynamics being second-order, and in which, the key tool for explaining the quantum phenomena is a non-classical potential, called "the quantum potential". In this approach, the postulates of de Broglie's "pilot-wave" theory, which now is known as Bohmian mechanics, are non-fundamental and are special to the atomic level. The possibility is proposed that these postulates become subjected to some modifications at the nuclear or lower levels, but no particular way for performing such modifications is suggested. The... 

In this study biological denitrification method by moving bed biofilm reactor is investigated. The main advantage of MBBR reactor is due to their capacity for high removal rates and low operational problems such as clogging. Two MBBRs in series with 3 liter volume each, were designed in experimental set up and used in this research. Nitrification reactor worked under aerobic conditions and denitrification reactor operated under anaerobic conditions. Methanol was used as carbon source in the reactors throughout the study. Fifty percent of each reactor volume was occupied with KMT1 packing. To finding the optimum nitrate loading rate, the concentration of ammonium and nitrate were changed from... 

Since 1980s the electricity market has been gradually evolving from a monopoly market into a liberalized one for encouraging competition and improving efficiency. This brings the opportunity for generation companies (Gencos) to make more profits while embracing more risks of not being dispatched. Therefore, it has become a core interest for the Gencos to develop optimal bidding strategies to maximize the profits and minimize the risks while participating in such a competitive market. Error of determining day-ahead electricity price is one of the sources of the risk. Energy price has a high impact on bidding strategy optimization process. So it should be determined with low error which is not... 

Quantum mechanics is very succesful in the description and prediction of the microphysical world. So nowadays very few doubt its authenticity. Nevertheless, there are some conceptual issues that are still under debate, such as action at a distance. It took a while after the introduction of the EPR paradox in 1935 until John Stewart Bell derived an inequality, using local hidden variables. This inequality was in contrast with predictions of quantum mechanics. Experiments also contradicted this inequality. This implies that there is action at distance which, in turn suggests, the violation of the special relativity. In this thesis, we consider this issue and shall see that on the one hand we...