Sharif Digital Repository

Open graded asphalt mixturesareasphaltic mixes used in flexible pavements and the mainadvantages of them are increased permeability and noise reduction. Conventional application of these mixtures in flexible pavement is like that fluids infiltrate into porous asphalt layer that places over a dense graded asphalt layer and then draintoward ditches along the two sides of the road. Another usage of these mixtures, considered in recent years, is in porous pavements that the structure permits water on the surface topass freely through it and to infiltrateinto thesubsoil. In this research, second application of open graded asphalt mixtures is considered, i.e., porous asphalt pavement. In this type... 

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... 

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.... 

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... 

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... 

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... 

In power system operation, the term "operation planning" carries a wide range of meaning. For some utilities, operation planning denotes primarily short-term planning tasks (up to several days), such as load forecasting, unit commitment, hydro-thermal coordination, transaction pricing, fuel allocation, and security analysis while for other companies operational planning is interpreted in a wider context, and include mid-term planning activities (up to several months), such as maintenance planning, fuel budgeting, rate forecasting, network planning, relay coordination, etc. The mid-term planning provides the link between the long-term and short-term planning programs. The duration of this... 

Due to advantages of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, many internet users use them for content distribution (Many internet users distribute content using them). These systems may be categorized to Centralized, Pure, and Hybrid. Gnutella is a heavily decentralized and unstructured file sharing P2P networks that are responsible for a good part of the traffic on the internet. These P2P networks are at risk of many security threats from internet worms. Internet worms and their threats are a major concern to the networking community. In this thesis we concentrate on passive non-scanning worms and propose a novel approach to detect such worms. As part of our work, we collected data from the Gnutella... 

Different strategies for the treatment and disposal of petroleum and biological sludge found in the treatment and reuse unit of Arak Petroleum Refinery have been studied in the present study. To this end, the resources found in the literature corresponding to the different fields of sludge treatment were studied and a summary of them which was required by this research was mentioned in the thesis. Considering the problems bound to the wastewater treatment unit of this refinery plant and the previous studies, two completely separate strategies were devised. The first one concerns petroleum and biological sludge being produced continuously. The method of aerobic fixation of petroleum sludge by... 

In two past decades, a revolution has occurred by emerging of substation automation system in field of substation control and protection system. The traditional control system has changed to the modern automation systems which are based on computer networks. The development of this project become possible by having experience in and being familiar with automation systems, studying equipment specifications, tasks, and criteria and analyzing operation of various systems. The main target of this thesis is evaluating the automation system precisely and exhaustively and developing a model based on mathematical relations. This model is founded based on the application and analysis of the networks.... 

Setar is a traditional Persian musical instrument. Nowadays, Setar is one of the most common musical instruments in Persian music. A systematic method for Setar production modification has not been introduced yet. This work is the first scientific work about analysis of this instrument. The aim of this study is to undertake early steps for Setar quality improvement. In this thesis, after analysis of the wood using in Setar construction, numerical and experimental methods have been utilized to analyze this instrument. After that, some works has been performed to extract an objective function which can judge about Setar quality. The results show good agreement between experimental and... 

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... 

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... 

Structural defects such as cracks may be produced in structures and machineries under fatigue load operating conditions. The presence of crack can lead to catastrophic failures in certain conditions. The occurrence of cracks affects the dynamic and vibration behavior of the structure considerably. These vibrations can be used for identifying the cracks and appropriate actions can be taken to prevent more damage to the system. Therefore, in this thesis vibration analysis of a Timoshenko beam with a vertical and horizontal crack has been considered. A continuous model for vibration analysis of a beam with an open edge crack including the effects of shear deformation and rotary inertia has been...