Sharif Digital Repository

Design and development of FGMs as the heat treatable materials for high-temperature environments with thermal protection require understanding of exact temperature and thermal stress distribution in the transient state. This information is primary tool in the design and optimization of the devices for failure prevention. Frequently FGMs are used in many applications that presumably produce thermal energy transport via wave propagation. In this study, transient non-Fourier temperature and associated thermal stresses in a functionally graded slab symmetrically heated on both sides are determined. Hyperbolic heat conduction equation in terms of heat flux is used for obtaining temperature... 

In this article, the problem of simultaneous heat, mass, and momentum transfer in the developing region of tubular reactors with homogeneous chemical reaction and laminar power-law fluid flow under unsteady-state conditions has been solved. In this regard, the general governing equations were solved using finite-difference method and analyzed carefully. Moreover, the influences of various parameters and dimensionless numbers such as power-law index, heat of reaction, reaction order, and Damköhler number value on the numerical results were investigated. In addition, the numerical results obtained for the fully-developed velocity distribution of Newtonian fluid flow and Sherwood number value... 

In this article, two adaptive model predictive controllers (AMPC) are applied to regulate the blood glucose in type 1 diabetic patients. The first controller is constructed based on a linear model, while the second one is designed by using a nonlinear Hammerstein model. The adaptive version of these control schemes is considered to make them more robust against model mismatches and external disturbances. The least squares method with forgetting factor is used to update the model parameters. For simulation study, two well-known mathematical models namely, Puckett and Hovorka which describe the dynamical behavior of patient's body have been selected. The performances and robustness of the... 

The anomalous top quark interactions with gluon (tug, tcg) allow the production of single top quarks at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Using the angular distribution of the charged lepton from the W boson in the top decay, we show that with the data of 10 fb-1 of integrated luminosity and in the collisions with the center of mass energy of 14TeV, the anomalous up and charm quarks coupling parameters κu,c/Λ can be measured down to 0.005 and 0.007 TeV-1, respectively  

In this article, adsorption of p-xylene, m-xylene, o-xylene, and ethylbenzene on Na-BETA type zeolite in liquid phase at 15, 25, and 35 °C has been studied and the single adsorption isotherms have been obtained and reported. The Langmuir isotherm model was used to describe the experimental adsorption isotherm data. It was found that p-xylene is more strongly adsorbed component followed by ethylbenzene, m-xylene and o-xylene. This means that this adsorbent is selective for p-xylene. Using Langmuir isotherm model, the saturation adsorption capacities of the adsorbent were obtained as follows 143 mg/g for p-xylene, 105 mg/g for ethylbenzene, 83 mg/g for m-xylene, and 68 mg/g for o-xylene at 25... 

Heterogeneous solid catalysts comprising CaO and ZrO 2 mixed oxides with various Ca-to-Zr molar ratios were synthesized by means of coprecipitation method. These synthesized mixed oxide catalysts were used for the transesterification of waste cooking oil (WCO) as feedstock with methanol to produce biodiesel fuel (BDF) at 65 °C and 1 atm. The influences of Ca-to-Zr molar ratio, catalyst loading, methanol-to-oil molar ratio, and the reaction time on the BDF yield were carefully investigated. In addition, the stability of prepared solid catalysts was studied. These catalysts were characterized by using techniques of X-ray diffraction, X-ray florescence, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, surface... 

Dual-phase (DP) steels with different martensite contents were produced by subjecting a low carbon steel to various heat treatment cycles. In order to investigate the effect of dynamic strain aging (DSA) on mechanical properties, tensile specimens were deformed 3% at 300 °C. Room temperature tensile tests of specimens which deformed at 300 °C showed that both yield and ultimate tensile strengths increased, while total elongation decreased. The fatigue limit increased after pre-strain in the DSA temperature range. The effects of martensite volume fraction on mechanical properties were discussed  

A numerical study was conducted on the transient behavior of a hydrodynamically fully developed, laminar flow of power-law fluids in the thermally developing entrance region of circular ducts with taking into account the effects of viscous dissipation, axial conduction, and variations of viscosity with temperature. In this regard, the unsteady-state thermal energy and momentum equations were solved numerically using a finite-difference method, whereas the steady-state thermal energy equation with constant wall heat flux as the boundary condition was solved analytically as the initial condition of the former. The numerical procedure used in the present work was validated with an analytical... 

Dual phase (DP) steels with network and fibrous martensite were produced by intercritical annealing heat treatment cycles. Some of these steels were deformed at dynamic strain aging temperatures. Room temperature tensile tests of specimens deformed at 300 °C showed that both yield and ultimate tensile strengths for both morphologies increased, while total elongation decreased. Fatigue test results before and after high temperature deformation showed that dynamic strain aging has a stronger effect on fatigue properties of dual phase steels with fibrous martensite. Cracks in DP steels with fibrous martensite propagate in a tortuous path in soft ferrite phase, while they pass of both hard and... 

The kinetics and equilibrium of isomerization reaction of D-glucose to D-fructose have been investigated using a commercial immobilized glucose isomer ase (IGI), Sweetzyme type IT®, in a batch stirred-tank reactor. The batch experimental data were used to model the reaction kinetics using the well-known Michaelis-Menten rate expression. The kinetic model was utilized in a dynamic-mathematical model for a packed-bed reactor to predict the concentration profiles of D-glucose and D-fructose within the reactor. The experimental results for the fractional conversion of D-glucose in the packed-bed reactor of IGI catalyst indicated that the model prediction of the transient and steady-state... 

This paper is concerned with the investigation of an optical band-pass filter based on subwavelength surface plasmon polaritons. The transmission characteristics are numerically analyzed by the finite-difference time-domain method, and simulation results reveal that the structure has a band-pass filtering characteristic. The metal–insulator–metal plasmonic nanostructure is implemented by several vertical rectangular cavities across an optical waveguide. The metal and dielectric materials utilized for the realization of the filter are silver and air, respectively. Furthermore, the performance can be efficiently modified by tuning the geometric parameters such as the cavities’ length and width... 

In this study, the local composition based models such as the Wilson, the nonrandom two-liquid (NRTL), and the Wilson-NRF have been applied in correlation and estimation of density, viscosity, and surface tension of biodiesels. The thermodynamic models have been used in correlating the thermophysical properties for 215 experimental data points. These models have the interaction energy between each pair that is considered as adjustable parameters. To decrease the number of these adjustable parameters, it is assumed that the biodiesels are composed of two hypothetical components. The average absolute deviation (AADs) of the correlated density of biodiesels for the Wilson, the NRTL, and the... 

A significant portion of Iranian flat breads are produced in semi-industrial, indirect-heating ovens. Therefore, an efficient oven design and a proper selection of operating conditions are crucial to improve the product quality and reduce energy consumption. In the present study, a mathematical model is developed to simulate a semi-industrial, indirect-heating, continuous oven performance during contact baking of an Iranian flat bread, referred to as Taftoon. Individual modes of heat transfer are considered among various components of the baking system to estimate the system performance and the bread quality in terms of design and operating conditions. The predictions of this model are in... 

In this research, direct conversion of wet algal biomass into biodiesel using supercritical methanol was studied. In this process, microalgal lipids simultaneously was extracted and converted to biodiesel under high pressure and temperature conditions without using any catalyst. Several experiments have been performed to optimize the methanol amount and it has been revealed that the best performance was achieved by using methanol/wet biomass ratio of 8:1. The effect of using various co-solvents in increasing the efficiency of the supercritical process was investigated. It has been shown that hexane was the most effective co-solvent and its optimal ratio respect to wet biomass was 6:1. The... 

The extraction and purification of lipids from the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris have been investigated. First, a mixture of hexane and ethanol was used to extract lipids from the algal biomass. Ultrasonication was employed to disrupt the cell wall and increase the extraction performance. Under these conditions, over 90% of the fatty acids in the biomass were extracted. Second, a biphasic system was formed by adding water and hexane to the extracted crude oil. In this way, fatty acids were mainly distributed in the organic phase (mostly hexane and ethanol) while most of the contaminants remained in the aqueous phase (mostly water and ethanol). Equilibrium distribution data between the phases... 

The oxidative desulfurization of a real refinery feedstock (i.e., non-hydrotreated kerosene with total sulfur mass content of 0.16%) with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid was studied. The influences of various operating parameters including reaction temperature (T), acid to sulfur molar ratio (nacid/nS), and oxidant to sulfur molar ratio (nO/nS) on the sulfur removal of kerosene were investigated. The results revealed that an increase in the reaction temperature (T) and nacid/nS enhances the sulfur removal. Moreover, there is an optimum nO/nS related to the reaction temperature and the best sulfur removal could be obtained at nO/nS8 and 23 for the reaction temperatures of 25... 

This paper proposes an Age-Dependent Clustering (ADC) structure to be used for prognostics. To achieve this aim, a step-by-step methodology is introduced, that includes clustering, reproduction, mapping, and finally estimation of Remaining Useful Life (RUL). In the mapping step, a neural fitting tool is used. To clarify the age-based clustering concept, the main elements of the ADC model is discussed. A Genetic algorithm (GA) is used to find the elements of the optimal model. Lastly, the fuzzy technique is applied to modify the clustering. By investigating a case study on the health monitoring of some turbofan engines, the efficacy of the proposed method is demonstrated. The results showed... 

A deterministic model based on the discrete population balance equation (PBE) is used to examine the precipitation of barium sulfate nanoparticles in nonionic inverse microemulsion systems. It is shown that coagulation can have a significant effect at low initial reactants concentration. The simulation results show that a bimodal particle size distribution (PSD) observed in experimental analysis reported in the literature cannot be predicted by neglecting the coagulation effect. A coagulation kernel is proposed that takes into account the effect of interparticle forces through the Fuchs' stability ratio. The effect of electrolyte concentration on the surfactant headgroup area is also... 

TiO2 nanorod layers are synthesized by simple chemical oxidation of Ti substrates. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy measurements show effective light scattering properties originating from nanorods with length scales on the order of one micron. The films are sensitized with CdSe quantum dots (QDs) by successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) and integrated as a photoanode in quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSCs). Incorporating nanorods in photoanode structures provided 4- to 8-fold enhancement in light scattering, which leads to a high power conversion efficiency, 3.03% (Voc = 497 mV, Jsc = 11.32 mA/cm2, FF = 0.54), in optimized structures. High efficiency can be obtained...