Sharif Digital Repository

Joining of commercially pure Ti to 304 stainless steel by fusion welding processes possesses problems due to the formation of brittle intermetallic compounds in the weld metal, which degrade the mechanical properties of the joints. Solid-state welding processes are contemplated to overcome these problems. However, intermetallic compounds are likely to form even in Ti-SS joints produced with solid-state welding processes such as friction welding process. Therefore, interlayers are employed to prevent the direct contact between two base metals and thereby mainly to suppress the formation of brittle Ti-Fe intermetallic compounds. In the present study, friction-welded joints between commercially... 

The controlled growth of metal oxide nanostructures within hierarchically porous conductive carbon-based frameworks is critically important to achieving high volumetric performance and appropriate channel size for energy storage applications. Herein, we grow cobalt oxide (Co3O4) nanoflakes, using a sequential-electrodeposition process, into spherically porous sponge-like few-layer partially reduced graphene oxide (SrGO) synthesized by template-directed ordered assembly. Maximum specific/volumetric capacitances of 1112 F gCo3O4-1 (at 3.3 A gCo3O4-1), 178 F cm-3 (at 2.6 A cm-2), and 406 F gtotal-1 (at 1 A gtotal-1) and sensible rate capability (80% retention by increasing the charge/discharge... 

This article reports on the results of experimental studies on combined heat and mass transfer in the absorption of water vapor by aqueous LiBr solution under laminar falling film flow on the horizontal elliptical tube (HET) bundle. The performance of the absorber with HET has been calculated based on the measured parameters. The outputs are shown with respect to absorbent inlet mass concentration and Reynolds Number (Re), coolant inlet temperature and flow rate, and absorber vapor pressure. The results are compared with the published experimental results on absorber bundle with horizontal circular tubes (HCT). The results show that the heat and mass transfer coefficients enhanced on HET at... 

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the biomechanical impact of laminectomy on cervical intersegmental motion and load sharing using a parametric patient-specific finite element (FE) model towards providing clinicians with a viable quantitative tool for informed decision-making and improved surgical planning. Methods: Ten subject-specific nonlinear osteo-ligamentous cervical spine (C3–C7) FE models were developed using X-ray image-based algorithms. The models were used to evaluate the effect of laminectomy on lower cervical spine biomechanics for two-level (C3–C4) and three-level (C3–C5) laminectomy procedures. Results: The average cervical spine ranges of motion (ROM) for the pre-op... 

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the biomechanical impact of laminectomy on cervical intersegmental motion and load sharing using a parametric patient-specific finite element (FE) model towards providing clinicians with a viable quantitative tool for informed decision-making and improved surgical planning. Methods: Ten subject-specific nonlinear osteo-ligamentous cervical spine (C3–C7) FE models were developed using X-ray image-based algorithms. The models were used to evaluate the effect of laminectomy on lower cervical spine biomechanics for two-level (C3–C4) and three-level (C3–C5) laminectomy procedures. Results: The average cervical spine ranges of motion (ROM) for the pre-op... 

To date, the examination of surface energy and surface layer relaxation has been the subject of several experimental and simulation works, whereas evaluation of surface residual stresses and surface elastic constants has received very little attention. In addition to the fundamental importance of these properties in the understanding of such phenomena as crystal equilibrium shape, surface roughening and segregation, they are also crucial for use in the theoretical studies based on continuum theory of elastic material surfaces. This work focuses on developing a theoretical approach for the calculations of the surface residual stress and surface elastic constants for (100) planes of fcc... 

To date, the examination of surface energy and surface layer relaxation has been the subject of several experimental and simulation works, whereas evaluation of surface residual stresses and surface elastic constants has received very little attention. In addition to the fundamental importance of these properties in the understanding of such phenomena as crystal equilibrium shape, surface roughening and segregation, they are also crucial for use in the theoretical studies based on continuum theory of elastic material surfaces. This work focuses on developing a theoretical approach for the calculations of the surface residual stress and surface elastic constants for (100) planes of fcc... 

Shape is a key factor in influencing mechanical responses of bones. Considered to be smart viscoelastic and inhomogeneous materials, bones are stimulated to change shape (model and remodel) when they experience changes in the compressive strain distribution. Using reverse engineering techniques via computer-aided design (CAD) is crucial to create a virtual environment to investigate the significance of shape in biomechanical engineering. Nonetheless, data are lacking to quantify the accuracy of generated models and to address errors in finite element analysis (FEA). In the present study, reverse engineering through extrapolating cross-sectional slices was used to reconstruct the diaphysis of... 

The seismic response of soil depends on proper evaluation and use of soil dynamic properties, including shear modulus and damping ratio at various strain levels. Despite extensive studies on the shear modulus and damping ratio of saturated soils, research on the dynamic properties of unsaturated fine-grained soils — especially at high suction — is limited. This study aims to investigate the dynamic properties of loess at a variety of initial states resulting from different specimen preparation techniques (reconstituted, recompacted, and intact) and their evolutions due to suction-induced desiccation. Results of resonant column tests show that at initial states, the specimen preparation... 

The vibration response of a Timoshenko beam supported by a viscoelastic foundation with randomly distributed parameters along the beam length and jected to a harmonic moving load, is studied. By means of the first-order two-dimensional regular perturbation method and employing appropriate Green's functions, the dynamic response of the beam consisting of the mean and variance of the deflection and of the bending moment are obtained analytically in integral forms. Results of a field measurement for a test track are utilized to model the uncertainty of the foundation parameters. A frequency analysis is carried out and the effect of the load speed on the response is studied. It is found that the... 

Performance-based optimal seismic design of structures requires repetitive and massive dynamic analyses. In the Endurance Time (ET) method, structures are subjected to specially designed intensifying acceleration functions and their response at various excitation levels is estimated by each single response-history analysis, thus, significantly reducing the required computational demand. In this paper, the ET method is utilized to acquire optimal placement of viscous dampers in short steel frames with the target of obtaining the desirable performance in two hazard levels simultaneously. In the optimization procedure, the damping coefficients of the added dampers are treated as design... 

In this survey, firstly, a silicon wafer-based microchip, possessing a 50-cm microchannel with the dimensions of 120 and 60 μm, was manufactured by chemical etching technique. Subsequently, the inner surface of the microchannel was coated with a primary layer of gold nanoparticles synthesized by galvanic displacement. Then a self-assembled monolayer of 3-mercaptopropyltriethoxysilane was immobilized on the first layer. Eventually, a polydimethylsiloxane film with a thickness of 16 ± 1 μm was formed on the walls of the microchannel by means of sol-gel method. Field emission scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy were extensively employed to investigate the status of both... 

The dissolution of graphite during sintering of PM steels prepared from iron and graphite powder mixes was studied using electrical conductivity measurement. The effect of graphite content and grade on the carbon transport rate and related mechanisms was investigated by sintering in the range 500 to 1200 °C in different atmospheres, including hydrogen, nitrogen, and vacuum. The electrical conductivity measurement method was accompanied by quantitative metallography and microfractography techniques for determining the extent of carbon dissolution and its influence on the formation of sintered contacts. Weight loss measurement and the dilatometric method were also performed. The effect of... 

In the present contribution, a new approach based on mutual information (MI) is proposed for exploring the independence of feasible solutions in two component systems. Investigating how independent are different feasible solutions can be a way to bridge the gap between independent component analysis (ICA) and multivariate curve resolution (MCR) approaches and, to the best of our knowledge, has not been investigated before. For this purpose, different chromatographic and hyperspectral imaging (HSI) datasets were simulated, considering different noise levels and different degrees of overlap for two-component systems. Feasible solutions were then calculated by both grid search (GS) and... 

In this paper, a semi-supervised graph-based method for estimating 3D body pose from a sequence of silhouettes, is presented. The performance of graph-based methods is highly dependent on the quality of the constructed graph. In the case of the human pose estimation problem, the missing depth information from silhouettes intensifies the occurrence of shortcut edges within the graph. To identify and remove these shortcut edges, we measure the similarity of each pair of connected vertices through the use of sliding temporal windows. Furthermore, by exploiting the relationships between labeled and unlabeled data, the proposed method can estimate the 3D body poses, with a small set of labeled... 

The authors regret that there was an error in the SEM images presented in Fig. 4 of the article. The corrected SEM images as presented here. It is noteworthy that this change does not affect any of the conclusions. The authors would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd  

Bayesian optimization algorithm (BOA) utilizes a Bayesian network to estimate the probability distribution of candidate solutions and creates the next generation by sampling the constructed Bayesian network. This paper proposes an improved real-coded BOA (IrBOA) for continuous global optimization. In order to create a set of Bayesian networks, the candidate solutions are partitioned by an adaptive clustering method. Each Bayesian network has its own structure and parameters, and the next generation is produced from this set of networks. The adaptive clustering method automatically determines the correct number of clusters so that the probabilistic building-block crossover (PBBC) is... 

Let A be an n × m matrix with m > n, and suppose that the underdetermined linear system As = x admits a sparse solution ∥s 0∥o < 1/2spark(A). Such a sparse solution is unique due to a well-known uniqueness theorem. Suppose now that we have somehow a solution ŝ as an estimation of s0, and suppose that ŝ is only "approximately sparse", that is, many of its components are very small and nearly zero, but not mathematically equal to zero. Is such a solution necessarily close to the true sparsest solution? More generally, is it possible to construct an upper bound on the estimation error ∥ŝ - s 0∥2 without knowing s0? The answer is positive, and in this paper, we construct such a bound based on... 

This paper presents a new method for tuning various linear controllers such as Proportional-Integral (PI), Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) and Proportional-Resonant (PR) structures which are frequently used in power electronics and power system applications. The linear controllers maintain a general structure defined by the Internal Model Principle (IMP) of control theory. The proposed method in this paper is twofold. The first perspective uses the well-known concept of the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) to address the problem as a regulation problem. The Q matrix of the LQR design is then finely adjusted in order to assure the desired transient response for the system. The second...