Sharif Digital Repository

Traditionally energy systems were analyzed technically, but current environmental issues and considerations have put new constraints on the planning and managing of energy systems. Such an exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analysis were born. This analysis is aimed to describe the necessity and application of a new concept in environmental liability accounting based on physical quantities to overcome the weaknesses of the developed allocation methods and the internalization of external environmental damages. The proposed method is modified in environmental analysis to consider the effect of non-energy flows on a macro-surface energy system. As a case study, this method is tuned for a... 

In many radar and EW applications, after some processing, the envelope of the received pulse is calculated and is used for target detection. Most of the time only the effect of thermal noise is considered in such detectors, but in most of the practical applications, before envelope detection, the signal should be down converted from radio frequency (RF) to an intermediate frequency (IF). In this case, the phase noise of the local oscillator will affect the signal, too. Surprisingly, in contrast to thermal noise, the effect of phase noise on the envelope of signal becomes more considerable whenever the IF bandwidth is decreased. So there exists an optimum IF bandwidth for the receiver. In... 

Non-destructive identification of voids in ferromagnetic materials is of great importance for industrial applications. Magnetic flux leakage technique is used here to examine the defected structure. To this end, an inverse problem should be solved in order to infer the location and depth of internal flaws from the measured leaked magnetic signals. Currently generalized inverse method and singular value decomposition are used for solving such inverse problem. Considering the cracks separation has significant effect on the absolute value of magnetic flux leakage signals, we study different distributions of cracks. In this paper, the magnetic dipole model is proposed to reconstruct the extent... 

In triangulation (or angle of arrival) target localisation method, the surface of the Earth is approximated by a flat plate. This approximation, while acceptable for low-altitude observers (such as unmanned aerial vehicles), is not a correct model for high-altitude observers (such as low Earth orbit - LEO satellites). In this study, the authors have discussed triangulation method using a LEO satellite observer over a spherical surface and have shown that, using spherical trigonometry and singular value decomposition (SVD), a straight forward solution can be found for target localisation problem. Also, error bound is discussed and analysed using both SVD as well as simulation. © The... 

Electrochemical potential noise analysis was used to investigate corrosion behavior of copper electrodes in presence of 0.001, 0.005, 0.01 and 0.02 M benzotriazole (BTA) inhibitor. Energy distribution of the potential noise was obtained from wavelet transformation using the 4th order Daubechies pattern. Two lowest frequencies were added-up and fitted to the impulse response of the first order circuit to achieve the time-constant vs. concentration (T-C) diagram. T-C diagram can be used either as a conventional diagram of inhibition efficiency or a tool for evaluation of the surface film dielectric constant. The assumptions made in this treatment were confirmed by EIS method. © 2009 Elsevier... 

In this study, heat oil conversion experiments using steam and formic acid as a hydrogen carrier be carried out in a batch reactor at T = 380 degrees of Celsius and P = 165 bar. Material balance and product distribution were calculated after the process. Properties of crude oil before and after thermal conversion, including viscosity, API gravity, SARA measurement, and elemental analysis, were analyzed. It has been presented that the use of formic acid as a hydrogen carrier solvent reduces the formation of coke and gaseous products and enhances the performance of liquid products. Also, the viscosity of the refined oil decreased by 23.2% due to the addition of formic acid compared to the... 

This paper proposes using sodium-cooled fast reactor technologies for use in hydrogen vapor methane (SMR) modification. Using three independent energy rings in the Russian BN-600 fast reactor, steam is generated in one of the steam-generating cycles with a pressure of 13.1 MPa and a temperature of 505 °C. The reactor's second energy cycles can increase the gas-steam mixture's temperature to the required amount for efficient correction. The 620 ton/hr 540 °C steam generated in this cycle is sufficient to supply a high-temperature synthesis current source (700 °C), which raises the steam-gas mixture's temperature in the reactor. The proposed technology provides a high rate of hydrogen... 

In this paper the problem of k out of n detection, between sequence of M random bits is addressed. The main application of the result is in a radar system, when we want to detect a target (with unknown time of arrival (TOA)), using binary integration. Another application is in ESM systems, when the system wants to detect the existence of a swept jammer or a gated noise jammer. But as any other mathematical problem, it may have some other applications. In this paper some simple equations for P fa and P d calculation of a detector which detects the existence of sequence of n ones between M random bits, is derived. These equations are then used to find the optimal detector structure in some... 

Today's world needs new methods to deal with and analyze the ever-increasingly generated data streams. Two of the most challenging aspects of data streams are (i) concept drift, i.e. evolution of data stream over time, which requires the ability to make timely decisions against the high speed of receiving new data; (ii) limited memory storage and the impracticality of using memory due to the large amount of data. Clustering is one of the common methods to process data streams. In this paper, we propose a novel, fully-online, density-based method for clustering evolving data streams. In recent years, a number of methods have been proposed, which also have the ability to cluster data streams.... 

The paucity of cellular and molecular signals essential for normal wound healing makes severe dermatological ulcers stubborn to heal. The novel strategies of skin regenerative treatments are focused on the development of biologically responsive scaffolds accompanied by cells and multiple biomolecules resembling structural and biochemical cues of the natural extracellular matrix (ECM). Electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds provide similar architecture to the ECM leading to enhancement of cell adhesion, proliferation, migration and neo tissue formation. This Review surveys the application of biocompatible natural, synthetic and composite polymers to fabricate electrospun scaffolds as skin... 

A novel recognition method for selective determination of the hyoscine N-Butyl bromide (HBB), an antispasmodic agent for smooth muscles, was devised using extended gate field-effect transistor (EG-FET) as transducing unit. For this purpose a PVC membrane, containing hyoscine n-butyl-tetraphenyl borate ion-pair as recognition component, was coated on Ag/AgCl wire, which was connected to the extended metal gate. In optimal conditions, the linear range for HBB was 10-8-10-5 molL−1 with limit of detection 1.7×10-9 molL-1. The proposed sensor was applied in real sample, it showed fast response with high accuracy, and therefore it could be used as HPLC detector in the pharmaceutical samples in... 

The control of a brachiation robot has been the primary objective of this study. A brachiating robot is a type of a mobile arm that is capable of moving from branch to branch similar to a long-armed ape. In this paper, to minimize the actuator work, Pontryagin's minimum principle was used to obtain the optimal trajectories for two different problems. The first problem considers brachiation between fixed branches with different distance and height, whereas the second problem deals with the brachiating and catching of a moving target branch. Theoretical results show that the control effort in the proposed method is reduced by 25% in comparison with the target dynamics method which was proposed... 

This paper deals with control of the brachiation robot. The brachiation is a type of mobile robot that moves from branch to branch like a long-armed ape. Here, as a new innovation, Pontryagin's minimum principle is used to obtain the optimal trajectories for two different problems. The first problem is "Brachiation between fixed branches with different distance and height" and the second is "Brachiating and catching the moving target branch". Theoretical results show that the control effort in the proposed method is reduced by 25% in comparison with the "Target Dynamics" method which was proposed in prior articles for this robot. The obtained optimal trajectory also minimizes the brachiation... 

Background: Return to sport (RTS) criteria are widely being used to identify anterior cruciate ligament reconstructed (ACLR) athletes ready to return to sportive activity and reduce risk of ACL re-injury. However, studies show a high rate of ACL re-injury in athletes who passed RTS criteria. This indicates that the current RTS criteria might not be sufficient to determine return to sport time in ACLR athletes. Previous studies have reported a close association between altered lower limb kinematics and ACL re-injury. However, it is not clear how lower extremity kinematics differs between ACLR athletes who passed the RTS-criteria and who failed. This study compared lower extremity kinematics... 

Electric spring (ES) as a breakthrough in power electronics has led to a revolution in demand-side management. This paper presents flexible power management (FPM) of a networked microgrid (MG) in the presence of renewable energy sources (RESs) and flexibility sources (FSs). The FSs include the novel topology of the integrated unit of ES with electric vehicles (EVs) parking (IUEE) and incentive-based demand response program (DRP). The proposed FPM model is formulated as an optimization problem that minimizes the difference between the expected energy cost and the expected profit of FSs' flexibility subject to the AC optimal power flow (AC-OPF), RESs, FSs, and MG flexibility constraints. In... 

Many factors cause degeneration of the measured signal in magnetic flux leakage (MFL). One of these factors is non-uniformity of the magnetic flux inside the sample under test. Uniformity of the magnetic flux results in smoother and more predictable signals from various discontinuity types and also a reduction in the eddy current distortions induced because of the movement of the magnetizing yoke. The goal of this research is to find a near-optimal length for the magnetizing yoke. Toward this end, yokes with different lengths are simulated with the finite element method and the quality of the distribution of the flux lines inside the sample is studied. In this way a criterion for... 

Several target position finding methods are proposed in various papers mainly regarding sensor networks. However, the problem of position finding in passive radar systems is somewhat different from the general case of sensor networks. Generally, in a passive radar system, there are few receivers located at short distances when compared with the it distance from the target. In this case, a problem known as geometric dilution of precision (GDP) occurs, which considerably increases the error of many proposed methods. This phenomenon can even make the position finding equations non-solvable. Regarding this fact, we have developed a least mean square error (LMSE) based method, which uses both the... 

Due to the importance of environmental protection and the need to use new energy and alternative to conventional fuels, renewable energy has received much attention. Due to this necessity, a discontinuous bioreactor producing methane gas from animal waste has been modeled and simulated in this research. Monod kinetics was used to express the relationship between the growth rate of microorganisms and substrate concentration. The fourth-order Rong Kuta numerical method solved the substrate consumption and production of microorganisms and methane gas. The effect of the initial concentration of microorganisms on methane production has also been investigated. The initial concentrations of...