Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, the interaction between various window specifications and different climate conditions is investigated. For this purpose, simultaneous effects of several aspects including glazing system, glass type, filling gas, glass thickness, window frame fraction, and interior shading are considered under three different climatic conditions. To evaluate the energy performance of various considered alternatives, the energy simulation of a base case building is evaluated in a computer environment. Using the validated model, the energy analysis is quantitatively performed, and cost-benefit analyses from the viewpoints of both residents and government are carried out based on the domestic and... 

A mathematical time-dependent and isothermal model based on the grain model has been developed to simulate the kinetic and thermal behaviors of a porous iron oxide pellet undergoing chemical reactions with a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and water vapor. Its novelty consists in fact that it can deal with a multi-species reducing gas and oxide pellet. In spite of previous models in which the pure reductant was applied as reducing gas, this model can indicate an actual view of pellet reduction including the effects of reducing gas utility and reducing gas ratio. A finite volume fully implicit technique was applied for solving the governing equations. The model has been... 

Development of a model for optimal power generation from the thermal oxidation of a low concentration coal bed mine has been considered as the main objective of this investigation. The model has been applied to identify the optimal thermodynamic characteristics of the power generation system through using a mixture with 1.6% methane concentration in a recuperative lean-burn gas turbine and coupling a gas engine to the system for more power generation from the remaining coal bed methane. The implementation of the model based on the real site condition would lead to the generation of 6.97 MW electricity in Tabas coal mine of Iran. © 2016 Taylor & Francis  

The present study investigates the possibility of using a small hydropower/PV hybrid power system for low-cost electricity production which can satisfy the energy load requirements of a typical rural-urban area. In this context, the optimal dimensions to improve the technical and economical performances of the hybrid system are determined according to the load energy requirements and the solar and hydro resources data using linear programming. The application of the model is demonstrated using a case study of a rural-urban area in Mazandaran province, Iran. Two scenarios were considered for optimizing the system components. In the first scenario, a stand-alone hybrid small hydropower/PV... 

System health management based on condition monitoring is of great value and significance for improving system performance and reliability. As more data from condition monitoring is obtained, the efficiency of system health monitoring improves. However, increasing the amount of data by installing new sensors on system components is restricted by a variety of factors such as budget, weight and space allowance. Therefore, sensor selection in the most optimal manner in order to achieve maximum valuable information from system is an important issue. In this study, a novel concept is introduced that can be used in sensor combination optimization problems. This concept employs failure modes and... 

Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is an indicator of how efficient is an energy supply system. In the present study, the conventional approach of EROI assessment is extended to include the equivalent energy investment needed for offsetting the life cycle environmental impacts. Moreover, the issue of allocation of the invested energy among different by-products is addressed. The EROI of multiple products has been specified using different benchmarks of price, energy content, exergy content, and exergy costs. The application of the concept is demonstrated through a case study of an Iranian oil production unit. The overall conventional and environmentally-extended EROI values of the produced... 

The present study compared different approaches to assessing the environmental cost-effectiveness of energy policy scenarios. As a case study, the megacity of Tehran in Iran was studied. A key policy challenge in this city is to curb high concentrations of PM2.5 and mitigate the associated adverse impacts. The results demonstrated that in the business as usual case, the spatially averaged primary and secondary PM2.5 concentration in Tehran will increase by 30% in the 2010–2030 period. Adopting certain planned policy scenarios and the corresponding pollutant concentration reductions in Tehran shows that although most of the emission comes from industrial activities around the city, the... 

The physical processes responsible for bubble formation in microchannels are not well understood and lack fundamental understanding. Experimental results are not exactly in agreement with each other and there are no definite theories to explain the possible effects of different parameters. Among different parameters the microchannel hydraulic diameter can affect the bubble formation mechanism in microchannels strongly. In this paper the effect of the time dependent pressure difference between inside and outside of the bubble on bubble dynamics in microchannels have been investigated. The source of this time dependency can be the emergence of bubble embryos which produces a density... 

The paper aims to present a supply model to satisfy the required household final energy carriers, freshwater and industrial cooling loads for a deprived area of access that is located in hot and humid climate. To this aim, a multi-generation hybrid solar thermophotovoltaic integrated system with capability of adjusting heat to power ratio dynamically is introduced. Appropriate analytical tools are developed to obtain the optimal capacity of any systems and energy flows subject to the technology and demand constraints, the financial limitation and the constraints defined by the politicians and local government. The demand constraints are identified through the field studies and the comfort... 

In this paper the process of knowledge accumulation for a particular technology is studied. Two countries, say the technology follower and the technology frontier, are considered. The frontier's knowledge growth is determined by its R&D efforts on the technology. The level of knowledge stock for the follower country is augmented by its R&D activities for the technology and absorbing some of the external knowledge through spillover from the frontier. The extent to which the follower is able to exploit the external knowledge depends on technological gap, absorptive capacity, absorption time and degree of spillover. New concepts such as natural and enhanced degree of spillover, background and... 

The paper studies the optimum panel horizontal orientation angle toward the Sun and the optimum time interval of the panel’s movement. The optimum time intervals or panel movement can change the rate of input energy to the panel surface in Iran. For this purpose, a neural network has been trained to estimate the intensity of solar radiation in Iran. After model validation, the intensity of solar radiation has been estimated by selecting adequate geographical regions. Based on the intensity of sunlight, Iran has been divided into ten regions. In these regions, 40 cities have been randomly selected to study the effect of the panel’s angle variations within appropriate time inter-vals, as well... 

Shortcut design methods can be valuable tools for rapid screening of different separation process alternatives to assess feasibility and determine minimum energy demand. This work presents a variant of the feed angle method (Kraemer et al., 2011), which applies to single- and double-feed reactive distillation columns. The proposed method relies on pinch point analysis and determines the minimum energy demand from the calculation of a tray at the feed pinch. It is fully algorithmic and insensitive to impurities in product specifications. Its validity and performance is illustrated by a variety of case studies covering multi-component and multi-reaction systems, mixtures with potential... 

In many developing countries, restructuring is usually started by dividing vertically integrated power systems into regional companies. Analysis of the procedure of restructuring requires appropriate analytical tools for modeling interactive behavior of the regional companies in a competitive energy market. The problem of generation expansion planning in the competitive environment becomes more complex where the new generation units are constructed on the basis of decentralized decisions. Recent studies of long term expansion planning show that market equilibrium modeling is an effective technique to analyze the long-term optimum development of the generation systems. In the present paper, a... 

Central heating system faults affect building energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort significantly. The interdependencies among system components and multiple failure modes present a challenge for system health diagnostics and prognostics. A reliable diagnosis and prognosis can only be ensured when all component conditions are monitored with minimum uncertainty. In this regard, sensors should be selected based on their priority in providing system health information. Currently, most of the research on sensor optimization models optimize sensors position and orientation. However, in this study sensor type is optimized as well. In addition, the proposed method is based on the Bayesian... 

Limited access to energy resources and increasing demand for mitigation of the environmental impacts have necessitated higher production efficiencies. Therefore, the promotion of R&D activities has been one of the main parts of national energy policies. In this research work, two methods are used for assessing the effectiveness of the R&D capital on resource conservation. First, by developing the resource-included knowledge production function of the energy sector and second, through direct assessment of the functionality of resource productivity from R&D capital. Based on official data provided by national statistical centers, a comparative analysis has been conducted to examine the... 

The turbo-expander system is utilized instead of the pressure regulator to avoid exergy destruction occurring in gas pressure reduction systems. However, due to the variation of natural gas input conditions such as mass flow rate, the sustainable performance of this technology is challenging. In this study, at first, the optimal system design of gas pressure reducing station equipped with radial expansion turbine is performed. It is based on economic and exergy analyses as well as considering geometric, fluid, thermodynamic constraints of components and the systematic constraints. To do so, detailed design models of main components including mean-line design model of radial turbine,... 

The impacts of climate change such as water scarcity and air temperature increase affect the development of the electricity supply system. In countries like Iran, where cooling demand in the residential sector is high and water availability is fairly low, this can create significant challenges. In this study, an econometric approach was used to project the electricity demand for four sectors in Iran, considering the effect of changing air temperature. Also, the impact of water scarcity on the optimal expansion of the power system was investigated using TIMES, a bottom-up energy system optimization modeling platform, to build a model for the Iranian electricity system with each power plant... 

In this paper, the effect of different parameters on the thermal operation of a Closed Loop Pulsating Heat Pipe (CLPHP) has been investigated. These parameters include the working fluid, the inclination angle, the filling ratio, and the input heat flux. The effect of nanoparticle mass concentrations has been analyzed as well. It was observed that the CLPHP can decrease thermal resistance up to 11.5 times compared to the same empty copper tube with thermal resistance of 9.4 K/W. Optimum thermal operation for a system with the water-silver nanofluid was achieved at conditions of the 50% filling ratio with thermal resistance of 0.9 K/W, and for the water-titanium oxide system, the optimal... 

In this research the performance of a U-shaped pulsating heat pipe (PHP) was investigated using numerical methods. This heat pipe consists of two sections: The evaporator is set at the two ends of the pipe, and the middle part of the pipe comprises the condenser section. This heat pipe is a type of open looped pulsating heat pipe. The governing equations are derived analytically from the continuity, momentum, and energy equations and are solved implicitly. In this model, considering the liquid mesh, the rate of convection and boiling heat transfer in the U-shaped PHP, which has not been investigated as of yet, are examined. The effect of the evaporator temperature on the pulse amplitude and... 

Pulsating heat pipes are complex heat transfer devices, and their optimum thermal performance is largely dependent on different parameters. In this paper, in order to investigate these parameters, first a closed-loop pulsating heat pipe (CLPHP) was designed and manufactured. The CLPHP was made of copper tubes with internal diameters of 1.8 mm. The lengths of the evaporator, adiabatic, and condenser sections were 60, 150, and 60 mm, respectively. Afterward, the effect of various parameters, including the working fluid (water and ethanol), the volumetric filling ratio (30%, 40%, 50%, 70%, 80%), and the input heat power (5 to 70 W), on the thermal performance of the CLPHP was investigated...