Sharif Digital Repository

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is an electrokinetic phenomenon which is used for manipulating micro- and nanoparticles in micron-sized devices with high sensitivity. In recent years, electrode-based DEP by patterning narrow oblique electrodes in microchannels has been used for particle manipulation. In this theoretic study, a microchannel with triangular electrodes is presented and a detailed comparison with oblique electrodes is made. For each shape, the behavior of particles is compared for three different configurations of applied voltages. Electric field, resultant DEP force, and particle trajectories for configurations are computed by means of Rayan native code. The separation efficiency of... 

The problem of treating open boundaries is still a challenging one. Applying fully developed condition is constrained to long enough domains. Without having enough physical evidence about what happens on boundaries, the domain extent could not be shortened and computational costs could not be reduced. From the advent of free (open) boundary conditions, they were confined to mixed finite element procedures. Recent works have extended their application to coupled finite volume solvers based on the shape function data reconstruction. A wider class of flow solvers available, however, rely on the segregated procedure where the velocity components and pressure are solved in succession. Moreover,... 

In this work, basic design features of Rayan are documented. One of the new design features presented in this work is the way Rayan handles polyhedral grids. Grid definition is combined with the definition of the structure of the sparse coefficient matrix, thereby releasing a considerable part of the memory used by the grid to store otherwise required faces belonging to the cell part of the connectivity description. The key idea is to use a uniform way for creating the structure of the coefficient matrix from the grid connectivity description and to access that data when computing the elements of the coefficient matrix. This saving requires many modifications to the computational algorithm... 

Existing efficient directed particle locating (host determination) algorithms rely on the face belonging to cell relationship (F2C) to find the next cell on the search path and the cell in which the target is located. Recently, finite volume methods have been devised which do not need F2C. Therefore, existing search algorithms are not directly applicable (unless F2C is included). F2C is a major memory burden in grid description. If the memory benefit from these finite volume methods are desirable new search algorithms should be devised. In this work two new algorithms (line of sight and closest cell) are proposed which do not need F2C. They are based on the structure of the sparse... 

In order to perform the drug delivery via lung, tracking the trajectories of fine inhaled particles in the acinar airways is of high importance. The causes of irreversibility in the motion of fine particles (0.1 - 1 micron) and chaotic flow deep in the acinar region of lung has been always under investigation. In this study we demonstrate the importance of geometric hystersis and asynchrony of lung deformation on the issue. We adapted a 2D axisymmetric geometry of alveolated duct from recent relative works and deformed it in a way that some hystersis would appear in a respiration period. The overall deformation of duct was corresponding to the transpulmonary pressure of lung reported in... 

Electro-deposition process is one of the main steps in the LIGA procedure to fabricate microstructures. In this paper, one-dimensional modeling of Nickel electro-deposition process is implemented on Rayan and developed for simulation of time-dependence diffusion and migration of charge species with reduction reactions on the cathode surface. This model is proposed by considering governing equations on electro-kinetic phenomena consist of Nernst-Plank equation and Poisson's equation of electric potential. Transport of ions toward the cathode is considered based on the effect of convection, reaction rate, diffusion and migration. The numerical results cover two series of data consisting of... 

Size distribution of aerosol particles is prevalently obtained through electrical characterization techniques and study of charged particles' dynamics in the presence of electric field. In this work, a wire-cylinder corona charger is presented, redesigned, and aero dynamically optimized. An initial 2D axisymmetric geometry of the charger was employed for the simulations using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) commercial code FLUENT 6.3.26. Through successive attempts, a new geometry was obtained by streamlining the walls to eliminate the undesired vortices produced in the flow field of the previous ones. The process optimized the charger by minimizing losses and dilutions of the... 

Gelcasting, as a ceramic forming technique, is getting worldwide attention, in that it can be used to make high-quality, complex-shaped ceramic parts with a wide range of powders. However, a model, which can appropriately describe the shear rate dependence behavior of the slurry in casting process simulation, is limited. Therefore, this study mainly sought to investigate the best model representing the behavior of as-prepared gelcast slurry. A premix solution was prepared with monomer/cross linker of AM/MBAM with ratio of 25:1. In this procedure, ammonium polyacrylate sodium (NHPANa) was used as the dispersant and the solid load included Al2O3/20 vol% ZrO2 powder mixture. Series of slurries... 

The probability of occurrence of random cavities' resonance frequency in the Stokes bandwidth of the Raman active medium can cause Raman laser oscillation in the random structures. Due to the small bandwidth of Raman line shape, the probability of the simultaneous appearance of random cavity resonance frequencies in the cascade Stokes line shapes is small. As a result, the cascade Raman laser oscillation effects on the saturation behavior are negligible. The nonlinear transmission matrix method is employed to determine the statistical behavior of a Raman random laser. Our results showed that the statistical behavior depends on the position of the Stokes line shape relative to the center of... 

Addition of spinel (MgAl2O4) to Al2O3-ZrO2 composite inhibits alumina grain growth and produces phase boundaries that leads to formation of a ceramic matrix composite with special mechanical properties such as high temperature superplastic deformation. However, the room temperature mechanical properties of Alumina-zirconia-magnesia spinel composite (AZM) such as fracture toughness were rarely investigated by researchers. In this research the AZM nanocomposite powders were synthesized via the solution combustion method. The dense AZM composite samples were fabricated through gelcasting process. Phase analysis studies were performed on both powder and sintered samples and the effects of spinel... 

In an attempt to reduce the oxidation and Cr evaporation rates, various protective coating layers with a nominal composition of NiCo 2-xFexO4 (x = 0, 0.5, 1) were deposited on the SUS 430 ferritic stainless steel substrate, as interconnect for solid oxide fuel cell application, by sol-gel dip coating method. Then, the coated samples were soaked at 750 C for 2.5 h in N2 and subsequently for 2.5 h in air. Phase composition and microstructure of the coatings were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Moreover, long-term isothermal oxidation experiment and area specific resistance (ASR) measurement were also carried out on the coated samples. Results... 

Since that heuristic state space planners have been very successful in classical planning, this approach is currently the most popular strategy in dealing with temporal planning, too. However, all current state-space temporal planners use a search method known as decision epoch planning, which is not complete for problems with required concurrency. In theory, this flaw can be overcome by employing another search method, called temporally lifted progression planning. In this paper, we show that there are two major problems which, if not tackled properly, can cause the latter method to be very inefficient in practice. The first problem is dealing with the remarkably large state space of... 

Depending on the type of dopant metal, many kinds of zircon based pigments are produced and blue vanadium pigment is the most important one of them. In this study, blue zircon ceramic pigments were synthesized from intermediate product, resulting from decomposition of zircon sand with NaOH. In this regard, various amounts of sulfuric acid, water, NH4VO3 as colorant, NaF as mineralizer and extra quartz were added to the prepared Na 2ZrSiO5. Role of quartz was to omit the repercussions of presence of free zirconia in the composition. The main objective of this work is to assess various reactions at different temperatures during blue pigment synthesis. Phase analysis was done by X ray... 

Planning as satisfiability is known as an efficient approach to deal with many types of planning problems. However, this approach has not been competitive with the state-space based methods in temporal planning. This paper describes ITSAT as an efficient SAT-based (satisfiability based) temporal planner capable of temporally expressive planning. The novelty of ITSAT lies in the way it handles temporal constraints of given problems without getting involved in the difficulties of introducing continuous variables into the corresponding satisfiability problems. We also show how, as in SAT-based classical planning, carefully devised preprocessing and encoding schemata can considerably improve the... 

Alumina-silicate composite coatings were formed on titanium substrate by plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) process using a silicate-based electrolyte containing alumina nanoparticles. Microstructure, chemical and phase compositions, and thickness of the coatings were investigated to determine, coating mechanism and probable reactions during the process. The effect of processing time on corrosion resistance of the coatings was investigated using the potentiodynamic polarization test. Barrier layer (TiO2) formation, micro arcs occurrence, and electrolyte ionization were the main stages of PEO coating growth process. Alumina nanoparticles were incorporated into the coating by cataphoretic and... 

Although satisfiability checking is known to be an effective approach in classical planning, it has scarcely been investigated in the field of temporal planning. Most notably, the usage of ∃-step semantics for encoding the problem into a SAT formula, while being demonstrably quite efficient for decreasing the size of the encodings in classical planning, has not yet been employed to tackle temporal planning problems. In this paper, we define temporal versions of classical ∀-step and ∃-step plans. We show that when the casual and temporal reasoning phases of a SAT-based temporal planner are separated, these semantics can be used to translate a given temporal planning problem into a SAT... 

Plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) process was employed to create ceramic coatings on titanium substrate by using silicate-based electrolytes containing different concentrations of alumina nanoparticles (0, 3, 6, and 10. g/lit). The effect of alumina nanoparticles concentration on the morphology, chemical and phase composition of the PEO coatings was investigated by scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive spectrometer, and X-ray diffractometer, respectively.The corrosion behavior of samples was studied by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) tests. SEM, EDS, and XRD analyses illustrated that alumina nanoparticles incorporated into the... 

A new facile strategy for preparation of mesoporous anatase-TiO2 films by a combination of sol–gel and evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) processes aided by tri-block Pluronic F127 is reported. Two major parameters, sol preparation and EISA processing parameters, are identified for preparation of mesoporous crack-free films with desired thickness. The mesoporous crack-free films with thickness of 650 nm can be obtained with low water: precursor molar ratio (e.g., 2.5:1) under aging in 10 % relative humidity for 72 h at the low temperature of 5 °C. Although template: precursor molar ratio and annealing temperature show little influence on preparation of crack-free films the optimum... 

Based on this study, the effects of two filter materials of pamis and escoria and comparing them with the sand bed were considered and analyzed. Three similar beds were made with 8 days hydraulic detention time and one primary sedimentation tank with 2-h time. One bed was filled as a witnessed test with sand and sec and third beds were filled with pamis and escoria stone for the study. To water the reeds with the urban wastewater, one urban wastewater system was used with these features BOD = 250 mg L-1, TSS = 200 mg L-1, COD = 300 mg L-1 and pH = 7.2, TP = 6 mg L-1, TN = 21 mg L-1; the pilot was used during 1 year and it was used later also. The experiments were done by use of the standard... 

Aerosol measurement is used in a variety of fields such as nanotechnology, materials science, pollution monitoring, air quality measurements, combustion and engine exhaust analysis, inhalation toxicology, and medical studies. One of the most prevalent methods for aerosol measurement is to use electrical mobility. An electrical mobility spectrometer (EMS) is used to measure aerosol particles size distribution ranging from 10-1000 nanometers, under the influence of an electric field. The accuracy of this distribution is influenced by flow conditions, the geometry of the EMS, the electric field, and the number of electrode rings. In this work, a multi-channel EMS is studied using computational...