Sharif Digital Repository

Ta0.8Hf0.2C ceramic has the highest melting point among the known materials (4000 °C). However, this high melting point makes the ceramic difficult to be sintered at temperatures lower than 2300 °C, pressurelessly. The purpose of this study is to consolidate Ta 0.8Hf0.2C UHTC by pressureless sintering at 2000 °C using MoSi2 as sintering aid. In this regard, effect of different amounts of MoSi2 on sintering behavior of Ta0.8Hf 0.2 UHTC was investigated. It was observed that condensation of the UHTC after sintering at 2000 °C was enhanced by increasing MoSi2 content and the highest relative density of 95% was obtained in the presence of 24 vol.% MoSi2. XRD pattern of the sintered UHTC... 

In this work, phase evolution, solid solution formation and diffusion behavior of three binary systems, including TaC-HfC, TaC-ZrC and HfC-ZrC, were investigated. In this regard, pure carbide powders of TaC, HfC, and ZrC were selected as starting raw materials. The prepared samples were heat treated at 2000 C for 1 hour in Ar atmosphere. For each system, three compositions were chosen for phase evolution investigation by X-ray diffractometer. Moreover, three couple samples were prepared for diffusion behavior survey through SEM/EDX analyses. It was found that ZrC diffuses faster in TaC structure rather than HfC and a single phase solid solution phase with hosting TaC is formed in TaC-HfC and... 

In this study, SnO 2-based varistors were prepared from mechanically activated nanocrystalline powders. Nanocrystalline powders were derived by subjecting the initial powders to intensive high-energy activation with different times and ball to powder ratio. The effect of activation parameters on the powder properties and sintering temperature, as well as microstructural, micro-electrical and macro-electrical properties of the final specimens was evaluated. Varistors derived from high-energy mechanical activation exhibit a higher density (98.3% relative density) and more refined microstructure upon sintering at 1,300 °C in comparison varistors prepared from conventional powders. Breakdown... 

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... 

Ta0.8Hf0.2C ceramic has the highest melting point among the known materials (4000°C). Spark plasma sintering is a new route for consolidation of materials, specially ultra high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), which are difficult to be sintered at temperatures lower than 2000°C.The purpose of this study is to consolidate Ta0.8Hf0.2C by spark plasma sintering at low temperature using MoSi2 and TaSi2 as sintering aid. In this regard, effect of different amounts of sintering aids and carbides ratio on densification behavior and mechanical properties of Ta1-xHfxC were investigated.Fully consolidation of Ta0.8Hf0.2C was achieved in presence of 12vol.% sintering aid after sintering at 1650°C for 5min... 

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... 

Functionally-graded NiO-8. mol % YSZ composite films were prepared by a controlled voltage-decay electophoretic deposition (EPD) process. The films consisted of three layers with varying NiO concentrations and porosities. Effects of different parameters including the type of the organic media, solid concentration, NiO:YSZ ratio, and iodine on the stability of EPD suspensions and deposition kinetics were studied. A stable NiO-YSZ suspension was attained in isopropanol with NiO-YSZ ratio of 60:40 and iodine concentration of 0.5. mM. The composite film contained varying NiO concentration from 46. wt.% near the substrate to 32. wt.% close to the electrolyte with 42. wt% NiO in the intermediate... 

Question answering (QA) systems have reached human-level accuracy; however, these systems are not robust enough and are vulnerable to adversarial examples. Recently, adversarial attacks have been widely investigated in text classification. However, there have been few research efforts on this topic in QA. In this article, we have modified the attack algorithms widely used in text classification to fit those algorithms for QA systems. We have evaluated the impact of various attack methods on QA systems at character, word, and sentence levels. Furthermore, we have developed a new framework, named RobustQA, as the first open-source toolkit for investigating textual adversarial attacks in QA... 

Background and Objective: Probiotics are dietary supplements with potential health benefits for humans when consumed regularly at appropriate quantities. The latest evidence shows possible beneficial effects of probiotics in COVID-19 treatment. Interests in probiotic consumption have led to provide products such as probiotic juices with vitamins, minerals, prebiotics and appropriate levels of probiotics to the market in free and encapsulated forms, which are not fully addressed in scientific literatures. The objective of this review was to investigate effects of probiotics for the management of human health. Other objectives included study on effects of free and encapsulated forms of... 

Background and Objective: Probiotics are dietary supplements with potential health benefits for humans when consumed regularly at appropriate quantities. The latest evidence shows possible beneficial effects of probiotics in COVID-19 treatment. Interests in probiotic consumption have led to provide products such as probiotic juices with vitamins, minerals, prebiotics and appropriate levels of probiotics to the market in free and encapsulated forms, which are not fully addressed in scientific literatures. The objective of this review was to investigate effects of probiotics for the management of human health. Other objectives included study on effects of free and encapsulated forms of... 

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... 

This paper empirically examines the hydrodynamic performances of squat submarines under the resistance and wave tests beside numerical investigation of pressure drag reduction techniques. Despite vast information about the operation of the streamlined fluid vessels, there is not much information about the geometries and hydrodynamic behaviors of squat vessels with L/D ratios below four. This study experimentally investigates the impacts of various relative depths and flow inclinations, intending to find drag, heave, and sway forces at the velocities of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5-m/s. A one-tenth scaled model of a squat submarine is examined under the resistance and wave train scenarios as... 

This article experimentally investigates the hydrodynamic interaction of a squat submarine operating behind a ship in various wave and resistance tests. A 0.625 m long (one-tenth scale) captive model of a squat submarine is constructed along with a 1.5 m Fridsma ship to perform 47 unique experiments in a 4 × 6 × 400 m3 tank located in a towing tank center. The submarine is a new midget-submersible, of Apam-Napat SMSD type, with an L/D ratio below four. Wave and resistance tests are performed for various 2D relative lengths and depths at short-distance conditions. A wave of 0.1 m height and 1.5 m wavelength is used in the wave tests, and different operational velocities of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5... 

This research investigates the short-distance hydrodynamic interaction of a squat submarine towed by a marine vessel. A one-tenth scaled captive model of a 0.625-m squat submarine is constructed along with a 1.5-m Fridsma ship to perform 69 unique experiments in a 4 × 6 × 400-m3 water tank located in a towing tank center. The submarine model is a new mini-submersible, Apam-Napat SMSD type, with an L/D ratio below four. The cable is specified, regarding its weight per unit length, using a scaling method introduced in this paper. The submarine-cable-ship system is tested for nine various relative lengths and depths at short-distance conditions. In each case, drag and heave forces are recorded... 

Alumina-zirconia nanostructured coatings were formed on 7075 Al alloy through Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) operated in aDC potentiostatic mode. The composite coatings were produced in the range of 425-500 V in an alkaline electrolyte containing 4 g/LK2ZrF6. Tribological properties of coatings were investigated using dry sliding wear test against WC balls with a pin-on-disc tribometer. Wear rates were evaluated using optical profilometer. It was shown that the nanostructured alumina-zirconia composite coatings can be formed at voltages 450 V. The coating thickness and roughness were in the range of 15.2-24.2 μm and 0.68-2.35 μm, respectively. The distribution of Al, Zr and O in the...