Sharif Digital Repository

We have studied the topology of the energy landscape of a spin-glass model and the effect of frustration on it by looking at the connectivity and disconnectivity graphs of the inherent structure. The connectivity network shows the adjacency of energy minima whereas the disconnectivity network tells us about the heights of the energy barriers. Both graphs are constructed by the exact enumeration of a two-dimensional square lattice of a frustrated spin glass with nearest-neighbor interactions up to the size of 27 spins. The enumeration of the energy-landscape minima as well as the analytical mean-field approximation show that these minima have a Gaussian distribution, and the connectivity... 

We study the formation of a vortex with fourfold symmetry in a minimal model of self-propelled particles, confined inside a squared box, using computer simulations and also theoretical analysis. In addition to the vortex pattern, we observe five other regimes in the system: a homogeneous gaseous phase, band structures, moving clumps, moving clusters, and vibrating rings. All six regimes emerge from controlling the strength of noise and from the contribution of repulsion and alignment interactions. We study the shape of the vortex and its symmetry in detail. The pattern shows exponential defect lines where incoming and outgoing flows of particles collide. We show that alignment and repulsion... 

Obtaining a reduced description with particle and momentum flux densities outgoing from the microscopic equations of motion of the particles requires approximations. The usual method, we refer to as truncation method, is to zero Fourier modes of the orientation distribution starting from a given number. Here we propose another method to derive continuum equations for interacting self-propelled particles. The derivation is based on a Gaussian approximation (GA) of the distribution of the direction of particles. First, by means of simulation of the microscopic model, we justify that the distribution of individual directions fits well to a wrapped Gaussian distribution. Second, we numerically... 

We show that in a microfluidic network with low Reynolds numbers, a system can be irreversible due to hysteresis effects. We simulated a network of pipes that was used in a recent experiment. The network consists of one loop connected to input and output pipes. A train of droplets enters the system at a uniform rate, but the droplets may leave the system in a periodic or even a chaotic pattern. The output pattern depends on the time interval between incoming droplets as well as the network geometry. For some parameters, the system is not reversible  

An Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is a capable tool to manipulate nanoparticles by exerting pushing force on the nanoparticles located on the substrate. In reality, the substrate cannot be considered as a smooth surface particularly at the nanoscale. Hence, the particle may encounter a step on the substrate during a manipulation. In this study, dynamics of the nanoparticle on a stepped substrate and critical pushing force in the manipulation are investigated. There are two possible dynamic modes that may happen in the manipulation on the stepped substrate. In one mode, the nanoparticle may slide on the step edge and then climb up to the step which is a desired mode. Another possible mode is... 

In this study, Al-5083 and St-12 alloy sheets were friction stir lap welded at different travel (7- 23 cm min -1) and rotation (750-1125 rev min -1) speeds of the welding tool. The welded joints were characterised by various methods including shear tensile and Vickers microhardness tests, optical and scanning electron microscopies and X-ray diffraction analysis. The results showed that the weld zone defects decreased, and the joint strength also improved significantly with the reducing tool travel speed from 23 to 7 cm min -1. The travel speed of 11 cm min -1 was an optimum speed within the travel speeds investigated in this work. Additionally, raising the tool rotation speed enhanced the... 

Al-5083 and St-12 alloys sheets were friction stir lap welded at various travel and rotation speeds of the welding tool. Microscopic examinations indicate that the joint strength is due to the macroscopic and microscopic mechanical lockings and also atomic diffusion. The reaction zone of the welded joints consists of mixed layers of ultra-fine grains and the intermetallic compounds. The microhardness and nano indentation results prove that the intermetallic phase layer is more brittle in comparison to base metals and ultra-fine grain region. The fracture surfaces are a combination of brittle and ductile fractures. The fracture loads show that the joint strength improves significantly by... 

In this paper, the metric theory of Diophantine approximation associated with mixed type small linear forms is investigated. We prove Khintchine–Groshev type theorems for both the real and complex number systems. The motivation for these metrical results comes from their applications in signal processing. One such application is discussed explicitly. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020  

This article focused on the longitudinal end effect (LEE) in linear variable reluctance (VR) resolvers. The LEE can significantly decrease the accuracy of the linear sensor. Therefore, a novel method based on a magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) model is proposed for accurate modeling of this phenomenon and used in an optimization routine to suppress that. The LEE is modeled by adding three extra permeances into the conventional MEC model without increasing the complexity and simulation time. Besides, the method of calculating these permeances is described. After that, some techniques are presented to decrease the computational burden of the MEC model. Then, the model is used to compensate... 

In this work, the feasibility of friction stir lap welding an aluminium alloy (Al-5083) to the aluminium clad steel sheet was studied. The welded joints were characterised by various methods including shear-tensile test and optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The results indicated that sound and defect free joints were obtained. The fracture loads of the samples reached up to 94% compared with that of the steel base metal. Moreover, the joint strength linearly increased with the decrease in thickness of the aluminium layer roll bonded on the steel sheet. It was also shown that welding rotation and travel speed variation did not considerably impact the fracture loads in the... 

Al-1100/St-12 aluminum clad steel sheets were produced using roll bonding process at different reductions in thickness and with various supplemental annealing treatments. Experiments were conducted by applying the Taguchi method to obtain optimum condition for maximizing the joint strength. The joint strengths of the bi-layer sheets were evaluated by peel test. The Al/Fe intermetallic phases at the joint interface and the peeled surfaces were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and Vickers microhardness test were performed to characterize the intermetallic compounds. The results indicate that at the optimum condition of 0.50 reduction in... 

Copper-graphite composites which have low friction coefficient can be used as bearing materials in lieu of materials containing lead which cause environmental problems. So far, some methods such as powder metallurgy and centrifugal casting have been employed to produce these composites. In this study, friction stir processing (FSP) was used to produce copper-graphite surface composites. Five tools with different pin profile were employed in order to achieve a comprehensive dispersion. Results show that the tool with triangular pin gives rise to a better dispersion of graphite particles. Furthermore, four copper-graphite composites containing different graphite content were prepared using... 

Iron-borosilicate soft magnetic composites are suitable magnetic materials for high temperature and high frequency applications. In this research two different techniques have been applied to fabricate these composites: uniaxial pressing following by sintering and spark plasma sintering. Different processing parameters including the content of borosilicate, the amount of compaction pressure and the size of iron particles have been evaluated through the study of microstructure and magnetic properties. The microstructural observations showed that the borosilicate is distributed on the iron grain boundaries enhancing the resistivity and causing the loss of eddy currents. Increasing the... 

This paper is concerned with estimation and stability of control systems over communication links subject to limited capacity, power constraint, fading, noisy feedback, and different transmission rate rather than system sampling rate. A key issue addressed in this paper is that in the presence of noisy feedback associated with channel, which models transmission of finite number of bits over such links as is the case in most practical scenarios, the well-known eigenvalues rate condition is still a tight bound for stability. Based on an information theoretic analysis, necessary conditions are derived for stability of discrete-time linear control systems via the distant controller in the mean... 

The propagation of acoustic waves in strongly heterogeneous media is studied using direct numerical simulations. Two types of heterogeneous media are considered. In one type, the spatial distribution of the local elastic constants contain long-range correlations with a power law, nondecaying correlation function. The correlation length is, therefore, as large as the linear size of the system. In the second type of heterogeneous media the correlation length is decreased, up to the linear size of the blocks in the computational grid and, therefore, the distribution of the elastic constants is uncorrelated or white noise, but with the same mean and variance as that of the correlated media. We... 

Lamination has been shown to enhance damage tolerance of discontinuously reinforced aluminum (DRA) composites. Doing this technique, DRA layers could be laminated with ductile interlayers. In this research, two types of laminates consisting similar DRA layers and a ductile AA1050 interlayer were fabricated by means of hot roll-bonding. AA6061-5. vol% SiCp and AA6061-15. vol% SiCp composites were considered as exterior layers. Different rolling strains, was applied to control the interfacial strength which was examined by shear test. Toughness behavior of laminates was evaluated by three-point bending test in crack-divider orientation. Based on obtained results, the plastic deformation of... 

Mechanical alloying and hot extrusion techniques were employed to produce in-situ fully dens Al-Ti composites without applying any heat treatment. The focus of this study is the investigation of fracture toughness in produced composites in order to improve it and to explain the mechanisms responsible for the fracture. The morphology of milled powders was studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The microstructure of the extruded composites was examined by Optical Microscopy (OM) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM). Moreover, the density and hardness of samples were investigated. Three point bending test of the single edge notched beam (SENB) samples was applied to...