Sharif Digital Repository

Fuel cell is a power generator like internal combustion engines, but the first point is that internal combustion engines produce mechanical power while fuel cells produce electrical power. Secondly, internal combustion engines use hydrocarbon derivatives such as gas as fuel and their exhaust fumes are toxic gaseous, but fuel cells use hydrogen as fuel and their exhaust are only water in either vapor or liquid form. One of the most important issues in fuel cells is optimum design of micro channels of bipolar plates which is different regarding the type and application of fuel cells. Optimum designing of micro channels on bipolar plates plays a key role in fluid mass transport through micro... 

In this project, two centrifugal microfluidic platforms with the goal of separation and genetical study of circulating tumor cells have been designed, simulated and fabricated. Circulating tumor cells are the ones that are detached from the cancer tumors, entered the blood and disseminated the danger of cancer through other parts of the body. Both passive and active methods of separation are investigated in this study. The passive method is based on the inertial effects of the fluid and the active method is based on the magnetophoretic force exerted from an external magnetic field. In order to use the active method, the magnetic nanoparticles are attached to the breast cancer cells by the... 

Today, microfluidic experiments have found wide applications in medical sciences, engineering, and chemistry. Because of their small size, microfluidic devices help us to be able to use very little amount of sample for the experiments and also easily control and observe the under-experiment fluid. One of the most important applications of these devices is the separation of cancer cells in blood for counting their number and DNA genetic studies. In the current project we have tried to do the separation of cancer cells from other cells by designing an inertia microchannel. For this purpose, in the first step a geometry for the channel is designed with analyzing the induced forces on the cells.... 

In this study, an integrated lab-on-a-chip (LOC) system was designed and developed to perform various processes, including cell separation, cell lysis, DNA extraction, and amplification, in an automated and unified manner. The system was designed to operate with fully disposable components, eliminating the risk of cross-contamination. The design includes five distinct microfluidic chips, each dedicated to a specific function. For cell separation, the inertial method was employed, which operates without the need for a micromixer and delivers high accuracy. Simulations demonstrated a recovery rate of 100% and a purity of 96.8%, while experimental results showed a recovery rate of 88.8% and a... 

Diffuse tensor imaging or tractography is a useful method for tracking the axonal tracts pathways within the brain white matter by monitoring the movements of water molecules along the axons. The higher the level of the tissue anisotropy, the more accurate the pathways can be estimated. But in the swelling regions around an edematous tumor, the excess of watery fluid disrupts the directional movement of water molecules, and consequently, the diffuse tensor imaging is unable to track the pathways. This impairment should be resolved by predicting the axontal tracts arrangement in the blind regions of the images using the numerical modeling. To this end, a finite element model of the human... 

Magnesium alloys have been used in the production of light weight components in automobile industries (for example: the ladder frame and the valve cover) due to a good combination of low density (1740 kg/m3), the tensile strength (160-365 MPa) and the elastic modulus (45 GPa). For the design and the optimization of these components under various loadings and different conditions, it is necessary to determine fatigue properties of the material by using thermo-mechanical and low cycle fatigue tests at different temperatures. In thermo-mechanical fatigue tests, the temperature varies in a specific range with the mechanical strain. The goal of this research is to investigate low cycle fatigue... 

Separating cells from a mixed sample is a required task in biotechnology and modern medicine, for example to isolate CTC’s that are of interest for doing therapy and diagnosing or doing research. A minute percentage of target cells must be separated from a large amount of unwanted cells. These target cells like CTC’s could be as rare as 1 target cell per millions of unwanted background cells. Hence Microfluidic cell sorting schemes based upon fluorescent labelling, electrophoresis, dielectrophoresis and magnetophoresis have been devised. Microfluidic magnetically-activated cell sorting (MACS) does not need any optical instrument or current source and electrode. By using an electromagnet or... 

Nowadays, separation and filtration of particles has many industrial applications in biology and medicine. In this thesis, passive microfluidics are designed and simulated which are able to separate and filter particles. Although particles aer generally expected to follow laminar flow streamlines in the absence of external forces, inertial forxes van cause particles to migrate across mictochannels in an accurate and predictable manner. The effect of these forces is invedtigated, and by using previous research, a model is developed to predict these forces. First design is a microchannel with Archimedean spiral which utilizes both inertial forces and Dean flow to separate particles in the... 

Axon is an important part of the neuronal cells and axonal microtubules are bundles in axons.In axons, microtubules are coated with microtubule-associated protein tau, a natively unfolded filamentous protein in the central nervous system. These proteins are responsible for cross-linking axonal microtubule bundles. Through complimentary dimerization with other tau proteins, bridges are formed between nearby microtubules creating bundles. Formation of bundles of microtubules causes their transverse reinforcement and has been shown to enhance their ability to bear compressive loads. Though microtubules are conventionally regarded as bearing compressive loads, in certain circumstances such as in...