Sharif Digital Repository

This thesis proposes a dynamic model for studding influences of suspension components behavior on rail vehicle dynamics. As the air springs are very important isolating component in rail vehicles, a new complete nonlinear air spring model, with taking into consideration of thermo–dynamical effects, is developed. The model coefficients are tuned based on the real test data and it can be easily used in dynamic modeling of air springs. The new proposed vehicle model is a complete track–vehicle model with 70 degree of freedoms which is addressed as a modular type. Experimental results from complete rail–vehicle field test, showed remarkable agreement between proposed model and test results.... 

Today, the internal connections of the CPUs with a few billion wired transistors in 14 copper layers on the silicon wafer are possible. Recently, power dissipation has slowed the growth rate of clock growth in CPUs, and nowadays sometimes more than 60% power is lost in connections. In this situation, the increase in efficiency has been achieved in accordance with Moore's law with multi-core chips. This theme has made the connections between the cores much more important than before. Usually the information in the network structure on chip (NOC) is transmitted on these connections. Therefore, all three aspects of delay, power dissipation and bit rate are important for communication channels.... 

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in posturography methods as an objective quantitative tool for assessing balance and indicating patient with high risk of fall. Although many posturographic studies tried to describe balance deficiencies in PD, little success has been achieved in utilizing static posturography as a tool for discriminating faller and non-faller PD patients. Furthermore, Dynamic posturography studies have delivered valuable insight into the potentiality of these methods for assessing balance, but these devices are very high in price and cumbersome to move that can limit the feasibility of their use in the clinical settings. The aims of this study were: 1)... 

Self-organized critical phenomena are interesting phenomena which are ubiquitous in nature. Examples include mountain ranges , coastlines and also activities in the hu-man's brain. In these processes, without fine-tuning of any external parameter such as the temperature, the system exhibits critical behavior. In other words, the dynamics of the system, drives it towards an state in which long range correlations in space and scaling behaviors can be seen.The first successful model which could characterize such systems was BTW model, introduced by Bak , Tang and Wiesenfeld in 1987. This model, later named Abelian sandpile model, was very simple and because of this simplicity, a large amount of... 

Bonding gravity with Quantum mechanics has always been a challenging issue. So that, accomplishing a theory of quantum gravity is one of the most important research topics in High-Energy Physics.Information paradox in black holes is among such issues which connect quantum mechanics with gravity. Black holes as a natural solution of Einstein equations have a distinction, with other solutions, since there exists an event horizon that imparts space-time into two causally disconnected regions.According to Hawking’s calculations, black holes would evaporate over time by the thermal radiation. This resulting thermal radiation has less information than the initial collapsed matter in a pure state.... 

Aspect-Oriented Programming is a software engineering paradigm that offers new constructs, such as join points, pointcuts, advices and aspects in order to improve separation of crosscutting concerns. The new constructs bring new type of programming faults with respect to crosscutting concerns, such as incorrect pointcuts, advice or aspect precedence. In fact, existing object-oriented testing techniques are not adequate for testing aspect-oriented programs. As a result, new testing techniques must be developed. In this paper, an approach based upon UML sequence diagrams for testing aspect- oriented program is presented. The proposed approach focuses on integration of one or several... 

Using revenue management in any industry can increase the profit. In aviation industries, due to the huge number of requests and travels for each airline, a revenue management system can lead to a good profit for the airlines. The first step in revenue management system is predicting the demand.In this article two models are developed using time series techniques, based on the information taken from one of the Iranian airlines in Tehran-Mashhad fly route.The first model is developed using ARIMA and seasonal-ARIMA models and the second one is based on the demand and price history, price in the day of prediction and the ARIMA model. The second model which is a combination of price, prior price... 

This investigative study intends to identify and characterize bitumen from seven Iranian bitumen production plants according to the Superpave Performance Grading (PG) system, conventional classic tests, and chemical separation tests. The study then compares the identified performance grades with the thirteen performance-grade binders required for specific climatic zones in Iran. It is observed that the variety of available binders is not adequate to fully cover the required PGs. Blending was initially considered as a suitable and economic method for production of the missing performance grades. However due to similar rheological properties of bitumen samples, resulting in nearly identical... 

Rutting is a primary cause of premature deterioration of asphalt pavements and modifying asphalt binders is a common way to improve binder characteristics and field performance. Two types of parameters are used to characterize asphalt rutting. One type includes binder parameters such as zero-shear viscosity and the Superpave rutting resistance index (G*/sinδ) derived from oscillatory loading tests such as the dynamic shear rheometer. The other type is derived from static and repeated loading creep tests on mixtures and binders. Researchers have pointed out that these parameters can rank modified binder and mixture rut susceptibility differently. In this study the rutting resistance of... 

Bitumen ageing is one of the principal factors causing the deterioration of asphalt pavements. Ageing is a complex process that is affected by different parameters.With the rapid growth of modified binders in road paving applications over the past twodecades, it is important to study the ageing properties of these binders. A number of laboratory methods are used tosimulatethe bitumenageing at various stages of the production and service of hot mix asphalt.Recent studies have shown that Superpave testing protocol does not fully address the ageing of modified binders. To study the ageing properties of modified binders, three different types of binder modifiers, plastomer, elastomer, and ground... 

Warm mix asphalt has received considerable attention over the past decade particularly due to its potential environmental benefit such as lower energy consumption and emission, its ability to be placed at lower ambient temperatures making it a suitable material for areas with short construction season. There are three warm mix asphalt (WMA) techniques are available; organic additive, foaming, and chemical additive. This study examined Sasobit, a micro crystalline wax which is an organic additive. The concentrations tested were 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 percent of the base binder. A PG 64-22 asphalt binder from an Iranian refinery (Tehran refinery) was used as the base binder. Superpave binder... 

The deleterious effect of moisture on the structural integrity of asphalt mixtures has been recognized as one of the main causes of early deterioration of asphalt pavements. This phenomenon, usually referred to as moisture damage, is defined as the progressive loss of structural integrity of the mixture. Moisture damage is associated with the development of different physical, mechanical and chemical processes occurring within the microstructure of the mixture at different intensities and rates. Although there have been important advancements in identifying and characterizing this phenomenon, there is still a lack of understanding of the damage mechanisms occurring at the... 

Utilization of RAP in HMA reduces the initial costs, conserves natural sources and avoids disposal problems. Aged binder from RAP will have some effects on resultant binder. To date, solvent extraction and recovery is the only method that physically separates the RAP binder from the RAP aggregate for characterization. Time consuming for recovery, altering the physical properties of the recovered asphalt binder like binder hardening and the possibility that Asphalt binder is not completely extracted from the aggregate are the weak points of this method. Addressing the need for non-solvent based RAP binder characterization; procedures for low temperature characterization of RAP binder... 

Increased environmental concerns and high oil prices have encouraged highway agencies to maximize the use of recycled materials like Reclaimed Asphalt Pavements (RAP) in pavement construction. However, utilization of RAP has limited to low percentage, generally less than 25%. This is due aged, stiffer, and less strain tolerant asphalt binder in RAP. As the RAP proportion increases, a large amount of the aged binder will be introduced into the mixture. The excessive stiffness of HMA mixture tends to lead to less workable mixture. Studies were conducted to examine the effect of Sasobit on the workablility of high RAP mixtures. The results indicated while the utilization of Sasobit had improved... 

Asphalt concrete exhibits viscoelastic and viscoplastic behavior which is dependent on rate and temperature. To model this behavior, various mechanical modelshave been presented in which total strain, as the response of the applied stress, is decomposed by various researchers to recoverable and permanent strains.Accumulation and expansion of permanent response result in rutting which is a dominant and prevalent distress in hot mixed asphalt (HMA) in hot climates. The available models are not capable of accurately calculate the viscoplastic strain under cyclic loading.
To close this gap, recovered viscoelastic strain at rest (unloading) period was introduced. This parameter accounted for...