Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents the results of an analytical study on the dynamic characteristics of the Shaking Table facilities at Sharif University. This 3 degree of freedom shaking table is driven by 3 servo-control hydraulic actuators, and consists of a 12 ton, 4m×4m×0.6m steel deck. The main objective of this investigation is to identify the degree of flexibility of the deck, and its adverse effects in causing errors in the simulation of seismic effects on different structural specimens. Many frame specimens of different weights and configurations are subjected to seismic motions, and their responses are calculated using FE models. Some of these models were designed to account for eccentric... 

In this study, a near equiatomic NiTi shape memory alloy was hot rolled at 800°C using thethickness reductions of 30 and 50%. Optical and transmission electron microscopy, together withX-ray diffraction were used to demonstrate the microstructural changes associated with the hotrolling at different thickness reductions. Repeated transformation cycling was employed toinvestigate the evolution of R phase during cycling. Microstructural observations revealed thepresence of deformation twins embedded in an elongated grain matrix in the hot rolled material.Moreover, it was found that with increasing degree of thickness reduction, the size and number ofdeformation twins increased throughout the... 

Graph Matching (GM) plays an essential role in computer vision and machine learning. The ability of using pairwise agreement in GM makes it a powerful approach in feature matching. In this paper, a new formulation is proposed which is more robust when it faces with outlier points. We add weights to the one-to-one constraints, and modify them in the process of optimization in order to diminish the effect of outlier points in the matching procedure. We execute our proposed method on different real and synthetic databases to show both robustness and accuracy in contrast to several conventional GM methods  

In this work, a multigrid acceleration technique is suitably developed for solving the two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations using an implicit finite element volume method. In this regard, the solution domain is broken into a huge number of quadrilateral finite elements. The accurate numerical solution of a flow field can be achieved if very fine grid resolutions are utilized. Unfortunately, the standard implicit solvers need more computational time to solve larger size of algebraic set of equations which normally arise if fine grid distributions are used. Past experience has shown that the convergence of classical relaxation schemes perform an initial rapid decrease of... 

Abstract In this study, adsorption of the CO2 and N2 gases on the MIL-53(Al) and its hybrid composite with the graphene nano-plates (GNP), MIL-53(Al)/GNP, adsorbents were investigated. These materials were synthesized using the solvothermal reaction method. The prepared samples were characterized by means of the powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms (BET-BJH surface area measurement) and Fourier transfer infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy methods as well as; thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Adsorption equilibrium of the CO2 and N2 on the sorbents were... 

La0.3Sr0.7FeO3-δ (LSF) perovskite was prepared according to two methods: (1) applying new phenolic derivative of serine amino acid (L) as chelating agent, and (2) in absence of L as ligand-free perovskite (LFP). The newly prepared aminophenolic ligand L was fully characterized by 1H and 13C NMR, IR as well as elemental analysis while the LSF perovskite samples were characterized using the IR spectra, powder x-ray diffraction (PXRD) patterns, and SEM micrographs. The PXRD pattern obtained for the perovskite prepared by L (PPP) indicated on the presence of pure perovskite phase. The hydrogen permeation through PPP and LFP membranes with thickness of 1.0mm were measured as a function of... 

A novel sulfoxide containing bis(ether amine) monomer, 2,2'-sulfoxide- bis[4-methyl(2-trifluoromethyl)4-aminophenoxy) phenyl ether] (M2), was synthesized from the halogen displacement of 2-chloro-5-nitrobenzotrifluoride with dibenzosulfoxide (DH) in the presence of potassium carbonate, followed by catalytic reduction of bis(ether nitro) intermediate with Zinc/Ammonium chloride. A series of organic-soluble poly(ether amide)s (PA1-7) bearing sulfoxide and electronwithdrawing trifiuoromethyl group were synthesized from bis(ether amine) with various aromatic diacids (1-7) via a direct polycondensation with triphenyl phosphite and pyridine. The resulting polymers had inherent viscosities ranging... 

In this study, a three-dimensional mathematical model, based on a nonuniform droplet concentration distribution, has been developed to simulate gas absorption in a venturi scrubber. The mass transfer process was illustrated by assuming the liquid phase as a combination of droplets and film. The flow, just as the annular two-phase flow, includes a flow of liquid film layer on the walls and a flow of gas and liquid drops in the core. Peclet number was determined using experimental data reported by Viswanathan et al. (1984) for distribution of droplets across the cross section of the scrubber. The mathematical model for gas absorption was justified by comparing the theoretical predictions with... 

A systematic change of HZSM-5 (HZ5) as a catalyst of the methanol to aromatics (MTA) reaction was undertaken by employing a fixed-bed tubular-type reactor under ambient pressure, applying a weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) of 2 h-1 at 375 °C, as the first report on the application of low-Si/Al-ratio alkaline-[Mo,Na]-HZSM-5 in the MTA process. To characterize the surface and textural properties of the catalysts, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), nitrogen adsorption/desorption, temperature-programmed desorption of ammonia (NH3-TPD), pyridine-infrared spectroscopy (Py-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) methods were employed. Gas chromatography (GC) and... 

The most applicable configuration of the equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE) dies is the axi-symmetric one. However, most of the previous analytical solutions are focused on the plane strain conditions. In this research, an upper bound model is used to investigate the deformation of the material during axi-symmetric ECAE. The analysis considers the effect of die angle, friction between the sample and the die walls, and the angle of the outer curved corner of the die, on the extrusion pressure. It is found that increasing the die angle and outer curved corner angle and decreasing the friction coefficient results in decreasing extrusion pressure. The proposed model is verified using two... 

In this research, the samples of a low carbon steel sheet were rolled up to a thickness prestrain of 67% at three different temperatures consisted of room, blue brittleness, and subzero temperature. Microhardness, SEM, and tensile tests were carried out to evaluate the static recrystallization kinetics defined by the Avrami equation, microstructural evolution, and mechanical properties. It was found that the Avrami exponent is altered with change in prestrain temperature and it achieves the value of 1 to 1. 5. Moreover, it was indicated that prestraining at subzero temperature followed by annealing at 600 °C leads to considerable enhancement in tensile properties and kinetics of static... 

A coiled carbon nanotube (CCNT) can be formed from the distortion of parent toroidal carbon nanotube with a uniform pitch length and a uniform spring rise angle. In this research molecular dynamics simulation was carried out to assess the tensile properties of three CCNT having indexes of (3,3), (4,4), and (5,5). The results indicated that Stone-Wales defects are necessary for thermodynamic stability of the CCNTs. The stress-strain curves showed that the yield stress, yield strain, and failure strain are decreased with increase in temperature. The force-displacement curves revealed that the spring constant of these materials is highly depended on the tube diameter and rising angle, while it... 

During the recent years, some Mg based alloys have extensively been considered as a new generation of degradable and absorbable bio-medical materials. In this work, the Mg–2Zn–1Gd–1Ca (wt%) alloy as a new metallic bio-material was produced by the casting process followed by the heat treatment. The samples of the alloy were solution treated at temperatures of 500, 550, and 600 °C and then quench aged at temperatures of 125, 150, and 175 °C. The results of SEM-EDS examinations indicated that the alloy microstructure consists of α-Mg matrix and the Ca2Mg6Zn3 and Mg3Gd2Zn3 secondary phases. With regard to the results of Vickers hardness test, the temperatures of 500 °C and 150 °C were selected... 

Trapping a single aerosol using optical tweezers could be of great importance for environmental sciences. Though a single nanoparticle as small as 10 nm is successfully trapped in aqueous media using optical tweezers, due to spherical aberration only large clusters of nanoparticles were stably trapped in air. In this paper we provide our theoretical and experimental results on optimized trapping of aerosols as small as 400 nm in radius by the introduction of an extra spherical aberration source in order to minimize the total spherical aberration of the system. Our method allows for trapping of high refractive index particles such as polystyrene beads in air. It also provides considerably... 

Optical tweezers have proven to be indispensable micromanipulation tools especially in aqueous solutions. Because of the significantly larger spherical aberration induced by the refractive index mismatch, trapping aerosols has always been cumbersome if not impossible. We introduce a simple but very efficient method for optimized aerosol trapping at a desired depth. We show that a wise selection of the immersion medium and the mechanical tube length not only enables trapping of objects that are known to be untrappable but also provides a way to tune the trappable depth range  

Measuring centrality in a social network, especially in bipartite mode, poses many challenges, for example, the requirement of full knowledge of the network topology, and the lack of properly detecting top-kbehavioral representative users. To overcome the above mentioned challenges, we propose HellRank, an accurate centrality measure for identifying central nodes in bipartite social networks. HellRank is based on the Hellinger distance between two nodes on the same side of a bipartite network. We theoretically analyze the impact of this distance on a bipartite network and find upper and lower bounds for it. The computation of the HellRank centrality measure can be distributed, by letting... 

Due to size minimization and increment in the frequency of electronic devices, efficient and reliable methods for thermal management are required to reduce operating temperature, enhance stability, increase lifetime and user comfort. To prevent the damages of leakage and corrosion which occur in conventional heat sinks, proposing innovative thermal management methods has always been welcomed. Regarding these issues and based on the energy storage unit concept, in this study, a passive heat sink (HS) is fabricated and characterized for electronic chipset cooling with heat fluxes of 2000 to 4000 W/m2 utilizing phase change material (PCM) and nano-additive PCM (NPCM). The presented cooling... 

In this research, the nonlinear elastic behavior of human extensor apparatus was investigated. To this goal, firstly the best material parameters of hyperelastic strain energy density functions consisting of the Mooney–Rivlin, Ogden, invariants, and general exponential models were derived for the simple tension experimental data. Due to the significance of stress response in other deformation modes of nonlinear models, the calculated parameters were used to study the pure shear and balance biaxial tension behavior of the extensor apparatus. The results indicated that the Mooney–Rivlin model predicts an unstable behavior in the balance biaxial deformation of the extensor apparatus, while the... 

Statistics have shown an endemic worldwide increase of Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) since the 1960s. Autistic disorders are characterized by three major behavioral disorders: impaired social interaction, impaired communication, and impaired imagination and social creativity. The usage of Socially Assistive Robots (SAR) in autism screening and treatment has been increasing in recent years. In this chapter, after reviewing the most important findings of using SAR in autism area, I present some of our recent findings on the clinical application of two interactive social humanoid robots (i.e., NAO and ALICE with the Iranian names of Nima and Mina) as medical assistants in the treatment and... 

The influence of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) on microstructure and mechanical behavior, as well as, strain aging during ECAP and post-ECAP of Mg-1.8Zn-0.7Si-0.4Ca biomedical alloy was examined. The alloy in solid solution heat-treated condition was processed by ECAP with route BC at 350 and 400 °C. The specimens ECAPed at 350 °C were aged at 125 and 150 °C for different times. The hardness and shear punch test results indicated that performing ECAP at 350 °C for 4 passes increases the hardness and shear strength of the alloy from 48 HV and 110 MPa to 71 HV and 188 MPa, respectively. It was revealed that the average grain size of the alloy decreases from 78 µm to about 3 µm after 4...