Sharif Digital Repository

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... 

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... 

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... 

In this study, a set of constitutive equation corrected for deformation heating is proposed for a near equiatomic NiTi shape memory alloy using isothermal hot compression tests in temperature range of 700 to 1000 °C and strain rate of 0.001 to 1 s -1. In order to determine the temperature rise due to deformation heating, Abaqus simulation was employed and varied thermal properties were considered in the simulation. The results of hot compression tests showed that at low pre-set temperatures and high strain rates the flow curves exhibit a softening, while after correction of deformation heating the softening is vanished. Using the corrected flow curves, the power-law constitutive equation of... 

In this paper, a numerical optimization method has been carried out to optimize the shape and efficiency of a propeller. For analysis of the hydrodynamic performance parameters, an extended vortex lattice method was used by implementing an open-source code which is called OpenProp. The method of optimization is a non-gradient based algorithm. After a trade-off between a few gradient-based and non-gradient based algorithms, it is found that the problem of being trapped in local optimum solutions can be easily solved by choosing nongradient based ones. Hence, modified Genetic algorithm is used to implement the so-called hydrodynamic performance analyzer code. The objective function is to... 

Here a propeller design method based on a vortex lattice algorithm is developed, and two gradient-based and non-gradient-based optimization algorithms are implemented to optimize the shape and efficiency of two propellers. For the analysis of the hydrodynamic performance parameters, a vortex lattice method was used by implementing a computer code. In the first problem, one of the Sequential Unconstraint Minimization Techniques (SUMT) is employed to minimize the torque coefficient as an objective function, while keeping the thrust coefficient constant as a constraint. Also, chord distribution is considered as a design variable, namely 11 design variables. In the second problem, a modified... 

In a distributed system, each solution for the problem of Byzantine agreement requires that some of the correct processes reach a common decision value from a set of proposed values while Byzantine processes may behave arbitrarily. While the problem has been widely studied in fully connected fixed networks, few studies have been carried out in the context of self-organizing mobile networks such as mobile ad hoc networks. We present a randomized consensus protocol with three additional modules for the case of dynamic networks: participant detectors, failure detectors and maintainer. We assume an asynchronous network with unknown participants where processes can be fixed or move continuously... 

In this paper, a dynamic-programming approach to the coupled translational and rotational control of thruster-driven spacecraft is studied. To reduce the complexity of the problem, dynamic-programming-based optimal policies are calculated using decoupled position and attitude dynamics with generalized forces and torques as controls. A quadratic-programming-based control allocation is then used to map the controls to actuator commands. To control the spacecraft in the event of thruster failure, both the dynamic programming policies and control allocation are reconfigured to cope with the losses in controls. The control allocation parameters are adjusted dynamically to ensure the satellite... 

The global energy crisis and harmful effects of fossil fuel usage as well as the rapid rate of electricity price growth forces Data Centers (DCs) providers to install on-site Renewable Energy (RE). However, the huge installation investment, as well as fluctuating characteristic, impedes the widespread usage of RE. Reducing the break-even time of the required investment is a reinforcing economic incentive that complements the environmental incentive to further encourage DC Providers to use more RE. This paper takes advantages of an economic opportunity, namely the electricity pricing models, as well as a technological opportunity, namely the distributed Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS)... 

Usually the digital phase shifters are used to steer the beam of a phased array antenna, and the accuracy of beam steering and other properties of the radiation pattern is dependent on the number of bits of the phase shifter and its resolution. In this paper the results of simulations, accomplished using a number of phase feeding methods in order to reduce the phase quantization error effects are presented and three new methods are introduced and compared with the previous works. Copyright 2006 IEICE  

Over the past decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the frequency of natural disasters, which are the leading causes of large-scale power outages. This paper, therefore, assesses the significance and role of optimal tie-line construction in improving the service restoration performance of unbalanced power distribution systems in the aftermath of high-impact low-probability incidents. In doing so, a restoration process aware stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to find the optimal locations for new tie-line construction in unbalanced three-phase distribution systems. In particular, the restoration process of distribution systems, including the fault... 

In this paper, a new approach for behavior based architecture in mobile robot navigation in unknown environments is presented. In this approach, the general actions of a mobile robot are classified into three thoroughly separated tasks. Then, an individual fuzzy controller is designed and implemented for each task (behavior). Finally, a behavior selector is designed to switch between the robot tasks (behavior patterns) and manage all separated fuzzy controllers to navigate a mobile robot in a fully unknown environment. Another case considered in this paper is to test and examine the proposed algorithm in an environment including the static and dynamic (moving) obstacles. The most difficult... 

One of the main properties of fragile watermarking schemes is to indicate the location of changes made to the image, i.e. tamper localization, In addition to detection of watermarked image modifications. In this paper, the localization property Is added to the SVD(Singular Value Decomposition) based fragile watermarking scheme proposed by Byun et al. To do this, a hierarchical watermarking structure is used, where the Image is partitioned into blocks In a multilevel hierarchy, and then the SVD-based algorithm Is employed at each level to Insert authenticating data In sub-blocks. In the verification process, blocks at the lowest hierarchical level can detect modifications made to the... 

Over the past decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the frequency of natural disasters, which are the leading causes of large-scale power outages. This paper, therefore, assesses the significance and role of optimal tie-line construction in improving the service restoration performance of unbalanced power distribution systems in the aftermath of high-impact low-probability incidents. In doing so, a restoration process aware stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to find the optimal locations for new tie-line construction in unbalanced three-phase distribution systems. In particular, the restoration process of distribution systems, including the fault... 

Motorcycles are major contributors to air pollutants, i.e. CO, VOCs, and PM, emissions to the atmosphere in some regions around the world. Hydrothermal aging of the Pd-Pt-based wiremesh catalyst, as an emission control device for 4-stroke carburetor motorcycles, was studied under laboratory-simulated aging conditions. Aging temperature and reaction atmosphere were selected as independent variables affecting aging. Catalyst properties were characterized by ICP, XPS, BET, EDS, and FE-SEM analysis. Increasing aging temperature and oxidizing atmosphere led to a more pronounced particle size growth and sintering after aging. Regardless of the aging temperature, surface inhibition effects...