Sharif Digital Repository

The properties of Functionally Graded Materials (FGM) are characterized by gradual variation of volume fraction of their constituents or phases over the thickness direction. They are normally ceramic in one side and metal in the other side. This kind of material has been employed as thermal barrier and also as coatings in many applications including turbine blades. Thermal stress behavior of FGMs is normally studied by simulating the material as a composite laminate where the properties ofeach layer are found by averaging the properties and volume fraction of FGM constituents through the thickness of the layer. However, it should be mentioned that the grains of FGM constituents are usually... 

The electrodeposition of nickel was studied using electrochemical techniques in different electrolytes and various agents. The voltammetry analysis clearly showed that the electrodeposition of nickel was a diffusion-controlled process associated with a typical nucleation process. The current transients represented instantaneous nucleation with a typical three-dimensional (3D) growth mechanism. Scharifker's equations were derived for instantaneous and progressive nucleation of the 3D growth of the spherical centers under diffusion-controlled condition. The number of nucleation sites increased with the increment in overpotential and Ni 2+ concentration. Atomic force microscopy was used to... 

Nickel nanostructure thin films were electrodeposited on copper plates to investigate the fractal study. Scharifker's equations were derived for instantaneous and progressive nucleation and 3D growth of hemispherical centres under diffusion-controlled condition to calculate in situ change of fractal dimension of surface. It was assumed that the layer could be formed completely when fractal dimension of surface inclined to 2. Moreover, the fractal analysis of atomic force microscopy (AFM) images has confirmed the presumed model. Also, the power values of power spectral density (PSD) of the AFM images were determined using fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms. The PSD plots are approximated... 

Overwhelming number of control laws has been studied for control of robot manipulators with rigid links and joints. However controllers designed under this assumption may not accurately control the manipulator link due to visco-elastic properties that appear in the link behavior. In this study, a novel approach for robust control of a single-link manipulator is presented to force the link to have rigid motions, while it has visco-elastic behavior. In this regard, initially robot dynamics is extracted, followed by the design of four appropriate controllers through the loop-shaping approach. The obtained model is first represented in state space, however later converted to transfer function... 

Pure polypyrrole (PPy), PPy/Al2O3 and PPy/SiO2 nanocomposites synthesized galvanostatically using different polymerization charges. Electrochemical impedance measurements of pure polypyrrole revealed that the film thickness affected the impedance responses. The characteristic frequencies vs. film thickness that obtained using Cole-Cole plots showed that electrodeposition mechanism changed from 3D to 1D after nuclei overlapping for pure PPy. Analysis of the nanocomposites impedance spectrums revealed no changes during the film growth, i.e. deposition continues 3D even after nuclei overlapping. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirmed the impedance results and showed that the morphology of... 

Morus Alba or mulberry is a wood species that is broadly used in making musical instruments in Eastern countries. However, the mechanical and acoustical properties of this type of wood are not investigated properly. In this study a set of features, previously examined for other species, are applied to this wood and its acoustic quality is evaluated. Setar, a Persian musical instrument made of mulberry wood, is selected as the test case of this experiment. Different samples of wood are gathered and categorized based on their appropriateness for Setar construction. The quality of each sample is identified based on the Perceptual knowledge of professional Setar makers. The most effective... 

In this research, we investigate a three-stage supply chain with one supplier, several manufacturers and multiple retailers where the supplier provides a common raw material to each manufacturer, who in turn uses a single stage production facility to convert it into final products that are delivered at fixed lot sizes to retailers. An integrated economic procurement, production, and delivery model is developed whose objective is to find the common production cycle length, production sequences of final products at manufacturers and delivery frequencies of final products to retailers minimizing the total costs of considered supply chain. We propose an analytical solution procedure and an... 

A closed-form spatial Green's function for a truncated dielectric slab is derived by using a combination of the characteristic Green's function (CGF) and perfectly matched layer (PML) method. The original structure is terminated by PML that is backed by perfect electric conductor (PEC) in semi-infinite layer at the top and/or bottom. The eigenmodes of the closed structure by PML construct the continuous spectrum contribution of the original structure efficiently. Derived Green's function is exact for separable finite structure while it is approximate for nonseparable one especially in the corners. Generalized scattering matrix (GSM) of truncating surface which contains possible conversions...