Sharif Digital Repository

The improvement of a vehicle body structure under the constraint of noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) behavior is investigated by using design of experiments (DOE) method. First, car body geometry is modeled in CATIA and meshed in HYPERMESH software. Then, a modal analysis between 0-50 Hz is done by MSC NASTRAN. A frequency map of the body is extracted and compared with a reference map to identify shortcomings. By using factorial and response surface Methods (RSM), optimization of the NVH performance is accomplished. An algorithm is proposed to improve the car NVH behavior. At last, in order to verify the present algorithm, forced vibration is analyzed under real road inputs for the model... 

One of the important challenges in the auto industry is to reduce the mass of the vehicle while meeting structural performance requirements for crashworthiness, noise, vibration and harshness, etc. In this paper, a multidisciplinary optimisation of a car back-bonnet is investigated by using the response surface method. A car body is fully surface modelled in CATIA and meshed in software. Then, modal analysis of the finite element model is performed by NASTRAN software to find natural frequencies. A frequency map of that component is extracted and compared with a reference map to detect defects. Design of experiments methodology is used for a screening of the design space and for the... 

The cauliflower like ZnO nanostructures are grown on ZnO nanorods using spray pyrolysis method. First, ZnO nanorod arrays are grown on p-type silicon substrate without catalyst by chemical vapor transport and condensation method in a horizontal tube furnace. Afterwards, the cauliflower like ZnO nanostructures is deposited on top of the ZnO nanorod array. The PL spectra of cauliflower like ZnO nanostructures consist of UV emission bands around 387 nm and a visible emission at ∼440 nm. The current-voltage (I-V) measurement under dark and UV illumination condition are performed to study photodetection of the cauliflower like ZnO-ZnO nanorod/p-Si heterostructure. The experimental data of dark... 

The purpose of this work is to interpret cardiotocograph recordings by estimating kubli score in order to find out the presence of antepartum morbidity in cardiotocograph (CTG) recordings. The Kubli score is a tool used to evaluate a non-stress test (NST). It works very much like an Apgar Score in that there are 5 criteria to be assessed, baseline rate, amplitude of fluctuations, frequency of fluctuations, deceleration and acceleration pattern, and each will be assigned a score of 0, 1, or 2, for a maximum total of 10. The advantage of the Kubli score is that it is systematic and specific. This communication tool helps clinicians to have a visual image of the immediate fetal status. Using... 

Access to a prototype during R&D can play a crucial role in early identification of the weaknesses in the design. Under circumstances that a particular commercial subsystem with the exact required specific features is unavailable, the realization of such a prototype can be delayed. In this paper, an example of rapid prototyping for a dual-channel biosignal data acquisition system based on the open-source concept is described. The selected biosignal is the finger photoplethysmogram. Except for Matlab, all other software components are open-source. The hardware design of the optical sensor utilized to record the signals is also open-source, making the system extremely affordable with the... 

Background: Cardiotocography (CTG) is the most widely used tool for fetal surveillance. The visual analysis of fetal heart rate (FHR) traces largely depends on the expertise and experience of the clinician involved. Several approaches have been proposed for the effective interpretation of FHR. In this paper, a new approach for FHR feature extraction based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is proposed, which was used along with support vector machine (SVM) for the classification of FHR recordings as 'normal' or 'at risk'.Methods: The FHR were recorded from 15 subjects at a sampling rate of 4 Hz and a dataset consisting of 90 randomly selected records of 20 minutes duration was formed from... 

Economic policies for managing agricultural water use are often complicated by the challenge of using water prices as an efficient economic tool when other non-economic concerns are involved in the decision-making process. This study aims to analyse the impact of water pricing policies on preserving agricultural water resources in Iran. This study applies a system dynamics approach to simulate the system performance and behaviour of stakeholders and the economic implications. Our finding shows that water pricing policies will likely fail due to low water price elasticity and if there are lack of institutional and physical infrastructure, alternative professions, manufacturing technology,... 

The noise generated by the propeller is one of the most important components of the vessels noise. Therefore, reducing this noise will significantly decrease the total noise of the vessel. Underwater noise of vessels has destructive effects on marine life. In addition, this noise affects the health and comfort of the crew and passengers of the ship. Moreover, high noise may cause warships to be detected easily. In this paper, first, common methods of noise reduction, including blade coating, modern propellers, propeller hub modification and ducted propellers are investigated. Then, relevant optimization methods are presented. Next, the effects of the geometric parameters like number of... 

The hydro-acoustic analysis of submerged propellers is an important issue in marine industries, which is examined to reduce the vibrations and noise level of vessels alongside reducing fuel consumption and improving hydrodynamic efficiency. B-series propellers are common propellers whose hydrodynamic and acoustic investigation through applying suitable rake, and skew angle can offer proper results to designers for enhancing the hydrodynamic performance and reducing noise. In this study, a model of the five-bladed B-series propeller with the normal skew angle is chosen. The effects of geometric parameters, including the rake angle, skew angle, geometric pitch ratio, and the number of blades... 

Recent advances in materials science have necessitated the development and understanding of manufacturing processes for safe and repeatable utilization. Grinding is shown to be a promising material removal process especially for brittle and hard to cut materials such as superalloys. Grinding has always been associated with analysis and modeling complications regarding its nature which has limited its extension and reliability of use. The first step in analysis of grinding is considering the action of a single abrasive grit on workpiece surface. In this work the action of a single CBN abrasive grit in creep-feed grinding process of Inconel 718 superalloy is modeled and analyzed using a 3D FEM... 

In this paper, we propose a new algorithm that minimizes the worst expected growth of an epidemic by reducing the size of the largest connected component (LCC) of the underlying contact network. The proposed algorithm is applicable to any level of available resources and, despite the greedy approaches of most immunization strategies, selects nodes simultaneously. In each iteration, the proposed method partitions the LCC into two groups. These are the best candidates for communities in that component, and the available resources are sufficient to separate them. Using Laplacian spectral partitioning, the proposed method performs community detection inference with a time complexity that rivals... 

The tendency towards using activity-based models to predict trip demand has increased dramatically over recent years, but these models have suffered insufficient data for calibration. This paper discusses ways to process the cellphone spatio-temporal data in a manner that makes it comprehensible for traffic interpretations and proposes methods on how to infer urban mobility and activity patterns from the aforementioned data. Movements of each subscriber is described by a sequence of stays and trips and each stay is labeled by an activity. The type of activities are estimated using features such as land use, duration of stay, frequency of visit, arrival time to that activity and its distance... 

Nowadays, we are facing epidemic spreading in many different areas; examples are infection propagation, rumor spreading and computer viruses in computer networks. Finding a strategy to control and mitigate the spread of these epidemics is gaining much interest in recent researches. Due to limitation of immunization resources, it is important to establish a strategy for selecting nodes which has the most effect in mitigating epidemics. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm that minimizes the worst expected growth of an epidemic by reducing the size of the largest connected component of the underlying contact network. The proposed algorithm is applicable to any level of available resources... 

The tendency towards using activity-based models to predict trip demand has increased dramatically over recent years. However, these models have suffered from insufficient data for calibration, and the intrinsic problems of traditional methods impose the need to search for better alternatives. This paper discusses ways to process cell phone spatio-temporal data in a manner that makes it comprehensible for traffic interpretations and proposes methods on how to infer urban mobility and activity patterns from the aforementioned data. The movements of each subscriber are described by a sequence of stops and trips, and each stop is labelled by an activity. The types of activities are estimated... 

The tendency towards using activity-based models to predict trip demand has increased dramatically over recent years. However, these models have suffered from insufficient data for calibration, and the intrinsic problems of traditional methods impose the need to search for better alternatives. This paper discusses ways to process cell phone spatio-temporal data in a manner that makes it comprehensible for traffic interpretations and proposes methods on how to infer urban mobility and activity patterns from the aforementioned data. The movements of each subscriber are described by a sequence of stops and trips, and each stop is labelled by an activity. The types of activities are estimated... 

A new method is proposed to analyze stability of descriptor systems with multiple commensurate time-delays. In this method, purely imaginary roots of the system are calculated, asymptotic behavior of root path at these roots is studied, and unstable regions of the system in the space of delays are determined. Moreover, the number of roots in each unstable region is calculated. Also necessary and sufficient conditions for τ-stabilizability of these systems are presented. Examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and validity of the proposed method. © 2019 The Franklin Institute  

This study presents a new approach to decompose singular time-delay systems (STDSs) in a way that they can be transformable to normal time-delay systems (TDSs) with a lower order. Necessary and sufficient conditions are provided to determine which STDSs can be transformed to TDSs. Also, a stabilisation method is provided to stabilise the system, while the time delay in the system can belong to several distinct intervals or even everywhere. The proposed method is non-fragile towards controller parameters. This method also reveals one of the many applicable situations of the proposed decomposition. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated through some examples. © 2018 The... 

In this paper a new approach is developed to stabilize descriptor systems with time-delay, while time-delay can belong to a given interval. This approach takes the advantages of system's singularity to simplify the model and uses the so-called Rekasius substitution to compute the controller parameters in a way that the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system in the given interval of the delay can be guaranteed. Finally, a numerical example is provided to evaluate the proposed method's effectiveness. © 2017 IEEE