Sharif Digital Repository

The performance of cellular solids in biomedical applications relies strongly on a detailed understanding of the effects of pore topology on mechanical properties. This study aims at characterizing the failure mechanism of scaffolds based on nodal connectivity (number of struts that meet in joints) and geometry of the pores. Plastic models of scaffolds having the same relative density but different cubic and trigonal unit cells were designed and then fabricated via three dimensional (3-D) printing. Unit cells were repeated in different arrangements in 3-D space. An in-situ imaging technique was utilized to study the progressive deformation of the scaffold models. Different nodal... 

Rapid prototyping is a promising technique for producing tissue engineering scaffolds due to its capacity to generate predetermined forms and structures featuring distinct pore architectures. The objective of this study is to investigate the influences of different pore geometries and their orientation with respect to the compressive loading direction on mechanical responses of scaffolds. Plastic models of scaffolds with cubic and hexagonal unit cells were fabricated by three-dimensional (3-D) printing. An in situ imaging technique was utilized to study the progressive compressive deformation of the scaffold models. In both cubic and hexagonal geometries, organized buckling patterns relevant... 

Polymer-layered silicate nanocomposites have been observed to demonstrate enhanced mechanical properties particularly at low weight fractions of silicate. Experimental and theoretical investigations reveal that numerous structural parameters strongly influence the modulus of such nanocomposites. A multiscale micromechanical model is developed which considers a wide range of different affecting parameters including the particle aspect ratio, the number of silicate layers per stack, the d-spacing ratio between the layers, the penetration of polymer chains along silicate sheets, the intercalation feature, and the particle volume fraction. The developed model illustrates the accuracy and... 

The strengthening behavior of particle reinforced metal-matrix composites is primarily attributed to the dislocation strengthening effect and the load transfer effect. To account for these two effects in a unified way, a new multi-scale approach is developed in this paper incorporating the aspect ratio effect into the geometrically necessary dislocation strengthening relationships. By making use of this multi-scale approach, the deformation behavior of metal-matrix composites (MMCs) and metal-matrix nanocomposites (MMNCs) as a function of size, volume fraction, aspect ratio, etc. of the particles has been investigated. Comparison with the previously proposed models and the available... 

A novel efficient and cost-effective heterogeneous catalyst for the production of biodiesel from transesterification of sunflower oil was prepared through the impregnation of K2CO3 upon the Talc material. The physicochemical features of the catalyst were studied through several characterization analyses. The effect of the K2CO3 loading was investigated by comparing the catalytic activity of various prepared catalysts. Moreover, the effect of the calcination temperature upon the catalytic activity was examined. To maximize the yield of the produced biodiesel fuel, reaction variables such as the reaction time and temperature, catalyst concentration, and methanol: oil molar ratio were... 

The biped walking robot demonstrates a stable limit cycle on shallow slopes. In previous researches, this passive gait was shown to be sensitive to ground slope and initial conditions. In this paper, we discuss the feedback stabilization of a biped robot by the "energy shaping" technique. Two designs are proposed to reduce the sensitivity of the biped walking robot to slope and initial conditions. In the first design, a moving mass actuator is located on each link of the robot. The actuators are used to shape the potential energy of the biped robot so that it tracks the potential energy of a known passive gait of a similar biped robot on a different slope. Although the method is applied to a... 

Sanctions imposed by a country against another country are considered as a foreign policy tool. Many studies have investigated different aspects of sanctions including the efficacy of sanctions to alter the target country’s behaviour. However, the effects of a potential fight-back strategy adopted by a target country have been discussed rarely. In this paper, the outcomes of a possible fight-back strategy are simulated using game theoretical analysis. To find the matching state of game theory and sanction regimes, we have conducted a critical and systematic review of 12 sanctions, from 1950 to 2012. The results show that the capability of a target country to implement fight-back strategies... 

In this contribution, spinel MgAl2O4 nanospheres prepared by the combustion method were coupled with thermally-exfoliated g-C3N4 nanosheets (TE-GCN) through an efficient isoelectric point-assisted calcination technique. Physical characteristics of the synthesized nanocomposite were understudied utilizing the XRD, FT-IR, FE-SEM, TEM, BET-BJH, UV–Vis DRS, PL, and EIS analyses. This material was used as a novel nano-photocatalyst for degradation of reactive red 195 (RR195) industrial dye contaminant. Results revealed that, a successful synthesis of a heterojunction between the components of the nanocomposite was achieved. This exhibited an enormously improved electron-hole separation leading to... 

This paper studies a brachiation robot that is a long armed locomotion similar to apes. The robot has 2 revolute joints but only one of them is actuated. In this paper, after deriving dynamic model of the robot the Controlled Lagrangian (CL) method is used for stabilization. The matching conditions satisfied for the controller are derived and the extended λ-method is used to solve PDE's involved in the method of controlled lagrangian. Satisfactory controller's gains are chosen by PSO algorithm. Finally, feasibility of the developed controller is investigated by numerical simulations  

In this paper, a three-dimensional numerical model is developed to analyze flow characteristics of pressure driven, electroosmotic and combined pressure driven-electroosmotic flows through micro-channels. The governing system of equations consists of the electric-field and flow-field equations. The solution procedure involves three steps. The net charge distribution on the cross section of the microchannel is computed by solving two-dimensional Poisson-Boltzmann equation using the finite element method. Then, using the computed fluid's charge distribution, the magnitude of the resulting body force due to interaction of an external electric field with the charged fluid is calculated along the... 

Aromatic and cyclic organic compounds such as nitrobenzene (NB) are widely used in various industries and are present in their wastewater. In addition, the photocatalytic process has received considerable attention due to its lower chemical consumption and more efficient degradation of refractory pollutants. In this study, a CoFe2O4-ZnO (CFZ) composite was prepared and evaluated its efficiency in the degradation of NB from aqueous solution under UV light. The optical, structural, and physicochemical properties of catalysts were characterized using PL, UV–vis DRS, XRD, TEM, FESEM-EDS, and VSM techniques and then discussed in detail. It was found that not only does the use of CF facilitate the... 

Kaolin clay material was loaded with potassium carbonate by impregnation method as a novel, effective, and economically heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production of sunflower oil via the transesterification reaction. The structural and chemical properties of the produced catalysts were characterized through several analyses including the X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller specific surface area. These revealed the best catalyst for the investigated reaction among different ones prepared based upon various impregnation extent of the potassium carbonate. The influence of this parameter was examined through a... 

In this study, the flow of a fiber filled viscoelastic matrix through planar contractions is investigated. It was found that by adding fiber to the matrix vortex, the intensity increases. Fiber orientation along "x" and "y" axes was studied too. It was found that fiber orientation could be used for determining the flow regime through the contraction geometry. The rigidity condition of fibers, which needs the trace of the orientation tensor to be unity everywhere in the domain, is correct except near walls and the reentrant corner, which is slightly less than one. In these regions, the stress magnitude is higher, which results in more numerical errors, and which further leads to some error in... 

The electrokinetic phenomena at high zeta potentials may show several unique features which are not normally observed. One of these features is the ionic size (steric) effect associated with the solutions of high ionic concentration. In the present work, attention is given to the influences of finite ionic size on the cross stream diffusion process in an electrokinetically actuated Y-shaped micromixer. The method consists of a finite difference based numerical approach for non-uniform grid which is applied to the dimensionless form of the governing equations, including the modified Poisson-Boltzmann equation. The results reveal that, neglecting the ionic size at high zeta potentials gives... 

Surface registration is a necessary step and widely used in medical image-aided surgery. It's relevance to medical imaging is that there is much useful anatomical information in the form of collected surface points which originate from complimentary modalities. In this study, the kinematic relations between two point clouds with different coordinate definitions have been generated. Using Influence Method of surface modeling for extracting point clouds functions, the transformation matrix would be resulted. The proposed method was applied for an experimental femur data points(651 points) using the MRI images. These data points were transformed in a 30 degrees flexion of knee. This... 

Some of electrokinetic-based biomicrofluidic devices work at zeta potentials that are sufficiently high for ionic size (steric) effects to show up. In the present effort, consideration is given to the steric effects on the hydrodynamics of electroosmotic flow in a rectangular microchannel. The distinction between this research and the previous ones is that we account for non-linear rheology of the fluids encountered in biomicrofluidic systems by means of the power-law viscosity model. The method of analysis consists of a finite-difference-based numerical procedure for a non-uniform distribution of grid points, which is applied to the dimensionless form of the governing equations including... 

Both nonlinear rheology and finite EDL thickness effects on the mixing process in an electroosmotically actuated Y-sensor are being investigated in this paper, utilizing a depthwise averaging method based on the Taylor dispersion theory. The fluid rheological behavior is assumed to obey the power-law viscosity model. Analytical solutions are obtained assuming a large channel width to depth ratio for which a 1-D profile can efficiently describe the velocity distribution. Full numerical simulations are also performed to determine the applicability range of the analytical model, revealing that it is able to provide accurate results for channel aspect ratios of ten and higher and quite... 

This paper introduces a novel, cost effective visual cryptography scheme suitable for color image transmission over bandwidth constraint channels. Unlike previously proposed schemes, the solution offers perfect reconstruction while producing shares with size smaller than that of the input image. The maximum distance separable (MDS) code principle used in the design allows for the introduction of a flexible framework that compares favorably to competing solutions as it can be seen by examining the experimental results included in this paper. ©2008 IEEE  

Contraction flow is one of important geometries in fluid flow both in Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids. In this study, flow of a viscoelastic fluid through a planar 4:1 contraction with rounded corners was investigated. Six different rounding ratios (RR =0, 0.125, 0.25, 0.375, 0.438, 0.475, 0.488) was examined using the linear PTT constitutive equation at creeping flow and isothermal condition. Then the resulting PDE set including continuity, momentum, and PTT constitutive equations were implemented to the OpenFOAM software. The results clearly show vortex deterioration with increasing rounding diameter, so that when rounding corner exceeds a critical value, the vortex disappears...