Sharif Digital Repository

A general investigation of the viscosity of natural gas as a function of temperature, pressure and composition was carried out to develop a generalized correlation. The model obtained was based on 3231 data points of 29 multicomponent mixtures in wide ranges of pressures (0.1-137.8MPa), temperatures (241-473K) and specific gravities (0.573-1.337). Correction terms for non-hydrocarbons of hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen were up to 70, 54.4 and 15.8 of mole percent, respectively. The arithmetic average of the model's absolute error was found to be 5.05%, which is acceptable in engineering calculations and has superiority over other methods in its class  

Commercially pure aluminum sheets, AA 1050, are processed by accumulative roll bonding (ARB) up to eight cycles to achieve ultrafine-grained (UFG) aluminum as primary material for mechanical testing. Optical microscopy and electron backscattering diffraction analysis are used for microstructural analysis of the processed sheets. Strain rate sensitivity (m-value) of the specimens is measured over a wide range of strain rates by stress relaxation test under plane strain compression. It is shown that the flow stress activation volume is reduced by decrease of the grain size. This reduction which follows a linear relation for UFG specimens, is thought to enhance the required effective (or... 

One of the main factors affecting membrane fouling in MBRs is operational conditions. In this study the influence of aeration rate, filtration mode, and SRT on hollow fiber membrane fouling was investigated using a triple fouling layers perspective. The sludge microbial population distribution was also determined by PCR method. Through various applied operational scenarios the optimal conditions were: aeration rate of 15 LPM; relaxation mode with 40s duration and 8 min. interval; and SRT of 30 days. The similarity between SMP variations in triple fouling layers with its corresponding hydraulic resistance confirmed the effect of SMP on membrane fouling. Among three fouling fractions, the... 

We propose a self-adaptive process (SAP) that maintains the software architecture quality using the MAPE-K standard model. The proposed process can be plugged into various software development processes and service-oriented methodologies due to its explicitly defined inputs and outputs. To this aim, the proposed SAP is integrated with the service-oriented modeling and application (SOMA) methodology in a two-layered structure to create a novel methodology, named self-adaptive service-oriented architecture methodology (SASOAM), which provides a semi-automatic self-aware method by the composition of architectural tactics. Moreover, the maintenance activity of SOMA is improved using... 

Permeability reduction in porous media as a result of frail and tenuous fine particles migration would decrease the productivity index in the subterranean reservoirs. During reservoir stimulation by injecting fluids into the reservoir, as the salinity condition of the formation brine changes, fine particles initiate the triggering process. In this study, MgO-based nanofluid as a fines fixation agent was stably prepared based on the particle size distribution and characterized through transmission electron microscopy analysis. Afterward, several core flooding tests were performed using Berea sandstone cores to study the effect of nanofluid injection on fines fixation in the water shock... 

Developing extremely efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reactions (OER) is a decisive step toward the progression of rechargeable metal-oxygen batteries, CO2 reduction, and water-splitting. Nanoporous high-entropy transition-metal sulfides (np-HETMS) represent a new generation of promising OER catalysts by virtue of their exceptional catalytic activity. However, their synthesis maintains to be a challenge by reason of the thermodynamic immiscibility of the constituting multi-principal metallic elements in the sulfide structure. Herein, for the first time, the np-HETMS ((CoFeNiMnCu)S2) nanoparticles with pyrite-phase was synthesized via a facile and easy adaptable... 

One of the main challenges in arid and semi-arid regions is the lack of water for various purposes such as industrial and agricultural applications. The problem is even more significant in traditional agriculture. The geographical location, climatic conditions, average annual rainfall, vegetation, air pollution and turbidity, and canopy of plants are important and lead to different water consumption in plants. Therefore, proper water consumption in agriculture in most countries leads to food security and a better supply of crops. In this research, we propose a fuzzy system that has eight inputs and seven outputs. Inputs include soil moisture, relative humidity, air temperature, wind speed,... 

This study has investigated the effect of carbon coating on the electrochemical performance of SnO2 Nanowires (NWs) as an electrode along with a bis (trifluoromethane) sulfonimide lithium (LiTFSI)-based electrolyte in a lithium-ion battery (LIB). The vapor-liquid-solid approach has been used to grow SnO2 NWs on the stainless steel mesh current collector. The obtained results have demonstrated that the utilization of the LiTFSI-based electrolyte improved the battery performance with the SnO2 NWs electrode over the LiPF6-based electrolyte. This may be due to the formation of a stable and thin solid electrolyte interphase layer. Since bare SnO2 NWs exhibit inferior cycling stability due to... 

High-performance photodetectors play critical roles in numerous photon-based applications in imaging, communication, and energy harvesting. Nowadays, heterostructures have received significant attention to extend the performance of photodetectors, with exceptionally high optical absorption and a wide absorption range. However, the enhancement factors, exact mechanism, and facile fabrication procedures are long-standing problems. Here, a heterojunction of a two-dimensional chemical vapor deposition-grown monolayer of WSe2with a Cu2ZnSnS4(CZTS) film is introduced. The CZTS film as an abundant material was synthesized in the form of nanoparticles, and it showed a great effect on the enhancement... 

The great promise of electrochemical water splitting for green and sustainable hydrogen fuel production has motivated researchers to strive for more efficient and low-cost catalysts based on non-precious metals. In this study, MoS2 nanoflowers decorated with CuCo2O4 were successfully synthesized, and their catalytic activities toward the electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in an alkaline medium were investigated. The composition, structure, and morphology of the as-synthesized catalysts were explored by various techniques such as FT-IR, XRD, BET, SEM, and TEM. To maximize the catalytic activity, the composition of the nanocomposites was systematically varied. Catalytic results... 

In recent years, declining fossil fuel reserves and increasing environmental concerns led to higher utilization of renewable energy source (RES). One of the RES is Solar energy which is abundantly found in different areas of the globe, particularly in Iran. The aim of this research is to select a suitable site for constructing a solar power plant to generate electricity-hydrogen in southern Iran, Kerman province. For this purpose, a new hybrid Multi criteria decision making method is used. The Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA)method is used to weigh the criteria and the Measurement of alternatives and ranking according to Compromise solution (MARCOS)method is used to rank... 

This paper presents a multi-model robust control (MMRC) design for an offshore variable speed wind turbine with tension leg platform. The proposed control scheme covers the model uncertainty in the above rated wind speed, and it provides a reliable control for power regulation while minimizing the mechanical loads on the wind turbine structure. For this purpose, the above rated wind speed region is divided into several wind speed groups, and a set of linearized models are obtained from the Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence (FAST) simulator for various mean wind speeds of each group. Using Weibull wind speed distribution, a nominal model with additive uncertainty is generated... 

This paper empirically examines the hydrodynamic performances of squat submarines under the resistance and wave tests beside numerical investigation of pressure drag reduction techniques. Despite vast information about the operation of the streamlined fluid vessels, there is not much information about the geometries and hydrodynamic behaviors of squat vessels with L/D ratios below four. This study experimentally investigates the impacts of various relative depths and flow inclinations, intending to find drag, heave, and sway forces at the velocities of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5-m/s. A one-tenth scaled model of a squat submarine is examined under the resistance and wave train scenarios as... 

Although concrete armour units have traditionally been used in two layers, the application of single-layer armour has attracted more attention in recent years because of its lower concrete volume and faster construction pace. Single-layer amour relies mainly on the contact between units to provide stability; however, installation of special armour types with surface projections for better interlocking, increases the possibility of breakage. During the last decade the idea of using bulky armour units such as cubes has been raised, and the application of these single-layer armour units has become common for high-crested breakwaters. However, the application of cube armours for low-crested... 

An increasing trend for reducing cost, space, and weight leads to modern embedded systems that execute multiple tasks with different criticality levels on a common hardware platform while guaranteeing a safe operation. In such mixed-criticality (MC) systems, multiple worst case execution times (WCETs) are defined for each task, corresponding to the system operation mode to improve the MC system's timing behavior at runtime. Determining the appropriate WCETs for lower criticality (LC) modes is nontrivial. On the one hand, considering a very low WCET for tasks can improve the processor utilization by scheduling more tasks in that mode, on the other hand, using a larger WCET ensures that the... 

Performance and reliability are two prominent factors in the design of data storage systems. To achieve higher performance, recently storage system designers use DynamicDynamic RAMRAM (DRAM)-based buffers. The volatility of DRAM brings up the possibility of data loss and data inconsistency. Thus, a part of the main storage is conventionally used as the journal area to be able of recovering unflushed data pages in the case of power failure. Moreover, periodically flushing buffered data pages to the main storage is a common mechanism to preserve a high level of reliability. This scheme, however, leads to a considerable increase in storage write traffic, which adversely affects the performance.... 

Increasing usage of Solid-State Drives (SSDs) has greatly boosted the performance of storage backends. SSDs perform many internal processes such as out-of-place writes, wear-leveling, and garbage collection. These operations are complex and not well documented which make it difficult to create accurate SSD simulators. Our survey indicates that aside from complex configuration, available SSD simulators do not support both sync and discard requests. Past performance models also ignore the long term effect of I/O requests on SSD performance, which has been demonstrated to be significant. In this article, we utilize a methodology based on machine learning that extracts history-aware features at... 

Supply chain management integrates planning and controlling of materials, information, and finances in a process which begins from suppliers and ends with customers. Optimal planning decisions made in such a distribution network usually include transportation, facilities location, and inventory. This study presents a new approach for considering customers’ differentiation in an integrated location-allocation and inventory control model using transfer recurrent neural network (RNN). In this study, a location and allocation problem is integrated with inventory control decisions considering two classes of strategic and non-strategic customers. For the first time, a novel transfer RNN is applied... 

Phosphatidylcholine (PC) possesses amphiphilic characteristics to form vesicles or liposome nanoparticles and can be utilized to deliver essential nutrients such as proteins, peptide antigens, and essential fatty acids. In this study, an attempt has been made to obtain purified PC and evaluate its potential in nanoliposome synthesis and its corresponding drug release profile. In this regard, four physical separation techniques comprising extraction, precipitation, static, and dynamic adsorption were assessed and applied to purify PC from soybean lecithin. Different solvents and the ratio of lecithin to solvent were used to achieve the highest PC percentage. The results of an HPLC test showed...