Sharif Digital Repository

In the present study a finite difference method has been developed to model the transient fluid flow and heat transfer. A single fluid has been selected for modeling of mold filling and The SOLA-VOF 3D technique was modified to increase the accuracy of simulation of filling phenomena for shape castings. The model was then evaluated with the experimental methods. Refereeing to the experimental and simulation results a good consistency and the accuracy of the suggested model are confirmed. © 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V  

In the casting process, as a mould is filled with molten metal, air escapes through the vents. Air pressure in the mould cavity has serious effects upon the filling behaviour such as surface profile of the molten metal and filling time. In this project a computational model was developed for calculation of air pressure during the mould filling. A 3D single phase code based on the SOLA-VOF algorithm was used for the prediction of the fluid flow. The ideal gas assumption, conservation of mass equation and Bernoulli law were used for the calculation of air pressure. A new algorithm was developed to interpolate air pressure on the surface cells. The creation of air pressure was correlated with... 

In this paper, we report our evaluation of the strength of random number generator and RSA key-pair generator of some commercially available constrained hardware modules, i.e., tokens and smart cards. That was motivated after recent related attacks to RSA public keys, which are generated by constrained network devices and smart cards, and turned out to be insecure due to low-quality randomness. Those attacks are mostly computing pair-wise GCD between the moduli in public keys, and resulted in breaking several thousands of these keys. Our results show that most of the tested hardware modules behave well. However, some have abnormal or weak random generators which seem to be unsuitable for... 

In continuum mechanics, the constitutive models are usually based on the Cauchy-Born (CB) hypothesis which seeks the intrinsic characteristics of the material via the atomistic information and it is valid in small deformation. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the temperature effect on the stability and size-dependency of Cauchy-Born hypothesis. Three-dimensional temperature-related Cauchy-Born formulations are developed for crystalline structure and the stability and size-dependency of temperature-related Cauchy-Born hypothesis are investigated by means of direct comparison between atomistic and continuous mediums. In order to control the temperature effect, the Nose-Hoover... 

In this paper we developed a new mathematical model for the flow inside cascade impactors and via this simplified model, we determined the particle size distribution by a fast and low cost computational method. Using cascade impactors for determining the particle size distribution, one can use comprehensive CFD methods to fully simulate the particle traces. Although the results from those CFD analyses can be very accurate, usually that is not a time and cost efficient routine. In contrast, we showed that by using our proposed calculation we can estimate the particle size distribution very fast and yet with the slight error -comparing to the results from CFD method. Cascade impactors are... 

Airlift systems (ALS) are widely used in various fields such as petroleum and oil extracting industries. As gas-liquid two phase flow is the main part of the flow through these systems, the analysis of such systems accompanies with problems of two phase flow modeling. However, exergy analysis could be a simple method for modeling of airlift systems. In the present study, an analytical model based on thermodynamic principles has been implemented on each phase to analyze the performance of airlift systems. The experimental data were collected at a large scale multiphase flow test rig for the airlift pump with 6m height and diameter of 50 mm. Finally, irreversibility terms, energy destruction,... 

In an ac microgrid, a common frequency exists for coordinating active power sharing among droop-controlled sources. A common frequency is absent in a dc microgrid, leaving only the dc source voltages for coordinating active power sharing. That causes sharing error and poorer voltage regulation in dc microgrids, which in most cases, are solved by a secondary control layer reinforced by an extensive communication network. To avoid such an infrastructure and its accompanied complications, this paper proposes an alternative droop scheme for low-voltage dc microgrid with both primary power sharing and secondary voltage regulation merged. The main idea is to introduce a non-zero unifying frequency... 

In a classical ac microgrid (MG), a common frequency exists for coordinating active power sharing among droop-controlled sources. Like the frequency-droop method, a voltage-based droop approach has been employed to control the converters in low voltage direct current (LVDC) MGs. However, voltage variation due to the droop gains and line resistances causes poor power sharing and voltage regulation in dc MG, which in most cases are solved by a secondary controller by using a communication network. To avoid such an infrastructure and its accompanied complications, this paper proposes a new droop scheme to control dc sources by introducing a small ac voltage superimposed onto the output dc... 

Centralized or decentralized secondary controller is commonly employed to regulate the voltage drop raised by the primary controller. However, in the case of high capacity microgrids (MGs) and long feeders with much voltage drop on the line resistances, the conventional methods may not guarantee the voltage regulation on the load busses within a suitable range. Therefore, in addition to compensate the voltage drop of the primary controller, it is necessary to regulate the voltage of critical loads. In this paper, a new voltage regulation strategy is proposed to regulate the voltage of MG by employing the average voltage of identified critical busses, which are determined by the proposed... 

The aim of this work is to investigate flow hydrodynamics in porous media. Random non-overlapping spherical particles in a cylindrical geometry were produced as a porous media. Navier-Stokes equations in three-dimensional porous packed bed have been solved and dimensionless pressure drop has been studied for a fluid flow through the porous media at different Reynolds numbers (based on pore permeability and interstitial fluid velocity). The numerical results are in good agreement with those reported by Macdonald (1979) in the range of Reynolds numbers studied. At higher Reynolds numbers turbulent models such as large eddy simulation (LES) and Reynolds stress model (RSM) also have been... 

In this study, a numerical investigation was done on the optical properties of silver nanostructures using the boundary element method (BEM) and finite element method (FEM). The BEM simulation was done using a freely available code called MNBEM in MATLAB with minor modifications. The FEM simulation was done by Comsol Multiphysics, a commercial software package. Silver nanostructures in the sphere, rod, and triangle geometries and the presence of different polarization angles were compared between these two methods. According to the obtained results, the absorption cross-sections for both BEM and FEM were consistent with their actual optical properties. For instance, both longitudinal and... 

Interface engineering has emerged as a great strategy for fabrication of high efficiency and stable perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Here, we deposit a thin layer of ZnS as a buffer layer at the interface of the perovskite absorber and electron transporting layer (ETL) using the atomic layer deposition (ALD) process. The impact of the ZnS layer on the photovoltaic characteristics of PSCs was investigated by comparison of two mesoscopic configurations, in which the ZnS layer is grown on compact TiO2 and on mesoporous TiO2 surfaces. Our results revealed that the addition of an ultrathin ZnS layer between the perovskite and ETL drastically improves the charge extraction properties and reduces... 

In this paper we propose a new model for the near-far effect in a CDMA system. We derive upper and lower bounds for the maximum near-far effect for errorless transmission. Using these bounds, we propose some near-far resistant codes. Also a very low complexity ML decoder for a subclass of the proposed codes is suggested  

In this paper a novel droop approach for power management in low voltage dc MicroGrids (MGs) based on a master-slave concept is presented. A virtual frequency is injected by a master unit, which is proportional to its output power. Other slave units determine their output power according to the corresponding frequency based droop characteristics. Unlike the dc voltage-droop methods, the proposed virtual frequency-droop approach can be smartly applied for proportional power management among the energy units and loads as well as adding zero net energy capability to the MG. Both power flow and energy flow can be performed without utilizing an extra communication system. Simulation results... 

In this paper we introduce a new ordering policy for inventory control in a two-echelon inventory system consisting of one central warehouse and a number of non-identical retailers. The warehouse uses a modified one-for-one policy, but the retailers apply a new policy which is different from the traditional inventory policies described in the literature of inventory and production control systems. In this system, each retailer constantly places an order for one unit of product to the central warehouse in a pre-determined time interval; i.e., the time interval between any two consecutive orders from each retailer is a fixed number and the quantity of each order is one. We then show how the... 

The aim of this work is to analyze methane-fed internal reforming solid oxide fuel cell-gas turbine (IRSOFC-GT) power generation system based on the first and second law of thermodynamics. Exergy analysis is used to indicate the thermodynamic losses in each unit and to assess the work potentials of the streams of matter and of heat interactions. The system consists of a prereformer, a SOFC stack, a combustor, a turbine, a fuel compressor and air compressor, recuperators and a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). A parametric study is also performed to evaluate the effect of various parameters such as fuel flow rate, air flow rate, temperature and pressure on system performance. © 2007... 

In this paper, we propose a novel method for academic assessment inspired by the decentralized applications made possible by blockchain technology. The proposed method applies to a wide range of academic material, including assignments, exams, academic papers, etc and tackles issues regarding potential personal bias and makes assessment possible without the need to rely on a few assessors. We examine the challenges and possibilities that arise with this method and further explore more general applications in areas such as education. In the experiments conducted for this research, poll results show generally positive views toward the fairness of this system compared to the traditional... 

Lake Urmia (LU) once was the second largest hypersaline lake in the world, covering up to 6000 km2, but has undergone catastrophic desiccation in recent years resulting in loss of 90% of its area and extensive coverage by playas and marshlands that represent a source of salt and dust. This study examines daily Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) between 2001 and 2015 over northwestern Iran, which encompasses LU. Intriguingly, salt emissions from the LU surface associated with ongoing desiccation do not drive the study region's AOD profile, whereas pollution transported from other regions and emissions around LU are more important.... 

Owing to the advantages of nanocomposites for structural applications, we present microstructural evolutions and texture development during dissimilar friction stir welding (DFSW) of an Al-matrix hybrid nanocomposite (Al-2 vol.-% Al2O3-2 vol.-% SiC) with AA1050. It is shown that DFSW can successfully be performed at a rotating speed of 1200 rev min−1 and a transverse speed of 50 mm min−1 while locating the nanocomposite at retreating side. Formation of macro-, micro-, and nano-mechanical interlocks between dissimilar base materials (BMs) as a result of FSW tool stirring action possessed an impact influence on the mechanical performance of dissimilar welds. Electron microscopy revealed...