Sharif Digital Repository

One of the critical challenges in droplet based micro- and nanofluidic devices is handling the droplet breakup such that a controllable droplet size is produced. The experimental and numerical investigations at the microscale indicate that the droplet size can be well controlled by T junction geometries. In the present study we use non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations to investigate this phenomenon at the nanoscale. In order to generalize the study the Lennard-Jones type potential between the fluids and the walls have been considered and the strength and the effective range of the potential are changed to consider a wide variety of materials. Our results reveal that the... 

Significant advances in biotechnology have led to the emergence of a cost-effective way with less ethical issues to study disease, organ functions, tumors, and their response to drugs besides studying on animals. Microfluidic devices and organ on a chip (tumor on a chip) were introduced to remove those obstacles. Organ on a chip is a powerful tool for studying different types of tissues and simulating diseases, especially cancers, for biological and medical applications. Organ (tumor) on a chip is considered as a smaller scale of the real organ or tumor and it causes to the real-time study of tissues and their functions more accurately. In this study, to fabricate a droplet-based... 

Droplet-based microfluidic logic gates have many applications in diagnostic tests and biosciences due to their automation and cascading ability. Although most biological fluids, such as blood, exhibit non-Newtonian properties, all previous studies in this field have been with Newtonian fluids. Additionally, none of the previous work has studied the functional area of logic gates. In the present work, AND-OR logic gate with power-law fluid is considered. The effect of important parameters such as non-Newtonian fluid properties, droplet length, capillary number, and geometrical properties of the microfluidic system on the operating region of the system has been investigated. The results show... 

The actuation mechanism of the tip of the laparoscopic instrument is the main problem in designing the process of miniature scale motorized instruments especially when high level of functionality and multi degrees of freedom (DOF) are concerned. Previous studies suggest local actuation as the best design for this kind of end effectors. In the present study, different actuation methods of needle holders were reviewed, related capabilities and drawbacks were evaluated and a hybrid local actuated design was appointed. The hybrid design included a micro DC motor and a PZT actuator. The main idea behind it was to combine the advantages of DC motors and piezoelectric (PZT) actuators in providing... 

Friction stir welding (FSW) is considered a significant manufacturing process for joining of different metals and alloys and usage of this process has been developed in different industries. Accordingly, extensive works have been done on FSW of different engineering materials. However many ambiguous problems related to thermo-mechanical behavior of this process have not been solved yet. This research investigates FSW behavior of a hardenable aluminum alloy, AA2017. Firstly, thermo-mechanical response of the material has been predicted using a three-dimensional finite element analysis performed in ABAQUS software. Then, microstructural events such as grain size, distribution of second phase... 

Rapid growing use of energy resources in recent decades, caused to focus on combined heat and power generation systems according to their high efficiencies. Energy efficiencies with these technologies will be up to 90 percent. Some benefits of Co-generation systems are their high efficiencies, omitting of transmission and distribution lossesin the electricity grid, fuel consumption reduction, moving to ward privatization,independent and decentralized production of electricity and heat, increase competition in the power generation and reduction theemission of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. In This article theeconomicsof combined heat and power generator stobe installed... 

In this study, temperature and Thermo-mechanical stress Distributions during and after TIG welding operations of AA2024 have been investigated by means of numerical simulation and experimental observations. Different geometries and initial microstructures, i.e. artificially and naturally aged alloys, have been selected. The model can determine the effect of welding parameters as well as mechanical fixtures on temperature and stress fields developed within metal being welded. Furthermore the subsequent aging behaviour of welded alloy (up to 70 days) has been evaluated employing hardness measurement and tensile testing. In addition, microstructural evolutions have been made utilising Scanning... 

Electric Arc Furnaces" are of the most important industries in energy field. High energy consumption leads us to improve model for optimizing energy demand in electric arc furnaces. Melting and refining are two processes which need high amounts of energy. There are several different energy resources in electric arc furnaces. Materials can receive energy from electric arc or from chemical reactions that takes place between molten steel and slag. In addition, some slag formers should be added to the furnace. There are complicated relations between mass transfers, heat transfer and energy balance in EAF. In order to solve energy conservation problem in EAF, we should first extract equations to... 

The design of inlet ports for spark ignition internal combustion engines has a direct and well-known influence on performance and emissions as a result of changes in volumetric efficiency and fuel burn rate.The design of ports is becoming more critical as SI engines are developed further to meet increasingly stringent exhaust emissions legislations. Lately further emphasis has been placed on port design by the re-emergence of the direct injection gasoline engine.
Due to lean burning, combustion instability and increasing the cycle to cycle variations, in the direct injection engine, combustion charactersitics will be improved by increasing the tumble in-cylinder flow and the turbulence... 

In this paper, we introduced two methods for producing unequal sized droplet from an initial one that don’t have the disadvantages of the available methods. We developed a comprehensive analytical theory for the T-junction with valve method. Also the geometry was simulated using a VOF algorithm and a comparison was performed between numerical and analytical results and very good agreement was observed. The accuracy of numerical results was confirmed by doing the grid independency and time step independency and comparing the results with two analytical benchmarks. We derived accurate analytical relations for calculating the droplet volume ratio, droplet length (L1, L2 and Lwhole) and pressure... 

Ultrasonic flowmeters are one of the common and profitable measurement tools and applied in many industrial fields.Ultrasonic flowmeters work based on transit-time technique. The transit-time utilizes the propagation time of the ultrasonic signal in the fluid. Since ultrasonic signals can also penetrate solid materials, a pair of transducers is installed on the surface of tube. Each transducer works alternatively as both transmitter and receiver of ultrasonic signals.In this study, effect of temperature gradient on flowmeter measurements by applying constant temperature and uniform heat flux on the boundary is investigated numerically for methane gas in laminar flow regime and the results... 

In this project, transport and absorption of magnetic particles for the purpose of water purification has been simulated. The used magnetic particles must be collected; otherwise they would cause additional pollution. Therefore, separation and absorption of particles is vital. The particles can be collected with an applied magnetic field. In this study different kinds of magnetic fields are applied and effect of different parameters, such as particle diameter, Reynolds number and magnetic field are considered. By increasing particle diameter and magnetic filed strength, the absorption efficiency increases. But by increasing Reynolds number absorption efficiency decreases. The particle with... 

Droplet formation and breakup processes are one of the important steps in many microfluidic devices with a wide range of biological and chemical applications. The purpose of this study is numerical simulation of non-Newtonian droplet formation under the influence of electric field in a microfluidic system. The innovation aspect of this project is the use of non-Newtonian fluid in this process, which, despite many applications in real issues, has been less studied, and in most of the previous researches, Newtonian fluid assumption has been used to simplify the solving. Also, simultaneously, the effects of an external electric field on this process were also studied. Carboxymethyl cellulose... 

Studies in recent years show that more than 57% of all suspended particles released from stationary and mobile sources in Tehran are from diesel vehicles. Reducing the release of this pollutant can be very effective in improving the air condition of Tehran. At the moment, Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) are considered as the most effective and available technology to reduce particulate emissions from diesel engine exhaust. In this research, the results of the tests on two types of non-catalyzed DPFs under Iran’s conditions have been analyzed. In the motor test, the efficiency of the filters is monitored in the state of operation with the engine representing the country's diesel engines and... 

It is aimed in this study to numerically investigate the effect of contact angle on the heat transfer coefficient in oil-water two-phase flow. For this purpose, the finite element method (FEM) is used to solve the unsteady Navier-Stokes and energy equations. The level set method is also used to capture the interface between the phases. In the first part of the study, two-phase flow of the water and calibration oil is considered in a T-junction geometry at contact angles of 5°, 40°, and 75°. It is observed that the flow patterns formed in the microchannel depend on the initial flow condition which results in the hysteresis phenomenon. Investigating the effect of wall contact angle on the... 

The stiffness rate of the 300 series austenitic stainless steel has long been known to depend on the stability of the austenite and its susceptibility to martensite formation. In this project, the cold deformation of austenitic stainless steel (304L) and the occurrence of martensite deformation during it are studied. Experimental cold rolling experiments under different strain velocities and initial temperatures in the range of -10° C to 25° C; Performed and microstructure, mechanical properties and percentage of martensite generated in rolled steel are determined and evaluated employing different testing techniques. mathematical modeling of cold rolling operation is also performed using... 

In this research, the effects of natural and artificial aging heat treatments on the mechanical and wear behavior of an aluminum alloy from the 7xxx series have been investigated. The study commenced with annealing of the received samples, which were subsequently divided into four categories. One of these categories was placed in a freezer as annealed samples, while the other two underwent artificial aging heat treatments at temperatures of 180 and 210 degrees Celsius. The final category naturally aged over time. As a result, different structures with varied distributions and morphologies of precipitates were formed, and the mechanical properties, mechanisms, and wear resistance of the... 

Despite the extensive research conducted so far to treat cancer, this disease is still one of the main causes of death worldwide. The results of recent studies reveal the importance of the tumor microenvironment in the growth, proliferation, and invasion of the primary tumor. Most common models in cancer research, such as 2-dimensional in vitro models and xenografts, do not have sufficient ability to mimic the interaction of tumors with human stromal tissue. Therefore, the implementation of 3-dimensional in vitro models with the ability to replicate tumor microenvironments is essential. In this study, a microfluidic platform has been introduced to create parallel models of the tumor... 

The use of superhydrophobic surfaces is one the most promising methods for reducing the friction and increasing the flow rate in fluid transfer systems. Since in such systems the surface structure plays a key role, in the first part of this study, the performance of the hierarchical nanostructures is explored. These nanostructures are inspired by the superhydrophobic surface of the lotus leaf. The flow is considered between two walls with hierarchical nanostructures and simulate the system via the molecular dynamics (MD) method. The size of the nanostructures and the distance between them have been studied to find whether a design with maximum flow rate exists. The nanostructures have two... 

Gas turbine engine control is a demanding task that requires the regulation of the thrust as well as the satisfaction of the limitations such as engine aerodynamic instability, over temperature and over speed. Fuzzy logic is an attractive technique for the control of poor understood unmodeled, or complex systems especially where the experience of human operators is available to provide qualitative rules. In such cases, it has been found that control decisions can be made on the basis of linguistic measures or fuzzy algorithms. The controller that is designed on the basis of this theory is called fuzzy logic controller. The main objective of this thesis is hardware implementation of fuzzy...