Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, modeling and control of a new cable-driven robot is presented. In this mechanism, the cable arrangement eliminates the rotational motions leaving the moving platform with three translational motion. The mechanism has potentials for large scale manipulation and robotics in harsh environments. In this article kinematics and dynamics models for the proposed cable-driven architecture are derived. Additionally, Feedback linearization under input constraints is used for the control of the robot. The control algorithm ensures the cable tensions are positive while minimizing the sum of all the torques exerted by the actuators. Finally, the implementation of the proposed method is... 

A multi-item multiperiod inventory control model is developed for known-deterministic variable demands under limited available budget. Assuming the order quantity is more than the shortage quantity in each period, the shortage in combination of backorder and lost sale is considered. The orders are placed in batch sizes and the decision variables are assumed integer. Moreover, all unit discounts for a number of products and incremental quantity discount for some other items are considered. While the objectives are to minimize both the total inventory cost and the required storage space, the model is formulated into a fuzzy multicriteria decision making (FMCDM) framework and is shown to be a... 

In this study, crosslinked and non-crosslinked carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) membranes were prepared with different concentrations of polymer. Then, the permeability of pure CO2, N2, and CH4 was measured through these membranes in dry state to investigate the influence of polymer concentration and applied feed pressure on permeability and permselectivity. The permeability of CO2 through membranes was higher than the other gases. A comparison of permeabilities revealed that the permeability of N2, CO2, and CH4 increased on an average of 33, 40 and 20 percent, respectivly, by increasing the feed pressure from 6 to 10... 

In this paper, the shear deformation behavior of A286 Iron-based superalloy was studied with an emphasis on the influence of η phase on shear strength. The η (Ni3Ti phase precipitates at high temperature heat treatment or during services at the expense of gamma prime phase. According to the microstructural features, no evidences of η phase were found at 650 and 720°C. η phase precipitated at 780 and 840°C and the amount of it increased with an increase the time and temperature. Because of using the alloy as fasteners, investigation of shear properties and the influence of η phase on it are indispensable. The shear strength of the alloy with different volume fractions of η was examined. It... 

People make decisions and express their opinions according to their communities. A natural idea for controlling the diffusion of a behavior is to find influential people, and employ them to spread a desired behavior. We investigate an influencing problem when individuals' behaviors are affected by their friends in an opinion formation process. Our goal is to design efficient algorithms for finding opinion leaders such that changing their opinions has a great impact on the overall external behaviors in the society. We study directed social networks and define a set of problems like maximizing the sum of individuals' behaviors or maximizing the number of individuals whose external behaviors... 

Optical tweezers have proven to be indispensable micromanipulation tools especially in aqueous solutions. Because of the significantly larger spherical aberration induced by the refractive index mismatch, trapping aerosols has always been cumbersome if not impossible. We introduce a simple but very efficient method for optimized aerosol trapping at a desired depth. We show that a wise selection of the immersion medium and the mechanical tube length not only enables trapping of objects that are known to be untrappable but also provides a way to tune the trappable depth range  

TiO2 and transition metal (Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Zn) doped TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by the sol-gel method using 2-hydroxylethylammonium formate as an ionic liquid. All the prepared samples were calcined at 500 °C and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), BET surface area determination, energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and Fourier transformed infrared (FT-IR) techniques. The studies revealed that transition metal (TM) doped nanoparticles have smaller crystalline size and higher surface area than pure TiO2. Dopant ions in the TiO2 structure caused significant absorption shift into the visible region. The results of... 

This paper presents a new point-to-face contact algorithm for contacts between two polyhedrons with planar boundaries. A new discrete numerical method called three-dimensional discontinuous deformation analysis (3-D DDA) is used and formulations of normal contact submatrices based on the proposed algorithm are derived. The presented algorithm is a simple and efficient method and it can be easily coded into a computer program. This approach does not need to use an iterative algorithm in each time step to obtain the contact plane, unlike the ‘Common-Plane’ method applied in the existing 3-D DDA. In the present 3-D DDA method, block contact constraints are enforced using the penalty method.... 

Electrochemical potential noise analysis was used to investigate corrosion behavior of copper electrodes in presence of 0.001, 0.005, 0.01 and 0.02 M benzotriazole (BTA) inhibitor. Energy distribution of the potential noise was obtained from wavelet transformation using the 4th order Daubechies pattern. Two lowest frequencies were added-up and fitted to the impulse response of the first order circuit to achieve the time-constant vs. concentration (T-C) diagram. T-C diagram can be used either as a conventional diagram of inhibition efficiency or a tool for evaluation of the surface film dielectric constant. The assumptions made in this treatment were confirmed by EIS method. © 2009 Elsevier... 

FePt nanoparticles were synthesis via high-temperature solution phase. Monodispersed 3.5 nm FePt nanoparticles were first obtained by reduction of FeCl2.4H2O and Pt(acac)2. These preformed FePt nanoparticles were then combined with NaCl to prevent from sintering after annealing. The 1 micron salt particles were fabricated by ultra-sonic vibration method and used as the separating media. Annealing studies show that these salt-matrix FePt nanoparticles are stable after annealing at 700 °C for 4 h. The annealed FePt particles diameter increases from 4 to 25 nm as observed by TEM. The magnetic properties are largely affected by annealing temperature. The role of these salt particles on sintering... 

In this paper, electrical wire explosion (EWE) was used as a simple, clean, in situ method to synthesise nano zero-valent iron (nZVI) particles in liquid mediums. The structural and physical properties of the synthesised nZVI particles were characterised by x-ray diffraction, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller analysis, field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The synthesised spherical nanoparticles, at a specific size of 10–50 nm, possessed large surface areas of approximately 13.27 m2/g, reinforcing the significant advantages of EWE, that is, less aggregation and in situ production of nanoparticles with enhanced removal efficacy, for groundwater treatment.... 

We used two digital methods—rise time discrimination (RTD) and an artificial neural network (ANN)—to simultaneously discriminate alpha particles and gamma rays detected by a phoswich detector (50 μm BC-400 coupled to 3 mm CsI(Tl)). The results for 10,000 pulses discriminated by the RTD method showed that the rise time distribution of the pulses is rather vast (between 200 and 800 ns for gamma rays and less than 40 ns for alpha particles). The same result was also observed in the dual-parameter diagram (pulse rise time versus area under the pulse) for an 241Am source. Then, as another approach, three pulse features—rise time, pulse height ratio, and charge ratio—were extracted from 2000... 

Electrical discharge machining is a non-traditional machining method broadly employed in industries for machining of parts that have typical profiles and require great accuracy. This paper investigates the effects of electrical parameters: pulse-on-time and current on three performance measures (material removal rate, microstructures and electrode wear rate), using distilled water and kerosene as dielectrics. A comparison between dielectrics for the machining of aluminum 6061 T6 alloy material in terms of performance measures was performed. Aluminum 6061 T6 alloy material was selected, because of its growing use in the automotive and aerospace industrial sectors. The experimental sequence... 

This paper provides a novel bad data detection processor to identify false data injection attacks (FDIAs) on the power system state estimation. The attackers are able to alter the result of the state estimation virtually intending to change the result of the state estimation without being detected by the bad data processors. However, using a specific configuration of an artificial neural network (ANN), named nonlinear autoregressive exogenous (NARX), can help to identify the injected bad data in state estimation. Considering the high correlation between power system measurements as well as state variables, the proposed neural network-based approach is feasible to detect any potential FDIAs.... 

This study addresses optimal walking pattern generation for SURENA III humanoid robot in a stair-climbing scenario. To this end, the kinematic configuration of the 31-DOF humanoid robot is studied. Integrating the detailed dynamic properties of the robot, a comprehensive and precise dynamic model is developed for its lower-limb. In order to generate the optimal walking pattern for the considered humanoid robot, trajectories for feet and pelvis are first designed, and then joint angles are derived by means of inverse kinematics. Such a complete model provides the designer with the necessary tools to optimize the trajectory generation. Using two different types of objective functions, namely... 

Due to the devastating ecological effects and constrained reserves of fossil fuels, renewable energies are now globally accepted as viable alternative sources of energy. Among renewable energy sources, wind energy has become globally popular, primarily because wind farms can be rapidly built and easily maintained at a relatively low cost. Wind-powered hydrogen production is an effective solution for storing the excess energy output of wind farms. The hydrogen produced in this way can be used not only in fuel cells but also in cooling, oil, gas, and petrochemical fields. As a country devastated by war and instability, Afghanistan has major energy generation challenges and a substantially... 

In this study, an automotive air conditioning system is simulated by considering HFO-1234yf (2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene) as the drop-in replacement of HFC-134a. The simulated air conditioning system consists of a multi-louvered fin and flat-plate type evaporator, a wobble-plate type compressor, a mini-channel parallel-flow type condenser and a thermostatic expansion valve. The thermodynamic properties of the refrigerants are extracted from the REFPROP 8.0 software, and a computer program is simulated for the thermodynamic analysis. Two different conditions have been considered in this program for the cycle analysis: for the first state, the cooling capacity is taken as constant, and for the... 

The main challenge in many applications of acetic acid is acid dehydration and its recovery from wastewater streams. Therefore, the performance of polyamide thin film composite is evaluated to separate acetic acid from water. To reach this goal, the formation of polyamide layer on polysulfone support membrane was investigated via interfacial polymerization (IP) of meta-phenylenediamine (MPD) in water with trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in hexane. Also, the effect of synthesis conditions, such as concentration of monomers and curing temperature on separation of acetic acid from water were investigated by reverse osmosis process. Moreover, the separation mechanism was discussed. The solute... 

This article presents a study on the capability of the time domain OMA method, NExT-ERA, to identify closely spaced structural dynamic modes. A survey in the literature reveals that few experimental studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of the NExT-ERA methodology in case of closely spaced modes specifically. In this paper we present the formulation for NExT-ERA. This formulation is then implemented in an algorithm and a code, developed in house to identify the modal parameters of different systems using their generated time history data. Some numerical models are firstly investigated to validate the code. Two different case studies involving a plate with closely spaced modes and...