Sharif Digital Repository

Regaining biomechanical function, comfort and quality of every-day life is a prime consideration when designing prosthetic devices for amputees. The magnetorheological (MR) prosthetic knee, which is the subject of this study, is an example of such a device. The study presents a comprehensive and a combined MR device design and MR fluid design approach, aiming to advance the MR prosthetic knee. First, this study focuses on developing a new configuration on magnetorheological (MR) brake damper as prosthetic knee. The new configuration is a rotary damper using MR fluid with a single rotary disc will act as a brake while MR fluid is activated by magnetic field in different walking gait. The main... 

This study is a comprehensive analysis on the nonlinear vibration of a sandwich plate containing magnetorheological (MR) fluid as the core layer. The nonlinear aeroelastic analysis of the structure is also discussed to determine the flutter boundaries. In this study, the numerical Generalized Differential Quadrature (GDQ) method is applied to investigate the free vibration analysis of a sandwich plate with a MR fluid core. The classical thin plate theory (CPT) and the First-order Shear Deformation Theory (FSDT) are assumed for face layers and core layer, respectively. These theories along with Von-Karman kinematic formulations are incorporated to extract governing equations. The equations of... 

A software product line is a set of products with common features. The design of this set is such that the core assets that are common features between products are implemented only once. All products in the product line use the core assets to reduce development costs. The number of products that can be produced in a software product line is exponential to the number of capabilities in the core assets and the set is very large, so the cost of testing the software product line will be very high. In the software product line testing, various methods have been provided to reduce costs, among which we can mention product prioritization and regression test techniques. In prioritization, the... 

In recent years, advances have been made in the field of miniaturization of the devices (in order to increase their efficiency, lessen the materials needed for the constructions and experiments, reduce costs and energy usage) resulting in the dramatic increase of surface to volume ratio in these devices. This progress has led to the dominance of surface forces which can be used to control very important interface phenomena having a special application such as electrokinetic. Using today’s manufacturing technology; it is possible to construct micro-nanochannels made from different materials such as silicon, glass, quartz, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) whose... 

Aerodynamics loads and aeroheating during reentry, are one of the challenging issues in designing One of the main challenges in the design and application of reusable spacecrafts is the aerodynamic and thermal loads acting on their structures during reentry into the atmosphere. For this reason, all the concepts/prototypes presented in the 20th century were either not fully reusable, or were partially canceled, or did not have economic justification. In this report, the aerodynamic loads on the first stage of a launch vehicle during the launch and return phases have been investigated. Due to the fact that the main part of the first stage of the vehicle includes fuel and oxidizer tanks, the... 

In this study, modification of Polyvinylidene fluoride membrane in order to reduce membrane fouling in membrane bioreactors is investiged. To achieve this goal, chemical modification and grafting methods were used. Initially, by chemical modification, the reaction was made to make hydroxyl groups on the membrane surface. The hydroxyl functional groups were used as a site for connecting of subsequent monomers. Finally, the lysozyme enzyme was used as the main modifier to improve the hydrophilicity and antibacterial properties of the membrane surface. To evaluate the performance of the modified membrane in comparison with the pristine membrane, different tests, such as water contact angle... 

The collision of moderately large asteroids and comets also referred to as Near-Earth Objects (NEO's) with earth would have catastrophic consequences. Such events have occurred in the past and may occur again in the future. However, for the first time in known history, humanity may have the technology required to counter this threat. Methods studied for mitigation of this hazard are based on deflecting asteroid's trajectory and are normally divided into two basic categories: high energy impulsive methods, and long-duration low-thrust methods. Two parts of mission to be optimized are the trajectory of spacecraft to reach the target and the deflection strategy which could be analyzed by the... 

The main purpose of the present thesis is to establish a decentralized controller for some car–like multi robots to follow and hunt moving targets. Robots are very similar to actual cars considering geometric dimensions, mass and moment of inertia and so on; and outputs of the controller are steering-wheel and driving-wheel torques appropriately. Dynamics of the moving target is so that it escapes from the robots. Robots are equipped with antenna for getting wireless sensory signals, including range and bearing sensors. Kalman filter is used for estimation the target relative position and speed and robots state variables. The controller is designed for doing the above mentioned group... 

This study analyzes determinants of customers’ switching intentions. The context of this study is service area and we have studied customers’ behavior of internet service providers. In this research we focus both on transactional and relational variables. We have tried to clarify the role of consumers’ commitment on their intentions to switch. Drawing from literature and based on previous service switching research we have developed a switching model. This includes two component of customer commitment and the antecedents of commitment. We have developed our hypothesis according to this model and the literature review. The survey was administered to ADSL internet home users. A sample of 130... 

Nowadays best using of fossil fuels sources of the country (and) importance of comparison against lack of capacity in petrol production make determined the programmers and the directors to foresee and design expanded programs of the goals, to use natural gas for car fuels. To reach fulfillment of these programs, the confirmed needs of the natural gas cylinders are improved and make it essential to invest on producing compressive natural gas cylinders. In this way economical and technical change researches has been done in order to construct on department to produce 200,000 compressive natural gas cylinders in a year during two sets.(shifts) According to the results of technical researches... 

For many years of tall buildings with regard to the development and progress towns are necessary for the urbanite of the city and are considered as progress of the symbols societies. These buildings because of high wore their features special treatment under the influence lateral loads like the earthquake. In a way that today is an important issue in seismology and Earthquake Engineering all the powerful movements of the earth and its effect on the performance of the workforce special buildings as tall. Two points in this important subject. First modeling and simulations of the Most Powerful Earthquakes that in general occur in the field of near source earthquake generator. The earthquake of... 

Phased array systems which are used for sending and receiving electromagnetic signals in mandatory directions are widely used in today’s wireless communication, satellite communication, and radar systems. Phased array systems are composed of units called transmitter/ receiver (TR) modules. These units are connected to antennas in one end and to the combiner/divider at the other end and are playing a major role in determining the quality of phased arrays. Transmitter/Receiver units include a phase shifting circuit for controlling the phase and an attenuator circuit for amplitude control of the signal being sent or received, solid state switches and a number of amplifiers. The aim of this... 

Dynamic impedance functions method is most recent approach in the analysis of soil-foundation dynamic interaction, and presented for massless rigid foundations. Impedance functions are frequency dependent functions, and used to obtain dynamic response of foundation with arbitrary mass subjected to dynamic loading of any frequency and magnitude. The important assumptions for appropriate useof mentioned method are rigidity of foundation and visco-elastic behavior of the soil beneath the foundation. In this study, experimental vertical impedance functions of square and circular foundations have been investigated,using physical modeling tests. A granular soil layer with finite thickness... 

Linear structure of polypropylene, which is a direct result of Ziegler-Natta catalysts, led to the melt strength of the polymer is low and it does not show hardness strain. This defect is cause to the use of polypropylene in some processes, such as thermoforming, making foam etc. are limited. A main methods to solve this defect are branching structure of the polymer. There are three general methods for this purpose, which are modified by chemical, electron beam irradiation and polymerization in the presence of metallocene catalyst. The first two methods that past processing, polypropylene branching using linear type is produced, while the third method branching occurs during polymerization.... 

Optimization of heat transfer in vehicle's underhood which contains radiator, cylidir block, cylinder head and … with minimum pressure loss on engine is one of the most important problems of the car companies in all over the world.To design some cooling parts like simple radiators which doesn’t have a effective cooling effect, we can use equations.but for more complicated geometries which is morte efficient we have many complicated solutions.So in this condition computationl analysis and laboratories play an important role.in this condition we should consider that producing a sample and the process of verifying the result of test is too expensive.So recently the car companies prefare... 

Recent studies have shown that comprehensive characterization of the behavior of infilled rock fractures under saturated and unsaturated conditions requires knowledge of morphological details of fracture surface, as well as state of stress of infill materials and their initial innate conditions (e.g., void ratio, water content, degree of saturation and dry density). This study presents the details and typical results from a new testing approach to study the hydro-mechanical behavior of the infilled rock fractures under different stress states and saturation conditions. The new testing approach incorporates the axis translation technique for suction control, a flow pump for the measurement of...