Sharif Digital Repository

Steady state seepage analysis of embankment dams is one of the most significant stages in the designing process. Currently, most seepage modeling of embankment dams is performed in two dimensions, often for the highest section, which include several simplifications. In this way, the effect of watertight elements such as grouting curtains in side abutments as well as their material properties is not taken into account in seepage analysis results. Especially if the dam is located in a narrow valley or the effect of existing faults beneath the dam is to be investigated, the results of the two-dimensional seepage analysis differ from those of three-dimensional (3D). In this paper, the... 

The method of characteristics (MOC) has been used for a long time in open channels and pipes flows. It is based on non-conservative equations, and hence it cannot be used directly for solving discontinuous shallow flows. In this paper we develop a conservative version of the MOC scheme for 1-D shallow flows by imposing the conservation law at the interpolation step. The conservation property of the scheme ensures the production of an accurate shock modeling and enables the MOC scheme to simulate dam-break type flows. By using a proper interpolation function, the proposed method can also produce quite accurate low-oscillatory results. A number of challenging test cases show considerable... 

Free surface flows are frequently encountered in hydraulic engineering problems including water jets, weirs and around gates. An iterative solution to the incompressible two-dimensional vertical steady Navier-Stokes equations, comprising momentum and continuity equations, is used to solve for the priori unknown free surface, the velocity and the pressure fields. The entire water body is covered by a unstructured finite element grid which is locally refined. The dynamic boundary condition is imposed for the free surface where the pressure vanishes. This procedure is done continuously until the normal velocities components vanish. To overcome numerical errors and oscillations encountering in... 

The work presented here is a study of the steady withdrawal of water from the lens of freshwater situated above the ocean's salt water and within the island. It is the aim of this paper to investigate the process of withdrawal from the lens of freshwater with a view to establishing the critical flow values for withdrawal and the effects of sink location and density differences on these values, and also to determine the effects of relative density differences. Steady solutions are found for the shape of the interface between salt and freshwater beneath a tropical island. A Green_s function approach is used and proves to be much more robust than spectral methods. Computations of the surface... 

In this paper, a mesh-less numerical approach is utilized to solve Euler's equation that is the governing equation of the irrotational flow of ideal fluids. A fractional step method of discritization is applied which consists to split each time step in two steps. This numerical method is based on moving-particle semi-implicit method (MPS) for simulating incompressible inviscid flows with free surfaces. The motion of each particle is calculated through interactions with neighboring particles covered with the kernel function. There are limitations for getting a stable solution by MPS method. In this paper, various kernel functions are considered and applied to improve the stability of MPS... 

Control of the air-handling units (AHU) is required to maintain satisfactory comfort conditions with low energy consumption. In the case of failure in sensor fusion systems of AHUs, full-order observers can be used as the supportive tool to provide an acceptable estimation of state variables. In this paper, a multivariable nonlinear model of the AHU is considered in the presence of uncertainties. The indoor temperature and relative humidity are controlled via manipulation of valve positions of air and cold water flow rates. In proposed hybrid control system, full and minimum-order observers are designed for the estimation of indoor temperature and relative humidity. Also, a regulator for... 

Air-handling unit (AHU) is one of the most complex installations that its control is necessary for maintaining satisfactory comfort conditions in buildings with low energy utilization. In this paper, a multivariable nonlinear and minimum phase model of the AHU is considered in the presence of uncertainties. The controller design is divided into two types. The first controller type is for the linearized plant based on decoupled PID-Fuzzy and PD-type Fuzzy controllers. The second type is based on full matrix PID-Fuzzy and pole-placement controllers in which interaction effects are considered. The indoor temperature and relative humidity are controlled via manipulation of valve positions of air... 

Achieving a high speed, unidirectional water flow through carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is a key factor in designing novel nanofluidic devices. In this study, utilizing molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we propose a novel nanoscale water pump for directed water transportation using charged rotating CNTs. Two basic conditions for stable water flow, including thermodynamic nonequilibrium and spatial asymmetry, are provided by introducing partial charges on carbon atoms of the channel with asymmetric patterns and its rotation, respectively. We demonstrate that the performance of the water pump is proportional to the gradient of a linear charge distribution and angular velocity of the rotation. Our... 

An industrial condensate stabilizer unit is simulated with HYSYS 3.1 software when the excessive water is present on the trays. Effects of reboiler temperature, excess water flow rate, and incoming stream temperature on the Reid vapor pressure (RVP), temperature distribution along the column and impurity concentrations along the stabilization column, as well as, energy usage are studied. In addition, the optimal location for the water draw tray for the condensate stabilizer column is found. It is observed that the presence of water draw pan in the column leads to about 15% and 28% reduction, respectively, in the reboiler and the compressor duties compared to the industrial case without water... 

In this study, the mechanisms of passing water and salt ions through nanoporous single-layer graphene membrane are simulated using classical molecular dynamics. The effects of functional groups placed in nanopores and feed water's salt concentration on water desalination are investigated. In order to understand the role of functional groups in desalination process, Methyl, Ethyl and a combination of Fluorine and Hydrogen molecules are distributed around the nanopores. In all cases, different number of functional molecules is employed in order to find an optimum distribution of the groups at hand. The results show that an appropriate distribution of Alkyl groups can properly stop the salt... 

Incomplete self-similarity (ISS) concept is employed to develop the equations from existing experimental results of flow over an oblique rectangular sharp-crested weir for both free and submerged flow. The stage-discharge relationship is obtained by theoretical analysis, based on the application of the dimensional analysis and the ISS theory. For analysis, the relations were found by trial and error procedure using the SPSS mathematical computer program that estimates the relation among multi-variable functions. Thus, equations to estimate the flow characteristics for both free and submerged flow are proposed. The results show a better compatibility with the experimental data than the... 

Superhydrophobic surfaces have been used for reducing friction in micro- and nanochannels. In the present work, water flow between two carbon walls with nanostructures made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) via the molecular dynamics method has been studied. The structure of this polymer can change based on the temperature of the environment, so that by increasing the temperature the structure becomes hydrophobic. This property has been studied and the effect of multiple factors on the slip length is presented. The effects of the number of monomers in the polymer, the distance between the polymers, and the temperature on the flow field are investigated. The results reveal that the slip length... 

The water desalination process using nanoporous single-layer graphene membranes is simulated through classical molecular dynamics. The effect of nanopores shapes on the capacity of the membrane for filtration of water is investigated. According to the results, the geometry of the nanopores considerably affects the performance of the membrane and can completely change the water flow rate and salt rejection. The results reveal that the effective area of the nanopores plays a critical role and for a better understanding of the impact of this parameter, aspect ratio and the equal diameter of noncircular pores based on different methods such as equal area, equal perimeter, and hydraulic diameter... 

An experimental investigation has been carried out to verify characteristics of pressure fluctuations inside a circular, horizontal and inclined pipeline (90mm inside diameter and 10 m long) carrying two-phase air-water flow in a controlled manner (operating at room temperature and normal pressure). The pressure fluctuation was considered to be due to interaction between the fluid and air bubble compressibility in the pipe. The fluctuating pressure was studied in detail while the flow pattern was mainly slug, wavy or stratified flow. The tests were carried out varying with time, space, water flow rate/air flow rate ratio and pipe inclination. The pressure fluctuations were measured... 

Graphene, due to its unique excellent properties, is proposed as a developing method with high efficiency compared to classical water desalination methods. In this regard, charging the membrane is considered a promising and effective approach to enhance the performance of the graphene membrane. In this research, by using molecular dynamics simulations, the water desalination by charged multilayer graphene is evaluated and the influence of electric charge amount and geometric parameters, including the pore diameter and the interlayer distance, are investigated. According to the results, the multilayer nanoporous graphene with 16.35 Å pore diameter, in which the electric charge is distributed... 

Simplicity of manufacturing and high reliability of airlift pumps have promoted these pumps to be used in different industries, such as petrochemical and oil industries, especially in oil recovery from dead wells. One of the main parameters affecting the performance of these pumps is two-phase flow regime in the main pipe of the pump. In this research, experimental data are utilized to investigate the influence of the flow regimes on the performance of an airlift pump. The data are obtained for air-water two-phase flow in a vertical pipe with a diameter of d = 50. mm and an aspect ratio of L/d = 120. In this study, the gas liquid upward two-phase flow regime in the upriser pipe is... 

In this research, nonlinear dynamics of an air-ehandling unit (AHU) is studied for tracking objectives, in the presence of harmonic perturbations. Three arbitrary realistic set-paths are considered for the indoor temperature and relative humidity. Two controllers based on feedback linearization (FBL) and pole placement approaches are designed to preserve the dynamic system around the desired tracking paths. It is shown that FBL controller works efficiently in bifurcation control and transforms the quasi-periodic limit cycles into the periodic ones (and consequently comfortable indoor conditions). In addition, FBL controller guarantees suppression of larger periodic limit cycles into the... 

Boiler–turbine units may show quasiperiodic behavior due to the bifurcation occurrence in the presence of harmonic disturbances. In this study, a multi-input–multi-output nonlinear dynamic model of a boiler–turbine unit is considered. Drum pressure, electric output, and fluid density are the state variables and adjusted at the desired values by manipulation of the input variables. Control inputs are the valve positions for fuel, steam and feed-water flow rates. To improve the quasiperiodic behavior of the system and bifurcation control in tracking problem, two controllers are designed: feedback linearization control and nonlinear sliding mode control (SMC). The feedback linearization... 

In recent years carbon nanotubes and other carbon nanostructures such as graphene sheets have attracted a lot of attention due to their unique mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. These structures can be used in desalination of sea water, removal of hazardous substances from water tanks, gases separation, and so on. The nanoporous single layer graphene membranes are very efficient for desalinating water due to their very low thickness. In this method, water-flow thorough the membrane and salt rejection strongly depend on the applied pressure and size of nanopores that are created in graphene membrane. In this study, the mechanism of passing water and salt ions through nanoporous... 

Water quality is one of the most important factors contributing to a healthy life. From the water quality management point of view, TDS (total dissolved solids) is the most important factor and many water developing plans have been implemented in recognition of this factor. However, these plans have not been perfect and very successful in overcoming the poor water quality problem, so there are a good volume of related studies in the literature. We study TDS and the water flow of the Karoun river in southwest Iran. We collected the necessary time series data from the Harmaleh station located in the river. We present two Univariate Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Movement Average (ARIMA)...