Sharif Digital Repository

The equations of motion for a beam on a flying support for EulerBernoulli and Timoshenko Beam Theories is derived. In modeling and attempting to have an accurate model at high speeds, a stretch variable instead of conventional axial deformation is used. For a planar rotating beam and a spatial rotating beam, equations of motion are lineralized and verified. Finite element and Newmark direct integration methods are employed for numerical simulations  

In this paper, application of the Endurance Time (ET) method in seismic analysis of concrete gravity dams has been investigated. The ET method is based on time history analysis of structures, subjected to specially designed intensifying acceleration functions. It is expected that by developing its application in analysis of concrete dams, useful information on the seismic behavior of such dams at various excitation intensities can be obtained. Results from linear analysis of Folsom and Koyna dams under real earthquakes and ET acceleration functions have been compared. It is shown that the ET method can predict the response of concrete gravity dams to individual earthquakes with reasonable... 

Certain stratified charge divided chamber engines have a very small pre-chamber, equipped with a spark plug and a main chamber connected to the pre-chamber through nozzles, A theoretical model is presented in this research to predict ignition delay and initiation of combustion in the pre-chamber. It considers flame progress in the pre-chamber up to the point where the flame penetrates the main chamber through the connecting nozzles. Step by step calculations then continue in the main chamber and the mass fraction burned and the energy release rate are calculated. The process continues to the point where all the fuel is burned. At each step, due to a one degree rotation of the crank shaft,... 

In architecture, design of doors and windows for functional requirements, circulation, natural light and ventilation, aesthetics and view is inevitable. Parameters such as size, location and aspect ratio of the openings change the seismic behaviour of infilled frames. Ignoring these parameters in structural analysis may lead to substantial inaccuracy in predicting the lateral stiffness, strength and ductility of the frame. Despite numerous experimental and numerical studies on perforated infill walls in recent decades, the related provisions are rare in seismic codes and engineers tend not to use their results in analysis and design due to their complexity. The main purpose of this work was... 

Remote sensing is an effective tool for capturing spatial and temporal variations of water surface temperature (WST) in large lakes. The WST of Urmia Lake in northwestern Iran was examined from 2007 to 2010, using MODIS land surface temperature (LST) products. Spatial and temporal (diurnal, monthly, seasonal and inter-annual) variations of Urmia Lake WST were also investigated. Results indicate that the MODIS-derived WSTs are in a good agreement with the in situ data (R2=0.92 and bias=-0.27). Spatial analysis of WST revealed that there are three thermal zones along the lake: the shallow region in barriers of the causeway, islands and the shoreline; the south part; and the deep north parts.... 

Constructing an accurate geological model of the reservoir is a preliminary to make any reliable prediction of a reservoir's performance. Afterward, one needs to simulate the flow to predict the reservoir's dynamic behaviour. This process usually is associated with high computational costs. Therefore, alternative methods such as the percolation approach for rapid estimation of reservoir efficiency are quite desirable. This study tries to address the Well Testing (WT) interpretation of heterogeneous reservoirs, constructed from two extreme permeabilities, 0 and K. In particular, we simulated a drawdown test on typical site percolation mediums, occupied to fraction "p"at a constant rate Q/h,... 

The present study focuses on the implementation of PISO algorithm to simulate cavitating flows. For simulation of unsteady behaviors of cavitation which have practical applications, the development of unsteady PISO algorithm based on the non-conservative approach is investigated. The effects of mixture compressibility are considered to improve accuracy of simulations. For multi-phase simulation, single-fluid Navier-Stokes equations, along with the volume fraction transport equation, are employed. The bubble dynamics model is utilized to simulate phase change. To prove capabilities of the developed PISO algorithm to simulate cavitating flows, unsteady simulation of cavitation around NACA0015... 

Preloading is a popular technique in ground improvement works on soft compressible soils. Observational methods such as the Asaoka or hyperbolic methods are widely used in practical applications to assess final settlement and the degree of consolidation during preloading. In this paper it is argued that the major cause of inaccuracy in the final settlement predicted by the Asaoka method, especially in the early stages of preloading (short assessment periods), is neglect of the effects of creep in Asaoka's solution. This may also be the cause of the lack of agreement between observational methods and the piezometer method at higher degrees of consolidation. In this paper a method is proposed... 

This paper deals with the application of Fast Fourier Transform Base Method (FFTBM) with signal mirroring (FFTBM-SM) to assess accuracy of MELCOR code. This provides deeper insights into how the accuracy of MELCOR code in predictions of thermal-hydraulic parameters varies during transients. The case studied was modeling of Station Black-Out (SBO) accident in PSB-VVER integral test facility by MELCOR code. The accuracy of this thermal-hydraulic modeling was previously quantified using original FFTBM in a few number of time-intervals, based on phenomenological windows of SBO accident. Accuracy indices calculated by original FFTBM in a series of time-intervals unreasonably fluctuate when the... 

Research on the reliable characterization of saturated permeability has received great yet necessary attention globally. However, most studies were carried out on soils with a volumetric tendency being almost insensitive to water saturation or at least with this hidden assumption. This is clearly not the case when dealing with the two broad categories of problematic soils, including collapsible and expansive soils. As confirmed by previous research, at least one-fifth of the planet comprises of these soils with a relatively fair distribution. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to introduce a low-compliance double cell/burette permeameter to track all volumetric changes during the... 

Real world models of seawater intrusion (SWI) require high computational efforts. This creates computational difficulties for the uncertainty propagation (UP) analysis of these models due the need for repeated numerical simulations in order to adequately capture the underlying statistics that describe the uncertainty in model outputs. Moreover, despite the obvious advantages of moment-independent global sensitivity analysis (SA) methods, these methods have rarely been employed for SWI and other complex groundwater models. The reason is that moment-independent global SA methods involve repeated UP analysis which further becomes computationally demanding. This study proposes the use of... 

DeePore2 is a deep learning workflow for rapid estimation of a wide range of porous material properties based on the binarized micro–tomography images. By combining naturally occurring porous textures we generated 17,700 semi–real 3–D micro–structures of porous geo–materials with size of 2563 voxels and 30 physical properties of each sample are calculated using physical simulations on the corresponding pore network models. Next, a designed feed–forward convolutional neural network (CNN) is trained based on the dataset to estimate several morphological, hydraulic, electrical, and mechanical characteristics of the porous material in a fraction of a second. In order to fine–tune the CNN design,... 

In this paper a scheduling optimization framework is developed to enhance power plants operational decision making process. The proposed framework optimizes plant schedule including operating conditions and maintenance intervals simultaneously and on an hourly basis. In a long term operation plant performance deteriorates due to components aging. This study employs equivalent operating hour (EOH) approach to describe components aging impact on the plant performance deterioration and consequently plant long term profit. Modeling of components aging increases system simulation accuracy in long term operation and the optimum decision variables would be more reliable and realistic. Validity and... 

Mobile phones are known as the most widely used electronic instruments, and an enormous number of discarded mobile phones are generated. The present work used a pure culture of Penicillium simplicissimum in a bubble column bioreactor to extract Cu and Ni from mobile phone printed circuit boards (MPPCBs) waste. Molasses was used as an efficient carbon source to enhance bioleaching efficiency and increase the cost benefits. The adaptation phase was done at Erlenmeyer flasks to reach 40 g/L of MPPCBs powder. The most significant parameters, including the mass of MPPCBs powder, aeration, molasses concentration, and their interaction, were optimized in order to leach the maximum possible Cu and... 

The rotational and translational motions of nanocars and nanotrucks as well as their motion regimes at different temperatures are investigated. In recent years, few similar types of molecular machines have been simulated. In contrast to previous studies, which have used the Rigid-Body Molecular Dynamics (RBMD) method, an all-atom model and classic atomistic dynamics have been employed in this paper to achieve better accuracy. Our results demonstrated that the exibility of the chassis and its attachment to the gold surface played an important role in the motion of a nanocar. In fact, a heavier and more exible nanocar chassis reduces its speed compared to a nanotruck. In addition, the results... 

Accurate prediction of static and dynamic response of nano structures under external excitations has been one of the interests of scientists in the last decade. Several applications of nano machines make it necessary to analyze their components, such as nano bearing, precisely. In this paper, the static and vibrational behavior of a fullerene as a sensitive part of nano bearing under external forces is simulated by a newly designed spherical super element. This super element is designed in such a way that the user can select as many numbers of nodes as desired, so that it can be implemented in different desired precisions. In this study, a 228-node super element, which is similar to a hollow... 

Using a second receiver antenna close to the main transceiver antenna of inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR), it is possible to find 3-D positions of target scattering points. Such system is called bistatic, monopulse, or interferometric ISAR (InISAR). In the conventional model of ISAR, the unknown flying object should have a linear trajectory, and only small deviations from this trajectory can be compensated. Target motions which are highly nonlinear or curvy cannot be used in the conventional model. In this paper, we propose a new model for InISAR to process all collected data from the target, regardless of the form of the flight path. More accuracy is achieved for 3-D positioning of... 

As expounded, the precipitation and deposition of asphaltene particles in pipelines has been proved to be the most challenging flow assurance problem due to its unknown and complex behaviors. In this work, a new multicomponent, multiphase and dynamic tool was developed to model the aggregation and deposition of asphaltene particles in a bulk medium. The multiphase and dynamic asphaltene deposition tool, shortened as MAD-ADEPT is, in fact, a modified version of the previously developed ADEPT. The new tool was developed to make the asphaltene deposition and aggregation concepts in oil production wells more predictable. To tackle the complexity of the asphaltene problem, a bespoke algorithm was... 

This paper presents an innovative hybrid approach for the estimation of the solar global radiation. New prediction equations were developed for the global radiation using an integrated search method of genetic programming (GP) and simulated annealing (SA), called GP/SA. The solar radiation was formulated in terms of several climatological and meteorological parameters. Comprehensive databases containing monthly data collected for 6 years in two cities of Iran were used to develop GP/SA-based models. Separate models were established for each city. The generalization of the models was verified using a separate testing database. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to investigate the... 

This paper presents the results of parametric analyses of the yielding moment (My) of Bolted Flush Endplate Beam (BFEB) splice connections using Finite Element Modeling (FEM) tools. The connection components were modeled using three-dimensional brick elements, while contact between the endplates was modeled using Coulomb friction. Materials for beam, endplate and bolts were considered to behave non-linearly. Finite element results with three experimental and numerical studies were compared, and all indicated good agreement, which is also briefly reviewed in this paper. Using verified FEM, fairly large parametric studies, based on the practical configuration of BFEB connections, were carried...