Sharif Digital Repository

A key direction toward enhancing the long term and outdoor stability of the perovskite solar cells is encapsulation. As a result, a suitable encapsulation package is required to prevent moisture and oxygen penetration toward the perovskite solar cells. In this work, a low-cost commercially available bilayer structure of poly (methyl methacrylate)/ room-temperature vulcanizing silicone rubber (RTV) encapsulation package for enhancing the long term stability of the perovskite solar cells has been investigated. Encapsulated cells retained more than 80% of the initial efficiency at the environmental condition of 50% moisture, and room temperature after 1000 h, however reference cell efficiency... 

In this study, two methods for solving economic dispatch problems, namely Hopfield neural network and X iteration method are compared. Three sample of power system with 3, 6 and 20 units have been considered. The time required for CPU, for solving economic dispatch of these two systems has been calculated. It has been shown that for on-line economic dispatch, Hopfield neural network is more efficient and the time required for convergence is considerably smaller compared to classical methods. © 2006 IEEE  

This paper presents a numerical scheme for stability analysis of the aeroelastic systems in the Laplace domain. The proposed technique, which is called the PP method, is proposed for when the aerodynamic model is represented in the Laplace domain and includes complicated transcendental expressions in terms of the Laplace variable. This method utilizes a matrix iterative procedure to find the eigenvalues of the system and generalizes the other methods such as the P and PK methods for prediction of the flutter conditions. The major advantage of this technique over the other approximate methods is true prediction of subcritical damping and frequency values of the aeroelastic modes. To examine... 

The objective of the dynamic economic dispatch (DED) problem is to schedule power generation for the online units for a given time horizon economically, satisfying various operational constraints. Due to the effect of valve-point effects and prohibited operating zones (POZs) in the generating units cost functions, DED problem is a highly non-linear and non-convex optimization problem. The DED problem even may be more complicated if transmission losses and ramp-rate constraints are taken into account. This paper presents a novel and heuristic algorithm to solve DED problem of generating units, by employing time varying acceleration coefficients iteration particle swarm optimization... 

In this paper, we address the stability problem of a noiseless linear time invariant control system over parallel Gaussian channels with feedback. It is shown that the eigenvalues-rate condition which has been proved as a necessary condition, is also sufficient for stability over parallel Gaussian channels. In fact, it is proved that for stabilizing a control system over the parallel Gaussian channels, it suffices that the Shannon channel capacity obtained by the water filling technique is greater than the sum of the logarithm of the unstable eigenvalues magnitude. In order to prove this sufficient condition, we propose a new nonlinear joint source channel coding for parallel Gaussian... 

Three-dimensional vectorial diffraction analysis of gratings is presented based on Legendre polynomial expansion of electromagnetic fields. In contrast to conventional rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA) in which the solution is obtained using state variables representation of the coupled wave amplitudes, here the solution of first-order coupled Maxwell's equations is expanded in terms of Legendre polynomials, where Maxwell's equations are analytically projected in the Hilbert space spanned by Legendre polynomials. This approach yields well-behaved algebraic equations for deriving diffraction efficiencies and electromagnetic field profiles without facing the problem of numerical... 

This paper deals with the flexural instability of flexible spinning cylinders partially filled with viscous fluid. Using the linearized Navier-Stokes equations for the incompressible flow, a two-dimensional model is developed for fluid motion. The resultant force exerted on the flexible cylinder wall as the result of the fluid motion is calculated as a function of lateral acceleration of the cylinder axis in the Laplace domain. Applying the Hamilton principle, the governing equations of flexural motion of the rotary flexible cylinder mounted on general viscoelastic supports are derived. Then combining the equations describing the fluid force on the flexible cylinder with the structural... 

Water-in-oil emulsion usually forms during waterflooding in some heavy oil reservoirs. The composition and salinity of the injected water critically affect the w/o emulsion droplet size distribution, which control the emulsion stability and emulsion flow in porous media. The aim of the present work is to assess the effect of different sea water salinities on w/o emulsion stability through microscopic imaging. Therefore, w/o emulsions were prepared with different sea water samples, which were synthesized to resemble Persian Gulf, Mediterranean, Red Sea, and North Sea water samples. The results showed that log-normal distribution function predicts very well the experimental data to track the... 

Water-in-oil emulsion usually forms during waterflooding in some heavy oil reservoirs. The composition and salinity of the injected water critically affect the w/o emulsion droplet size distribution, which control the emulsion stability and emulsion flow in porous media. The aim of the present work is to assess the effect of different sea water salinities on w/o emulsion stability through microscopic imaging. Therefore, w/o emulsions were prepared with different sea water samples, which were synthesized to resemble Persian Gulf, Mediterranean, Red Sea, and North Sea water samples. The results showed that log-normal distribution function predicts very well the experimental data to track the... 

Interfacial studies and band alignment engineering on the electron transport layer (ETL) play a key role for fabrication of high-performance perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Here, an amorphous layer of SnO2 (a-SnO2) between the TiO2 ETL and the perovskite absorber is inserted and the charge transport properties of the device are studied. The double-layer structure of TiO2 compact layer (c-TiO2) and a-SnO2 ETL leads to modification of interface energetics, resulting in improved charge collection and decreased carrier recombination in PSCs. The optimized device based on a-SnO2/c-TiO2 ETL shows a maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 21.4% as compared to 19.33% for c-TiO2 based device.... 

In this paper, we are concerned with the numerical approximation of stochastic differential equations with discontinuous/nondifferentiable drifts. We show that under one-sided Lipschitz and general growth conditions on the drift and global Lipschitz condition on the diffusion, a variant of the implicit Euler method known as the split-step backward Euler (SSBE) method converges with strong order of one half to the true solution. Our analysis relies on the framework developed in [D. J. Higham, X. Mao and A. M. Stuart, Strong convergence of Euler-type methods for nonlinear stochastic differential equations, SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, 40 (2002) 10411063] and exploits the relationship... 

In this paper, static behavior of nano/microm1irrors under Casimir force is studied. At the first, the equilibrium equation governing the statical behavior of nano/micromirrors is obtained. Then energy method is employed to investigate statical stability of nano/micromirrors equilibrium points and a useful equation is suggested for successful and stable design of nano/micromirrors under Casimir force. Then, equilibrium angle of nano/micromirrors is calculated both numerically and analytically using the homotopy perturbation method (HPM). It is observed that with increasing the instability number defined in the paper, the rotation angle of the mirror is increased and suddenly, pull-in occurs.... 

This paper studies fractional-order systems of retarded type with two independent delays, and determines the stability regions in spaces of delays. In this approach, an auxiliary polynomial is employed to calculate all purely imaginary roots of the characteristic equation of the system on the imaginary axis. Since roots of the characteristic equation are continuous with respect to delays, these purely imaginary roots determine the stability regions in delay space. Also, the necessary and sufficient condition for stability independent of delays is developed for the systems. Furthermore, a simple inequality constraint is established to obtain pure imaginary poles of the scalar systems.... 

In this research, the microstructure, dielectric, and non-Ohmic properties of (Cr, Nb) co-doped SnO2 ceramics, (Cr0.5, Nb0.5)xSn1-xO2 with x% = 0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, and 10.0, as a colossal dielectric material and a prospective alternative to co-doped TiO2 ceramics were studied. The X-ray diffraction results indicated that in all compositions, the cassiterite phase was achieved without any secondary phases. Moreover, field-emission secondary electron microscopy showed that the microstructure of samples has different morphologies including typical grains, enlarged grains and prism-like grains microstructure for various sintered samples. The maximum dielectric constant (2737) accompanied by... 

Enhancing stability against photocorrosion and improving photocurrent response are the main challenges toward the development of cupric oxide (CuO) based photocathodes for solar-driven hydrogen production. In this paper, stable and efficient CuO-photocathodes have been developed using in situ materials engineering and through gold-palladium (Au-Pd) nanoparticles deposition on the CuO surface. The CuO photocathode exhibits a photocurrent generation of ∼3 mA/cm2 at 0 V v/s RHE. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) analysis and X-ray spectroscopy (XPS) confirm the formation of oxygen-rich (O-rich) CuO film which demonstrates a highly stable photocathode with retained... 

In this paper by using a combination of fuzzy identification and the sliding mode control a fuzzy adaptive sliding mode scheme is designed to stabilize the unstable periodic orbits of chaotic systems. The chaotic system is assumed to have an affine form x(n) = f(X) + g(X)u where f and g are unknown functions. Using only the input-output data obtained from the underlying dynamical system, two fuzzy systems are constructed for identification of f and g. Two distinct methods are utilized for fuzzy modeling, the least squares and the gradient descent techniques. Based on the estimated fuzzy models, an adaptive controller, which works through the sliding mode control, is designed to make the... 

An experimental study has been conducted to investigate the effect of silica nanoparticle halos on the stability of the zirconia aqueous suspension. The results of turbidity measurements showed that addition of nanoparticles to the suspension increases the stability of the zirconia suspension for all pH values. The achieved stability refers to the formation of nanoparticle halos around the microparticles that can be observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging. The best stabilization is achievable when zirconia microparticles are at the isoelectric point. The minimum stabilization occurs when microparticles have relatively high zeta potential and the force between micro and... 

High penetration of constant-power loads (CPL) in dc microgrids may cause a destabilizing effect on the system that can lead to severe voltage oscillations. This paper addresses stability problems of the CPLs and proposes a simple active damping technique to damp the oscillations caused by CPLs. The particle swarm optimization algorithm has been used to find the best values of the parameters of the proposed active damper to achieve maximum damping of the oscillations. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified by simulations  

In this paper, the frequency domain-based numerical methods for simulation of fractional order systems are studied in the sense of stability preservation. First, the stability boundary curve is exactly determined for those methods. Then, this boundary is analyzed and compared with an accurate (ideal) boundary in different frequency ranges. Also, the critical regions in which the stability does not preserve are determined. Finally, the analytical achievements are confirmed via some numerical illustrations. © 2008 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics  

Inspired by the effects of a switching surface on the stability of passive dynamic walking (Safa and Naraghi in Robotica 33(01):195–207, 2015; Safa et al. in Nonlinear Dyn. 81(4):2127–2140, 2015), this paper suggests a new control strategy for stabilization of dynamic bipedal locomotion. It verifies that the stability improvement of a dynamic walking system is feasible while preserving the speed, step-length, period, natural dynamics, and the energy effectiveness of the gait. The proposed control policy goes behind the three primary principles: (i) The system’s switching surface has to be replaced by a new one if an external disturbance is induced. (ii) The new switching surface has to be...