Sharif Digital Repository

Supersonic separators (3Ss) are applied in gas separation processes. Two-dimensional simulation is employed to investigate the effect of operational and thermophysical parameters on the shockwave position. In addition, the impact of the cyclonic part and wet outlet geometry is evaluated by proposing four cases. Increasing the length of the cyclonic part exerts positive and negative influences on the performance of the 3S and the pressure recovery coefficient, respectively. The optimum length is determined between 10 and 15 cm. To demonstrate negative effects of wasted air from the wet outlet, its flow has been increased from 3.6 to 8.1 % of the inlet flow. Improved performance of the 3S is... 

In this paper, comprehensive numerical studies are performed to investigate the effects of the geometrical factors on the performance of the low-pressure gas actuator. The flow feature and force generation mechanism inside a rectangular enclosure with heat and cold arms as the non-isothermal walls are inclusively discussed. Also, comprehensive parametric studies are done to reveal the effects of physical parameters on the performance and characteristics of this device in different operating conditions. In this study, the Knudsen number is varied from 0.1 to 4.5 to investigate all characteristics of the thermal-driven force inside the MEMS sensor. In order to simulate a rarefied gas inside... 

Among numerous methods which have been employed to reinforce the thermal efficiency in many systems, one is the thermal radiation which is a mode of heat transfer. Another way to improve the thermal efficiency is the utilization of the porous media. The present work includes the study of micropolar flow with allowance for thermal radiation through a resistive porous medium between channel walls. The governing coupled partial differential equations representing the flow model are transmuted into ordinary ones by using the suitable dimensionless coordinates, and then, quasi-linearization is employed to solve the set of relevant coupled ODEs. Effects of physical parameters on the flow under... 

Among numerous methods which have been employed to reinforce the thermal efficiency in many systems, one is the thermal radiation which is a mode of heat transfer. Another way to improve the thermal efficiency is the utilization of the porous media. The present work includes the study of micropolar flow with allowance for thermal radiation through a resistive porous medium between channel walls. The governing coupled partial differential equations representing the flow model are transmuted into ordinary ones by using the suitable dimensionless coordinates, and then, quasi-linearization is employed to solve the set of relevant coupled ODEs. Effects of physical parameters on the flow under... 

Biodegradable polymer/bioceramic nanocomposites are osteoconductive and can accelerate healing of bone tissue. In this research, silk fibroin (SF)/titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanocomposites were synthesized using different concentrations of TiO2 nanoparticles (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt%). The SF/TiO2 nanocomposites were studied in terms of bioactivity and biocompatibility. The in vitro assessment of osteoblasts compatibility indicated that SF inclusion rendered nanocomposite biocompatible whereas presence of TiO2 nanoparticles allowed the cells to adhere and grow on nanocomposite surface and enhanced the bioactivity of the composite. © 2017, Taiwanese Society of Biomedical Engineering  

Estimation of physical parameters of a parametrically excited gyroscope is studied in this paper. This estimation is possible by reading the input and output data of the gyroscope. Because of different faults in the manufacturing process and tolerances, physical parameters of a gyroscope are not exactly same as the expected values of the manufacturer. Moreover, changing of temperature, humidity, external acceleration, etc. can change the physical parameters of the gyro. Thus, the physical parameters of gyroscope are not fixed values and may deviate from the desired designed values. The physical parameters of gyroscope determine the optimal region for working of gyroscope. Thus, if the... 

The classical methods utilized for modeling nano-scale systems are not practical because of the enlarged surface e ects that appear at small dimensions. Contrarily, implementing more accurate methods is followed by prolonged computations as these methods are highly dependent on quantum and atomistic models, and they can be employed for very small sizes in brief time periods. In order to speed up the Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations of the silicon structures, Coarse-Graining (CG) models are put forward in this research. The procedure involves establishing a map between the main structure's atoms and the beads comprising the CG model and modifying the parameters of the system so that the... 

Background: Autonomous grasping of soft tissues can facilitate the robotic surgery procedures. The previous attempts for implementing auto-grasping have been based on a simplistic representation of the actual surgery maneuvers. Method: A generalized three-zone grasp model was introduced to consider the effect of the pull force angulation on the grasp mode, that is, damage, slip, or safe grasp. Also, an extended auto-grasping algorithm was proposed in which the trigger force is automatically controlled against the pull force magnitude and direction, to achieve a safe and secure grasp. Results: The autonomous grasping experiments against a varying pull force in a phantom study indicated a good... 

Axial flux resolvers (AFRs) are used in motion control of electrical machines. In this paper, the effects of physical parameters on the accuracy of detected position are studied. The examined parameters are width of slot opening and slot width, number of poles, number of slots per pole and per phase, and skewing of rotor slots. An analytical model based on the winding function method is proposed for the first time in to estimate the error of position signal. The results of the analytical method are verified with 3-D time stepping finite-element method. Finally, the prototype of the studied AFR is constructed and tested. Good agreement between simulation and experimental results confirms the... 

Today, the production of energy and electricity is one of the major concerns of mankind. Electricity generation by solar energy is considered as one of the alternatives to fossil fuels. Solar chimneys mechanism is based on a natural phenomenon. In this process the solar energy heat up the earth's surface and the surrounding air. Due to the density difference between cold air and warm air, heated air ascends and causes air circulation. In this study, mathematical modelling of solar chimney and governing equations of this system will be discussed. In order to validate the numerical results, upwind velocity in chimney has been compared with a reliable reference results. As well as, the... 

Radiation transport techniques which are used in radiation detection systems comprise one of two categories namely probabilistic and deterministic. However, probabilistic methods are typically used in pulse height distribution simulation by recreating the behavior of each individual particle, the deterministic approach, which approximates the macroscopic behavior of particles by solution of Boltzmann transport equation, is being developed because of its potential advantages in computational efficiency for complex radiation detection problems. In current work linear transport equation is solved using two methods including collided components of the scalar flux algorithm which is applied by... 

This paper reports the estimation of angular velocity in micro gyroscopes with parametric excitation. The identification procedure is done into two consecutive steps: In the first step, the physical parameters of the gyroscope (stiffness, damping, and actuator parameters) are estimated via continuous time Extended and Unscented Kalman filter. In the second step, a separate Kalman filter is dedicated to estimate the time varying rotation rate, using the output of the first step. Using numerical simulations, it is found that by introducing an artificial noise in the observer equations and tuning its variance, arbitrary temporal variation of angular velocity can be well tracked by the proposed... 

Pulsating Heat Pipes (PHPs) are cooling devices that are compact in size and have an ability to transfer heat in low temperature differences. Working fluids strongly affect the thermal performance of PHPs. In this paper, effects of some thermophysical parameters relating to working fluids, such as boiling point, latent heat of vaporization, surface tension, thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity, are presented based on experimental and numerical studies done in recent years. Addition of nanoparticles to fluids, or making nanofuild, is a new method of improving thermophysical properties of fluids. Recently, many studies are carried out on thermophysical properties of nano-fuild. Results... 

The current study examines different arrangements of vortex tubes (VTs) to get higher performances for cooling and heating. The effects of thermo-physical parameters such as inlet feed temperature and inlet/outlet vortex tube pressure on generated temperature gradient are investigated. To estimate the cold outlet temperatures, the available equations in the literature are verified against our experimental data. Moreover, we propose a new equation to estimate the hot outlet temperature based on the upper limit of hot temperature (ULHT) and the lower limit of cold temperature (LLCT), verified with experimental data as well. Further, several arrangements are simulated to obtain the minimum cold... 

Improving detection efficiency in small animal PET scanners without degrading spatial resolution is one of the main problems of these scanners. Commercial small animal PET scanners use different methods to achieve desirable levels of sensitivity and spatial resolution. GE Healthcare eXplore VISTA PET scanner uses double layer (LYSO-GSO) depth-of-interaction (DOI) capable cuboid detector modules. In this work, the design of GE Healthcare eXplore VISTA PET scanner is improved using tapered detector geometry instead of cuboid geometry. Using tapered detector geometry, the gaps between adjacent modules are filled and the sensitive volume has increased about 11.5%. The new designed PET scanner... 

Although the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction using interference screw is a well-accepted surgical procedure, patients still suffer graft failure in the initial rehabilitation phase. Graft fixation stability of a newly designed anatomical hybrid thread tapered interference screw (AHTTIS) was compared with a conventional standard one (CSIS) by conducting in-vitro mechanical tests. According to the CSIS manufacturer's instruction, eight tapered bone tunnels, matching AHTTIS geometry, and eight straight cylindrical tunnels were drilled in artificial bone blocks. Bovine tendon grafts were fixed using AHTTIS and CSIS in their corresponding bone tunnels. Each graft was subjected to... 

A hallmark of more advanced models is their higher details of trunk muscles represented by a larger number of muscles. The question is if in reality we control these muscles individually as independent agents or we control groups of them called "synergy". To address this, we employed a 3-D biomechanical model of the spine with 18 trunk muscles that satisfied equilibrium conditions at L4/5, with different cost functions. The solutions of several 2-D and 3-D tasks were arranged in a data matrix and the synergies were computed by using non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) algorithms. Variance accounted for (VAF) was used to evaluate the number of synergies that emerged by the analysis, which... 

In the present work, a new micro-solid phase extraction (μ-SPE) sorbent as an extracting medium based on core-shell nanofibers was synthesized by electrospinning. The core-shell nanofibers of polyvinylpyrrolidone-Polybutylene terephthalate/polypyrrole (PVP-PBT/PPy) were electrospun and subsequently, modified hollow nanofibers were prepared by removing the central PVP moiety. Moreover, conventional PBT/PPy was also prepared for the comparison purposes. The homogeneity and the porous surface structure of the core-shell nanofibers were confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The applicability of the fabricated nanofibers-coating was examined by immersed μ-SPE of some selected triazine... 

Surface functionality of nanoparticles has been pivotal in defining interactions of nanoparticles and biomolecules. To explore various functionalities on the surface of nanoparticle through a facile procedure, various carbon-based nanoparticles, modified with a specific natural amino acid, were synthesized; the amino acids were chosen in order that almost all classes of amino acids were included. After characterizations of the nanoparticles using several spectroscopic methods, the effects of surface modification of nanoparticles were examined against amyloid formation, exploiting insulin as a model amyloidogenic polypeptide. Although most amino acids afforded carbon nanoparticles, only...