Sharif Digital Repository

In the absence of powerful rigorous models, in this research a simple but practical method for calculating the temperature and residence time and carbon black yield in oil-furnace reactors is proposed. For this purpose an empirical formula of the form CXHY is assumed for the carbon black feedstock based on typical feedstock used in this industry. Based on the prevailing reactor conditions, thermodynamic considerations and available outlet tail gas from the reactor, a few representative reactions are considered to describe the entire reaction network. These include complete combustion for the fuel and, incomplete combustion and pyrolysis for the feedstock. Carbon black yield can be estimated... 

The purpose of this study is to predict the activation barriers and enthalpy for elementary steps in the process of Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) on the surfaces of Fe(110), Cu(111) and Fe/Cu alloys catalyst using "Unity Bond Index-Quadratic Exponential Potential" method aimed at predicting the activity and selectivity on the basis of energy criteria. The elementary steps, such as dissociation of CO, hydrogenation of carbidic carbon, C-C chain growth by insertion of CH2 versus CO into the metal-alkyl bonds, and chain termination, which lead to hydrocarbons (alkanes versus α-olefins) or oxygenates are discussed in detail. The results show that metallic Fe(110) is necessary to produce the carbidic... 

Given a graph, the sparsest cut problem asks for a subset of vertices whose edge expansion (the normalized cut given by the subset) is minimized. In this paper, we study a generalization of this problem seeking for k disjoint subsets of vertices (clusters) whose edge expansions are small and furthermore, the number of vertices that remained in the exterior of the subsets (outliers) is also small. It is proved in Daneshgar et al. (2012) that this problem is NP-hard for trees. Here, we prove that it can be solved in polynomial time for all weighted trees, provided that the search space is restricted to subsets inducing connected subgraphs. The additional constraint has justifications in... 

This paper deals with the dynamics of rising bubbles attached to a vertical wall under different wettability conditions. Even though, bubbles rising freely in a liquid have extensively been studied, bubbles attached to a wall have not been fully understood. Therefore, in this work, rising bubbles attached to a vertical wall were numerically investigated by applying the ALE method along with adaptive mesh refinement schemes to properly resolve the bubble interface and its deformation. To consider wall wettability effects, different contact angles of 45° 90° and 105° were considered along with the case of freely rising bubbles. The problem was carried out at different Bond numbers of 0.27,... 

The mathematical formulation for material growth and remodeling processes in finite deformation is developed based on the couple stress theory. The generalized continuum mechanics of couple stress theory is capable of capturing small-scale cellular effects and of modeling mass flux in these processes. The frame-indifferent balance equations of mass, linear and angular momentums, as well as internal energy together with the entropy inequality are first introduced in the presence of the mass flux based on the finite couple-stress theory. Then, within the framework of material uniformity the Eshelby and Mandel stress tensors as driving or configurational forces for local rearrangement of the... 

Context-awareness is an essential requirement of modern access control models. Organization-Based Access Control (OrBAC) model is a powerful context-aware access control model defined by first-order logic. However, due to the monotonicity nature of the first-order logic, OrBAC suffers from the incapability of making decision based on incomplete context information as well as the definition of default and exception policy rules. This paper proposes augmenting non-monotonicity features to OrBAC using MKNF+ logic, which is a combination of Description Logic (DL) and Answer Set Programming (ASP). Along with the use of DL to define ontology for main entities and context information in OrBAC;... 

This paper illustrates the use of a combined neural network model for classification of electrocardiogram (ECG) beats. We present a trainable neural network ensemble approach to develop customized electrocardiogram beat classifier in an effort to further improve the performance of ECG processing and to offer individualized health care. We process a three stage technique for detection of premature ventricular contraction (PVC) from normal beats and other heart diseases. This method includes a denoising, a feature extraction and a classification. At first we investigate the application of stationary wavelet transform (SWT) for noise reduction of the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. Then... 

Integrated transmission expansion planning (TEP) and generation expansion planning (GEP) with Wind Farms (WFs) is addressed in this paper. The optimal number of expanded lines, the optimal capacity of WFs installed capacity, and the optimal capacity of wind farms lines (WFLs) are determined through a new TEP optimization model. Furthermore, the optimum capacity additions including conventional generating units is obtained in the proposed model. The Benders decomposition approach is used for solving the optimization problem, including a master problem and two sub-problems with internal scenario analysis. In order to reduce the computational burden of the multi-year and multi-objective... 

For the reason that flow expansion model (developed in our previous work) for evaluating mass transfer during droplet formation involves with manifest hydrodynamic aspects, in this research computational simulation of this phenomenon was done for characterization of hydrodynamics effects on the mass transfer during droplet formation. For this purpose, an Eulerian volume tracking computational code based on volume of fluid (VOF) method was developed to solve the transient Navier-Stokes equations for the axisymmetric free-boundary problem of a Newtonian liquid that is dripping vertically and breaking as drops into another immiscible Newtonian fluid. The effects of hydrodynamics effects on the... 

This paper is aimed at investigating some computational aspects of different isoperimetric problems on weighted trees. In this regard, we consider different connectivity parameters called minimum normalized cuts/isoperimetric numbers defined through taking the minimum of the maximum or the mean of the normalized outgoing flows from a set of subdomains of vertices, where these subdomains constitute a partition/subpartition. We show that the decision problem for the case of taking k-partitions and the maximum (called the max normalized cut problem NCP^M), and the other two decision problems for the mean version (referred to as IPP^m and NCP^m) are NP-complete problems for weighted trees. On... 

In this study, natural super-cavitating flow around three different conical cavitators with wedge angles of 30°, 45° and 60° is investigated. We apply the k−ϵ turbulence model and the volume of fluid (VOF) technique to numerically study the three-dimensional cavitating flow around the cavitators. The turbulence approach is coupled with a mass transfer model which is implemented into the finite-volume package. Simulations are performed for different cavitation numbers. Finally, the effects of some important parameters such as the cavitation index, inlet velocity, Froude number and wedge angle of cavitators on the geometrical characteristics of the super-cavities are discussed. Our numerical... 

A novel sulfoxide containing bis(ether amine) monomer, 2,2'-sulfoxide- bis[4-methyl(2-trifluoromethyl)4-aminophenoxy) phenyl ether] (M2), was synthesized from the halogen displacement of 2-chloro-5-nitrobenzotrifluoride with dibenzosulfoxide (DH) in the presence of potassium carbonate, followed by catalytic reduction of bis(ether nitro) intermediate with Zinc/Ammonium chloride. A series of organic-soluble poly(ether amide)s (PA1-7) bearing sulfoxide and electronwithdrawing trifiuoromethyl group were synthesized from bis(ether amine) with various aromatic diacids (1-7) via a direct polycondensation with triphenyl phosphite and pyridine. The resulting polymers had inherent viscosities ranging... 

An optimal performance film cooling implies a high cooling effectiveness along with a wide surface cooling coverage. During the past decades, film cooling effectiveness has been well defined with a specific formula to evaluate the quality of a cooling system. However, despite numerous research on film cooling, there is still no explicit parameter to quantify how well a coolant film is spread over a hot surface. This work introduces a new coefficient namely cooling uniformity coefficient (CUC) to evaluate how well a coolant film is spread over a surface that is being cooled. Four different cases at two blowing ratios of 0.5 and 1.5 are studied. Three cases are ordinary single jets with... 

A novel modified carbon-paste electrode was employed for the simultaneous determination of dopamine (DA) and ascorbic acid (AA) with good selectivity and high sensitivity. Silver nanoparticle and carbon nanotube modified carbon-paste electrode (Ag/CNT-CPE) displayed excellent electrochemical catalytic activities towards dopamine (DA) and ascorbic acid (AA). The oxidation overpotentials of DA and AA were decreased significantly compared with those obtained at the bare CPE. Differential pulse voltammetry was used for the simultaneous determination of DA and AA. The peak separation between DA and AA was 67 mV. The calibration curves for DA and AA were obtained in the range of 8.0 × 10-7-6.4 ×... 

A heterogeneous magnetic copper catalyst was prepared via anchoring of copper sulfate onto multi-layered poly(2-dimethylaminoethyl acrylamide)-coated magnetic nanoparticles and was characterized using various techniques. The catalyst was found to be active, effective and selective for one-pot three-component reaction of alkyl halide, sodium azide and alkyne, known as copper-catalyzed click synthesis of 1,2,3-triazoles. As little as 0.3 mol% of catalyst was found to be effective under the optimum conditions. The catalyst could also be recycled and reused up to seven times without significant loss of activity. Thermal stability, high loading level of copper on catalyst, broad diversity of... 

Membrane separator based on the polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is prepared via the non-solvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) method with water and ethanol as non-solvent and a mixture of dimethylformamide (DMF) and acetone as solvent. The effect of various acetone/DMF ratios and non-solvent material on the physical and electrochemical properties of the separator is studied by FE-SEM, tensile strength, electrochemical AC-impedance spectroscopy (EIS), thermal stability, and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). The charge-discharge studies are carried out by fabricating a lithium foil/polymer electrolyte membrane/LiFePO4 cell. The results show that with the change of solvent and non-solvent, the... 

Surface tension driven passive micro-pumping relies mainly on the surface tension properties. To have control over surface tension driven passive micro-pumps (STD-PMPs), it is essential to understand the physical background of the fluid flow in these pumps. Hence, the purpose of this work is to give an exploration of the flow physics of a STD-PMP. In this regard, computer simulation is used to give detailed information about the flow pattern and physical phenomena at different conditions. To this end, a droplet of water, with a specified diameter, is placed onto an entry port connected to another droplet at the exit port via a microchannel. The results indicate that the pumping process, in... 

Adomian decomposition method was employed to obtain an approximate solution to two-dimensional and axisymmetric jet impinging flows in this work. Assumptions have been made to reduce the related full Navier-Stokes equations to a non-linear ordinary differential equation. A trial and error strategy has been used to obtain the constant coefficient in the approximated solution. Velocity Profiles, Shear stresses and displacement thickness were chosen to be compared with accurate numerical data. Sensitivity of the results to the number of terms have been discussed. The results showed for open boundary problems having at least one boundary condition at infinity, the applicable range of the... 

This study delves into the efficacy of trailing edge surface microstructures (TESM) in mitigating boundary layer separation on a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 0015 airfoil to augment aerodynamic performance. Three-dimensional quasi-spherical structures were integrated onto the upper surface of the airfoil near the trailing edge. The large eddy simulation approach was employed to solve the flow at a Reynolds number of 600 000 and an angle of attack of 17°. Key findings underscore notable disparities in vortex formation and turbulent flow evolution between clean and TESM airfoils, underscoring TESM's capacity to impede turbulent spot formation. Particularly, airfoils outfitted... 

Let LL be a reversible Markovian generator on a finite set View the MathML sourceV. Relations between the spectral decomposition of LL and subpartitions of the state space View the MathML sourceV into a given number of components which are optimal with respect to min–max or max–min Dirichlet connectivity criteria are investigated. Links are made with higher-order Cheeger inequalities and with a generic characterization of subpartitions given by the nodal domains of an eigenfunction. These considerations are applied to generators whose positive rates are supported by the edges of a discrete cycle ZNZN, to obtain a full description of their spectra and of the shapes of their eigenfunctions, as...