Sharif Digital Repository

Micro-mixers are considered as vital components of Micro Total Analysis systems (μTAS). Major objective in the design of micro-mixers is achieving high mixing quality in short mixing times. In this paper, numerical simulation of some micro-mixer designs has been carried out to understand the detailed flow pattern and thereby to propose modifications for improving mixing efficiency. It is well known that inducing convection will provide turbulent like behavior with corresponding mixing enhancement. In micro systems to drive the flow, electro-osmotic force is usually used by introducing electrodes. In this work, mixing electrodes have been implemented to induce convection and eddies. This... 

Echo cancellers with long impulse responses are usually used in networks with long echoes. Since long adaptive filters with sparse target filters usually converge very slowly, adaptation algorithms with fast convergence rate are needed. PNLMS [2] is one of the algorithms that is designed for fast convergence on sparse impulse responses. But there are some disadvantages to this algorithm. The computational complexity of this algorithm is prohibitive, especially for long echo tails. Another disadvantage is that its convergence rate slows down significantly after the adaptation of large taps. In this paper we propose new algorithms to solve both these problems. In another part of this paper, we... 

Hardened nickel coating is widely used in many industrial applications and manufacturing processes because of its benefits in improving the corrosion fatigue life. It is clear that increasing the coating thickness provides good protection against corrosion. However, it reduces the fatigue life. Thus, applying a thin layer of coated nickel might give an acceptable corrosion protection with minimum loss of the fatigue life. In the present study, the effects of hardened nickel coating with different thicknesses on the fatigue behavior of CK45 mild steel were experimentally investigated. After conducting the experimental tests, we carried out two different modeling approaches of finite element... 

Mechanical failures in most cases originate from the exterior layers of the components. It is considerably effective to apply methods and treatments capable to improve the mechanical properties on component’s surface. Surface nanocrystallization produced by severe plastic deformation (SPD) processes such as severe shot peening (SSP) is increasingly considered in the recent years. However, artificial intelligence systems such as artificial neural network (ANN) as an efficient approach instead of costly and time consuming experiments is widely employed to predict and optimize the science and engineering problems in the last decade. In the present study the application of ANN in predicting of... 

The experimental observations indicate that the mechanical behavior of micro and nano scale structures is size-dependent. In this study, employing the modified couple stress theory the size-dependent strain energy release rate of notched Euler-Bernoulli beams made of functionally graded material (FGM) is formulated. The normalized energy release rate for the problem of three-point bending in notched FG beams is obtained using the procedure established by Kienzler and Herrmann [Kienzler R, Herrmann G, An elementary theory of defective beams. Acta Mech 1986; 62:37-46]. It is assumed that the material properties vary continuously along the beam thickness according to a power law distribution.... 

The present study investigates experimentally the effects of different shot peening treatments, including conventional, severe, over, and re-shot peening on microstructure, mechanical properties, and fatigue behavior of AISI 1050 mild carbon steel. Different shot peening treatments were performed using various effective parameters by considering the influences of increasing Almen intensity and coverage. Optical microscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy observations and X-Ray diffraction measurements were carried out to analyze grains refinement in each shot peening treatment. Microhardness and residual stress measurements were taken from shot peened surfaces to the core... 

Severe shot peening (SSP) process is widely used for surface nanocrysallization of a bulk material that demonstrates excellent mechanical properties compared with its coarse-grained equivalents. In this study, a plastically deformed surface was produced with nanostructured grains on different materials of AISI 1045, 1050, and 1060 carbon steels by means of SSP. Shot peening was applied with a wide range of Almen intensities and coverages. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, high resolution transmission electron microscope observations, and X-ray diffraction analysis were employed to analyze the mechanism of grain refinement... 

In the present study, the main purpose is to detect the most key factors of shot peening (SP) process on the microhardness, grain size, and residual stress of AISI 1060 high carbon steel. The specimens were treated using various types of SP process namely conventional shot peening and severe shot peening. Several experiments were performed to study metallurgical and mechanical properties of AISI 1060 steel. Almen intensity and surface coverage from one side and microhardness, grain size, and residual stress from the other side were considered as input and output parameters for the design of experiment methodology, respectively. The L18(21and31) mixed level of Taguchi orthogonal array design... 

In this paper, performance of grid computing environment is studied in the presence of failure-repair of the resources. To achieve this, in the first step, each of the grid resource is individually modeled using Stochastic Reward Nets (SRNs), and mean response time of the resource for grid tasks is computed as a performance measure. In individual models, three different scheduling schemes called random selection, non-preemptive priority, and preemptive priority are considered to simultaneously schedule local and grid tasks to the processors of a single resource. In the next step, single resource models are combined to shape an entire grid environment. Since the number of the resources in a... 

Articular cartilage is an avascular and almost acellular tissue with limited self-regenerating capabilities. Although injectable hydrogels have garnered a lot of attention as a promising treatment, a biocompatible hydrogel with adequate mechanical properties is yet to be created. In this study, an interpenetrating network hydrogel comprised of chitosan and silk fibroin was created through electrostatic and hydrophobic bonds, respectively. The polymeric network of the scaffold combined an effective microenvironment for cell activity with enhanced mechanical properties to address the current issues in cartilage scaffolds. Furthermore, microspheres (MS) were utilized for a controlled release of... 

Quantum metrology employs nonclassical systems to improve the sensitivity of measurements. The ultimate limit of this sensitivity is dictated by the quantum Cramér–Rao bound. On the other hand, the quantum speed limit bounds the speed of dynamics of any quantum process. We show that the speed limit of quantum dynamics sets a fundamental bound on the minimum attainable phase estimation error through the quantum Cramér–Rao bound, relating the precision directly to the underlying dynamics of the system. In particular, various metrologically important states are considered, and their dynamical speeds are analyzed. We find that the bound could, in fact, be related to the nonclassicality of... 

Biosensors could be used as digital devices to measure the sample infield. Consequently, computational programming along with experimental achievements are required. In this study, a novel biosensor/artificial neural network (ANN) integrated system was developed. Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxy-thiophene)(PEDOT), graphene oxide nano-sheets (GONs) and laccase (Lac) were used to construct a biosensor. The simple and one-pot process was accomplished by electropolymerizing 3,4-ethylenedioxy-thiophene (EDOT) along with GONs and Lac as dopants on glassy carbon electrode. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrochemical characterization were conducted to confirm successful enzyme entrapment. The... 

Typically, the lack of effective stakeholder participation in a project—especially in the initial planning and implementation stages—has a negative impact on the expected performance of the project. These negative consequences require attempts to encourage their effective participation. Nevertheless, there are some challenges ahead, such as conflict of interest among the stakeholders. For more accurate identification of the interests, objectives, and performance of the stakeholders, this paper proposes an accurate and organized model for the analysis of results from the stakeholder impact index. We implemented the proposed model to determine the existing barriers to renewable energy... 

As multi-hop wireless networks are attracting more attention, the need to evaluate their performance becomes essential. In order to evaluate the performance metrics of multi-hop wireless networks, including sending and receiving rates of a node as well as the collision probability, a model based on Stochastic Reward Nets (SRNs) is proposed. The proposed SRN models a typical node in such networks, considered as a general template to be applied to any wireless node. The SRN model of a single node is designed to take transmission effects of all neighboring nodes into account, while ignoring the ones whose transmission has no effect on the node under-study. Applying the proposed SRN to each node... 

This work presents a procedure for functionalization of graphene sheets from edges by polyglycerol. Hyperbranched polyglycerol with a bi-dentate aromatic segment in its focal point was synthesized and used to sandwich graphene sheets from the cut-edges. Due to the hydrophobicity of the flat surface of the edge-functionalized graphenes and hydrophilicity of their edges, they changed their conformation from the extended- to the closed-state and formed nanocapsules in aqueous solutions. Spectroscopy and microscopy evaluations showed that the average size for nanocapsules is 300 nm. They were able to encapsulate hydrophobic molecules such as doxorubicin in aqueous solutions with a high loading... 

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is one of the most significant and fastest growing fields in cloud computing. To efficiently use the resources of an IaaS cloud, several important factors such as performance, availability, and power consumption need to be considered and evaluated carefully. Evaluation of these metrics is essential for cost-benefit prediction and quantification of different strategies which can be applied to cloud management. In this paper, analytical models based on Stochastic Reward Nets (SRNs) are proposed to model and evaluate an IaaS cloud system at different levels. To achieve this, an SRN is initially presented to model a group of physical machines which are... 

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is one of the most significant and fastest growing fields in cloud computing. To efficiently use the resources of an IaaS cloud, several important factors such as performance, availability, and power consumption need to be considered and evaluated carefully. Evaluation of these metrics is essential for cost-benefit prediction and quantification of different strategies which can be applied to cloud management. In this paper, analytical models based on Stochastic Reward Nets (SRNs) are proposed to model and evaluate an IaaS cloud system at different levels. To achieve this, an SRN is initially presented to model a group of physical machines which are... 

In some applicable scenarios, such as community patrolling, mobile nodes are restricted to move only in their own communities. Exploiting the meetings of the nodes within the same community and the nodes within the neighboring communities, a delay tolerant network (DTN) can provide communication between any two nodes. In this paper, two analytical models based on stochastic reward nets (SRNs) are proposed to evaluate the performance of the epidemic content retrieval in such multi-community DTNs. Performance measures computed by the proposed models are the average retrieval delay and the average number of transmissions. The monolithic SRN model proposed in the first step is not scalable, in... 

Abstract: This study investigates and compares the effects of different shot peening treatments including conventional and severe shot peening on microstructure, mechanical properties, fatigue behavior, and residual stress relaxation of AISI 1060 steel. Shot peening treatments were applied with two Almen intensities of 17 and 21 A and a wide ranges of coverage (100%–1500%). Various microstructural observations were carried out to analyze the evolution of microstructure. Microhardness, residual stress and surface roughness measurements and also axial fatigue test were performed. Moreover, the extent of the residual stress relaxation during cyclic loading was investigated by means of XRD...