Sharif Digital Repository

The building sector is a major source of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in urban regions. Several studies have explored energy consumption prediction, and the value of the knowledge extracted is directly related to the quality of the data used. The massive growth in the scale of data affects data quality and poses a challenge to traditional data mining methods, as these methods have difficulties coping with such large amounts of data. Expanded algorithms need to be utilized to improve prediction performance considering the ever-increasing large data sets. In this paper, a preprocessing method to remove noisy features is coupled with predication methods to improve the... 

The main objective of this work is minimizing the cost of electricity of solid oxide fuel cell stacks by decelerating degradation mechanisms rate in long term operation for stationary power generation applications. The degradation mechanisms in solid oxide fuel cells are caused by microstructural changes, reactions between lanthanum strontium manganite and electrolyte, poisoning by chromium, carburization on nickel particles, formation of nickel sulfide, nickel coarsening, nickel oxidation, loss of conductivity and crack formation in the electrolyte. The rate of degradation mechanisms depends on the cell operating conditions (cell voltage and fuel utilization). In this study, the degradation... 

In the present study a comprehensive thermodynamic model and degradation based optimization framework for energy management of anode supported solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stacks are carried out. The optimization framework determines optimum operating conditions to maximize system productivity (energy generation over system lifetime) considering degradation mechanisms. The main degradation mechanisms in anode supported SOFCs are nickel coarsening and oxidation. In this study, the optimum operating conditions regarding these degradation mechanisms to achieve maximum productivity at different target lifetimes are derived. The results show that target lifetime has a significant impact on system... 

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... 

System health management based on condition monitoring is of great value and significance for improving system performance and reliability. As more data from condition monitoring is obtained, the efficiency of system health monitoring improves. However, increasing the amount of data by installing new sensors on system components is restricted by a variety of factors such as budget, weight and space allowance. Therefore, sensor selection in the most optimal manner in order to achieve maximum valuable information from system is an important issue. In this study, a novel concept is introduced that can be used in sensor combination optimization problems. This concept employs failure modes and... 

Ni-TiN nanocomposite coatings were prepared by using electrochemical deposition in a Watt's bath containing TiN particles to increase the hardness of Ni. The effects of deposition current density, electrolyte agitation speed and the number of particles in the solution on the amount of incorporated particles in the coating process were investigated. The optimum deposition current density of 4 A dm-2 and agitation speed of 450 rpm were obtained. The effect of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) anionic surfactant on the amount of particles in the coatings was investigated. It was observed that the maximum amount of incorporated particles, with a value of 7.5% by volume, was created in the current... 

Central heating system faults affect building energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort significantly. The interdependencies among system components and multiple failure modes present a challenge for system health diagnostics and prognostics. A reliable diagnosis and prognosis can only be ensured when all component conditions are monitored with minimum uncertainty. In this regard, sensors should be selected based on their priority in providing system health information. Currently, most of the research on sensor optimization models optimize sensors position and orientation. However, in this study sensor type is optimized as well. In addition, the proposed method is based on the Bayesian... 

For the 4th IUPAP International Conference of Women in Physics, we report on activities in science and engineering in Iran, and conditions for women in physics, in the three years since the 3rd IUPAP International Conference of Women in Physics was held in 2008. Iran has made prominent advancements and astonishing progress in laser technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, genetics, computer software and hardware, and robotics. Iranian scientists have been very productive in several experimental fields, such as pharmaceutical, organic, and polymer chemistry. Conditions for women in physics have improved greatly in recent years. A project to improve the environment for learning physics, and... 

The lead is a heavy metal with hazardous impacts on environment and human life. Lead-free perovskite solar cells have attracted much attention in recent years, due to eco-friendly characteristics. Meanwhile, Pb-containing cells showed the highest efficiencies among the various types of cells. Hence, designing novel Pb-free solar cells with comparable or better performance than the Pb-containing ones is highly required. In this work, a lead-free methyl-ammonium-germanium-iodide (MAGeI3)-based perovskite solar cell with ITO/TiO2/MAGeI3/Spiro-OMeTAD/Ag multilayer nanostructure has been proposed and its main characteristics including open-circuit voltage (VOC) and power conversion efficiency (η)... 

Core/shell structure of ZnO nanowires coated with a monolayer of TiO 2 is investigated using Density Functional Theory (DFT). The electronic states of the semiconductor is calculated and compared before and after coating of the TiO2 monolayer on a ZnO [101 0] surface. The effect of TiO2 coating induce surface states changes and shifts the conduction and valence band edges to higher energies. Our results, in qualitative agreement with the experimental work of Matt Law et al. (J. Phys. Chem. B, 110, 22652), show an increase in open circuit voltage and a decrease in short circuit current in ZnO/TiO2 core shell dye sensitized solar cells. Regarding the semiconductor density of states (DOS), TiO2... 

Due to the important role of commitment and trust in the relationship marketing, the factors which can directly result in a committed relationship along with the factors which can influence the commitment through influencing trust, according to the model of commitment and trust by (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) have been introduced and their level of importance has been investigated here. The article uses fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs) in the proposed model to find the most important paths leading to relationship commitment. The FCM analyzes the responses of a group of 30 people including general practitioners in dentistry, managers of dental departments in some of the public clinics and hospitals who... 

Conventionally, a film of TiO2 particles of 300 nm size is employed in Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) as the back reflector film to enhance the light harvesting. Perfect reflectance of silver in visible and near infrared motivates to investigate its potential as the material for the light back reflector film in DSCs. In this study, light back reflector films consisting of 300 nm-sized silver particles, as well as vacuum evaporated silver flat film, were fabricated and compared to 300 nm-sized rutile-type TiO2 particulate reflector film to study their optical aspects. Conventional TiO2 rutile-type particulate film demonstrates slightly lower performance... 

Monolithic dye-sensitized solar cells are conventionally fabricated using carbon composite layer as the counter electrode. In the current research, the brittle carbon composite layer is replaced with a metal foil, aiming to decrease the device series resistance and using less catalyst material in counter electrode. This metallic structure has also an advantage of mechanical strength and decreases the fabrication complexity. The counter electrode is prepared by electrodepositing Cr film followed by electrodepositing Pt nanoparticles on a metal foil. As the porous spacer layer, different composite layers of SiO2, TiO2, and Al2O3 are investigated and the best results are obtained for TiO2... 

Nowadays, the need for green energy resources is being felt more than at any other time due to the critical level of carbon emission and its considerable effects on the environment. Hydrogen as a promising substitute for fossil fuels can be produced via water splitting reactions and be applied in a carbon-free cycle. As one of the main pillars of the 4th industrial revolution, additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are attractive trends toward fabrication of the electrolyzers and electrodes with high surface area and customized architecture in an automated, time-saving, and waste-reducing manner. This review is devoted to electrocatalytic water splitting reports in which additive... 

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been a potential green energy source for a long time but one of the problems is that either the technology must be used on a large scale or special equipment have been necessary to keep the fuel cells running such as syringe pumps. Paper-based microbial fuel cells do not need to have a syringe pump to run and can run entirely by themselves when placed in contact with the fluids that are necessary for it to run. Paper-based microbial fuel cells are also more compact than traditional MFCs since the device doesn't need any external equipment to run. The goal of this paper is to develop a microbial fuel cell that does not require a syringe pump to function. This... 

This paper proposes a novel decentralized control approach for islanded direct-current (DC) microgrids (MGs) based on model predictive control (MPC) to regulate the distributed generation unit (DGU) output voltages, i.e. the voltages of the point of common coupling (PCC). A local controller is designed for each DGU, in the presence of uncertainties, disturbances, and unmodeled dynamics. First, a discrete-time state-space model of an MG is derived. Afterward, an MPC algorithm is designed to perform the PCC voltage control. The proposed MPC scheme ensures that the PCC voltages remain within an acceptable range. Several simulation studies have been conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of... 

Sophisticated surgeons are widely indicating the use of surgical robots in order to reject human error, increase precision, and speed. Among well-known robotic mechanisms, parallel robots are broadly more investigated regarding their special characters as higher acceleration, speed, and accuracy, and less weight. Specific surgical procedures confine, and restrict their workspace, while controlling and validating the robots are complicated regarding to their complex dynamic. To this end, in this paper, a 6-DOF robot, with rotary manipulators, is designed and controlled. Addressing nonlinearity of parallel robots, an innovative methodology is formulated to robustly penalize the error of... 

Sophisticated surgeons are widely indicating the use of surgical robots in order to reject human error, increase precision, and speed. Among well-known robotic mechanisms, parallel robots are broadly more investigated regarding their special characters as higher acceleration, speed, and accuracy, and less weight. Specific surgical procedures confine and restrict their workspace, while controlling and validating the robots are complicated based on their complex dynamic. To this end, in this paper, a 6-DOF robot, with linear manipulators, is designed and controlled. Addressing the inherent nonlinearity of the robot mechanism, an adaptive PID manipulator is employed and validated with nonlinear...