• Proceeding of EDISON Challenge
• /
• 2013.04a
• /
• pp.294-298
• /
• 2013

A FeRh alloy is a well-known efficient magnetocaloric material and some experimental and theoretical studies of bulk FeRh have been reported already by several groups. In this study we report first-principles calculations on magnetic properties of different thickness FeRh thin films in order to investigate the possibility to enhance further the magnetocaloric efficiency. We used two methods of a Vienna Ab-initio Simulation Package (VASP) code and SIESTA package. We found that the FeRh thin films have quite different magnetic properties from the bulk when the thickness is thinner than 6-atomic-layers. While bulk FeRh has a G-type antiferromagnetic(AFM) state, thin films which are thinner than 6-atomic-layers have an A-type AFM state or a ferromagnetic (FM) state. We will discuss possibility of magnetic phase transitions of the FeRh thin films in the view point of a magnetocaloric effect. And we found 4-, 5-, 6-layers films with Fe surface and 7-layers film with Rh surface are FM and they have relatively small magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA) energy about less than 70 meV. The small MCA energy leads to reduction of the strength of magnetic field in operating a magnetic refrigerator.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.8 no.9
• /
• pp.3056-3074
• /
• 2014

Convergecast is probably the most common communication style in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). And linear network coding (LNC) is a promising concept to improve throughput or reliability of convergecast. Most of the existing works have mainly focused on exploiting these benefits without considering its potential adverse effect. In this paper, we argue that LNC may not always benefit convergecast. This viewpoint is discussed within four basic scenarios: LNC-aided and none-LNC convergecast schemes with and without automatic repeat request (ARQ) mechanisms. The most concerned performance metrics, including packet collection rate, energy consumption, energy consumption balance and end-to-end delay, are investigated. Theoretical analyses and simulation results show that the way LNC operates, i.e., conscious overhearing and the prerequisite of successfully decoding, could naturally diminish its advantages in convergecast. And LNC-aided convergecast schemes may even be inferior to none-LNC ones when the wireless link delivery ratio is high enough. The conclusion drawn in this paper casts a new light on how to effectively apply LNC to practical WSNs.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.51-70
• /
• 2008

CFD is applied to evaluate pedestrian wind comfort at outdoor platforms in a high-rise apartment building. Model validation is focused on generic building sub-configurations that are obtained by decomposition of the actual complex building geometry. The comfort study is performed during the design stage, which allows structural design changes to be made for wind comfort improvement. Preliminary simulations are performed to determine the effect of different design modifications. A full wind comfort assessment study is conducted for the final design. Structural remedial measures for this building, aimed at reducing pressure short-circuiting, appear to be successful in bringing the discomfort probability estimates down to acceptable levels. Finally, the importance of one of the main sources of uncertainty in this type of wind comfort studies is illustrated. It is shown that the uncertainty about the terrain roughness classification can strongly influence the outcome of wind comfort studies and can lead to wrong decisions. This problem is present to the same extent in both wind tunnel and CFD wind comfort studies when applying the same particular procedure for terrain relation contributions as used in this paper.

• Current Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.330-335
• /
• 2020

We have investigated optimization of the working distance (WD) for a highly miniaturized imaging probe for endoscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT). The WD is the axial distance from the distal end of the imaging probe to its beam focus, which is demanded for dimensional margins of protective structures, operational safety, or full utilization of the axial imaging range of OCT. With an objective lens smaller than a few hundred micrometers in diameter, a micro-optic imaging probe naturally exhibits a very short WD due to the down-scaled optical structure. For a maximized WD careful design is required with the optical aperture of the objective lens optimally filled by the incident beam. The diffraction-involved effect was taken into account in our analysis of the apertured beam. In this study, we developed a simple design formula on the maximum achievable WD based on our diffraction simulation. It was found that the maximum WD is proportional to the aperture size squared. In experiment, we designed and fabricated very compact OCT probes with long WDs. Our 165-㎛-thick fiber-optic probes provided WDs of 3 mm or longer w ith reasonable OCT imaging performance.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.15 no.8
• /
• pp.2879-2899
• /
• 2021

The tone reservation (TR) scheme is an attractive method to reduce peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in the filter bank multicarrier with offset quadrature amplitude modulation (FBMC-OQAM) systems. However, the high PAPR of FBMC signal will severely degrades system performance. To address this issue, a cyclic shift based TR (CS-TR) scheme with embedding side information (SI) is proposed to reduce the PAPR of FBMC signals. At the transmitter, four candidate signals are first generated based on cyclic shift of the output of inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT), and the SI of the selected signal with minimum peak power among the four candidate signals is embedded in sparse symbols with quadrature phase-shift keying constellation. Then, the TR weighted by optimal scaling factor is employed to further reduce PAPR of the selected signal. At the receiver, a reliable SI detector is presented by determining the phase rotation of SI embedding symbols, and the transmitted data blocks can be correctly demodulated according to the detected SI. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms the existing TR schemes in both PAPR reduction and bit error rate (BER) performances. In addition, the proposed scheme with detected SI can achieve the same BER performance compared to the one with perfect SI.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.50 no.7
• /
• pp.1017-1023
• /
• 2018

The measurement and calculation of neutronic parameters in nuclear research reactors has an important influence on control and safety of the nuclear reactor. The power peaking factors, reactivity coefficients and kinetic parameters are the most important neutronic parameter for determining the state of the reactor. The position of the control shim safety rods in the core configuration affects these parameters. The main purpose of this work is to use the MTR_PC package to evaluate the effect of the partially insertion of the control rod on the neutronic parameters at the operating core of the Tehran Research Reactor. The simulation results show that by increasing the insertion of control rods (bank) in the core, the absolute values of power peaking factor, reactivity coefficients and effective delayed neutron fraction increased and only prompt neutron life time decreased. In addition, the results show that the changes of moderator temperature coefficients value versus the control rods positions are very significant. The average value of moderator temperature coefficients increase about 98% in the range of 0-70% insertion of control rods.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.1
• /
• pp.30-35
• /
• 2022

In a nuclear reactor, gamma radiation is the dominant energy deposition in non-fuel regions. Heat is generated upon gamma deposition and consequently affects the mechanical and thermal structure of the material. Therefore, the safety of samples should be carefully considered so that their integrity and quality can be retained. To evaluate relevant parameters, an in-core gamma thermometer (GT) was used to measure gamma heating (GH) throughout the operation of the McMaster nuclear reactor (MNR) at four irradiation sites. Additionally, a Monte Carlo reactor physics code (Serpent-2) was utilized to model the MNR with the GT located in the same irradiation sites used in the measurement to verify its predictions against measured GH. This research aids in the development of modeling, calculation, and prediction of the GH utilizing Serpent-2 as well as implementing a new GH measurement at the MNR core. After all uncertainties were quantified for both approaches, comparable GH profiles were observed between the measurements and calculations. In addition, the GH values found in the four sites represent a strong level of radiation based on the distance of the sample from the core. In this study, the maximum and minimum GH values were found at 0.32 ± 0.05 W/g and 0.15 ± 0.02 W/g, respectively, corresponding to 320 Sv/s and 150 Sv/s. These values are crucial to be considered whenever sample is planned to be irradiated inside the MNR core.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.122-129
• /
• 2021

Purpose: This study aimed to design a multipurpose dose verification phantom for external audits to secure safe and optimal radiation therapy. Methods: In this study, we used International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) LiF powder thermoluminescence dosimeter (TLD), which is generally used in the therapeutic radiation dose assurance project. The newly designed multipurpose phantom (MPP) consists of a container filled with water, a TLD holder, and two water-pressing covers. The size of the phantom was designed to be sufficient (30×30×30 cm³). The water container was filled with water and pressed with the cover for normal incidence to be fixed. The surface of the MPP was devised to maintain the same distance from the source at all times, even in the case of oblique incidence regardless of the water level. The MPP was irradiated with 6, 10, and 15 MV photon beams from Varian Linear Accelerator and measured by a 1.25 cm³ ionization chamber to get the correction factors. Monte Carlo (MC) simulation was also used to compare the measurements. Results: The result obtained by MC had a relatively high uncertainty of 1% at the dosimetry point, but it showed a correction factor value of 1.3% at the 5 cm point. The energy dependence was large at 6 MV and small at 15 MV. Various dosimetric parameters for external audits can be performed within an hour. Conclusions: The results allow an objective comparison of the quality assurance (QA) of individual hospitals. Therefore, this can be employed for external audits or QA systems in radiation therapy institutions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.11
• /
• pp.4220-4225
• /
• 2022

Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are increasingly being used as an alternative or supplement to the gamma spectrometric method in determining the full energy peak efficiency (FEPE) necessary for radionuclide identification and quantification. The MC method is more advantageous than the experimental method in terms of both cost and time. Experimental calibration with standard sources is difficult, especially for specimens with unusually shaped geometries. However, with MC, efficiency values can be obtained by modeling the geometry as desired without using any calibration source. Modeling the detector with the correct parameters is critical in the MC method. These parameters given to the user by the manufacturer are especially the dimensions of the crystal and its front edge, the thickness of the dead layer, dimensions, and materials of the detector components. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the front edge geometry of the detector crystal on efficiency, so the effect of rounded and sharp modeled front edges on the FEPE was investigated for <300 keV with three different HPGe detectors in point and volume source geometries using PHITS MC code. All results showed that the crystal should be modeled as a rounded edge, especially for gamma-ray energies below 100 keV.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.5
• /
• pp.1885-1891
• /
• 2023

The present work aims to fabricate Na_1+xZr₂Si_xP_3-xO₁₂ compound at various calcination temperatures based on the zircon mineral. The fabricated compound was calcinated at 250, 500, and 1000℃. The effect of calcination temperature on the structure, crystal phase, and radiation shielding properties was studied for the fabricated compound. The X-ray diffraction diffractometer demonstrates that, the monoclinic crystal phase appeared at a calcination temperature of 250℃ and 500℃ is totally transformed to a high-symmetry hexagonal crystal phase under a calcination temperature of 1000℃. The radiation shielding capacity was also qualified for the fabricated compounds using the Monte Carlo N-Particle transport code in the g-photons energy interval between 15keV and 122keV. The impacts of calcination temperature on the g-ray shielding behavior were clarified in the present study, where the linear attenuation coefficient was enhanced by 218% at energy of 122keV, when the calcination temperature increased from 250 to 1000℃, respectively.