Thin plate splines are a well known entity of geometric design. They are defined as the minimizer of a variational problem whose differential operators approximate a simple notion of bending energy. Therefore, thin plate splines approximate surfaces with minimal bending energy and they are widely considered as the standard “fair” surface model. Such surfaces are desired for many modeling and de...

temperature restrictions on aqueous effluents dictate that streams with a temperature higher than the permitted level needed to pass through cooling systems to reduce the effluent temperature before discharge. in this study, by considering the grouping design rules based on pinch technology, an optimum design for a distributed effluent cooling system, has been developed. a counter-flow wet cool...

the most promising method for micro scale energy scavenging is via vibration energy harvesting which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy by the effect of coupling between electric fields and mechanical variables. using piezoelectric cantilevers is the most common method for vibration energy harvesting. changing the shape of the cantilevers can lead to changing the generated output v...