Gypseous soils are distributed in many regions in the world including Iraq, which cover more than (31%) of the surface area of the country. Existence of these soils, always with high gypsum content, caused difficult problems to the buildings and strategic projects due to dissolution and leaching of the gypsum caused by the action of water flow through soil mass. For the study, the gypseous soil was brought from Bahr Al-Najaf, Al-Najaf Governorate which is located in the middle of Iraq. The model pile was embedded in gypseous soil with 42% gypsum content. Compression axial model pile load tests have been carried out for model pile embedded in gypseous soil at initial degree of saturation of (7%) before and after soil satu

A large amount of thermal energy is generated from burning hazardous chemical wastes, and the temperature of the flue gases in hazardous waste incinerators reaches up to (1200 °C). The flue gases are cooled to (40°C) and are treated before emission. This thermal energy can be utilized to produce electrical power by designing a system suitable for dangerous flue gases in the future depending on the results of much research about using a proto-type small steam power plant that uses safe fuel to study and develop the electricity generation process with water tube boiler which is manufactured experimentally with theoretical development for some of its parts which are inefficient in experimental work. The studied system gen

Artificial roughness applied to a Solar Air Heater (SAH) absorber plate is a popular technique for increasing its total thermal efficiency (ηt−th). In this paper, the influence of geometrical parameters of V-down ribs attached below the corrugated absorbing plate of a SAH on the ηt−th was examined. The impacts of key roughness parameters, including relative pitch p/e (6–12), relative height e/D (0.019–0.043), angles of attack α (30–75°), and Re (1000–20,000), were examined under real weather conditions. The SAH ηt−th roughened by V-down ribs was predicted using an in-house developed conjugate heat-transfer numerical model. The maximum SAH ηt−th was shown to be 78.8% as predicted under the steady-state condition

Luffa aegyptiaca is a plant of multi-purpose importance whose usefulness cuts across virtually all areas of life. This study has characterized L. aegyptiaca in Lagos state and determined the mineral, proximate, phytochemical as well as the heavy metal accumulation potential. Samples were collected from the 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Lagos state at 2 samples per location.   Genetic similarity and intra-specific variation in 40 samples of L. aegyptiaca were determined using 3 Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) primers which yielded a total of 42 markers of which 25 was polymorphic. The maximum number of bands (14) was produced by OPC4 while the minimum (7) were produced by OPAF20. Percenta

There are two main categories of force control schemes: hybrid position-force control and impedance control. However, the former does not take into account the dynamic interaction between the robot’s end effector and the environment. In contrast, impedance control includes regulation and stabilization of robot motion by creating a mathematical relationship between the interaction forces and the reference trajectories. It involves an energetic pair of a flow and an effort, instead of controlling a single position or a force. A mass-spring-damper impedance filter is generally used for safe interaction purposes. Tuning the parameters of the impedance filter is important and, if an unsuitable strategy is used, this can lead to unstabl

Experts have given much attention on the use of waste in asphalt paving because of its significance from a sustainability perspective. This paper evaluated the performance properties of asphalt concrete mixes modified with Crumb Rubber (CR) as a partial replacement for two grade sizes of fine aggregate (2.36, and 0.3 mm) at six replacement rates: 0%, 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10% by weight. Asphalt concrete mixes were prepared at their Optimum Asphalt Content (OAC) and then tested for their engineering properties. Marshall properties, fatigue, rutting, ideal CT index test, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Energy-Dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy were deployed to examine the crystalline structure and elemental composition of the C

Durability of hot mix asphalt (HMA) against moisture damage is mostly related to asphalt-aggregate adhesion. The objective of this work is to find the effect of nanoclay with montmorillonite (MMT) on Marshall properties and moisture susceptibility of asphalt mixture. Two types of asphalt cement, AC(40-50) and AC(60-70) were modified with 2%, 4% and 6% of Iraqi nanoclay with montmorillonite. The Marshall properties, Tensile strength ratio(TSR) and Index of retained strength(ISR) were determined in this work. The total number of specimens was 216 and the optimum asphalt content was 4.91% and 5% for asphalt cement (40-50) and (60-70) respectively. The results showed that the modification of asphalt cement with MMT led to increase Marsh