This research utilized natural asphalt (NA) deposits from sulfur springs in western Iraq. Laboratory tests were conducted to evaluate the performance of an asphalt mixture incorporating NA and verify its suitability for local pavement applications. To achieve this, a combination of two types of NA, namely soft SNA and hard HNA, was blended to create a binder known as Type HSNA. The resulting HSNA exhibited a penetration grade that adhered to Iraqi specifications. Various percentages of NA (20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%) were added to petroleum asphalt. The findings revealed enhanced physical properties of HSNA, which also satisfied the requirements outlined in the Iraqi specifications for asphalt cement. Consequently, HSNA can serve as an asphalt binder to produce asphalt mixtures for flexible paving construction. Notably, HSNA mixtures exhibited greater Marshall stability and stiffness index when compared to traditional mixtures. The results from indirect tensile strength (ITS) and tensile strength ratio (TSR) tests indicated that the 80NA mixture displayed the highest ITS values and a TSR of 81.36%, surpassing the TSR of the mixture incorporating petroleum asphalt by 0.57%.
Institutions and companies are looking to reduce spending on buildings and services according to scientific methods, provided they reach the same purpose but at a lower cost. On this basis, this paper proposes a model to measure and reduce maintenance costs in one of the public sector institutions in Iraq by using performance indicators that fit the nature of the work of this institution and the available data. The paper relied on studying the nature of the institution’s work in the maintenance field and looking at the type of data available to know the type and number of appropriate indicators to create the model. Maintenance data were collected for the previous six years by reviewing the maintenance and financial dep
... Show MoreIn modern hydraulic control systems, the trend in hydraulic power applications is to improve efficiency and performance. “Proportional valve” is generally applied to pressure, flow and directional-control valves which continuously convert a variable input signal into a smooth and proportional hydraulic output signal. It creates a variable resistance (orifice) upstream and downstream of a hydraulic actuator, and is meter in/meter out circuit and hence pressure drop, and power losses are inevitable. If velocity (position) feedback is used, flow pattern control is possible. Without aforementioned flow pattern, control is very “loose” and relies on “visual” feed back by the operator. At this point, we should examine how this valv
... Show MoreA field experiment was conducted during winter season of 2021 at a research station of college of agricultural engineering sciences, university of Baghdad to determine the response of active fertility percentage and seed yield and its components of faba bean (Vicia faba L. cv. Aguadulce) to distance between plants and spraying of nano and traditional boron. A Randomized Complete Block Design according to split-plots arrangement was used at three replicates. The main plots were three distances between plants (25, 35 and 45 cm), while the sub plots including spraying of distilled water only (control treatment), spraying of boron at a 100 mg L-1 and spraying of nano boron at two concentrations (10 and 15 mg L-1). The results showed that the 25
... Show MoreThe topic of urban transformations has attracted the attention of researchers as it is one of the basic issues through which cities can be transformed towards sustainability. A specific level of transformation levels according to a philosophical concept known as a crossing. This article has relied on a specific methodology that aims to find a new approach for urban transformation based on the crossing concept. This concept derives from philosophical entrances based on the concepts of (being, process, becoming, and integration). Four levels have been for the crossing are (normal, ascending, leap, and descending). Each of these levels includes specific characteristics that distinguish it. The results showed that there is no descending
... Show MoreA Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes, that forms on the fly a temporary wireless multi-hop network in a self-organizing way, without relying on any established infrastructure. In MANET, a pair of nodes exchange messages either over a direct wireless link, or over a sequence of wireless links including one or more intermediate nodes. For this purpose, an efficient routing protocol is required. This paper introduced performance study of three of MANET protocols (AODV, GRP and OSPFv3). This study was one of the newer studies because wireless communication played an important role in today’s application and the field of mobile ad hoc network becomes very popular for the researchers in the last years. This study w
... Show MoreA mathematical model has been formulated to predict the influence of high outdoor air temperature on the performance of small scale air - conditioning system using R22 and alternative refrigerants R290, R407C, R410A. All refrigerants were investigated in the cooling mode operation. The mathematical model results have been validated with experimental data extracted from split type air conditioner of 2 TR capacity. This entailed the construction of an experimental test rig which consists of four main parts. They are, the refrigeration system, psychrometric test facility, measuring instrumentation, and auxiliary systems. The conditioned air was maintained at 25 0C dry bulb and 19 0C wet bulb for all tests. The outdoor ambient air temperatur
... Show MoreThe population has been trying to use clean energy instead of combustion. The choice was to use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for domestic use, especially for cooking due to its advantages as a light gas, a lower cost, and clean energy. Residential complexes are supplied with liquefied petroleum gas for each housing unit, transported by pipes from LPG tanks to the equipment. This research aims to simulate the design and performance design of the LPG system in the building that is applied to a residential complex in Baghdad taken as a study case with eight buildings. The building has 11 floors, and each floor has four apartments. The design in this study has been done in two parts, part one is the design of an LPG system for one building, an
... Show MoreSome of the main challenges in developing an effective network-based intrusion detection system (IDS) include analyzing large network traffic volumes and realizing the decision boundaries between normal and abnormal behaviors. Deploying feature selection together with efficient classifiers in the detection system can overcome these problems. Feature selection finds the most relevant features, thus reduces the dimensionality and complexity to analyze the network traffic. Moreover, using the most relevant features to build the predictive model, reduces the complexity of the developed model, thus reducing the building classifier model time and consequently improves the detection performance. In this study, two different sets of select
... Show MoreDevelopments are carried out to enhance the performance of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT). This paper studies the performance of the ducted wind turbine with convergent duct (DAWT). Basically, the duct technique is utilized to provide the desired wind velocity facing the turbine. Methodology was developed to estimate the decisive performance parameter and to present the effect of the convergent duct with different inlet angles. The ducted wind turbine was analyzed and simulated using MATLAB software and numerically using ANSYS-Fluent 17.2. Result of both approaches were presented and showed good closeness for the two cases of covering angles 12 and 20 respectively. Results also showed that the convergent duct with an inlet angl
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