The effect of considering the third dimension in mass concrete members on its cracking behavior is investigated in this study. The investigation includes thermal and structural analyses of mass concrete structures. From thermal analysis, the actual temperature distribution throughout the mass concrete body was obtained due to the generation of heat as a result of cement hydration in
addition to the ambient circumstances. This was performed via solving the differential equations of heat conduction and convection using the finite element method. The finite element method was also implemented in the structural analysis adopting the concept of initial strain problem. Drying shrinkage volume changes were calculated using the procedure sug

This study aims to suggest a technique for soil properties improvement of AL- Kadhimin shrine Minaret and to support the foundation, which has a tilt of roughly 80 cm from the vertical axis. The shrine of the AL- Kadhimin is made up of four minarets with two domes set in a large courtyard. The four minarets have skewed to varying degrees due to uncontrolled dewatering inside the shrine in recent years. However, the northeast minaret was the most inclined due to its proximity to the well placed inside shrine courtyard. When the well near the minaret is operated, the water level drops, increasing the effective stresses of the soil and causing differential settling of the minaret foundation. To maintain the minaret's foundation from potenti

The aim of this study is to investigate the behavior of composite castellated beam in which the concrete slab and steel beam connected together with headed studs shear connectors. Four simply supported composite beams with various degree of castellation were tested under two point static loads. One of these beams was built up using standard steel beam, i.e. without web openings, to be a reference beam. The other three beams were fabricated from the same steel I-section with various three castellation ratios, (25, 35, and 45) %. In all beams the concrete slab has the same section and properties. Deflection at mid span of all beams was measured at each 10 kN load increment. The test results show that the castellation process leads to

A tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding is one of the most popular kinds of welding used to join metals mainly for aluminum alloys.  However, many challenges may be met with this kind of joining process; these challenges arise from decay of mechanical properties of welded materials. In the present study, an attempt was made to enhancing the mechanical properties of TIG weld joint of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy by hardening the surfaces using shoot peening technique. To optimize the shoot peening process three times of exposure (5, 10, and 15) min. was used. All peened and unpeened, and welded and unwelded samples were  characterized by metallographic test to indicate the phase transformation and modification in microstructure occurring d

Two grades of paving asphalt with penetration of 46 and 65 are studied for determining changes in their physical and chemical properties caused by ageing.
The ageing process has been conducted on two petroleum paving asphalt cement using thin film oven test at 150, 163 and 175 C, and ageing time 5, 10,15, 20, 25 and 30 hours. The effect of ageing time and temperature on penetration, kinematic viscosity, softening point, solubility in trichloroethylene, heat loss and changes in chemical composition are investigated. The results of thin film oven test process indicte that the asphaltenes concentration of all aged asphalt increases with increasing ageing time, while the opposite was observed for polar-aromatic and naphthene-aromatic. The

This work aims to investigate the tensile and compression strengths of heat- cured acrylic resin denture base material by adding styrene-butadiene (S- B) to polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). The most well- known issue in prosthodontic practice is fracture of a denture base. All samples were a blend of (90%, 80%) PMMA and (10%, 20%) S- B powder melted in Oxolane (Tetra hydro furan). These samples were chopped down into specimens of dimensions 100x10x2.5mm to carry out the requirements of tensile tests. The compression strength test specimens were shaped into a cylinder with dimensions of 12.7mm in diameter and 20mm in length. The experimental results show a significant increase in both tensile and compression strengths when compared to cont