Interest has largely centered on the use of plant fibers to reinforce plastics, because these fibers are abundant and cheap. Carrot fibers (Curran) have been extracted from carrot, left over from carrot juice manufacture. The fibers of two sizes fine (50<µm) and coarse (100-150 µm) have been mixed with epoxy in four levels of loading (10, 20, 30, 40 wt %) respectively. Impact test, shore d hardness test and three point bending test of epoxy and carrot fiber-epoxy composites samples have been determined. The impact strength values of samples prepared with fine and coarse fibers increased as compared with pure epoxy sample. Hardness values increased, and the Young’s modulus values decreased with fiber content of both sizes.
The Dielectric properties of EP/TiO2 and MgO nanocomposite at
a frequency range of (102-106 Hz) were studied. The composite were
prepared with the state volume ratio (0, 0.05, 0.1) for EP/TiO2 and
MgO respectively. The impedance, dielectric constant and dielectric
loss were found decrease with frequency increase.
Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) contaminated sites at Al-Rumaila Iraqi oil fields have been characterized as a part of soil remediation project. Activity of radium isotopes in contaminated soil have been determined using gamma spectrometer High Purity Germanium detector (HPGe) and found to be very high for Al-Markezia, Al-Qurainat degassing stations and storage area at Khadhir Almay region. The activity concentration of samples ranges from 6474.11±563.8 Bq/kg to 1232.5±60.9 Bq/kg with mean value of 3853.3 Bq/kg for 226Ra, 843.59±8.39 Bq/kg to 302.2±9.2 Bq/kg with mean value of 572.9 Bq/kg for 232Th and 294.31±18.56 Bq/kg to 156.64±18.1 Bq/kg with mean value of 225.5 for 40K. S
... Show MoreApplying load to a structural member may result in a bottle-shaped compression field especially when the width of the loading is less than the width of bearing concrete members. At the Building and Construction Department – the University of Technology-Iraq, series tests on fibre reinforced concrete specimens were carried out, subjected to compression forces at the top and bottom of the specimens to produce compression field. The effects of steel fibre content, concrete compressive strength, transverse tension reinforcement, the height of test specimen, and the ratio of the width of loading plate to specimen width were studied by testing a total of tenth normal strength concrete blocks with steel fibre and one normal s
... Show MorePhotonic Crystal Fiber Fabry–Perot Interferometers (FPI) based on Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) was investigated in this paper in order to detect changes in photonic crystal fiber sensitivity with increasing temperature. FPI is composed of a PCF (ESM-12) solid core spliced with a single-mode fiber (SMF) on one side and a 40nm thick gold Nano film on the other. In order to obtain the SPR curve, the end of PCF can be spliced with the side of SMF before covering the gold film on the PCF. SPR results are included in the suggested sensor, based on the conclusions of the investigations. Resolution (R) is 0.0871, Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) is 0.1867, a figure of merit (FOM) is 0.0069, and sensitivity (S) is 1.1481 . This sensor proposed is s
... Show MoreThis paper presents a nonlinear finite element modeling and analysis of steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) deep beams with and without openings in web subjected to two- point loading. In this study, the beams were modeled using ANSYS nonlinear finite element
software. The percentage of steel fiber was varied from 0 to 1.0%.The influence of fiber content in the concrete deep beams has been studied by measuring the deflection of the deep beams at mid- span and marking the cracking patterns, compute the failure loads for each deep beam, and also study the shearing and first principal stresses for the deep beams with and without openings and with different steel fiber ratios. The above study indicates that the location of openings an
The focus of this work is on systematically understanding the effects of packing density of the sand grains on both the internal and bulk mechanical properties for strip footing interacting with granular soil. The studies are based on particle image velocimetry (PIV) method, coupled with a high resolution imaging camera. This provides valuable new insights on the evolution of slip planes at grain-scale under different fractions of the ultimate load. Furthermore, the PIV based results are compared with finite element method simulations in which the experimentally characterised parameters and constitutive behaviour are fed as an input, and a good level of agreements are obtained. The reported results would serve to the practicing engineers, r
... Show MoreThe ceramic composite with different proportions of clay and silica was prepared with a grain size of 70 μm and the weight percentage was selected for four groups (clayx silica100-x) were x q15, 25, 30 and 50. In this manuscript, for each pressured sample, a sintering procedure was carried out for 3 hours under static air and at various sintering temperatures (1000, 1100, 1200, 1400)°C. After sintering, the density, porosity, water absorption, compression strength and thermal conductivity were measured. The best results were obtained using a mixture of 15% clay and 85% silica which were sintering at 1400°C for three hours under air.
In the present paper a low cost mechanical vibration shaker of rotating unbalanced type with uniaxial shaking table was designed and constructed in an attempt to provide opportunities for experimental testing and application of vibration in experimental modal analysis, stress relief of weldments, effect of vibration on heat transfer and seismic testing of civil engineering structures. Also, it provides unexpressive solution to enhance the knowledge and technical skills of students in mechanical vibration laboratory. The shaker consists of a five main parts shaker frame, shaker table, flexible support, drive motor, and eccentricity mechanism. The experimental results show that the amplitude of the shaker is increased with increasing the f
... Show MoreA precise evaluation of caries excavation endpoint is essential in clinical and laboratory investigations. Caries invasion differentiates dentin into structurally altered layers. This study assessed these changes using Raman spectroscopy and Vickers microhardness. Ten permanent molars with occlusal and proximal carious lesions were assessed and compared at 130 points utilizing four Raman spectroscopic peaks: phosphate v1 at 960 cm−1, amide I (1650 cm−1), amide III (1235 cm−1) and the C-H bond of the pyrrolidine ring (1450 cm−1). The phosphate-to-amide I peak ratio and collagen integrity peak ratio (amide III: C-H bond) of carious zones were calculated and compared in both lesions. The former ratio was correlated to 130 Vicke
... Show MoreFiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) bars are anisotropic in nature and have high tensile strength in the fiber direction. The use of High-Strength Concrete (HSC) allows for better use of the high-strength properties of FRP bars. The mechanical properties of FRP bars can yield to large crack widths and deflections. As a result, the design of concrete elements reinforced with FRP materials is often governed by the Serviceability Limit States (SLS). This study investigates the short-term serviceability behavior of FRP RC I-beams. Eight RC I-beams reinforced with carbon-FRP (CFRP) and four steel RC I-beams, for comparison purposes, were tested under two-point loading.
Deformations on the concrete and crack widths and spacing are measured and