The increase in the number of trucks and other heavy vehicles in Iraqi highways lead to cracking and deteriorations in the flexible highway. The use of polymermodified asphalt may solve this problem to match the required performance standards. This study investigates the effects of styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) polymer on the performance behaviour of Iraqi bitumen binder. The characteristics of bitumen binder were analysed to observe the compatibility of bitumen with SBS polymer. The bitumen binder was mixed with three different contents of SBS (4%, 4.5%, and 5%) by weight of asphalt cement. Viscosity tests were conducted on the SBS polymer-modified asphalt at 135 oC and 165 oC in addition to conventional binder tests. The prepar

Copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles were synthesized through the thermal decomposition of a copper(II) Schiff-base complex. The complex was formed by reacting cupric acetate with a Schiff base in a 2:1 metal-to-ligand ratio. The Schiff base itself was synthesized via the condensation of benzidine and 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde in the presence of glacial acetic acid. This newly synthesized symmetric Schiff base served as the ligand for the Cu(II) metal ion complex. The ligand and its complex were characterized using several spectroscopic methods, including FTIR, UV-vis, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, CHNS, and AAS, along with TGA, molar conductivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements. The CuO nanoparticles were produced by thermally decomposing the

The catalytic cracking of three feeds of extract lubricating oil, that produced as a by-product from the process of furfural extraction of lubricating oil base stock in AL-Dura refinery at different operating condition, were carried out at a fixed bed laboratory reactor. The initial boiling point for these feeds was 140 ºC for sample (1), 86 ºC for sample (2) and 80 ºC for sample (3). The catalytic cracking processes were carried out at temperature range 325-400 ºC and initially at atmospheric pressure after 30 minutes over 9.88 % HY-zeolite catalyst load. The comparison between the conversion at different operating conditions of catalytic cracking processes indicates that a high yield was obtained at 375°C, according to gasoline pr

In this paper, a new technique is offered for solving three types of linear integral equations of the 2nd kind including Volterra-Fredholm integral equations (LVFIE) (as a general case), Volterra integral equations (LVIE) and Fredholm integral equations (LFIE) (as special cases). The new technique depends on approximating the solution to a polynomial of degree  and therefore reducing the problem to a linear programming problem(LPP), which will be solved to find the approximate solution of LVFIE. Moreover, quadrature methods including trapezoidal rule (TR), Simpson 1/3 rule (SR), Boole rule (BR), and Romberg integration formula (RI) are used to approximate the integrals that exist in LVFIE. Also, a comparison between those methods i

The gas sensing properties of Co₃O₄ and Co₃O₄:Y nano structures were investigated. The films were synthesized using the hydrothermal method on a seeded layer. The XRD, SEM analysis and gas sensing properties were investigated for Co₃O₄ and Co₃O₄:Y thin films. XRD analysis shows that all films are polycrystalline in nature, having a cubic structure, and the crystallite size is (11.7)nm for cobalt oxide and (9.3)nm for the Co₃O₄:10%Y. The SEM analysis of thin films obviously indicates that Co₃O₄ possesses a nanosphere-like structure and a flower-like structure for Co₃O₄:Y.

The sen

The numerical analysis was conducted to studying the influence of length to diameter ratio (L/D) on the behavior of the soil treated with sand columns treated with 8% sodium silicate for both floating and end bearing type by using finite element method (Plaxis 3D Foundation ) for isolated foundation of real dimensions. The analysis’s study indicate that in the floating type the best improvement ratio was achieved at (L/D=8) when using columns with a diameter of (0.5, 0.7), but when using columns with a diameter of 0.3 m, it was noticed that the bearing improvement ratio increases with increasing (L/d). While the results of the analysis for end bearing type show that the higher improvement ratio was achieved at (L/D=4) when using columns w