The main objective of this study is to introduce a systematic design procedure for short-span segmental beams following a sophisticated ACI 440.2R-17 design procedure. The general aspects of innovative short-span segmental beams are easy to fabricate, economical and rapidly placed in pre-specified positions. Short-span segmental beams fabricated from individual precast plain-concrete blocks and CFRP plates. Recently, experimental tests performed on short-span segmental beams, by the authors, investigated CFRP plate-bonding, CFRP plate cross-sectional area, the thickness of plate-bonding epoxy resin, surface-to-surface condition of concrete blocks, as well as, interface condition of the bonding surface. The experimental program comprises tes

In this work, a novel biocatalytic process for the production of 7-methylxanthines from theobromine, an economic feedstock has been developed. Bench scale production of 7-methlxanthine has been demonstrated. The biocatalytic process used in this work operates at 30 ^OC and atmospheric pressure, and is environmentally friendly. The biocatalyst was E. coli BL21(DE3) engineered with ndmB/D genes combinations. These modifications enabled specific N₇- demethylation of theobromine to 7-methylxanthine. This production process consists of uniform fermentation conditions with a specific metabolically engineered strain, uniform induction of specific enzymes for 7-methylxanthine production, uniform recovery an

Industrial wastewater containing nickel, lead, and copper can be produced by many industries. The reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technologies are very efficient for the treatment of industrial wastewater containing nickel, lead, and copper ions to reduce water consumption and preserving the environment. Synthetic industrial wastewater samples containing Ni(II), Pb(II), and Cu(II) ions at various concentrations (50 to 200 ppm), pressures (1 to 4 bar), temperatures (10 to 40 ^oC), pH (2 to 5.5), and flow rates (10 to 40 L/hr), were prepared and subjected to treatment by RO system in the laboratory. The results showed that high removal efficiency of the heavy metals could be achieved by RO process (98.5%, 97.5% and 96% for Ni(II),

There are still areas around the world suffer from severe shortage of freshwater supplies. Desalination technologies are not widely used due to their high energy usage, cost, and environmental damaging effects. In this study, a mathematical model of single-bed adsorption desalination system using silica gel-water as working pair is developed and validated via earlier experiments. A very good match between the model predictions and the experimental results is recorded. The objective is to reveal the factors affecting the productivity of fresh water and cooling effect in the solar adsorption system. The proposed model is setup for solving within the commercially-available software (Engineering Equation Solver). It is implemented to so

Random throwing of industrial waste has a significant impact on the environment unless it takes into account the conditions of engineered destroying and/or re-used. Taking the advantage of re-using waste materials in engineering projects represents a well-planned project in order to resolve a lot of engineering problems for some difficult soils. The objective of this study was to evaluate the capability and effects of Rubber Shreds (RS) from scrap torn belts towards improving the shear strength of soft clay. A direct shear tests were conducted on soft clay-RS mixture. The following parameters were investigated to study the influence of RS content, water content, normal stress, and dilation ratio. From experimental test results it was fou

In this research, the effect of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on the alumina/chromia (Al₂O₃/Cr₂O₃) nanocomposites has been investigated. Al₂O₃/Cr₂O₃-MWCNTs nanocomposites with variable contents of Cr₂O₃ and MWCNTs were fabricated using coprecipitation process and followed by spark plasma sintering. XRD analysis revealed a good crystallinity of sintered nanocomposites samples and there was only one phase presence of Al₂O₃-Cr₂O₃ solid solution. Density, Vickers microhardness, fracture toughness and fracture strength have been measured in the sintered samples. The results show tha

Pharmaceuticals are widely distributed in different applications and also released into the environment. Adsorption of Ciprofloxacin HCl (CIPH) on Porcelinaite was studied at ambient conditions. The adsorption isotherms can be well described using the Freundlich and Temkin equations. The pH of the solution influences significantly the adsorption capacity of Porcelinaite, the adsorption of CIPH increased from the initial pH 1.3 and then decreased over the pH rang of 3.8-9. The adsorption is sensitive to the change in ionic Strength, which indicate that electrostatic attraction is a significant mechanism for sorption process. The enthalpy change (∆H) for the adsorption of CIPH onto Porcelinaite signifies an endothermic adsorption. The ∆G

In this work, PAni nanofibers (NFs) are successfully synthesized via hydrothermal method. The structural, surface morphological, optical, electrical and H2S gas sensing properties have been investigated for PAni thin films deposited by spin coating technique. The XRD pattern reveals crystalline nature of PAni NFs with crystallite size of 9.2 nm. The SEM image of Polyaniline clearly indicates that the polymer possesses nanofiber like structure. The optical properties show that the optical energy gap follows allowed direct electronic transition calculated using Tauc’s equation. Intense hotoluminescence (PL) peaks at 309, 340 and 605 nm are observed. The electrical properties such as D.C. conductivity and Hall effect have been studied wher