Geotechnical engineers have always been concerned with the stabilization of slopes. For this purpose,
various methods such as retaining walls, piles, and geosynthetics may be used to increase the safety factor of slopes prone to failure. The application of stone columns may also be another potential alternative for slope stabilization. Such columns have normally been used for cohesive soil improvement. Most slope analysis and design is based on deterministic approach i.e a set of single valued design parameter are adopted and a set of single valued factor of safety (FOS) is determined. Usually the FOS is selected in view of the understanding and knowledge of the material parameters, the problem geometry, the method of analysis and the

In the present research a new test rig has been proposed to be suitable for different cyclic loads such as cyclic bending, cyclic torsion, proportional and non proportional loads. In this work the efforts were concentrated on the cyclic bending loads concerning cracked pipes with or without internal pulsing pressure to study crack propagation in small bore pipes (up to 1'') for transverse or inclined cracks. The rig simulates the real service conditions under different stresses by means the least dangerous case will be suggested, so the experiments were considered for copper pipe, and the results have been tabulated and drawn to demonstrate the crack growth behavior as well as to justify the outcomes practically, consequently the durabil

Prediction of the structural response of reinforced concrete to the time-dependent, creep and shrinkage, volume changes is complex. Creep is usually determined by measuring the change, with time, in the strain of specimens subjected to a constant stress and stored under appropriate conditions. This paper brings into view the development of creep strain for four self-compacting concrete mixes: A40, AL40, B60 and BL60 (where 40 and 60 represent the compressive strength level at 28 days and L indicates to Portlandlimestone cement). Specimens were put under sustained load and exposed to controlled conditions in a creep chamber (ASTM C512). The test results showed that normal strength Portland-limestone mixes have yielded lower ultimate c

The present study deals with the experimental investigation of buried concrete pipes. Concrete pipes are buried in loose and dense conditions of gravelly sand soil and subjected to different surface loadings to study the effects of the backfill compaction on the pipe. The experimental investigation was accomplished using full-scale precast unreinforced concrete pipes with 300 mm internal diameter tested in a laboratory soil box test facility set up for this study. Two loading platforms are used namely, uniform loading platform and patch loading platform. The wheel load was simulated through patch loading platform which have dimensions of 254 mm *508 mm, which is used by AASHTO to model the wheel load of a HS20 truck. The pipe-soil system

A numerical investigation is adopted for two dimensional thermal analysis of rocket thrust chamber wall (RL10), employing finite difference model with iterative scheme (implemented under relaxation factor of 0.9 for convergence) to compute temperature distribution within thrust chamber  wall (which is composed of Nickel and Copper layers). The analysis is conducted for different boundary conditions: only convection boundary conditions then combined radiation, convection boundary conditions also for  different aspect ratio (AR) of cooling channel. The results show that Utilizing cooling channels of high aspect ratio leads to decrease in temperature variation across thrust chamber wall, while no effects on heat transferred to the

This study investigates the possibility of using waste plastic as one of the components of expired lead-acid batteries to produce lightweight concrete. Different percentages of lead-acid battery plastic were used in the production of lightweight concrete. The replacements were (70, 80 and 100%) by volume of the fine and coarse aggregate. Results demonstrated that a reduction of approximately 23.6% to 35% in the wet density was observed when replacement of 70% to 100% of the natural aggregate by lead-acid battery plastic. Also, the compressive strength decreased slightly with the increase in plastic content at different curing ages of 7, 28, 60, 90, 120 days. The lowest value of compressive strength was (20.7 MPa) for (wa

A reinforced concrete frame is referred as "RIGID FRAMES". However, researches indicate that the Beam-Column joint (BCJ) is definitely not rigid. In addition, extensive research shows that failure may occur at the joint instead of in the beam or the column. Joint failure is known to be a catastrophic type which is difficult to repair.
This study was carried out to investigate the effect of hoops and column axial load on the shear strength of high-strength fiber reinforced Beam-Column Joints by using a numerical model based on finite element method using computer program ANSYS (Version 11.0). The variables are: diameter of hoops and magnitude of column axial load.
The theoretical results obtained from ANSYS program are in a good a

The Iraqi houses flattening the roof by a concrete panel, and because of the panels on the top directly exposed to the solar radiation become unbearably hot and cold during the summer and winter. The traditional concrete panel components are cement, sand, and aggregate, which have a poor thermal property. The usage of materials with low thermal conductivity with no negative reflects on its mechanical properties gives good improvements to the thermal properties of the concrete panel. The practical part of this work was built on a multi-stage mixing plan. In the first stage the mixing ratio based on the ratios of the sand to cement. The second stage mixing ratios based on replacing the coarse aggregate quantities with the

This study focuses on the behavior of simply supported perforated prestressed concrete rafters (PPCRs) under single midspan monotonic static loading. The experimental program consisted of testing seven specimens; one solid (control) rafter, and six perforated with quadrilateral openings. The main investigated variables are the number and height of the openings. The test findings indicate that, in comparison to the solid rafter, the presence of quadrilateral openings in the PPCRs led to reducing the load capacity by (4.3-36%) and increase the midspan deflection at ultimate by (14.8-33%). Also, increasing the number of concrete posts between openings resulted in increasing the failure load and decreasing the deflection at all stages o

Corrosion inhibiting admixtures are unique among other methods to protect reinforced concrete from corrosion damage. In this study, the effect of furfural on the fresh and hardened properties of concrete mixes of 35 and 45 MPa compressive strengths as well as the corrosion inhibition of furfural was evaluated. Furfural was added at different dosages (1, 2 and 3% by weight of cement) with and without superplasticizer (HRWR). Different electrochemical measurements were performed (Half-cell potential, Tafel plot and linear polarization resistance). Electrochemical measurements confirmed that furfural dramatically reduces the rate of corrosion; the inhibition efficiencies were 62.7 and 63.8 % due to 3% furfural addition to 35 and 45MPa-concr