The study is devoted to both static and earthquake response analysis of retaining structures acted upon by lateral earth pressure. Two main approaches were implemented in the analysis, namely, the Mononobe-Okabe analytical method and the numerical Finite element procedure as provided in the ready software ABAQUS with explicit dynamic method. A basic case study considered in the present work is the bridge approach retaining walls as a part of AL-Jadiriya bridge intersection to obtain the effects of the backfill and the ground water on the retaining wall response including displacement of the retaining structure in addition to the behavior of the fill material. Parametric studies were carried out to evaluate the effects of several factors such as vertical and horizontal components of the earthquake, maximum peak acceleration, angle of friction, damping ratio, height of the wall and groundwater level within the medium of fill. Three heights of retaining walls were considered for those above mentioned factors, these are (2.9m, 4.7m and6.7m). A comparison is made between the responses obtained on the basis of finite element analysis with those obtained using the Mononobe-Okabe method. It is found that the lateral wall responses obtained using the FE were larger than those calculated by the Mononobe-Okabe method for all heights of the retaining wall, it was also found that pore pressure of the ground water depends on the water flow through the backfill during the earthquake. The distribution of the dynamic earth pressure on the wall is nonlinear and depends on the earthquake ground acceleration in addition to the wall height and soil properties. Based on the numerical analysis and the results obtained from the parametric studies carried out, two expressions are proposed to evaluate the maximum lateral wall response in terms of wall height, soil properties and earthquake base excitation acceleration, and hence the dynamic earth pressure acting on the retaining structure.
Petroleum is one of the most important substances consumed by man at present times, a major energy source in this century, petroleum oils can cause environmental pollution during various stages of production, transportation, refining and use, petroleum hydrocarbons pollutions ranging from soil, ground water to marine environment, become an inevitable problem in the modern life, current study focused on bioremediation process of hydrocarbons contaminants that remaining in the bottom of gas cylinders and discharged to the soil. Twenty-four bacterial isolates were isolated from contaminated soils all of them gram negative bacteria, bacterial isolates screening to investigate the ability of biodegradation of hydrocarbons, these isolates inocula
... Show MoreCommercial, industrial, and military activity, largely in the 19th and 20th centuries, have led to environmental pollution that can threaten human health and ecosystem function, liquid gas petroleum (LPG) products are the major sources of energy for industry and daily life that cause environmental contamination during various stages of production, transportation, refining and use. Screening of bacterial isolate by using clear zone techniques and biomass and optical density. Results revealed that isolate Burkholdaria cepatia showed a high ability for hydrocarbons biodegradation and this isolate identified depending on morphological cultural, gram stain, microscopic features, biochemical tests, and VITEK2 compact. In this study,
... Show MoreLaser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) has been documented as an Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (AES) technique, utilising laser-induced plasma, in order to analyse elements in materials (gases, liquids and solid). The Nd:YAG laser passively Q-switched at 1064nm and 9ns pulse duration focused by convex lens with focal length 100 mm to generates power density 5.5×1012 Mw/mm2 with optical spectrum in the range 320-740 nm. Four soil samples were brought from different northern region of Iraq, northern region (Beiji, Sherkat, Serjnar and Zerkary).
The soil of the Northern region of Beige, Sherkat, Serjnar and Zarkary has abundant ratios of the elements P [0.08, 0.09, 0.18, 0.18] and Ca [0.61, 0.15, 0.92, 0.92] while it lack of Si [0.0
An experiment was carried out in a field in Husayniyah sub-district of the Holy Karbala Governorate. The research included studying the impact of the plowing depth and soil moisture on some technical indicators when using the disc plow. The 80 hp New Holland tractor was used in this experiment. Two factors were studied, the first factor is the soil moisture (12- 9%), (16-13%) and (20-17%) and the second factor was the depth of tillage (10-13) cm, (15-18) cm and (20-23) cm, which represented the secondary blocks. Bulk density, percentage of slippage and drawing force were studied. The field trials was conducted according to Split blocks in a randomized complete block design in three replicate. Consequences showed (according to the conditions
... Show MoreThe Umm Al-Naaj Marsh was chosen in Maysan province, and it is one of the sections of Mar Al-Hawza, which is one of the most prominent Iraqi marshes in the south. The marshes are located between latitudes 30 35 and 32 45 latitudes and longitudes 13 46 and 48 00. The area of the study area is 76479.432142 hectares to evaluate soil quality and health index and their spatial distribution based on measuring physical, chemical, biological and fertility traits and calculating the total quality index for those characteristics. Using an auger drilling machine, we collected 50 randomly selected surface samples, evenly distributed across the study region, from Al-Aq 0.0–0.30 m, noting their precise locations along the way. Soil health and quality w
... Show MoreSoil improvement has developed as a realistic solution for enhancing soil properties so that structures can be constructed to meet project engineering requirements due to the limited availability of construction land in urban centers. The jet grouting method for soil improvement is a novel geotechnical alternative for problematic soils for which conventional foundation designs cannot provide acceptable and lasting solutions. The paper's methodology was based on constructing pile models using a low-pressure injection laboratory setup built and made locally to simulate the operation of field equipment. The setup design was based on previous research that systematically conducted unconfined compression testing (U.C.Ts.). Th
... Show MoreSoil movement resulting due unsupported excavation nearby axially loaded piles imposes significant structural troubles on geotechnical engineers especially for piles that are not designed to account for loss of lateral confinement. In this study the field excavation works of 7.0 m deep open tunnel was continuously followed up by the authors. The work is related to the project of developing the Army canal in the east of Baghdad city in Iraq. A number of selected points around the field excavation are installed on the ground surface at different horizontal distance. The elevation and coordinates of points are recorded during 23 days with excavation progress period. The field excavation process was numerically simulated by using the finite
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In this work, diabetic glucose concentration level control under disturbing meal has been controlled using two set of advanced controllers. The first set is sliding mode controllers (classical and integral) and the second set is represented by optimal LQR controllers (classical and Min-, ax). Due to their characteristic features of disturbance rejection, both integral sliding mode controller and LQR Minmax controller are dedicated here for comparison. The Bergman minimal mathematical model was used to represent the dynamic behavior of a diabetic patient’s blood glucose concentration to the insulin injection. Simulations based on Matlab/Simulink, were performed to verify the performance of each controll
... Show MoreIn earthquake engineering problems, uncertainty exists not only in the seismic excitations but also in the structure's parameters. This study investigates the influence of structural geometry, elastic modulus, mass density, and section dimension uncertainty on the stochastic earthquake response of a multi-story moment resisting frame subjected to random ground motion. The North-south component of the Ali Gharbi earthquake in 2012, Iraq, is selected as ground excitation. Using the power spectral density function (PSD), the two-dimensional finite element model of the moment resisting frame's base motion is modified to account for random ground motion. The probabilistic study of the moment resisting frame structure using stochastic fin
... Show MoreThis paper studies the behavior of reinforced Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) two-way slabs under static and repeated load. The experimental program included testing six simply supported RPC two-way slabs of 1000 mm length, 1000 mm width, and 70 mm thickness. All the tested specimens were identical in their material properties, and reinforcement details except their steel fibers content. They were cast in three pairs, each one had a different steel fibers ratio (0.5 %, 1 %, and 1.5 %) respectively. In each pair, one specimen was tested under static load and the other under five cycles of repeated load (loading-unloading). Static test results revealed that increasing steel fibres volume fraction from 0.5 % to 1 % and from 1% to 1.5%,
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