Roller-Compacted Concrete is a no-slump concrete, with no reinforcing steel, no forms, no finishing and wet enough to support compaction by vibratory rollers. Due to the effect of curing on properties and durability of concrete, the main purpose of this research is to study the effect of various curing methods (air curing, 7 days water curing, and permanent water curing) and porcelanite (local material used as an Internal Curing agent) with different replacement percentages of fine aggregate (volumetric replacement) on some properties of Roller-Compacted Concrete and to explore the possibility of introducing practical Roller-Compacted Concrete for road pavement with minimum requirement of curing. Specimens were sawed fro

Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) has favorable biomechanical properties to be used as an implant material. Unfortunately, it is hydrophobic and does not promote cellular adhesion, which could result in poor integration with bone tissue. Bio-functionalization of PEEK surface with osteogenic peptides derived from bone extracellular matrix proteins is an exciting approach to encourage bone formation around the implant. In the current study, bone-forming peptide-2 was immobilized on PEEK surface using two different methods, using dopamine and a diglycidyl ether as conjugate compounds, respectively. Peptide quantification test revealed that the two strategies resulted in the most amount of peptides were attached with 0.5 mM concentration and no furth

Lasers, with their unique characteristics in terms of excellent beam quality, especially directionality and coherency, make them the solution that is key for many processes that require high precision. Lasers have good susceptibility to integrate with automated systems, which provides high flexibility to reach difficult zones. In addition, as a processing tool, a laser can be considered as a contact-free tool of precise tip that became attractive for high precision machining at the micro and nanoscales for different materials. All of the above advantages may be not enough unless the laser technician/engineer has enough knowledge about the mechanism of interaction between the laser light with the processed material. Several sequential phenom

Waste materials might be utilized in various applications, such as sustainable roller compacted concrete pavements (RCCP), to lessen the negative environmental consequences of construction waste. The impacts of utilizing (brick, thermostone, granite, and ceramic) powders on the mechanical characteristics of RCCP are investigated in this study. To achieve this, the waste materials were crushed, grounded, and blended before being utilized as filler in the RCCP. After the mixes were prepared, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, water absorption, density, and porosity were all determined. According to the research results, adding some of these powders, mainly brick and granite powder, enhances the mechanical

In this study, the ability of pistachio shells, as an unconventional adsorbent, to recover thallium cations from contaminated aqueous solutions was investigated. To achieve the objective of the study, practical experiments were conducted using a batch-mode adsorption unit under various operating conditions. The results obtained showed that the pistachio shells have the ability to remove thallium cations with a high efficiency exceeding 86% at room temperature. The results indicated that the maximum treatment efficiency was achieved at values of 7, 350 rpm, 86 ppm, 5 g, 150 min of pH, agitation speed, initial concentration of thallium, dosage of pistachio shell used, and contact time, respectively. Morphological results confirmed tha

The present work presents design and implementation of an automated two-axis solar tracking system using local materials with minimum cost, light weight and reliable structure. The tracking system consists of two parts, mechanical units (fixed and moving parts) and control units (four LDR sensors and Arduino UNO microcontroller to control two DC servomotors). The tracking system was fitted and assembled together with a parabolic trough solar concentrator (PTSC) system to move it according to information come from the sensors so as to keep the PTSC always perpendicular to sun rays. The experimental tests have been done on the PTSC system to investigate its thermal performance in two cases, with tracking system (case 1) and without trackin

In this work, a functional nanocomposite consisting of multi walled carbon nanotubes combined with nanoparticles of silver and Pomegranate peel extract (MWCNTs- SNPs -NPGPE) was successfully synthesized using ultra sonic technique. The nanocomposite has been characterized using Transmission electron microscope (TEM), XRD, Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) UV-Vis and FTIR. The obtained results reveal that the MWCNTs-SNPs-NPGPE nanocomposite exhibits form of nanotubes with rough surfaces and containing black spots, which are the silver nanoparticles. The dimensions of this tube are 161 nm in length and 60 nm in width with nanoparticles of silver not exceeding 20 nm. The XRD pattern of the prepared MWCNTs-SNPs-NPGPE nanocomposite s